Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to briefly put some observations on behalf of the Australian Greens. I think these are very important amendments that Senator Xenophon has moved. Like him, I am surprised at the bipartisan consensus from the two old parties that the situation certainly needs a bit of a look at at some stage by somebody, and in the meantime they will be combining their numbers to vote this amendment down. I think it is, to go specifically to the matter that Senator Xenophon is seeking to address here around deceptive behaviour and deceptive conduct on polling day, because the kinds of sordid tactics that we have seen deployed against Family First, against the Independents or, on more occasions than I can remember, against the Greens largely benefit one major party or another.

Because of the way that our preferencing system works, you can dress up as a Greens booth worker, hand out a piece of paper that says, 'By all means, vote one Greens, and then go ahead and direct your preference to one of the major parties or another.' That is just one example of highly deceptive conduct that has been seen more times than I can remember at polling booths on polling day. That kind of conduct, whether it is organised by the major parties or not, ultimately acts to funnel preferences away from those whom electors and voters think they are voting for.

We have long supported legislation to ensure truth in political advertising—to take a broader view of the matter—and this is one of the issues that Senator Bob Brown put on the agenda as part of the Australian Greens' agreement with Prime Minister Gillard last August allowing her to form government. Truth in political advertising was very much on that agenda as a way of improving the integrity of our political process. We conceive of that agenda, I suppose, some­what more broadly, so this is a very important component of it.

We believe that legislation to impose controls on political advertising and, in particular, penalties for breaches would enforce higher standards, would improve accountability, would promote fairness in political campaigning and would improve the health of our political system generally. There is conduct that you could not engage in in a commercial sense without falling foul of the Trade Practices Act. For some reason we allow in our political discourse that which would absolutely be illegal if companies engaged in those kinds of practices. People seeking to influence our electoral system, the bedrock of our democracy here in Australia, can get away with it with impunity, so this is a matter that is under active discussion by the Australian Greens at the moment with the government.

Until these matters are set to rest, we will continue to propose amendments to the Commonwealth Electoral Act to make it an offence to publish or distribute, for example, an electoral advertisement which is intended to affect voting in an election that contains a statement purporting to be fact that is inaccurate or misleading. he current provisions in the Electoral Act only extend to statements which are intended to affect the casting of votes; and, of course, as we have seen in the past these provisions have been interpreted very narrowly to apply only to how a voter marks out their ballot paper.

The amendments that the Greens have set out would have extended the truth in political advertising provisions to apply more broadly to all statements or advertisements which are intended or likely to affect voting in an election, not merely on polling day. If the Electoral Commission is satisfied that an electoral advertisement contains inaccurate or misleading materials it may request the advertiser to either withdraw the advertisement or to publish a retraction. That needs to be timely; there is not a great deal of point in having these disputes heard after polling day, by which time it simply does not matter.

Elections are an opportunity for political accountability, and it is extremely critical that representations are accurate and honest. I would have thought that particularly people in this chamber would have an affinity for that. Under the current system it is entirely possible for advertising that contains misrepresentation and outright false statements to go unchallenged and without penalty. There is no real formal avenue for recourse, and the Electoral Commission is actually prevented from it—it is not through a lack of will, it is simply outside their mandate. It is not something they are able to do

This, of course, can be particularly damaging in cases where the advertisements are presented by third parties, which under the current system are not required to identify themselves and therefore make known their own political or ideological position. The Australian Greens have had quite a long history of attacks by third parties who are extraordinarily difficult to identify. You then follow the chain of accountability back, which can take years, to discover exactly who it is who is running misleading, deceptive or outright false advertising in relation to the Greens in an attempt to influence the political system. This is, again, something that we would find simply unacceptable in commercial advertising or discourse.

Although such legislation was enacted briefly in Commonwealth law between 1983 and 1984, it was repealed with the support of both major parties. Opposition to such legislation relies on the argument that it infringes the right of free political communication. I hope that that is an argument that we can set to rest. Truth in political advertising legislation introduced in South Australia in 1985 was found to be constitutionally valid by the High Court. South Australia's legislation does not ban all untruths in advertising, but it relates to inaccurate statements of fact rather than opinions that are found to be untrue. So, at least, there is some recourse there.

The Greens advocate an amendment to the Commonwealth Electoral Act to make it an offence to authorise or publish an advertisement purporting to be a statement of fact when the statement is inaccurate and misleading to a material extent. This is similar to legislation that was introduced in South Australia. Of course, as I have indicated, in the agreement signed between the Greens and the government last September it was agreed that the parties will work together with other parliamentarians to create a truth in advertising offence in the Commonwealth Electoral Act. I would be interested to hear, if either of the major parties care to offer their views on that, as to whether such a proposal has the support of the major parties because I think it goes to the foundation of the way the political debate is conducted in this country.

I congratulate Senator Xenophon for bringing this amendment forward. I think it is a great shame that the major parties have again ducked the opportunity to engage frankly with it, and to at least advance the debate in one important sense.