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

There is that word ‘concerned’ again. It turns out that T Christian is Mr Trevor Christian, who lives in Scottsdale but has a pig farm outside Scottsdale. I understand that some decades ago an edict came down from the Elect Vessel that farmers who were in the Exclusive Brethren sect should no longer live on their farms; they should live in town and commute to their farms. I do not know what the scriptural basis for that was, but that is a matter for those who took that edict. Mr Christian, however, lives in Scottsdale and farms just outside the town. This brochure  said, ‘The Greens, amongst other things, want to introduce the regulated use of cannabis.’ The policy is to introduce the regulated use of cannabis for medical purposes, to help those people who are dying of cancer where they do not have an alternative. But this brochure deliberately lied to the electors. It breached the ninth commandment, thou shalt not bear false witness, and lied to people on their way to the ballot box—not to the Exclusive Brethren, because they are not allowed to go to the ballot box, but to the voters of Tasmania in general. I will move an amendment, which we will get to shortly, which will help to at least start to address that problem of deliberated and premeditated deception of people about others who are running for parliament.

We need much greater scrutiny of people who would break the trust that a democracy must depend upon if voters are to be properly informed and to go to the ballot box knowing that they have been able to assess the alternatives and make a fair dinkum choice—something being denied by those series of advertisements that I have just quoted from. We should be tightening up on such things, not leaving more leverage for even greater frauding of people’s rights to be properly informed and to know who is behind advertisements at election time.