Some time ago I discovered that Annabel Crabb, she of that esteemed publication, The Sydney Morning Herald, and periodic contributor to the ABC's Insiders programme, operates a twitter stream during Question Time in parliament. The twitter feed is called CrabbTwitsard, a colourfully comic compound! I often read it on my iPhone, because she manages to inject commentary with witty observation and caustic facetiousness.Uptake of new media by individual legislators and by parliaments is uneven, with a Twitter stream under the auspices of the UK Parliament proving to be somewhat sedate (apparently more so than an aggregation from Norwegian MPs) and questions being raised about the Australian Prime Minister's outsourcing of his Twittering (akin to debate about the phenomenon of CEO Blogging) and anxieties about impersonation (tweets by at least three fake Kevin Rudds and a fake Barry O'Farrell in addition to the inevitable faux Stephen Spielberg, Naomi Campbell, Tom Cruise & Co).
Today, there was a major departure from what usually occurs. Normally Crabb re-tweets comedic interjections from people reading her tweets, but today something very different occurred. Crabb challenged Joe Hockey in her twitter feed to respond, which he did, from the floor of the House via his mobile phone or laptop! Soon afterward a coalition back-bencher, Stuart Robert sent a tweet to Crabb berating the Prime Minister for attacking the back-bench, but claiming victory, saying, "I think I struck a nerve with Ruddy..."!
Lindsay Tanner, a little later in proceedings suggested that Hockey was spending far too much time twittering!
What an amazing sequence of events. The intrusion of technology in a setting where, I imagine, it would be assumed to be unwelcome.
Presumably Mr Speaker is not aware of the trespass of such exchanges upon the orderly and rightful conduct of the Parliament. Presumably too there are no standing orders preventing use of such communication systems in the manner mentioned. Would any of this represent a contempt of Parliament, or contempt of the Chair? And what does this mean for the future? Can a parliamentarian be covered by parliamentary privilege if they are physically inside the chamber, but communicating from it?
One wonders where all this is heading ...
In May the 'Twittergate' scandal in the German Bundestag ("Germany Gripped By Twittergate") centred on MPs who "broke decades of tradition" by leaking the re-election of that nation's president, Hörst Köhler, 15 minutes before the result was officially announced. The Financial Times reported that
Julia Klöckner ... told her Twitter 'followers' that afternoon: "People, you can watch the football in peace. The vote was a success." Ulrich Kelber, of the SPD party, was even more specific, prematurely uploading the result of the vote-count to his micro-blog: "The count is confirmed: 613 votes. Köhler is elected."Klöckner subsequently apologised for the "somewhat premature timing" of the message and stepped down from her committee role.
The Social Democratic Party was later reported by Der Spiegel to be investigating whether a mobile phone jammer could be installed in the Bundestag building ("We want to know if it would be technically feasible") and exploring whether legislatures in other countries have installed such technology. Codes of practice - underpinned by a spot of discipline on the part of the presiding officer - might be a more effective way of "ensuring confidentiality" or decorum. I'm reminded of the report that during the first session of the New Zealand legislature in 1854 an Hon. Member "marched in with his hat on, defied the chairman, flung a Gazette on the table and declared the session was over” and then marched around the chamber flourishing his umbrella and daring anyone to evict him".
Hat-wearing and umbrella-waving (UmbrellaGate?) is no longer tolerated but alas the Australian Parliament and then Prime Minister was prepared to tolerate Senator Heffernan's egregious abuse of privilege in smearing Kirby J of the High Court, for which see Lisa Hill's 'Parliamentary Privilege & Homosexual Vilification' at 82-105 in Hate speech and freedom of speech in Australia (Federation Press, 2007) edited by Katharine Stone & Adrienne Gelber and Parliamentary Privilege (Federation Press, 2003) by Enid Campbell.
Australian legislatures have coped with SMS. Notes to the 2007 Standing Orders of the NSW Legislative Assembly for example state that
The Speaker noted that there had been a number of recent instances of mobile phones ringing in the Chamber and reminded members that disruptive mobile phone use in the Chamber was disorderly. The Speaker stated that while members were allowed to bring mobile phones into the Chamber, the phones should always be set on silent mode. The Speaker also stated that mobile phones could be used to send messages and e-mails in the Chamber, but disruptive or inappropriate mobile phone use (such as taking photographs within the precincts of the Chamber) was prohibited.The same section of the Orders prohibits misbehaviour with paper planes. Chapter 5 of the House of Representatives Practice guide (5th edition, 2005) for the national parliament notes that "a Member may keep his hands in his pockets while speaking" but "may not distribute apples to other Members in the Chamber". It advises that
Mobile phones must not be used for voice calls and any audible signal from phones or pagers must be turned off. Members who have allowed phones to ring have been directed by the Chair to apologise to the House. However, text messaging is permitted and notebook computers may be used for emails, if done discreetly and so as not to interrupt the proceedings of the House. The use of cameras, including « mobile phone cameras, on the floor of the House is not permitted.A colleague has kindly commented that the physical location of the MP is not determinative in relation to parliamentary privilege: for Twittering from the national Parliament it depends on whether the communication is a parliamentary proceeding within the meaning of s 16 of the Parliamentary Privileges Act 1987) (Cth). Even communications outside the chamber will be covered, eg communications received in a committee hearing, wherever that may take place. However, private communications would not be covered, even if transmitted from the floor of the house.
Elsewhere I've been dismissive of microblog (aka tumblelog) services such as Twitter, which are supposedly
the punk rock of blogging. They strip away all that prog-rock space jazz and focus on the content: short thoughts, quotes, photos, music, video clips and links. Unlike the verbose ramblings of most weblogs, where anything posted tends to be accompanied by several paragraphs of quotes, opinion and additional links, a tumblelogger just posts one thing at a time. ... Tumblelogging embraces the ephemeral existence of web content. A post is important today and all but forgotten tomorrow.
