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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-09-14 Daily Xml
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PARLIAMENTARY WEB STREAMING

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (17:14): It is a pleasure to speak again on the adjournment. I note this is the third or fourth time that I have had the opportunity to speak on an adjournment debate in the brief time I have been in the parliament. We do, of course, get this opportunity whenever the parliament is done with the government's business a significant amount of time before the sitting is due to rise. In a year when we only have 32 sitting days, it has been a great surprise to me, along with a number of other things that have been of surprise to me upon arriving here, that we apparently have so little to do in this chamber. It is disappointing.

Another thing that has surprised me is the standard of behaviour in this place. I had an opportunity last week to speak to a seminar of university and year 12 students, organised by Clem Macintyre and this house. I congratulate Dr Macintyre for his work. I know that he organises this seminar every year, and it is well attended by his parliamentary internship students, as well as year 12 students from the University Senior College. The issue was parliamentary reform. The member for Light and the Hon. Tammy Franks from the Greens gave very good presentations, and I spoke about a few of the things I had observed on my less than six months in this chamber.

One of the things that really struck a chord with that group was the question of why on earth this place not televised, or at least made available through web streaming of its proceedings. In 2010, it strikes me as extraordinary that this is the case, and it goes to parliamentary behaviour.

We saw in question time today, as we see every question time, extraordinary displays by ministers, going to the most senior positions in this state, and there is no opportunity for anyone in the state to actually see that sort of behaviour, unless it is the 10 seconds that might be displayed on the TV news that night or they are among the 100 or so people who can fit in these public galleries. Given that it is impossible for most people to make it here for question time, for example, because they might have jobs, I think the very minimum we could do is to allow public scrutiny and accountability of our behaviour and the government's behaviour in this place, through web streaming, even if it were just audio, but preferably video.

I have gone back and looked at some of the Hansard of estimates committee hearings when this has been discussed, and I read the evidence given that apparently it would cost $2 million for such a policy to be implemented. When I read that and passed that onto the students last week, I saw the shock in the eyes of a group of 20-year-olds who, I am sure, with four video cameras and a $10,000 grant could probably get the whole place rigged up in a weekend. I think it is a perfect example of how sometimes, when government comes along, contractors can add a zero to the end of a quote.

It is hard to fathom in this day and age that we do not have this sort of accountability measure available. I know that it is in the wings—it has been in the wings or in the pipelines for some time now. It is something I would like to draw to the attention of members of this house in the hope that we can actually get it done more quickly in the interests of public accountability so that if people are concerned about what is going to happen regarding Arkaroola mining or a bill, or if they are interested to know how the government is responding to the questions of the day in question time, they can do so with a little window on their computer at home or work at no inconvenience to them.

This is a privilege accorded to people in every state and territory in Australia, but not in South Australia. The legislatures in the Northern Territory and the ACT have managed to overcome the incredible technical hurdles to get their parliaments web streamed. The parliaments in every other state have managed to overcome the technological hurdles. I did a little bit more digging and found that the parliaments in Trinidad and Tobago have managed to get over the technological hurdles so that they can have web streaming in their parliament.

Portugal, Turkey, Malaysia, Lithuania, Estonia. New Zealand, for goodness sake, have the technology to web stream their parliaments. The parliamentarians in Chile can say 'buenos dias' to their constituents through the web streaming of their parliament. Even the Majlis Al-Nawab in Yemen has web streaming of its parliament, yet here in South Australia in the year 2010 we do not have that facility.

It would be wonderful to have web streaming of parliament, if only to give the public of South Australia a greater opportunity to see their members at work or otherwise. It would be a wonderful opportunity for better accountability of this house to increase the opportunity for the people of South Australia to see the hard work that so many ministers and members are doing. I urge the government and the officers of the house to pursue this as a matter of great urgency.


At 17:20 the house adjourned until Wednesday 15 September 2010 at 11:00.


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