21 October 2008

AEC says the masthead sticker "stretches the spirit" of the law.

| johnboy
Join the conversation
6

We briefly wondered aloud last week if putting the “Authorised by” information on the back of an advertising sticker was quite good enough.

The ABC reports that the same question was exercising a Senate estimates hearing yesterday.

    “The AEC’s Paul Pirani has told Senator Abetz that authorisation for election advertisements must be clearly displayed.

    But he said it is not clear if the ads breached the law.

    “I agree with you it does stretch the spirit,” he said.”

In a way it’s a shame that there’s little chance the matter will come before a court, because the clarity of a judicial warning would be no bad thing.

We can expect the spirit of the law to get more stretching in future.

Join the conversation

6
All Comments
  • All Comments
  • Website Comments
LatestOldest

The real concern is that fairfax is willing to degrade it’s mastheads in such a way for ad revenue. Everyone in newspapers regards the masthead as a sacred object because really that is where the true intangible value of the newspaper lies. I’m sure it’s on the balance sheet as an intangible asset of some value. A fantastic blog by a newsagent in Melb has been waging a war against these sort of ads since fairfax started doing them with the age. Type newsagency blog into google.

Woody Mann-Caruso3:54 pm 21 Oct 08

It was dodgy, and the Crimes should’ve known better. “They’re just advertisers like anybody else” was disingenuous weasling.

Holden Caulfield said :

I reckon the biggest change that needs to be made to the “Authorised by” gumpf is to label the party the person giving their authorisation belongs to. Not everyone is aware which person belongs to which party, unless we’re happy for Garry Humphries to get away with his 2007 Federal Election tricks again?!

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh177/Holden-Caulfield/greens_broch_outer.jpg

That was a fun two weeks. I remember sitting on the phone listening to a Greens supporter telling me about the difference between legalisation and decriminalisation, desperately holding back my own personal view that I thought the greens policy didn’t go far enough.

This is a serious matter given the prominence of the ad. I had a similar issue with the creation of the “dotcom groups” that Rudd used in the last federal election http://www.howardfacts.com the ads in the street advertisine the website also had no disclosure nor ALP branding

Holden Caulfield3:23 pm 21 Oct 08

I reckon the biggest change that needs to be made to the “Authorised by” gumpf is to label the party the person giving their authorisation belongs to. Not everyone is aware which person belongs to which party, unless we’re happy for Garry Humphries to get away with his 2007 Federal Election tricks again?!

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh177/Holden-Caulfield/greens_broch_outer.jpg

I think that on the back of a sticker (which has already been stuck), would pretty much be the opposite of “clearly displayed”. Maybe if they were giving out the sticker for personal use, they might have an argument.

Daily Digest

Want the best Canberra news delivered daily? Every day we package the most popular Riotact stories and send them straight to your inbox. Sign-up now for trusted local news that will never be behind a paywall.

By submitting your email address you are agreeing to Region Group's terms and conditions and privacy policy.