Sat, 10 Apr 2004
The world’s an odd place. In this year’s State of the Union, and as one of his election platforms, President Bush has supported the push to reserve marriage in the US for straight folk. Various sensible folks were naturally outraged at this, just as other various sensible folks have been concerned to various degrees by some of Prime Minister Howard’s thoughts on the same subject.
I find it pretty interesting to contrast these sorts of takes with this little bit of banter I noticed the other day:
President Bush opened his 10-minute remarks to the gathering with a reference to what he referred to as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s “favorite show” on television. Those anticipating an “Apprentice” punch line – the Donald, after all, was only a few yards away – guessed wrong.
“Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” Bush said, generating a roomful of laughter. “My Cabinet could take some pointers from watching that show. In fact, I’m going to have the Fab Five do a makeover on [Attorney General John] Ashcroft.”
When even the folks you think of as your most dangerous enemies think you have something of great value to offer them, and can find joy and pleasure when talking about you, you can’t be far off winning.
Submissions to Parliamentary Commissions
So, Mary Gardiner, civic-minded lady she is, mentioned that she was going to have a go at making a submission to the senate on the FTA and it’s effect on Linux and free software and that she’d probably put whatever she came up with online.
Michael Davies replied that
You aren’t allowed to make your submission to either the lower house or senate committees public at all. The committee will make submissions public later at their own discretion.
This struck me as pretty unbelievable, but no, the Parliament House’s FAQ on Preparing a submission to a Parliamentary Committee Inquiry says:
Once a submission is received by a committee, it cannot be withdrawn or altered without the committee’s permission, nor can it be published or disclosed to any other person unless or until the committee has authorised its publication.
Pretty fascist, hey? But hey, you know the saying: don’t ascribe to maliciousness that which can be explained by stupidity. Here’s another one: don’t ascribe to stupidity that which can be explained by misinterpretation. Looking for more detail, specifically an explanation of where the heck that restriction comes from, leads to a page about Senate enquiries, which in turn gives you a pointer to more information about contributing to committee enquiries, which has a PDF about submissions to senate committee enquiries. That says:
5. A submission to a committee becomes a committee document, and must not be disclosed to any other person until it has been released (‘published’) by the committee. Unless you have requested that the submission remain confidential, it is normally published after the committee has received and examined it and authorised its publication. Once a committee has authorised the release of a submission, subsequent publication of it is protected by parliamentary privilege (see below). The content of a submission may be published in another form or for another purpose before the submission is released by the committee, but this publication will not be protected by parliamentary privilege.
…
8. Making a submission is protected by parliamentary privilege. It is an offence for anyone to try to stop you from making a submission by threats or intimidation. It is an offence for anyone to harass you or discriminate against you because you have made a submission. The content of the submission is also protected but only after the committee has accepted it. This means that what you say in the submission, once the committee has accepted it, cannot be used in court against you or anyone else. More information is available in another brochure, entitled ‘Procedures to be observed by Senate committees for the protection of witnesses’.
Three things to note:
One: Aside from some terminology, you can publish your submission yourself, but you might be better of not doing so.
Two: If you don’t publish it, you get to be protected by parliamentary privilege! How cool is that? Anyone you want to libel? Now’s your chance!
Three: While it’s forbidden to harass people for submitting, it doesn’t say anything about harassing people for not submitting. Ha! Consider yourself forewarned!