Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee, , 8:27:13 to 8:31:40
Discussion on who determines if a clip is misleading and the importance of maintaining respectful relationships between officials and senators.
Topics: Workplace culture, Online safety
Speakers: Dr Steven Kennedy, Senator Steph Hodgins-May, Hon Penny Wong, Senator Karen Grogan
>> Yeah. Perhaps can I finish that block or is it
>> I'm just going to rotate around because you'll be left with very little. Um you have like three minutes if you wanted to take it.
>> Yeah, I could probably do it within three minutes. >> Okay, cool. >> Um yeah, just following on from Senator Pop's comments. I'm just question the question of who that arbiter would be is something that I'm struggling to understand like who who is the arbiter of whether something is um mischaracterizing proceedings or not. So
>> the parliament
>> the parliament. Yes. Okay. And is this
>> but but it's I mean I think I think I I read when I read this and I only read it when it was reported just to be clear to but I thought I could see what the secretaries were seeking to grapple with and I think Senator PCO Barbara PCO um um you you mentioned you you referenced public interest and I think that is relevant because you know you spent a lot of your life as I have arguing for safe workplaces for people uh and I know that that is one of the things that the secretaries are talking about but we also believe in accountability as you said to the public >> and the important role in our democracy that Senate estimates plays um and I do I do think that so but ultimately it's up to parliamentarians to both determine and uh act in accordance with the the standard they think is appropriate.
>> Yeah. And look, um, to draw on examples, yes, I've seen the vitriol people on social media jumping on, commenting, posting, and my staff spend an enormous amount of time moderating to to remove negative comments. I suppose like it's it's more than a full-time job moderating comments on social media these days. But, um, I suppose I I don't quite like the media can still clip and share um, videos and that kind of feedback loop continues. Um can I just clarify is your proposal limited to public servants or did you were you intending to extend it to ministers or
>> uh we were reflecting on uh our experience as public servants in these inquiries. Um your guidelines uh go to uh the behavior of parliamentarians with all all people who attend uh these um uh not particularly the Senate estimates committees but other uh committee hearings. And so really we were just putting forward some ideas for the joint committee to consider and just the own guidelines it provides back to to parliamentarians about the treatment of officials but also official witnesses more more broadly. Um and I fully accept um part of the reason we've focused on on uh I fully accept that more broadly there's going to be plenty of people out there who are going to cut around all this stuff. make a vile post to get vile comments. I'm not I'm you know I'm not I'm I'm not silly in the sense um what I'm trying to do is um or what we're trying to do is ensure that we keep these good respectful relationships and we have these very productive engagements with senators as they robustly inquire into our uh our administration of programs and uh and and and you have sensibly developed guidelines I think in 24 was 24 um um that go to these issues. We thought they were good. You were having an inquiry into it. We thought there might be some helpful ways to think about those guidelines. But as the senator said, there are entirely matters for you. We just wanted to to give you I've been coming to estimates for uh well over 20 years and uh and and we and some of my colleagues had to and we were hoping this would just help and continue what is we think a very robust and productive engagement. Um um but social media has brought a new dimension to it. Um and yet we have particularly more junior officials if you like somewhat affected uh by their treatment.
>> Thank you. Yeah, just that I suppose that line between legitimate critique and what is a misleading clip um is something that I think we need to be yeah very conscious of.
>> But we we completely understand
>> I'm sorry my time is up.
>> We [laughter] completely understand and assert no role in that process. We just bring it to your attention. Um we'll go
to Senator Payman.