Page 400 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 19 February 1991
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I am concerned as to whether this is entirely accurate, because I do understand that there was in fact some form of ballot of executive members of the Residents Rally for positions on the ticket. It would be a most serious matter indeed if this statement about self-selection was inaccurate and amounted in some way to misleading of the parliamentary committee. I hope that that is not the case, but I have certainly heard that there was indeed a form of balloting and that executive members of the Residents Rally cast a ballot. Therefore, they were not self-selecting.
Mr Berry: Who told us that?
MR CONNOLLY: I hear things from pillars. I will await with great interest any remarks from members of the Residents Rally present at the time. So, Mr Speaker, any electoral system that is formulated by this Residents Rally is a system that we certainly could not view with confidence. For that reason, we think it would be quite bizarre for this Assembly to be given now the power to determine the electoral system for the Territory because, as we say, it has no mandate. The proper and democratic process is to hold a referendum of the voters of this Territory to determine the electoral system. We are very confident that the outcome will be the system that people know and understand, that is, single member electorates, and that d'Hondts, modified d'Hondts, and Hagenbach-Bischoff Droop quota with Robson rotation systems will be uniformly rejected by the electorate.
MR KAINE (Chief Minister) (8.21): Mr Speaker, when Mr Connolly got to his feet and made his opening remarks I thought this was going to be a serious debate that was going to address itself to the issues. He used words indicating that this was a motion that would receive unanimous support and I had hoped that that would be so. Unfortunately, Mr Connolly succumbed to the temptation to strike out and attack people and I think that that detracted from his argument. I think that people reading the Hansard of this debate in the future will wonder why Mr Connolly diverted the substance of this debate into this personal attack, this really irrelevant trivia in terms of the subject matter that is under debate. I think it is a great pity that Mr Connolly allowed himself to fall for that trap.
Mr Speaker, I think this is an issue that the Assembly ought to have a unanimous view about. After all of the verbiage is stripped away when this debate is over I doubt whether there will be anybody around this Assembly tonight who will have argued against the proposition put forward in Mr Moore's motion.
I just have to take issue with Mr Connolly. This question of a mandate is an interesting debate; but I would submit, Mr Speaker, that if you added up the percentage of the voting electorate represented by the people sitting on this side of the house you would find that it outstrips the
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