Page 393 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 19 February 1991
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MR DUBY: What we have, of course, is that when he was introducing the ACT Electoral Bill in 1988, the guru of the Right, Senator Richardson, said:
The d'Hondt system is a people's House system. It is very familiar to and respected by the democracies of Europe. It has been used for many years in countries such as Austria, Belgium, Finland, West Germany and the Netherlands, all of which enjoy the reputation of being democratic, stable and prosperous states.
Under this system, all contestants are elected as accurately as possible in accordance with the proportion of votes received.
Of course, that is something that we all know the Labor Party would not like to see introduced. He further said:
The system is completely neutral between contestants and satisfies the stability side of the equation by ensuring that the party or parties with a majority of votes will command a majority of the seats.
That is something that the Labor Party under Ms Follett, and the loony Left, would hate to see come into place. That is the simple fact of the matter.
The points made by Mr Collaery about the homogeneity of the ACT are very pertinent. For someone to suggest that a single member system would not be divisive to this community is clearly not accurate. However, like my colleague, I am a democrat. I am quite prepared to - - -
Mr Berry: You like the d'Hondt system.
MR DUBY: I like the d'Hondt, and I also like PR systems. I think that a single member system in the ACT would be a disaster, but we are prepared to abide by a referendum - something which you folk are not prepared to do, something which you are dead scared of.
Mrs Grassby: We want referendums.
MR DUBY: Where was the referendum endorsed in Ms Follett's speech? The simple answer is that it was not. The whole point of her speech was to make an attack against my colleague. The fact is that we will support a referendum. With Mr Moore, we call upon the Federal Government to provide an ACT referendum to allow the people of this Territory to determine the question of the most suitable electoral system for the ACT, and not - as we know the bully boys of the Labor Party want to do - to force something on the people because they think it is to their own peculiar advantage.
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