Page 406 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 19 February 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
first preference is to remove some of the wrinkles out of the current system and give it another go. Failing that we would then look to the possibility of three multimember electorates based on the Hare-Clark system with the Robson amendment if the d'Hondt system does not prove successful in its second time.
Mr Speaker, there is a very interesting matter in relation to this proposal for the Hare-Clark system and the Robson rotation. We know full well that the people opposite, unlike the Liberal Party, are scared, are terrified of the application of an electoral system with a Robson rotation to any parliament in Australia, and for a very simple reason. In Tasmania, where the Hare-Clark system operates, 40 per cent of the people who are removed at each election are replaced by members from their own group, from their own party. So what does that do, Mr Speaker? It removes the opportunity for the party machines within the Labor Party, for the Left and Right, if you like, to rotate the numbers down the ticket.
Mr Wood: You mob will not be rotated, will you? You are going to re-endorse yourselves, aren't you?
MR JENSEN: It removes that and the people decide. The people do the preselection, Mr Wood; not the Labor Party, not the machines, not the branches. It is done by the people of Tasmania. They decide the order of those members within the Labor Party. We have seen how, in the past in Tasmania, one particular Labor member - a senior Labor member - got a bit slack and idle, and found himself out on his ear at the next election. He had forgotten about the people who preselected him - that is, the people who voted for him. That is why the people opposite are concerned and scared about any suggestion that we should have a Robson rotation proposal within the ACT.
Mr Berry: I might raise a point of order. I do not think the debate is about the Robson rotation either.
MR JENSEN: They are worried about it, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Order! I do believe that it is around the point. Please proceed, Mr Jensen.
MR JENSEN: Let me now move onto some comments in relation to the control of the electoral system by the ACT Legislative Assembly. I quote from page 1 of a submission that was produced by the Rally to both committees that looked at this issue. This answers Mr Connolly's point. It says:
However, while the Legislative Assembly should have control over its electoral system, any changes should not be by a simple majority on the floor of the Assembly. Any change should only follow after a referendum in which at least two
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .