11 September 2024
The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (16:24): I thank the honourable members for their contributions: the Hon. Sarah Game, the Hon. Ben Hood and the Hon. Tung Ngo. I thank the opposition and the Hon. Ms Game for their support of this bill. I do want to express my empathy with the position that the Hon. Tung Ngo is in. He is often wheeled out to sell the unsellable, and I feel sorry for him because, really, no amount of government advertising can make that position look good. It is pretty shameless. They really have more front than John Martin's to undertake this Olympic-style backflip.
Let us not forget that when the Labor Party were in opposition they were very happy to impose these rules on the then Marshall government. Indeed, in the upper house, I moved a private member's bill, or an amendment to a government bill at the time, which the Labor Party was enthusiastically supportive of. In the other place, they advanced a private member's bill. Now they are in government, they have an opportunity to actually put their money where their mouth is, and what do they do? They squib at the opportunity.
I cannot understand why that would be. What would lead to that about-face? When they were in opposition, they were very vocal on this. Why would they change their position now, I ask you? It is really an embarrassing about-face and very disappointing because this bill actually draws on ideas that have been proposed by both sides of politics, as the Hon. Ben Hood noted in his remarks. The bill draws on a proposal from the then minister, the Hon. Vickie Chapman. It also draws on the very sensible ideas of the Hon. Stephen Mullighan. It puts them all together, and it also introduces a few new elements that had been proposed by the Grattan Institute. So I am very disappointed that the Labor Party have adopted such an inconsistent approach on this.
The Hon. Ben Hood raised a question of clarification. To save time in the committee stage, assuming that this bill passes this stage, I might respond to a few of those points now. The honourable member raised a question about what would happen for a member of parliament who was inadvertently captured in advertising. There is a provision in the bill that makes it clear that it is not a breach if the photo or the use of their image occurred while they were not an MP or if they could not reasonably have known that they were going to be in the advertising.
For instance, if you had a scenario where a member of parliament was a community advocate or whatever, they were featured in some government advertising or stock photos and they did not know that they were going to be used in an upcoming campaign, then there would not be consequences that would flow to that member. I think the other question that was asked was around the $10,000 limit. Under the proposal, any proposal from a government department to expend more than $10,000 in the lead-up to an election would need to be approved by the Auditor-General.
I understand the opposition was interested in how the $10,000 figure was arrived at. It was the figure that was in the Labor Party's original proposal and, indeed, the one that I advanced back in 2021, I believe it was. The reason that quantum was arrived at, from my perspective, and why I continue to use that quantum, is that there was consistency with the proposal previously advanced by the then Labor opposition, but also it does set a very low threshold, which I think is appropriate, only in the lead-up to the election when we want to ensure that, if lines between government advertising and political party advertising are potentially blurred, there is a high level of scrutiny. That is what the bill proposes, but only in that lead-up period.
If this bill passes the upper house it would send a very clear message to the Malinauskas government that they need to lift their game in this regard. I think it puts them on notice that this chamber is watching what they are doing with government advertising and watching what they are doing in terms of spending government money on promoting themselves and on backslapping exercises, and that it really urges them to adopt a better standard.
The Hon. Mr Ngo says that the government is already doing it. Well, if they are already doing it, why would they not support enshrining these principles in legislation? The reality is that they know they are not meeting the expectations of the people of South Australia in this regard. I commend the bill.