Page 397 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 19 February 1991
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other parts of the country; that this antediluvian approach to preserving the votes of sheep and cows as against the votes of people will no longer prevail in that upper house; and that we will have a situation where all Australian legislatures with a bicameral system will be based on fair electoral systems.
Mr Speaker, there was some discussion earlier in the debate on the matter of public importance. The Chief Minister was asserting the need for this Assembly to have power to determine the electoral system, and straightaway. The Chief Minister said, "There is no reason why that power ought to be delayed until perhaps after the next election". He suggested some sinister political compromise on that matter between the Federal Labor Government and the Labor Party in this Territory. In effect, he challenged anyone to give a reason why the power to determine the electoral system ought not to be delayed until after the next election.
Well, Mr Speaker, there is a very simple reason for that. It goes back to some remarks I made the other week on the questions of mandate. No party in this Assembly went to the people at the last election with a clear position saying what they would do about the electoral system. I looked in vain in the pink book put out by the Residents Rally for any reference to electoral systems. I could not find any.
If this parliament is to have control over its electoral system it ought to be handed over after the next election so that the Liberal Party, the Residents Rally and the Australian Labor Party can go to the people at the next election and say, "This is the electoral system that we would favour". Then, whichever party won government could claim to have a mandate to effect its reforms of the electoral system. That, Mr Speaker, is a simple answer to the Chief Minister's question.
This Government, which, as we have regularly said, lacks a mandate for anything, clearly lacks a mandate to itself determine an electoral system for Canberra. It made me think what sort of electoral system this lot would inflict upon us if they had the chance, if they had the power. The track record of Alliance Government decision-making is to mix up the entire range of options and come out with a total hash. I looked in the Federal parliamentary inquiry report and wondered just how you could create an electoral system that was less satisfactory, more complex and more convoluted than the d'Hondt system with the Hill amendments. Looking at the range of possible electoral systems from the glossary in the Federal report, I thought I could see the electoral system that would emerge from the process of the Alliance Cabinet.
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