Page 1297 - Week 05 - Thursday, 26 April 1990
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agreement between the ACT and the Commonwealth. We are aware that the Government - both this Government and the past Government - were seeking just that.
This brings me to the final section of the report, which I am sure will result in most of the discussion. During our deliberations we did consider the results of the report of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Matters. Indeed, many who gave evidence to that committee made similar submissions to our committee.
One of the most important recommendations in this section, I believe, is the clear message to the Federal Parliament that the people of the ACT, not a body with no real electoral responsibility to the people of the ACT, should have a say in how our elections are run. There are provisions in the self-government Act, the disallowance provisions, which would allow the Federal Parliament to ensure that we did not take any decisions in that area that were over the top. However, it would have to be a pretty extreme situation which impinged on the significance of the national capital before that took place. This would allow the ACT to prepare its own electoral Act like the other States.
The modified d'Hondt system was inflicted on the people of the ACT following last-minute amendments which made it so unacceptable to the Australian Electoral Commission that they were not even prepared to suggest how some of the wrinkles might be taken out. However, we did agree that, if we were to use the d'Hondt system again, it would require some major modifications to allow it to do what it was originally amended to do; that is, to allow for independents and the distribution of preferences. It was in this last area, of course, that some of the major problems occurred.
The committee was not terribly happy with the role played by the Australian Electoral Commission in the lead-up to the last election. I believe my colleague Mr Wood may have some comments about this matter. However, we did believe that the experience of the election meant that it may be worthwhile to consider establishing our own electoral commission to provide the Government with advice, to administer our own electoral Act, and to conduct education and information campaigns to promote public awareness. We certainly recommend that the Government consider that.
Because of the criticisms of the role of the Australian Electoral Commission, particularly in the length of the count, the committee did examine this issue in some detail. While the joint parliamentary committee was not prepared to join in with this criticism, our examination of the evidence suggested that maybe the commission should have done more. In fact, our consideration of the evidence and our questioning of Electoral Commission officials left us with the distinct impression that they had decided it was going to take two months and that no attempt was made to use more people to complete the task more quickly.
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