Page 1338 - Week 05 - Thursday, 26 April 1990
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Gary Whitley literally searched the world for an election system which could form the basis of compromise for self-government. He, Gary Whitley, must take the credit for introducing us to the d'Hondt system.
It was rather a dubious honour for Gary Whitley to be the person who found us the d'Hondt system. I can still recall the telephone call that he made to me. He said, "Mate" - I think he refers to everyone as "mate"; it is a feature of his personality - "Mate, I think I have found it. I think I have got the system which can form the basis of the circuit-breaker". The "circuit-breaker", by the way, is his terminology. And so the d'Hondt system became the basis of the circuit-breaker. Of course, what we must realise is that the original d'Hondt system that Gary Whitley brought back from Europe was very substantially modified. It was almost modified beyond recognition, but let us never forget that that was the first time that anybody had come up with anything that could form the basis of self-government today.
Gary Whitley subsequently headed the self-government unit. When I mentioned that timetable for the period from the decision of the Cabinet, to the royal assent, to the election, it was Gary Whitley who steered the ship throughout that whole period. His achievement was absolutely extraordinary. That timetable was very difficult but it was he and his team, the group of people who worked with him, who played such an important role. I know the hours that they worked. They worked many, many hours over and above the normal hours of nine to five and I would like to say that, if anybody ever wanted to see a demonstration of the devotion of public servants to the community, this was a classic one.
I know that something is being written at the moment about self-government and I would just like to state that I believe that Gary Whitley's role must be recognised in any history written about the development of self-government in the ACT. There are many stories about this period which are yet to be told - which may never be told, in fact. You know, Clyde Holding once gained a valuable concession by providing Margaret Reid with a carrot cake. During the period there were monumental exchanges with the Australian Electoral Commission, many of which will never be published for fear of the laws of defamation. The very significant and public battle over the abolition of the NCDC was part of this particular process. These were all significant developments and elements of the period.
With the legislation in place, the real battle then began. The election campaign and what might be described as the negotiation period - I do not know how the historians will refer to the period between March and 11 May but I suppose it is as good as anything to call it the negotiation period - initiated Canberra to a whole new world of falsehood, innuendo, unsubstantiated allegation and character assassination, all of them essentially initiated
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