Whatever you call that period of one or two years, it would be a good idea to have, I think, some reporting during that period on what you're up to.
I also had a fair bit to say about the divestment of controlled assets. I find that those rules are too broad. They apply to anybody who is a reporting public office holder. It includes chauffeurs. It includes all sorts of people that are drawn into the ministerial office. I think the more usual conflicts with that rule—or not conflicts—the usual places where it gives some people some trouble is with board members who don't have a particular connection with any.... They may have shares in some company, but they have absolutely nothing to do with that company in their day-to-day work. I think there's absolutely no discretion given to me to decide that I don't need to apply those rules, and of course it costs the government to repay the trustee fees, etc. That's one that didn't get mentioned.
Also, on the fundraising provisions, there was nothing said in the report here about them. I suggested as well that on the administrative monetary penalties, it's a little bit odd that they apply only to the limitation period, the delays for getting notices in, although there is a place for those regimes. I wondered whether there's a couple of substantive breaches that might be drawn into the administrative monetary penalty scheme when it's an open-and-shut case and there's no need for a full report to be made.
I also dropped the idea, in both the code and the act's five-year review.... There's concern about partisan activities sometimes going overboard. I'm not sure that my office would be the place to administer a code on partisan activities, but it seems to me that some attention should be given to at least establishing some guidelines or rules about partisan activities and behaviour of members.
I made also a whole bunch of suggestions for technical amendments, but I don't think the committee necessarily dismissed them; I think they just didn't.... Anyway....
A couple of things were picked up, and one was the harmonizing. I think there should be an attempt to harmonize the various vehicles. There's a dissonance between the Lobbying Act and some of those provisions and my act. There is a reason for it, I think, to some extent. It's not totally stupid that they are different, but where I think there could really be an improvement is in the members' code and the act, because a number of people are both members and ministers. For that one, I was happy to see a mention of that.
I know there are issues on the Senate as to whether they should be under the same regime. Then there's the outside activities we've talked about.
There are some nice things in the report, but I was disappointed with a lot of the omissions.