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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-06-30 Daily Xml
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MEMBERS' STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (12:31): I move:

That this house adopts the following Statement of Principles for Members of Parliament:

1. Members of parliament are in a unique position of being accountable to the electorate. The electorate is the final arbiter of the conduct of members of parliament and has the right to dismiss them from office at elections.

2. Members of parliament have a responsibility to maintain the public trust placed in them by performing their duties with fairness, honesty and integrity, subject to the laws of the state and rules of the parliament, and using their influence to advance the common good of the people of South Australia.

3. Political parties and political activities are a part of the democratic process. Participation in political parties and political activities is within the legitimate activities of members of parliament.

4. Members of parliament should declare any conflict of interest between their private financial interests and decisions in which they participate in the execution of their duties. Members must declare their interests as required by the Members of Parliament (Register of Interests) Act 1983 and declare their interests when speaking on a matter in the house or a committee in accordance with the standing orders.

5. A conflict of interest does not exist where the member is only affected as a member of the public or a member of a broad class.

6. Members of parliament should not promote any matter, vote on any bill or resolution, or ask any question in the parliament or its committees, in return for any financial or pecuniary benefit.

7. In accordance with the requirements of the Members of Parliament (Register of Interests) Act 1983, members of parliament should declare all gifts and benefits received in connection with their official duties, including contributions made to any fund for a member's benefit.

8. Members of parliament should not accept gifts or other considerations that create a conflict of interest.

9. Members of parliament should apply the public resources with which they are provided for the purpose of carrying out their duties.

10. Members of parliament should not knowingly and improperly use official information, which is not in the public domain, or information obtained in confidence in the course of their parliamentary duties, for private benefit.

11. Members of parliament should act with civility in their dealings with the public, ministers and other members of parliament and the Public Service.

12. Members of parliament should always be mindful of their responsibility to accord due respect to their right of freedom of speech within parliament and not to misuse this right, consciously avoiding undeserved harm to any individual.

And that:

(a) upon election and re-election to parliament, within 14 days of taking and subscribing the oath or making and subscribing an affirmation as a member of parliament, each member must sign an acknowledgement to confirm they have read and accept the Statement of Principles, and

(b) a message be sent to the Legislative Council transmitting the foregoing resolution and requesting its concurrence thereto.

The reason for this motion is that, several years ago in here, a select committee looked at the issue of whether or not there should be a code of conduct for members of parliament—a statement of principles is another way of expressing it. That select committee comprised members from different political persuasions, and this is what that select committee recommended.

The bottom line is that some people say that MPs are accountable at election time, so you do not need any other statement of principles or code of conduct. I do not agree with that. For a start, the next election is just under four years away, and the statement of principles, or code of conduct, sets some guidelines for behaviour, particularly when members come into this place or the other place.

Some would say that we have a pretty good track record in this state, and that is true. We have had very few instances where, to my knowledge, MPs have not acted in the way that they should. You can question some of the interactions, some of the sparring and to-ing and fro-ing that goes on—and that is touched on in the statement of principles in the way that we should deal with each other in here—but I do not believe that we can have a situation where we are regarded as professional people if we do not have a code of conduct, yet we say that other professions should have one or must have one. It gives rise to the criticism that we somehow have a double standard.

I think it is important that we make clear to the public that we do have commitment to certain standards of behaviour. These are not the only ones. We know that there is a ministerial code of conduct, and we are all subject to the criminal law and other requirements. However, if members look at this statement of principles—which, as I said, is the result of lengthy deliberation by members in both houses—I think they will find it to be a fairly sensible and reasonable approach. Ultimately, if you do something that your electorate does not accept then you incur their wrath, and clearly this does not intend to take away the right of the electors to dismiss an MP.

If we look at some of these points—and I guess this relates to what I just said—we are in the unique position of being accountable to the electorate. It is not only a privilege to represent people in this or the other place, it is also a responsibility, and we need to maintain the public trust in the way we carry out our duties—fairly, honestly and with integrity. I believe that is absolutely essential, and people should not diminish the significance of public trust. Members of parliament do not score particularly well in the surveys that come out from time to time, but the reflection in those polls is often unfair. The media highlights selective aspects of behaviour—normally question time—and the public has little idea of what we actually do and how we behave the rest of the time.

I have been here 20 years now and, as I indicated earlier, I have not come across members of parliament who have got into a position where their behaviour was outrageous. There have been people who have done things they probably should not have done, who have made bad judgements, but in the main we have a pretty good track record. The statement of principles acknowledges that political parties are part of the democratic process, and I agree with that. From time to time there will be Independents but the reality is that, in the current situation, political parties will be there; they can legitimately be there and they will be there into the foreseeable future. So this statement acknowledges that political parties are part of the legitimate process.

With the declaration of financial interest, we have fairly strict guidelines there, and some people—the Hon. Graham Gunn, for instance—used to question whether or not some of these unfairly impinged upon the private matters of members and their families. The issue of not being financially rewarded for how you vote or behave in here is obviously sound and sensible, and I do not think anyone would dispute that. It would be corruption if that was done. In terms of declaration of interest, I think some of that has perhaps gone a bit far now, with people having to declare whether they get a ticket to the ice arena or something like that. I think that is a bit over the top, but generally it is important that members declare gifts and other benefits. That is replicated in principle No. 8 as well.

In terms of the question of applying public resources, which they are provided with to carry out their duties, once again I am not aware of any significant abuse of that. It does raise the whole issue of the global allowance and the travel allowance, things like that. In relation to the global allowance, I think we still have a situation where members are treated, essentially, as children in the sense that we are not trusted to apply the resources for the purpose of carrying out our duties. Apart from this statement of principles, I think that is an issue that needs to be addressed, so that members of parliament can have some latitude in applying the resources—their global allowance and so on—without, and what is currently the situation, someone in the bureaucracy deciding whether or not they can, for example, purchase a copy of the Australian Standards.

I will digress for a moment. I was recently refused the purchase of the Australian Standards relating to road infrastructure—it was $80—with the argument that it was not part of my duties. Well, it is. People come to me and say, 'I want a road hump or a chicane in my street.' I cannot engage with them in a meaningful way if I say, 'Well, look, I don't know anything about what can or cannot happen.' That is just one example. Another one is that a few years ago I was not allowed to have any newspapers. The argument was, 'You don't need them.' That is ridiculous. That has been changed, but we have variations between the houses in terms of how that operates.

The point I make is that I think members of parliament should be treated as adults and professionals. Obviously, you need some guidelines, but what we have now is a list that excludes a whole lot of things. The inference is that you cannot really be trusted to administer public funds in the way that you should. The issue of not using information improperly makes sense and, obviously, we have not only official information but we are dealing with confidential information a lot of the time.

No. 11 is very important: dealing with the Public Service in a way which is civil, and that is not meant to be a play on words. I think it is fair and reasonable that members of the Public Service are dealt with in a way that is civil. I think there have been occasions in the past where some members in here have treated public servants in a way that is unacceptable. In my experience, public servants have been dedicated to their job, and they are entitled to be treated with the dignity of their particular position and should not be subjected to any sort of behaviour which is unbecoming and aggressive.

Likewise, with each other, in here and in the extension of the parliament. With some of the courtesies which have been part of parliamentary life for a long time, we have to be careful that they do not wither away and are overlooked. One of them is that, if a minister is visiting your electorate, there is a courtesy that the minister will inform the member that he or she is going to visit that electorate. Likewise, if a member is attending a function at which a minister is present, there is a practice that should be upheld that the MP is acknowledged, even if they are from a different political party.

There is also a convention that ministers, in writing to a member of parliament (and vice versa), use the first name. It is not a legal requirement: it is just a courtesy. I notice now that some ministers seem to be slipping away from that tradition. We are not in the bear pit here; we should be treating each other with dignity. There are some other courtesies, such as when I congratulated a minister on appointment, and the reply came back from a staff member. It is not the biggest issue in the world, but you would think that the minister could at least sign the note, rather than get a staffer to send off something to this MP who has written in to congratulate the minister on the appointment.

I think it is important that we deal with each other with dignity and civility. I think at times in here we get carried away on the spur of the moment, but it is important that we do not get into negativity. We heard recently the tribute to Allan Rodda. The reason he is respected is not just because of the way he dealt with others, but that was certainly part of it.

I do not think freedom of speech within parliament is being abused at the moment. I can recall, a long time ago, when a member got up in here and said things about someone which were not correct, and the family members of the person who was named had to move interstate because the wife (the spouse) and the children came under so much attack in their school situation. We have to be very careful of not abusing that privilege that we have here, and I must say that in recent times I do not believe we have seen that abuse. So, I come to the end, where this set of principles will be subscribed to when someone becomes a member of parliament. I think it is important that, when you start in here at a session, you indicate that you are aware of these principles and indicate your commitment to upholding them.

The last part is that, if members here agree, then this message goes to the Legislative Council seeking its concurrence, because obviously—given that the Legislative Council was part of the original select committee—it is important that both houses are involved and have a commitment to the same set of principles. I commend this motion to the house. It is not meant to be a foolproof mechanism to deter people from doing wrong things or silly things, but, as I said at the start, we cannot expect doctors and others to have a code of conduct if we are not prepared to have one ourselves. It is a useful thing and I think the public would expect it and welcome it. I commend this motion to the house.

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg) (12:45): I rise to support the motion. I commend the member for Fisher for introducing it and for chairing the select committee, upon reference from this parliament, which he undertook some years ago. The Hon. Rob Lawson QC and I were nominated representatives on that select committee on behalf of the opposition, and we fully endorsed the statement of principles, which then received the subsequent endorsement of the opposition Liberal Party.

To add to the comments made by the member for Fisher, what is puzzling to me is why, years after this report had been presented to the parliament, the Premier did not leap to his feet with haste to seek to have it endorsed and refer it to the Legislative Council. After all, this was in the wake of the 2002 election, when the Premier was espousing the glory of his victory and how his government was going to be open and transparent. His ministers were going to be accountable and he was going to introduce a ministerial code of conduct, which has been breached many times since and ignored. In addition, he said that there would be standards imposed and that a code of conduct for all members of the house was fully supported.

We were set the terms of reference to go off and investigate what was happening around Australia and, indeed, across jurisdictions around the world and to come back to the parliament with what would be the best way to deal with this. The terms of reference were: first, what form should the code take? Secondly, should it have sanctions other than what is the ultimate sanction referred to in these statement of principles, namely, your head is on the chopping block at the election and it is answerable to the electors? Thirdly, should there be a capacity in the parliament for there to be some penalty attached? And, fourthly, should it be something that should work in tandem with (or override) other laws of the state, and the like.

So we embarked on a rather significant and extensive investigation. We looked at other jurisdictions, for example, France, where members of parliament enjoy an extraordinary privilege. Except in the case of murder or a serious felony—they have a slightly different criminal code system in France—apart from some very rare exceptions, members of parliament are immune, and under their code of conduct they enjoy the privilege of not even being brought before the criminal courts during their term of office. That might have been a motivation for a number of them to stay in office for a long time to avoid prosecution or something.

We considered all these things and we looked at other jurisdictions, and it was quite clear that, at the very minimum, there would be a code, which we ultimately agreed should be referred to as a statement of principles. It would be without direct sanction but would recognise that the people of South Australia are ultimately our executioners in a very real sense if we breach those standards.

An analogy for me was the Ten Commandments. There is a commandment in the Christian principles that thou shalt not kill. We actually have a whole series of laws in South Australia to prevent us from killing someone with intent or in a reckless circumstance and they attract a penalty for murder and, of course, the consequences that go with it. We have manslaughter legislation which, again, produces a series of different penalties depending on circumstances. We have the capacity for lawful killing in the circumstance of a defence duty or war conflict, for example.

We have a category of legal obligations which do produce sanctions notwithstanding what is written in the Christian code of conduct, namely, the Ten Commandments. We took what is the minimalist view. There is nothing of which to be frightened in relation to these statements. A member of this house would be hard pressed to suggest we should act in a way contrary to this motion.

I look forward to the passage of this motion. I cannot wait to hear the Premier's explanation as to why he let the opportunity pass when it was originally tabled in the house. I think ultimately it was tabled by the member for Enfield, as he then was, because for some reason the member for Fisher was not here, but he was certainly instrumental in the tabling of that report as he was also a member of that committee. I look forward to hearing the Premier's explanation as to why it has taken so many years for him to come forward and support it; or, indeed, if he intends to oppose it, what possible explanation he will give to us as to why these basic fundamental tenets should not be observed by every one of us with pride.

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (12:51): I rise to support the motion that the house adopt this statement of principles. I commend the member for Fisher for moving this motion in the house. I also commend the work of the parliamentary committee that produced this statement of principles some years ago. I share with the member for Bragg a great disappointment that the government has not brought this matter forward prior to today in their own name as it was under the term of this government that the parliamentary committee was tasked with the job of coming up with this statement of principles. I think it is a very good statement of principles. I want to place on the record through this contribution my support for each principle. The first principle states:

Members of parliament are in a unique position of being accountable to the electorate. The electorate is the final arbiter of the conduct of members of parliament and has the right to dismiss them from office at elections.

We are responsible to our constituency. Every time we choose to act in any certain way, we have to be mindful of our electors and our constituents. We should always remember that they come first. I want to rest for a moment on the second principle, in particular. It states:

Members of parliament have a responsibility to maintain the public trust placed in them by performing their duties with fairness, honesty and integrity, subject to the laws of the state and rules of the parliament, and using their influence to advance the common good of the people of South Australia.

In relation to the words 'fairness, honesty and integrity', I call on the government to reflect on that statement of principle. I think it would be useful for this statement of principle to be enforced if only because it would have suggested to some opposite that they reflect on it during the conduct of the recent election when they felt it was within their right to have volunteers handing out how-to-vote cards, pretending to be Family First volunteers when they were in fact members of the Australian Labor Party and were not supporting the lead Family First candidate for the Legislative Council on the how-to-vote cards.

In the spirit of fairness, honesty and integrity, perhaps some of those members who indulged in that practice might have thought twice about it had they signed up to a statement of principles, including that principle to which I have just referred. It is very disappointing that they did not. A number of other paragraphs in the statement of principles are eminently sensible. They are the sorts of things to which we should be subscribing as a matter of course without the need to have them drawn to our attention, but that does not make it inappropriate for us to be signing up to a statement of principles.

I think that, given that some of these principles are occasionally broken in the course of duties carried out by members of parliament here and interstate, it does not hurt to bring people's attention back to it. Given that the Labor Party has systematically broken some of these principles in the course of the recent election, I think it would be particularly worthwhile ensuring that people sign up to such a statement of principles. The member for Fisher in his contribution today dwelt on the 11th statement of principle:

Members of parliament should act with civility in their dealings with the public, ministers and other members of parliament and the Public Service.

In the short time I have been in this house, I have been disappointed at the number of times that I have seen that statement of principle broken, and the civility that anyone would expect in a professional environment has been absent in this place, I fear. I think that having a statement of principle, bringing that to our constant attention as something to which we could be held accountable would be very useful. I support the motion.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (12:55): I, too, rise to support the motion moved by the Hon. Bob Such and spoken to by the members for Bragg and Morialta. I thank the committee for its work on this statement of principles. It will be interesting to note whether the Labor Party supports this statement of principles. As has been said, quite a few principles were broken in the election campaign. We had to amend a law yesterday because the Labor Party cannot help itself. We have to legislate to protect them from themselves.

Mr Gardner: We have to legislate for good behaviour.

Mr PEDERICK: Yes; we have to legislate for good behaviour. That is where, as members of parliament, we do need to be accountable to the electorate because, as this statement of principles states, the electorate is the final arbiter of the conduct of members of parliament and has the right to dismiss them from office at elections. This is a fundamental right, and I spoke on this briefly yesterday. The fact is that we are elected to this place, and it is the right of electors to keep us here or not, so we should behave in an appropriate manner and we should be accountable to electors.

It is a far better system than what happens in some places in the world where we have autocracies and dictatorships and people do not have the right to voice their opinion or to have the person who wins by a majority vote represent them in a parliament, or consequently a government or opposition in that country. It is sad when you see some people on voting day come up to polling booths reluctantly. I know of one story when my wife was manning a polling booth in the recent state election. She confronted a guy who was obviously having a light refreshment, having a beer, and he said, 'What the heck do I do to vote?'

I do not think that he bothered grabbing a how-to-vote card from anyone. Who knows what he did? I said to my wife later that day, 'How do we connect to these people?' I thought about it for a minute and I thought that, perhaps for people such as that who are having a relaxing Saturday, having a few refreshments during the day, perhaps we could hand out stubby holders at the booth and they might remember us by that, with our name emblazoned on them when they go in to vote. I am not trying—

The Hon. S.W. Key interjecting:

Mr PEDERICK: Yes. I note the comments from opposite. I do say that in jest, I must admit because, obviously, there are principles we have to uphold going into an election. You just get frustrated. It was a comment I made in jest in terms of how we reach these voters and protect the principles of everyone's democratic right to vote in this country—to vote on who we want to retain in our electorates or who we want to get voted in to take up a position in the parliament. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.


[Sitting suspended from 13:00 to 14:00]


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