Page 390 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 19 February 1991
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fair grounds in that election". "It is successful if you get elected." Mr Collaery, that is your view - on the record.
Equally peculiar is Mr Collaery's view on the referendum. I am delighted that he now supports it, because earlier on he did not. In fact, when discussing that particular issue in the joint parliamentary inquiry the chairman said to Mr Collaery, "Would you favour a local referendum to determine the issue?", and Mr Collaery said, "Not at this stage. We think self-government is too new in the ACT. There have been a number of hiccups". Indeed, I would think that many people would consider Mr Collaery to have been a fairly major hiccup, if not a downright spasm in the whole system.
I believe that the Rally's total bankruptcy of principle or, indeed, of any sustained policy on this issue is thoroughly exposed by Mr Moore's MPI today. I believe, in fact, that a great deal of what Mr Kaine has said is absolutely true and has our support as a party. It has been stated before. I fail to see how it could be considered that the issue, arising as it does on the heels of our debate on our very own select committee, could be considered one of pressing urgency today.
MR DUBY (Minister for Finance and Urban Services) (4.31): Unlike Ms Follett, I tend to agree with every other speaker in this matter of public importance that the type of electoral system that the ACT should have in future really is a matter of public importance. I noticed that in Ms Follett's diatribe - I was going to say "speech" - against Mr Collaery, my esteemed colleague on my left - not once did she address the issue; the issue that has been brought forward as a matter of public importance by Mr Moore today.
That issue, of course, is that the Federal Government provide an ACT referendum to allow the people of the ACT to determine the question of the most suitable electoral system for the ACT. We are not here today to debate whether single member electorates, Hare-Clark, modified d'Hondt, or pure d'Hondt is the appropriate system. What Mr Moore has put up, and what every other member who has spoken today has supported, is that the Federal Government should allow the people of the ACT to put their wishes to the test at a referendum.
That, of course, as Mr Moore said in his original statement, is in line with the recommendations of the joint standing committee which inquired into the ACT electoral system. Of course, in its downputting way, when the committee put out its report it thought it was very funny to put on its cover a Pryor cartoon about the ACT polity, the ACT elections. To my way of thinking, it was downputting to the ACT Assembly and its members. Apart from that, there are also the recommendations that have been made by members of the ACT Select Committee on Self-Government which reported last year.
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