Page 387 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 19 February 1991
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MR COLLAERY: I make the point that, although I and the Residents Rally endorse a referendum, one has to take very great care in its management. It should be done off-shore, organised by the Commonwealth Government and funded by the Commonwealth Government. I support those arguments. But the history to date of the performance of the local ALP, with its scurrilous Insider magazine, with its outrageous statements which call upon fear, apathy and ignorance, indicates the level of debate that a referendum is likely to attract in the Territory at this stage. Of course, we should all support a referendum.
MS FOLLETT (Leader of the Opposition) (4.21): Unlike members opposite, I am rather surprised at Mr Moore having put this up as a matter of public importance because it seems to me that it is a matter on which there really cannot be a great deal of debate. I would be amazed - and, in fact, I have not seen - that anybody in this Assembly would argue against the proposition that the ACT people are entitled to a fair and equitable electoral system. Nobody has argued against that so far. I do not see why there is the necessity for debate on that.
Also, in relation to the question of a referendum, I believe that that has also been the subject of an Assembly report. Again, that did not lead to any great division amongst the membership here. As an issue that needs airing and needs debate, I think the Government has seized upon it only because of their total lack of business.
I will speak again in support of the Labor Party's position as to what is a fair and equitable electoral system for the ACT. That is, of course, a system of single member electorates. Single member electorates have the enormous advantage that people understand what it means. It seems to me that the entire debate about an electoral system for the ACT revolves around two issues: First of all, that the system that we currently have took two months to count, and secondly, that the system that we currently have threw up the people we currently see in this Assembly. They are the issues. I believe that people wrongly attribute the result to the system. I do not.
Nevertheless, the most commonly understood and the most commonly used system in Australia is a system of single member electorates. It is used in the lower house of the Federal Parliament and in the lower house in all other mainland State and Territory parliaments, including those parliaments where there is only one house, in effect, Queensland and the Northern Territory.
It has a number of advantages because the electoral process itself and the outcome are readily understood. The voters do have a local member whom they can approach and whom they know. Electorates can be established to reflect discrete
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