Page 382 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 19 February 1991
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With this tradition that goes back to the turn of the century in State and Federal elections, over much of that time there has been an allowance for voters not only to give a first preference, but to give other preferences as well. The vast majority of people would agree that the reason that the Minister responsible for Territories has proposed that Canberrans not be allowed to use their preferences is to do whatever he can, or the Federal Government can, to ensure that people have as little possibility as they can of voting for independent candidates.
Ms Follett: What about Abolish Self Government candidates?
MR STEVENSON: It is interesting that Ms Follett brings up the matter of the Abolish Self Government Coalition. Indeed, the proposal that Mr Simmons makes would benefit us as against the proposal that I would now recommend, namely, that the people be given a say. Obviously enough, if you check the records, you will find that a party such as the Residents Rally got a great number of second preferences and so on. The Abolish Self Government Coalition did not. The system that he recommends would benefit me. But, as usual, that should not be the criterion that one determines something on. It should be done on what is best for the people of Canberra. The best situation for the people of Canberra is, firstly, to give them a say on what sort of electoral system they will use.
The majority of people in Canberra, 60 per cent - and we have surveyed it - actually prefer a proportional representative system. They believe that people should not be disenfranchised. Under the system proposed by the Federal Labor Government, if that system had been used in the last election, it would have disenfranchised some 37 per cent of the electorate. Their votes would have meant nothing. If we look at the exact statements that the Minister made in an earlier media release of 18 September last year, in section 4 of that statement he said:
Voters cannot express valid preferences for candidates of more than one party, or one independent candidate.
That is an incredible situation. He went on with point 6 and said:
When an independent candidate is allocated a seat, any further quotients received by him or her are disregarded.
Those quotients, of course, are votes. So the votes received by the independent candidate would be disregarded.
This situation, if accepted by the Federal Government, would create a far worse gerrymander in the ACT than ever existed under Joh Bjelke-Petersen in Queensland. The Democrats are obviously very strongly against any such
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