Page 428 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 19 February 1991
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Why did those on that side of the house support a referendum which would allow the community of this Territory to determine what sort electoral system it wants if really and in reality - and this is what this demonstrates - they do not want that at all? They want to impose, and they want their friends across the lake to impose, their particular version of the electoral system that they want. They are not the slightest bit interested.
Mr Berry's crowning glory was when he said that the d'Hondt system is a preferential system. The d'Hondt system is not a preferential system. But Mr Berry has quite clearly revealed his colours. He wants a single member electorate system and he does not want preferences; he wants single member electorates without preferences because he knows that that would give the Labor Party 17 seats out of 17 in this Assembly.
Neither he nor anybody else can convince me or anybody else on this side of the house or in the electorate that a 17-member Labor Assembly would be a good thing for the Territory. It would be the antithesis of a stable government. You would have Mr Connolly sitting over this side and you would have whoever was leading the Left of the Labor Party at the time - and it will not be Ms Follett - sitting over there. Bill Wood would not be here at all. The Labor Party would make sure that he gets his marching orders because he has the effrontery to dissent sometimes from what the Labor Party wants done. So you would have the ultimate in instability.
The Berry amendment shows quite clearly, for all to see, the Labor Party's predilection for ignoring public opinion, for circumventing debate. Let us not have any debate about this; let us have the Federal Labor Party impose upon us the system that the Labor Party wants! Of course, it shows their predilection for imposing Labor Party philosophy no matter what the rest of the world wants. The Labor Party, as we have debated before, got only five members out of 17 in this Assembly. They will not do any better next time round, and I do not want to hear from over there any more of that garbage about mandates. They have no mandate and they will have no better mandate in the future.
So, let there be no doubt, Mr Speaker, that, if the power of determination on this issue is transferred to the next ACT parliament and if that parliament is Labor dominated, there will be no negotiations entered into about the electoral system. Forget it and forget all this hypocrisy about referenda and the like; that is not what the Labor Party is on about. They are on about imposing their will irrespective. It is quite clear that Mr Berry, if not the rest of his members of the Labor Party, is looking for a single member, first past the post system. That would be their preference. Forget the preferences; forget this
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