Dr David Wilson: Clerk of the House of Representatives on whether bots are interfering in law-making process

ACT leader David Seymour has claimed 99.5 percent of the submissions received on the Regulatory Standards Bill were created using 'bots'.

The Ministry for Regulation received approximately 23,000 submissions regarding a discussion document about the bill in January, with submissions on the bill currently open until June 23.

Dr David Wilson, Clerk of the House of Representatives, says he's confident the cyber-security team involved haven't reported any bots making submissions to Parliament.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
David Seymour is blaming bots for the apparent unpopularity of
the Regulatory Standards Bill. He reckons almost all of the
twenty three thousand submissions of fake because they've been generated
by bots. Now, Doctor David Wilson is the Clerk of
the House of Representatives. Hey David, Hello, you spotted any
bots in there?

Speaker 2 (00:18):
No, we haven't, and our cybersecurity team are confident that
there aren't any bots making submissions to Parliament?

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Have you ever had any bots making submissions?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Not as far as we know right.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
I was wondering if I just wonder if what David
Seymour is talking about is not really bots but those
forms where you just go online to a website, chuck
your details and it seems basically the same submission with
different names repetitively. Could that be what he means?

Speaker 2 (00:48):
I can't speculate about what the Minister might mean, but
certainly those form submissions do come to Parliament, and some
of them a hard copy and yeah, others are online
where people on them mountain send them in.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
We wouldn't consider those fakes, though, would we. No.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Select committees don't treat those as fake submissions. They're real submissions,
they possibly will just say the same thing.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Yeah, okay, Right, so we don't really know what he's
talking about, then, do we.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Well, I can't speak for the minister.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
No, neither can I, as it turns out. Okay, Now listen, David,
while I've got you, what do you make of the
punishment for Debbie and and of the Marii part? Is
it too harsh?

Speaker 2 (01:29):
That's not really something for me to comment on. Ultimately,
it's up to members to vote on. I gave the
Privileges Committee advice on it, and really it's their decision,
not mine.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
And are you allowed to tell us what the advice was.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, the advice is publicly available to anyone who wants it. Really,
it was along the lines of, you know, the most
of their penalty given to date had been a three
day suspension, and that if it was going to be
substantially more than that, you know, the committee should give
reasons to explain that. And ideally they'd reached that position
unanimously since it was a major change in practice.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
In the House, okay, And so you gave your advice
to them. It then went obviously it was tabled in parliament.
Did the Speaker seek your advice as well.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
Oh, I advise the speaker out all the time, but
on a confidential basis.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
Okay, so you're not allowed to tell us what you
told him. No, okay. Thank you for your time. I
appreciate it. Doctor David Wilson, Clerk of the House of Representatives.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
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