CHAIR —Welcome. The evidence that you give at the public hearing today is considered to be part of the proceedings of parliament. Accordingly, I advise you that any attempt to mislead the committee is a very serious matter and could amount to a contempt of the parliament. Could you please state the capacity in which you appear?

Mr Martin —I am here as the Senate candidate for the Greens in the 1998 federal election.

CHAIR —The committee has received your submission No. 189 and it has been authorised for publication. Are there any corrections or amendments you would like to make to that submission?

Mr Martin —No.

CHAIR —Would you like to make a brief opening statement and then we can have questions?

Mr Martin —There are three matters I would like to bring to the committee's attention. I will start with the circulation of an unauthorised bumper sticker during the course of the 1998 election. In a letter to Mr Bill Gray, the Australian Electoral Commissioner, the Greens brought the matter to his attention. Some tens of thousands of these unauthorised bumper stickers were circulated around the Northern Territory. For the Australian Electoral Commission's own reasons, they decided not to prosecute the people who circulated this bumper sticker. We do not have freedom of information legislation in the Northern Territory so we will never know who paid for these bumper stickers. We do not know whether the taxpayer paid, or whether the Country Liberal Party paid for these party political bumper stickers. That is the first issue.

CHAIR —Before you go on, I understand that although you have given copies to the committee, we only got them this morning, so we have not had a chance to provide them to individual members.

Mr FORREST —For the purposes of Hansard though, reference should be made to what the bumper sticker says. To me, it looks like it is a state matter.

Mr Martin —It is a state matter. It says, `It is our right: statehood January 1st 2001' with a flag of the Northern Territory. I was unable to ascertain the origin of these bumper stickers during the course of the election. The Northern Territory electoral commission could not tell me.

CHAIR —It would be in relation to a referendum, wouldn't it? Not a federal election.

Mr Martin —Most definitely. Central to the election was the issue of—

Mr FORREST —It has nothing to do with the 1998 federal election which is what the committee is investigating.

Mr Martin —No, sorry—it most certainly has. Statehood was a central plank in Nick Dondas's re-election platform. If you would like to have a look at the excerpt from the Northern Territory News —

CHAIR —Every electorate has issues that are a central plank to their election, but what Mr Forrest is pointing out is that the statehood aspect was a separate referendum. It was on the same day as the federal election, but constitutionally, legally—in every sort of way that you may want to put it—it has nothing to do with the federal election.

Mr Martin —No, I am sorry.

Mr BARTLETT —Wasn't the referendum administered by the AEC though?

CHAIR —Yes, it was.

Mr Martin —Under the Australian Electoral Act, all electoral material that is circulated in the course of an election must be authorised, right? It is straightforward. A prosecution would have told us whether or not we, the taxpayer, paid for those tens of thousands of bumper stickers.

Senator SYNON —Mr Martin, is that the breach that you refer to in the first paragraph of your letter?

Mr Martin —That is right, yes; I have given accompanying material there. So I would very much like the committee to find out the origin of these bumper stickers and to find out why the Australian Electoral Commission decided not to prosecute. Secondly, in relation to a matter brought before this committee in August last year, we wrote and asked the committee to investigate campaign donations made by Northern Territory landlords. Once again, I am going back to 1996, but there is a follow through.

CHAIR —Mr Martin, this issue has been dealt with by the committee. We referred it to the AEC and the AEC have dealt with it as well. So, as a committee, we have already dealt with that matter.

Mr Martin —Sorry, the AEC do not have the power to investigate that matter. They have written a letter back to me asking me to bring this matter back to you to consider broadening the powers of the AEC to investigate this matter.

CHAIR —Yes, okay.

Mr Martin —That is why I am talking here. We are looking at $20,500 being donated from Northern Territory landlords to the campaign for the member for Eden-Monaro, Mr Gary Nairn.

Senator LIGHTFOOT —Sorry, is that an organisation or an incorporated body—the Northern Territory landlords?

Mr Martin —No. But we had three landlords making campaign donations from the Northern Territory to Eden-Monaro.

Senator LIGHTFOOT —It is a generic reference to—

ACTING CHAIR (Mr Laurie Ferguson) —The committee has dealt with the personalities and the nature of the allegations. The AEC has apparently told you they would suggest you put forward a proposition regarding widening of powers which is probably just to deal with the broader issue of what you feel the legislation should basically do.

Mr Martin —If the Australian Electoral Commission has the power to investigate, to find out whether the Northern Territory government are laundering taxpayers' funds through empty office space in Darwin for the benefit of the campaign of the member for Eden-Monaro—

Senator SYNON —Oh, come on.

Mr NAIRN —That is a pretty serious allegation, Mr Martin.

Mr Martin —Perhaps you could tell me about the pattern here. If I can table a proposal from the—

Senator SYNON —Mr Chairman, I think this is out of order.

Senator LIGHTFOOT —It is a breach of a privilege too, Mr Chairman, in my view.

Mr FORREST —It is a blatant abuse of parliamentary privilege to make an assertion like that.

Mr Martin —I am asking the question which I initially put to the committee. I have written to you and asked you to answer that question.

CHAIR —Mr Martin, the committee has dealt with it in the way in which we believe we have the power to; I think all members of the committee, not just I, as the chair—and I stood aside, as the chair, while this matter was dealt with and Mr Ferguson took over—

Mr LAURIE FERGUSON —There was a unanimous decision that technically, we could not deal with it in any other fashion. I do not think we should have a provocative argument today.

Mr Martin —No.

Mr LAURIE FERGUSON —People have been through the allegations that you have made and they are understood. Would you answer the question I put to you? It was not about Mr Nairn or the Northern Territory government. It was: what actual provisions of the

legislation should be altered—to your mind? What—without getting into the nature of the specifics—should the AEC have the power to do?

Mr Martin —They should have the power to interview people as to the origins of funds and to find out whether or not taxpayers' funds are being used for party political purposes. It is as simple as that. We have got a pattern within the Northern Territory where it is common practice for developers to make campaign donations to the Country Liberal Party.

Senator SYNON —That is specific to the Northern Territory.

Mr LAURIE FERGUSON —It is a common pattern in a lot of places. That is your suggestion to the committee?

Mr SOMLYAY —And the Labor Party.

Mr Martin —In exchange for cheap crown land bills. The Northern Territory government break the Crown Land Act—

CHAIR —I am not going to allow this hearing to degenerate to a point where you sit here using parliamentary privilege to make wild allegations about the operations of the Northern Territory government. I am sorry, I will not allow that. Mr Ferguson has asked you a quite specific question in relation to changes to the Electoral Act and disclosure in a principle sense, and that is what this committee is about. If you cannot answer those sorts of questions, please go to your next point.

Mr Martin —I am quite happy to. Given that we do not have a freedom of information act within the Northern Territory and given the allegations of former senior ministerial adviser, Mr Andrew Coward, with respect to Dossier NT and the claims that taxpayers' funds are being used for party political purposes and for electoral purposes, you can see there is a pattern here.

CHAIR —I have asked you twice now. Have you got any suggestions to make in relation to changes to the act?

Mr Martin —The Australian Electoral Commission needs the power to investigate to determine whether or not taxpayers' dollars are being used for party political purposes. They do not appear to have the power at the moment. Given the issue I have raised with respect to Mr Nairn and the campaign contributions to—

Senator SYNON —Mr Martin, can I ask you about the second allegation in your substantive submission before the committee today regarding the ABC staff member?

Mr Martin —Yes, you can, most certainly. During the course of the polling day, an ABC staff member, at the same time as handing out how-to-vote cards for the Country Liberal Party, handed out an ABC business card. To me, there is a problem in that there needs to be a clear separation. Given there is federal legislation relating to the operation of the ABC, there needs to be a separation between whether a person is acting in his role as party

president of the seat of Port Darwin for the CLP or whether he is actually an ABC staff member.

Senator SYNON —In what context though? He was handing out information at the polling booth and, with every bit of information, he was giving a business card?

Mr Martin —No. He spent the day handing out how-to-vote cards for the CLP. At the end of the day, the person involved handed out a business card and asked somebody to contact him—

Senator SYNON —Just one business card?

Mr Martin —Just one business card, that is right.

Senator SYNON —It was just an isolated incident? Is that right?

Mr Martin —We are talking about one incident. Yes, that is right.

Mr SOMLYAY —How was that related to the election?

Mr Martin —It was related to the election in that, as a Greens candidate, I felt offended by virtue of the fact that our taxpayers' dollars contribute $500 million to the budget of the ABC. There must be a clear separation between the—

Mr SOMLYAY —We do not have an argument for that.

CHAIR —Was he being paid by the ABC to be there that day?

Mr Martin —On the day?

CHAIR —Yes.

Mr Martin —No.

CHAIR —What is the problem?

Senator SYNON —So he handed out one business card to one person?

Mr Martin —That is right. He identified himself as being a program director of the ABC. As I pointed out, was he asking someone to ring him at work to do party political work at the offices of the ABC which the taxpayers pay for? Fair crack of the whip.

Mr LAURIE FERGUSON —I think that is pretty minor, quite frankly, unless you are saying that the person he gave it to was significant in any manner. Was it just Billy Bloggs? Whom did he give it to?

Mr Martin —He gave it to another Country Liberal Party person handing out how-to-vote cards for the CLP.

Mr LAURIE FERGUSON —Is that the point you are trying to get to? Quite frankly, I would agree with the rest of the committee. The fact that someone works for this or that company, the department of agriculture or whatever is not significant unless you are trying to make a point about the person he gave it to. What is the thrust of your point?

Mr Martin —The point is that ABC staff on election day should be doing ABC business, not—

CHAIR —How different is that to any individual employed in any department? There were people who were employed in the Parliamentary Library handing out how-to-vote cards for my political opponent. What is wrong with that? There is nothing wrong with that.

Mr Martin —We are talking about the integrity of the ABC and the public perception of the ABC as a free, fair and independent body. I have raised the matter with the manager of the ABC in Darwin, and apparently this person was carrying out his duties as the president of the CLP on the day. There is no problem with that. However, if he hands out an ABC business card, that is a totally different matter in my view.

CHAIR —You have made your point.

Senator SYNON —There was one business card; I think it speaks for itself.

CHAIR —I think you said you had three points. That might be the second one. Is there a third?

Mr Martin —Yes, there is a third point.

Senator SYNON —You have had the sticker and the business card.

Mr Martin —There are three points—the `It's our right' stickers, the Gary Nairn campaign contribution matter and I have tabled a call for a royal commission of inquiry into corruption in the Northern Territory from Mr Andrew Coward. There is also Dossier NT, a dossier that was sent from Mr Coward to me in the course of the last election which alleges that taxpayers' funds are being used for party political purposes in the Northern Territory. I have also given you Hansard and a censure motion on the former Chief Minister, Shane Stone, with respect to taxpayers' dollars being used for party political purposes.

Mr SOMLYAY —You are talking about state taxes for state elections?

Mr Martin —No, this is a follow-through. We have a Country Liberal Party senator in the federal parliament. We are talking about an entire situation here that does not start and stop on the day on which John Howard calls an election.

Mr SOMLYAY —You are not talking about federal taxes, are you?

Mr Martin —Sure, absolutely. Denis Burke has decided that he is not going to call an inquiry. Unless the federal parliament, under the self-government act, starts looking at what is going on in this town, the situation is going to prevail. You have got a perverted political

system occurring here in the Northern Territory. The whole system is perverted. You guys have got the responsibility to actually oversee what happens here under the self-government act.

CHAIR —We as a committee are investigating the 1998 federal election and the Electoral Act, not the Northern Territory (Self-Government) Act. Mr Martin, we have not authorised these materials because we received them only this afternoon. We have not had an opportunity to really look at them, but we will have to do that as a committee later on. Would you be happy for them to be an exhibit as part of your evidence here today?

Mr Martin —Yes, exactly. That is part of my evidence, if that could be included. I have included the items in alphabetical order and I have given a list of those items and a covering page with respect to that evidence.

CHAIR —Thank you.

Mr FORREST —Mr Chairman, it is a little difficult to cross-examine the witness if we have not had his submission and information put before us for pre-reading.

CHAIR —We got it only yesterday afternoon.

Mr Martin —I would be prepared to come back and have a chat if that is what you need.

CHAIR —If there are any further questions, we can probably write to you anyway.

[10.18 a.m.]