Page 78 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 12 February 1991
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fix it up this time they should give responsibility for it to the ACT and let this ACT Assembly make those arrangements, including the arrangements for a referendum.
There is no doubt that the people of Canberra need to have a say in what form their electoral system should take, and they do have well informed views on that. It is my view that the vast majority of them would prefer single member electorates, and I suspect that there are a number of members opposite who secretly harbour a yen for their own little electorate. I think Mr Kaine would be well satisfied if he had to appeal to and serve in any detail only the electors of, say, Mawson and Isaacs and his immediate area. (Extension of time granted)
I suspect also that Mr Humphries would be well pleased if he could look only to the voters in Red Hill and the surrounding area for his support. I suspect that Mr Moore would like to have to concentrate only on Reid, where he feels that he knows the issues best and where he is known best. Mr Stevenson, of course, leaves us a bit mystified. He would have to be representing the Assembly building, or at least the first floor of it, and make a genuine attempt to abolish it. I think that might pose some difficulties for him, as most matters do.
So the electoral system must be changed; that is common ground amongst all parties. I know that, in the Federal Parliament at the moment, attempts are being made to get some changes through, and I am sure that everybody in this Assembly would support Mr Simmons and the other Federal members and senators involved in that process. The system we have at the moment is like a camel; it is like a horse designed by a committee - it does not suit anyone, it is the ultimate compromise, and it did not work. I hope that on this occasion commonsense will prevail, and that the next election does see us with a much better electoral system.
There are just a couple of other matters which I would like to touch on in closing. One of them, which is dealt with in the report and in the Government's response, is the role of the Governor-General in relation to this Assembly. I believe that the creation of this ACT Assembly and its executive without a vice-regal representative and an executive council was a major step forward in the process of democracy in Australia. It is a model that I think others should copy. It makes for straightforward law making and straightforward implementation. The decisions of this Assembly are notified in the Territory Gazette without that process of rubber-stamping, as you might call it, that we see in other parliaments, and I think that is correct.
There is one other matter that I would like to mention, and that is that, in responding to this report, the Government made the astonishing claim that it wishes to investigate the role of an administrator for the ACT. As far as I am
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