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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-03-31 Daily Xml
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NationBuilder

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:30): My question is to the Premier. Given the Premier is across the answer to that question, could he please do us the courtesy of repeating the answer to that question?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:30): Of course it is the opposition's question time, or nearly all the opposition's question time because, of course, the crossbench now also have a dedicated 15 minutes, which is a good reform—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Playford!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —and I am very pleased that that is the case. As we canvassed yesterday in quite a lot of detail I would have thought, we were using the NationBuilder system to manage the distribution of press releases to the media. We set that up in opposition. We have already established that NationBuilder is a platform which is used by companies right around the world and, of course, it has been used by political parties of all persuasions.

Despite what the member for West Torrens told listeners on the ABC this week, it has been used by the Labor Party and, in fact, it has been used quite recently. We were using the NationBuilder platform to manage the distribution of press releases from the Premier's office to the media. I do point out that as of yesterday we are not doing that anymore. What we did find, though, was that government employees—

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan: 'We've done nothing wrong, so we're changing it,' like the country members' allowance. Do you remember that, Tim?

The SPEAKER: The member for Lee!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —were copying and pasting the text from those press releases and that was going on to websites and so this is essentially creating that link that the Leader of the Opposition refers to. But we've got to go to what was the intention from this. As I have pointed out, it was completely and utterly inadvertent—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Playford is warned for a second time.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: Well, whether or not the Labor Party believe it, we're just stating a fact: this was unintentional. When we found out about this, we rectified it. We make it very clear, and I was very clearly advised, that we were not using this in any way, shape or form to redirect people who came to websites—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —they were clicking on to get information from a range of government websites. It was not being used to redirect those users to Liberal websites or domains. More than that, there was no collection—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —or retention of data.

The SPEAKER: The Premier will resume his seat for a moment. Members on my left and members on my right, the extent of the interjections just for the moment actually makes it impossible for me to hear the Premier's response. I remind members on all sides that the minister in answering the question is entitled to be heard in silence. I'm endeavouring to listen carefully. The Premier has the call.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: As I was saying, I am advised that there was no redirection of people who went to those websites to Liberal Party domains or websites. Further, I have advised yesterday and I advise today and I will advise tomorrow that there was no collection or retention of data from that. It was an inadvertent error. It has been corrected.

This was the advice that I had received from my office but, not content with that, we made inquiries to NationBuilder, who were the ones who could very clearly determine whether or not it had been used for data collection or retention, or whether in fact it had been used to redirect people on those websites to Liberal Party domains and websites. You think they would know. They made a thorough investigation and they made a statement which refuted the allegations the Labor Party has been making.

An honourable member interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Before I call the leader, I warn the member for Wright, I call to order the Minister for Innovation and Skills, I warn the member for Lee and I warn the member for Kaurna.

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