Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

The first paragraph of the media release from the Australian Electoral Commission very clearly states the position of the AEC. For members of the government to come in here and try and work their way around that fact is quite extraordinary. It is very clear, even to the simplest of readers, that these signs are in breach of the requirements of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918.

What we see here is another monumental stuff-up on the part of the Australian government. They have this continuing theme: they rush in; they do not consult; they do not consider the factors pertinent to a particular issue—it is all about spin, it is all about creating an impression and then making excuses when everything falls apart. This has happened time and time again. They make these big, bold statements, these broad commitments and promises to the Australian people—and more often than not, as we have seen on a number of occasions, they do not come to pass. People in northern Tasmania will remember Prime Minister Rudd’s promise to people in that region: not a cent of the funding for the Mersey Hospital would be spent in the south of the state. We know that did not come to pass. We heard during question time today about the promises made to employers and employees about the new workplace regulations and laws. They are obviously not coming to pass. We saw the computers in schools program, where failure to consult with the states saw the states jack up until more money was put in, because the government had not factored in the running costs—another monumental stuff-up, in education.

In their rush for self-promotion, as part of the Building the Education Revolution, the government have again exposed themselves, this time to the electoral laws. You would have thought that someone would have given consideration to the situation that was in front of them. They try to palm this off as a bit of advertising. They talk about what the coalition did. They fail to mention that they said quite clearly that they were bringing in a new regime; they were going to do things differently. Well, they are doing things worse than anyone has done them before.

We have talked about the Commonwealth electoral laws and the press release today from the Australian Electoral Commission. We asked in question time today whether the government had asked of any of the state jurisdictions whether this offended their electoral acts. The government refused to answer that question. But I have actually asked that question of the Tasmanian Electoral Commission. I have received a response that, if these signs are considered to be in breach, the Electoral Commissioner would be seeking to have them covered up or removed on polling day—a similar situation to that which will exist on federal polling day, when that occurs sometime next year. So, not only do the government have to deal with this for federal polling day; they potentially have to deal with it for state polling day. And now that the federal Electoral Commission has found that they are in breach of the act, there is not much doubt that the signs are political advertising—in fact, the government have even admitted that. They are putting 5,000 stickers out there to fix the stuff-up, 5,000 stickers to make these signs comply. It is compounded with respect to the Tasmanian electoral laws because the distance from a polling booth is not six metres, as it is under the federal laws; it is 100 metres. So it is a totally different situation, where a sign is offending if it is within 100 metres of a polling booth, under the electoral laws.

These are not just project signs; the government cannot get out of it like that. They have now admitted that they are electoral signs. I saw enough project signs in my 25 years in the construction industry to know what a project sign looks like. They acknowledge the owners of the property, the architects, the engineers, the builders. Yes, the funders are acknowledged as part of a project sign, but these jobs have both project signs and political advertising on them. That is how they offend the Commonwealth Electoral Act, and potentially the state electoral acts. That is why the government is going to have to go to such expense, having first put the signs up—and we have seen the costings on that: the costs for the 5,000 stickers; the costs of covering the signs up for the state election which will occur in Tasmania in March, and probably for the South Australian election on the same day. And then you have the situation of dealing with them during the federal election.

But it is not only that. I had a look at a document put out by the Tasmanian Electoral Commission, Information for Candidates, which talks about the conditions for political signage in local government regions. These signs potentially offend every set of local council by-laws in Tasmania. I will not go through them all; I do not have time. But I will go through some. In Break O’Day you are allowed to have political signage up for 42 days maximum. Burnie City Council says you can have signage up from the issue of the writs to two weeks after the election. The Clarence City Council says signage can be up no earlier than 60 days prior to polling day and it has to be removed within 14 days. The Dorset Council says signage should be no greater than 1.5 square metres. The Launceston City Council says signage can be up no earlier than two months before an election, with a maximum size of 900 by 1,200 millimetres. The Huon Valley Council says the signage should be no greater than one square metre, as does the Northern Midlands Council, the Meander Valley Council and Brighton Council.

So here we have 29 regions, all around the state, where the signs offend local government regulations. The government have done no consultation and have no respect for the electoral laws, federal, state or local—absolutely no respect. It is all about getting a bit of publicity and promotion. In their rush for self-promotion, they have taken no consideration of the impacts that this might have. That is what they are all about—they want a bit of publicity. They do not care how, who or why they offend; they just want to get the publicity.