Page 1299 - Week 05 - Thursday, 26 April 1990
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be made up of two electorates electing six members and one electing five, based on population numbers.
Mr Speaker, one thing for sure on this matter is that, unlike previous referendums conducted in the ACT on matters pertaining to self-government, once the referendum has been conducted and the results known, appropriate action should be taken to amend whatever legislation is necessary by whoever is responsible as soon as possible. The committee also supports the recommendation by the joint parliamentary committee that the Commonwealth fund the referendum.
During our consideration of electoral issues a number of other matters came before us. One of the reasons for the long delay in the last election was the size of the ballot-paper. The committee heard evidence that this was caused by the ease with which parties could register for the election. The electoral Act allowed one member to register six political parties in the last election without any requirement to meet membership numbers. Because we saw a need for some standard to be set which did not discourage the emergence of new political parties or groups, or mean that independent candidates should have any more or less stringent requirements than parties, we have recommended that both parties and independents be required to produce a membership list of at least 20 voters as part of the nomination process. I understand my colleague Mr Wood will comment on that as well.
The committee also considered the issue of a person registering more than one political party. We have therefore recommended that amendments be made to the appropriate electoral Act to ensure that an individual can be the registered officer or candidate for one party only. A related matter was the issue of the size of the deposit. We heard arguments ranging from zero to $10,000. There was a need to identify a figure somewhere in between; certainly at the bottom end of the scale, I would suggest. The current figure of $100 is much less than that required for election to other than the Western Australian Parliament or the House of Representatives. We eventually chose the same figure recommended by the joint parliamentary committee; that is, $250.
Mr Speaker, there are a number of other general recommendations relating to electoral matters that we considered: the closing of postal votes on the day of election to allow counting to commence straight away; lodging of registered party tickets, if applicable, by independents; and vertical listing of independents on the right of the ballot-paper.
The committee also looked briefly at the issue of computerisation of voting within the ACT. It is clear that the action of voting by computer is a long way off in Australia with our systems. It may be possible, however, to actually count the vote and allocate preferences by computer. The Electoral Commission showed no interest in
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