The Legislative Assembly of New South Wales referred the Government Publicity Control Bill 1992 to a Legislation Committee for consideration. The Bill, introduced into the Legislative Assembly on 6 March 1992, has the following objectives:

(a) to ensure that, as far as possible, public money is not expended on government publicity for a partisan political purpose; and

(b) to constitute a committee to scrutinise, and formulate guidelines for government publicity which appears to the committee to have the capacity, in whole or in part, of being used for that purpose.

For the purposes of the Bill:

(a) "government publicity" means any advertisement, promotional campaign, public relations campaign, announcement or means of publicising any government activities, programs or initiatives which is funded by public money ( clause 4 );

(b) "government publicity for political purposes" means government publicity which appears to the [Government Publicity] Committee to have the capacity or to be likely to have the capacity, in whole or in part, to influence public support for a political party, a candidate for election or a member of a House of Parliament (clause 6);

(c) the Government Publicity Committee comprises the Auditor-General, the Electoral Commissioner and the Ombudsman (clause 5). The Legislation Committee was required to examine the Bill and to report to Parliament by 25 September 1992.