Covering the same sex marriage law survey: follow the rules

Same Sex Marriage is a political issue, and as such falls under the rules of the Broadcasting Services Act for political matter.

It should be treated in a similar way as you do elections.

The Act requires licensees to include ‘required particulars’ such as name and address of the person authorising the advertising to be broadcast immediately after advertising on the subject of the same sex marriage referendum.

The objective is to “promote transparency in political communication by identifying who authorised the broadcast” according to regulator ACMA.

Compliance with this rule is a condition of all television and radio broadcasting licences, so don’t get caught out doing the wrong thing.

Anything you broadcast for an advertiser or sponsor that “would be understood by a reasonable audience member as seeking directly or indirectly to influence their views about same sex marriage or the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey” will be considered political matter that needs to be ’tagged’ with the required particulars just like an election advertisement.

But, promotions initiated by the radio station itself are exempt from the rule, because they are initiated by the licencee, not an outside person.

Some hypothetical examples to explain the rules:
 

If Sydney commercial talk station 2GB decided to support the pro-SSM campaign and asked its breakfast announcer Alan Jones to voice the promo, it would not need to be tagged with ‘particulars.’

If a Christian community station decided to air sponsorship announcements for the Yes campaign placed by a gay lobby group, it would need to ensure that name, address and other particulars were included in the sponsorship announcement.  

Definitions of ‘political matter’ and ‘particulars’ are available here.

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