Page 381 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 19 February 1991
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We are told that this is an era of new federalism, of special Premiers conferences in which the whole question of Commonwealth, State and Territory relations is under review. Then let us get the review done and have the powers transferred. An undertaking was given in the communique issued at the conclusion of the Special Premiers Conference in Brisbane last year that those State-type functions which the Commonwealth still retains in relation to the ACT should be reviewed. The review should now be under way, at least.
The electoral system is the issue under discussion today, but there are a number of other areas where the Commonwealth needs to transfer responsibility. These include planning, where there are difficulties and tensions inherent in the dual planning arrangements. We see them every day. Other areas include those functions performed by the Governor-General, for example, the power to disallow or amend ACT laws and the power to dissolve the Assembly. There is also the provision of police services in their totality; the classification of materials for censorship purposes; and matters relating to company law. Of course, the courts are in the process of transfer, but that is taking time too. In this context the recent decision about an additional ministry for the ACT, as I said before, indicates that the Commonwealth is at last acknowledging that the ACT has a right to determine its own destiny in these matters, and that it is not proper for the Commonwealth to retain them any longer.
I see the issue of electoral matters as part of a broader issue: the need for the Commonwealth to recognise the ACT's State-like status and, accordingly, to allow it to take up its full responsibilities. As I said before, the decision apparently having been made that these matters will transfer, there is no justification for that decision and that transfer being delayed until some time in the future and, as indicated by the Minister, after the next election, whatever the relevance of that is. I think it should be done now.
MR STEVENSON (4.02): The electoral system is certainly a matter of great public importance, but it goes a lot wider than that. In a democracy people would be allowed to have a valid say in what happens to them. We have had a Commonwealth committee of inquiry recommend that the people of the ACT be given a say on what sort of electoral system they will use to elect people for this Assembly. That was also the situation with the ACT committee of inquiry into self-government. The Federal Labor Government has chosen to ignore that. Most people in Canberra would believe that that is an appalling decision.
The proposal to do away with preferences in any election is staggering. Australia has a proud tradition of allowing certain democratic methods. Women's voting was one. Preferences, indeed, was another. Proportional representation for upper houses was another, and so on.
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