Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Pursuant to contingent notice of motion, I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Preventing the Misuse of Government Advertising Bill 2010 having precedence over all government business until determined.

This legislation is to bring into place a process adopted and given lip service by senior members of both the government and the opposition in recent years, about the potential for governments to misuse public funds—in particular, on the way to elections—the most controversial case in recent times being the current $38 million allocated by the government to its defence and advocacy of the mining boom tax. While we are very well aware that the mining industry itself is being financed to the level of 30 per cent of its own advertising campaign—and we intend to deal with that in separate legislation—the matter does require attention now. The question to the government is: why have we not seen legislation on this matter? The Prime Minister, as Leader of the Opposition, committed to it in 2007, and effectively nothing has happened since in terms of legislation through the parliament. The question to the opposition is: is there a better time for us to be legislating on this matter than now, when the feedback we have had—and I am sure the feedback you have had is the same—is that the public is feeling very distressed about the tens of millions of dollars that governments can so readily put into the advocacy of a point of view they have in the run to an election? It is undemocratic, it is illogical and it needs, by agreement, to be vetted.

The legislation that I have introduced to this parliament on behalf of the Australian Greens involves the vetting of such advertising, first by heads of department. If there is a campaign of more than $250,000 to be engaged in by the government, the head of department needs to sign off that the prudent guidelines which are outlined in this legislation have been adhered to. To summarise the guidelines, they are that the advertising must be in the public interest and that it must not be for party political promotion. Then the advertising campaign goes to be seen by the Auditor-General, who is at arm’s length and who does not make the decision as to whether it should go ahead or not but, again, determines whether what the head of department has signed off on is correct. The Auditor-General reports to both houses of parliament, and that report then can be taken up or ignored by the minister of the day, but woe betide the minister of the day who says, ‘The Auditor-General believes this is a political advertising campaign and we’re going to proceed with it.’ That will not happen.

I am aware that the government feels that such legislation as this should not be on the agenda, but I would point out to the Senate that we are dealing with many pieces of legislation at the moment in a much more peremptory way than with this bill, which at least has been to a quick committee opportunity. There were not oral hearings, but there were submissions on a matter that has been debated over many periods of parliament in the past. The government wants bills that have been introduced quickly to this place debated this week, and that means today and tomorrow: the Tax Laws Amendment (Research and Development) Bill 2010, introduced to the Senate yesterday and listed for debate today; the Excise Tariff Amendment (Aviation Fuel) Bill 2010, which is up for debate this week; and the Export Market Development Grants Amendment Bill 2010. There were also 20 other bills passed by the Senate over the last week which went through as non-controversial and not requiring great debate.

If there is genuine support from the big parties for an independent vetting of advertising campaigns, let us have this debate. We can make it very fast, we can make it to the point and we can have in law by tomorrow legislation which will ensure that the parliament properly keeps watch over the public interest and the use of taxpayers’ money.

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What we have is a seeking of suspension in relation to the Australian Greens’ Preventing the Misuse of Government Advertising Bill 2010. What the five minutes of speaking time is for is to make a case for why the parliament should suspend to allow this bill to come forward. No case has been made with respect to Senator Brown’s submissions. Senator Brown went to issues of the content of the particular legislation. None of his issues went to why this bill is urgent.

The bill attempts to legislate the Rudd government’s 2008 process for government advertising, which we have now improved. I have to say that it is flattering that the Greens consider that so many aspects of this government’s advertising framework that we introduced in 2008 were so faultless. Another pleasing aspect of the bill is that it is evidence that the Greens agree with many aspects of our current 2010 guidelines, such as the five key principles of the guidelines, the need to be able to advertise before legislation has been passed by parliament and the need to ensure that exemptions can be granted. All of that is contained within the bill.

Of course, the unconstitutional bill was developed and brought forward before this chamber at breakneck speed. Perhaps a little bit more work should have been done on it. It does offend the constitutionality of Australia’s Constitution. It did provide a report a very short time afterwards, less than a week from when it was referred to the Senate committee. The report is surprising. It says the Greens said—I guess you would have to say they had the hide to say—the committee ‘failed to acknowledge the widespread community concerns about this critical issue’. I would like to note that it is very difficult, if not impossible, for members of the community to make submissions to the committee with only two days notice.

If Senator Brown were serious about progressing this bill then you would have expected it to have gone to a committee to allow public input, to allow submissions to be dealt with and to allow the committee to then take its ordinary course of work. But, once again, we see the Greens in this instance unable to live up to the principles that they often espouse. I am sure Senator Brown would concur with me in these remarks when noting that we complained about the short periods in which the previous government pushed legislation through following short committee processes and the inability of the committee to use its committee resources to examine the bill in context and cast its net wide to allow submissions to be made so that a proper report could be produced and recommendations made. It appears Senator Brown has thrown that principle out in bringing on this piece of legislation without providing justified grounds as to why it should now upend the program for this bill.

It does not take away from the seriousness of the bill. I am sure Senator Brown honestly and reasonably believes it is a worthwhile bill to progress. My advice, although uncalled for, is that the proper processes of the Senate would demonstrate that it was unconstitutional—it would allow proper submissions to be made; it would allow proper community engagement in relation to the legislation. You have not chosen to do that and that is a matter for you, but do not complain if I draw it to your attention. This is the last week we have to deal with legislation—that is right. We do have a leaders and whips deliberation and we had one at the beginning of this week to determine what legislation we would deal with before we go home at the end of the week. There are proper processes in this place to ensure that the proper legislative agenda is dealt with in this week.

This bill is unlikely to go forward. It does take up time—I will not take up as much time as I otherwise would like to have committed to this bill, but it is unsupported as it seeks to up-end this parliament for the purposes of what can only be described as selfish motivations of Senator Brown to deal with a very important issue. If Senator Brown wanted to have a debate in relation to this then he could use other forums within this parliament to allow that to occur.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State and Scrutiny of Government Waste) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In making comments in relation to the Australian Greens’ Preventing the Misuse of Government Advertising Bill 2010, I find myself in the interesting position of agreeing with some of the comments of the Special Minister of State, Senator Ludwig, and certainly agreeing with many of the comments of Senator Brown. In relation to the minister’s comments, I think this process has been rushed and I do not think it has been given appropriate levels of consideration. In relation to the comments of Senator Brown, I think there is far more on which I agree with him in relation to this matter than I do with the minister, but, having said that, we will not be supporting this motion.

There is no doubt that there was a great sense of urgency in relation to the question of government advertising. There was a great sense of urgency to address what has been a gross abuse of governmental process over the last two months. Regrettably this particular bill, in my view, is not the way to address this issue. Senator Brown knows that we have had concerns for some time now, and that for the Auditor-General to be the judge and jury is not the best process. I remind honourable senators of the letter the Auditor-General sent to the Prime Minister on 26 November 2007. It read:

Dear Prime Minister

I am writing to outline an approach to addressing your plans to increase the scrutiny of Australian government advertising campaigns.

That was in the days when the Prime Minister actually believed in appropriate scrutiny of government advertising campaigns. Those days, as honourable senators know, are long gone, with this government’s commitment to openness and transparency in government advertising. I go on to page 2 of the letter from the Auditor-General, Mr McPhee:

Given the sometimes controversial history of government advertising there is a real risk that whoever administers the guidelines could be drawn into the policy and political debate as an active participant in, and possible defender of the processes of executive government. To preserve both the real and perceived independence of this office, I and my predecessors have actively sought to avoid placing the ANAO in a situation of being both decision maker and auditor.

Similar concerns have seen previous governments take action with our support to avoid the involvement of this office in ongoing administrative roles—for example, in relation to the electoral redistribution committees and tax agents registration boards.

I think that letter sums up the position of the Auditor-General in relation to this matter. I think the Auditor-General at the moment has been forced into a position where he has indicated to various parliamentary fora over the last two weeks that he would at a pinch be involved again as the judge and jury, but from recollection certainly not with the guidelines as they exist at the moment.

The opposition is absolutely adamant that the role and integrity of the Audit Office must be retained. We do not believe it is appropriate to compromise that independence by making the Auditor the judge and jury. Of course, the Australian Labor Party for, I think, seven or eight years believed that the Auditor-General could be judge and jury, and then, when they saw things occur which indicated that they did not like the Auditor-General being the judge and jury, they just changed the rules. The outcome of those rule changes has been the subject of substantial media commentary over the last month. The outcome of rolled gold promises by the Prime Minister prior to the election, the outcome of Labor Party conventions and the weasel words spoken then in relation to this matter have all been proved to be absolutely false, and we saw the farcical situation some two weeks ago when the minister provided an exemption to the Treasurer—the great big new tax on mining exemption for advertising. The coalition, I must say with some regret, will not be supporting this motion.

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will be supporting the Greens motion to suspend standing orders in relation to the government advertising legislation. It is the appropriate thing to do in the circumstances. I know that the Special Minister of State has said that this process is flawed. I think it would be fair to say—and I do not think Senator Brown would mind me saying this—that the process is not perfect but it is still very much preferable to what we have in place now: a series of government advertising campaigns that have thrown out appropriate process, that have thrown out the whole issue of appropriate scrutiny and have removed the role of the Auditor-General as the independent watchdog to do this.

I think it is important that we look at what the key public policy issue is here—that we actually have some integrity in government advertising. I think that has been lost, unfortunately, as a result of what has occurred, and therefore it is important to support this particular bill to support the suspension of standing orders, because a consequence of not supporting this is that this will continue on right up until election day, in effect. We will continue to see ads that should not be aired because they contravene the government’s own policies prior to the 2007 election. It is important that we do have integrity in this process. Obviously it would have been better if we had a longer lead time, and it would have been better if we had greater consultation, but I think the public opinion on this is very clear: people are quite mortified that the government has gone down this path to break a key promise that they made at the last election in relation to government advertising. I note that the Prime Minister said in opposition that this was a cancer on democracy, or words to that effect—it was very strong language. I agree that it is a serious issue that needs to be dealt with. If we want to deal with the problem, if we want to fix it, we can start now by suspending standing orders and debating this piece of legislation that effectively puts into effect Labor Party policy that was put to the people at the last election.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Xenophon for those supportive comments, which are true. In response to Senator Ronaldson—and I thank him for also acknowledging the importance of such legislation as this being passed in the parliament—it is not true that the bill makes the Auditor-General judge and jury. The beauty of this piece of legislation is that it gives the Auditor-General the ability to furnish parliament and the minister with an opinion, but the decision maker remains the government. But even that does not satisfy this government.

Senator Ludwig has said that the legislation is unconstitutional. How unsatisfactory is that contribution when it is not followed up with any reasoning. It is just an opinion floated in the air. The most debasing part of it is in relation to any parliamentary debate against legislation where members get up—and I have seen this for decades—and say the bill is badly drawn, hastily done or does not fit some unspecified constitutional parameter. That is not an argument; that is specious. If we are to have a proper debate about why legislation like this should not be debated now and rapidly put through the parliament, as are so many pieces of government legislation this week, courtesy of the crossbench as well as the opposition, the government needs to come up with a better argument than that.

Senator Ludwig also said that there was a short committee process. As I pointed out in my submission, we are dealing with a number of important pieces of government legislation here which have had no committee process at all, let alone public debate. As you will know, there has been widespread public debate on this issue. Four major commentators on this legislation, including the Auditor-General himself, have favoured this legislation proceeding, and have offered recommendations—and I have amendments to accord with the suggestions of the Auditor-General—for this legislation, which is now not going to pass because the government and the opposition oppose it.

I would remind the government that in October last year when the sitting times for this year for the Senate were laid down by the government, the Greens pointed out that it was one of the shortest sitting periods set down for a Senate year in history. It was totally unsatisfactory and we moved for an extra four sitting weeks of the Senate, but both the government and the opposition voted that down. Two of those weeks would have been in April and two would have been in August. We would have had plenty of time to debate at length, with fuller committee and public consideration, all the pieces of legislation which are being rushed through, mostly by the government, this week. No, the difficulty we have in getting proper vetting of legislation rests wholly on the shoulders of Senator Ludwig and the government, because they have refused to have this Senate have the sitting times which are appropriate to dealing with the large legislative slate. I have no doubt that, come Thursday, the government is going to say that lots of pieces of legislation have not been dealt with. That is totally a situation of the government’s own manufacture.

The argument used by Senator Ludwig has no internal coherence or logic at all. I might remind the Senate that there are 31 private senators’ bills waiting to be dealt with in this place. They are important bills. There are bills on the improvement of democracy, the performance of the Senate, the wellbeing of Indigenous Australians, environment protection, the promotion of climate change issues and a whole range of other issues that deal with people. These bills ought to have passed this parliament but there is no time to deal with them. This is not only because we do not have private senators’ time—and I have tried very hard to get that up, but that has been blocked as well through the committee system—but because there is no time even to deal adequately with government legislation. That is the responsibility of this government. It is totally on its shoulders. I am very pleased that we have had this debate. I recommend this suspension so that this chamber can pass this important legislation.

Question put:

That the motion (Senator Bob Brown’s) be agreed to.