Page 398 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 19 February 1991
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I know that the goal, of course, would be an electoral system that they think would return them. Ms Follett remarked in her comments earlier today that Mr Collaery's definition of a good electoral system is one that gets him back. Probably the only electoral system that would operate for Mr Duby would be a hereditary peerage, but I suspect that that is a system that would not find favour with his other Alliance colleagues. So one wonders, "What would be the complex, convoluted hash of a system that would emerge from the Alliance Cabinet process?", and there it is. It would be the Hagenbach-Bischoff system with a Droop quota and Robson rotation. That, no doubt, would be the bizarre outcome of this Government having power over an electoral system.
Mr Speaker, this is obviously a very serious matter. The decision as to what electoral system should apply is of central importance. We debated this, I think, last week; we will probably debate it again next week, or the week after. This chronic process of spreading out the business paper is becoming a regular feature of the Government's operations, but no doubt that will proceed.
Mr Speaker, in discussing electoral systems, I must make some remarks reiterating what was said by the Leader of the Opposition this afternoon on the fairly bizarre statements we have heard from those opposite on the proposal to amend the existing d'Hondt system, to simplify it and remove the Hill amendments, because that, from what we understand, is the likely result that will be inflicted upon us by the Federal Government. I think it is relevant to discuss this because the Chief Minister said that he thinks this Assembly, which is controlled by this Government, ought to have the power to itself amend the electoral system. So one is entitled, in this debate, to speculate on what this Government would do.
We look again at this complete contradiction in Residents Rally policy. As I said, we cannot find anything in the pink book, but on 2CN yesterday Mr Collaery said, "With any d'Hondt gerrymander that is being proposed by the Federal Government, out will go the Liberal chances of being back in government". So he says that this is a d'Hondt gerrymander. Pure d'Hondt, he says, is a d'Hondt gerrymander; it is a terrible thing; getting rid of the Hill amendment, pure d'Hondt, is a terrible thing. Yet the transcript of this inquiry, at page 192, shows that Mr Jensen was asked this question by Senator Schacht:
The wrinkles you want to get out of the system, I presume from reading this, are basically the Hill amendments.
And Mr Jensen said:
That is right.
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