[LINK] Parltry Ctee Subs [Was Re: Broadband for a Broad Land

[Tom Worthington]

Roger Clarke wrote:
> ... Senate Community Affairs References Ctee today...
> 
>> Once the Committee accepts your submission, it becomes a 
>> confidential Committee document and is protected by Parliamentary 
>> Privilege. You must not release your submission without the 
>> Committee's permission. If you do, it will not be protected by 
>> Parliamentary Privilege. ...

That gives the impression the committee has the power to prevent those 
making a submission from discussing their views. The Parliament does not 
have that power and I doubt the High Court would rule it constitutional. 
A better wording might be:

"Submissions accepted by the Committee are protected by Parliamentary
Privilege. For your submission to be protected you need to await the
Committee's acceptance before releasing it publicly. There is no
requirement for you to await acceptance, but if you do not, your
submission will not be protected by Parliamentary Privilege."

The House Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications 
inquiry into the NBN has not published any more submissions, so I don't 
know if mine has been accepted or not.


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, School of Computer Science, The
Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/
Visiting Scientist, CSIRO ICT Centre: http://bit.ly/csiro_ict_canberra