The Territory Labor Government will improve and strengthen the Public Information Act (the Act) to ensure public funds are not spent on political advertising.
The proposed amendments will strengthen the Act, which was originally introduced in 2010, and contemporise it in line in with modern communication channels. The changes will provide clarity and guidance to public authorities to ensure compliance with both the Act and the Regulations.
The amendments will help NT Government agencies conform to the Act and the Auditor-General to review particular materials for public consumption and ensure compliance by:
- consolidating obligations spread across the Act and Regulations to ensure all obligations are contained in a single section of the Act;
- strengthen requirements in relation to information containing facts, statistics and data by removing any inconsistencies created by using different terms across the Act and Regulations;
- removing unintended prohibitions on the use of images of a Minister by introducing a contemporary and technology-neutral definition of advertisement that means published by the purchase of media placement under a commercial arrangement;
- introducing a requirement that, for communication other than advertising, only an image of a relevant Minister can be used;
- expanding the operation of the Act to prohibit the use of a Ministers message in the same circumstances where it would be a contravention to use the image of a Minister; and
- introducing a public purpose test for the content of public information to replace the requirement for compliance only with criteria specified in the Regulations.
These amendments will provide better clarity when conveying public information from Government to Territorians into the future.
As stated by Chief Minister Michael Gunner:
"These safeguards, which were scrapped by the previous CLP Government, ensure money spent on advertising is done so in the public interest.
"Territorians want to be informed in an open and transparent way, and these changes to the Public Information Act help to ensure that Government agencies can easily comply with the legislation and regulations.
"As technology and communication channels change, our legislation must change also, and these amendments deliver a contemporary Act for the future."
