Page 412 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 19 February 1991
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which is in danger of saying again that the Federal Government will decide on our election system. We do not accept it. We do not accept either the sop, the excuse, that we are to be allowed to decide our own futures next time, dear little children, but not this time. I do not accept that. I throw it back in their faces. I throw it back in the face of the Federal Labor Party, which is disgusting.
May I urgently send this message to the Federal Liberal Party and the Federal National Party: Please do not be taken in by a proposal which basically implies that we are not yet ready in 1991 to decide the system of government which should apply in this city-state. At the age of 63, after 40 years of talking about politics, I am ready to work out our own system. I do not want to be told by the Federal Government that I am a child. We should not listen to David Simmons and all his crew as they try to demean us by telling us that we cannot decide our own system.
I very much honour Mr Moore for having raised this matter today and the motion he has put forward. So I especially call on Ros Kelly: Does she think we are children not able to look after our own affairs? I call on her and on John Langmore, Senator Margaret Reid and Senator Bob McMullan to speak to their colleagues, to plead with their colleagues, to inform their colleagues, to reach out to effect the consciences of their colleagues about the nature of fully-fledged democracy. We do not want some third-rate system pushed on us from the hill.
I will not here enter into the case for single member electorates or for a more fully democratic proportional representation system. There is no doubt whatever in my mind about that. The simple-minded single member electorate is something from the past. Why does not the Labor Party drop it? In their hearts they do not believe in it. You do not believe in it, Wayne. You do not believe in it, Bill. The five of you do not believe in it. You put it forward because you think it suits you. You do not in your hearts believe in it.
All I ask is that we, the citizens of Canberra, have the right to make that decision. We should have had a referendum. That was denied us. We are now entitled to such a referendum and we should insist on it. As Junius said in 1770:
The right of election is the very essence of the constitution.
There is a Lincolnian comment we all know about - "Government of the people, by the people", et cetera. Let me look at the origin of that one as I conclude. Where it comes from, who knows. It may have come from Athens, or wherever; but certainly it came from Daniel Webster in 1830 in a speech in the Senate. What he called for was "the people's government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people".
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