Page 4681 - Week 15 - Thursday, 21 November 1991
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Assembly and the Federal parliamentary committee to which the Electoral Commission had been responding recommended that a referendum be held to choose between single members and Hare-Clark.
I might mention another failure on the part of Mr Moore, and that is that, while it is a fact that the Chief Minister and the Leader of the Opposition have each vowed to respect the views of the citizens, whatever they say in this referendum, and to introduce a system that they may not prefer themselves, Mr Moore, though he had the opportunity, made no reference in his speech to that matter.
No-one else whom I have heard, other than the Electoral Commission and now Mr Moore, has ever suggested that we use that Senate system. I simply do not see any validity at all in this argument. It simply is one that advantages Mr Moore, and that is the reason for it. There are enough proposals for electoral systems - voting on this occasion under the d'Hondt system and then having to decide between single-member electorates and Hare-Clark - for us not to have any other systems thrown into the ring to add further confusion to what already is a pretty confused situation.
While I have some time available I would refute, not that it needs it, the spurious arguments of Mr Stefaniak and, on other occasions, Mr Humphries and the other Liberals, who try to run the claim that Labor would win all 17 seats in an election under the single-member system. It would be some reflection of what the Liberals are feeling, when they do their doorknocking, about the standing of Labor in this Territory; obviously, they are getting quite a deal of feedback that is supportive of the Labor Party. But, if one looks at votes at both Federal and local elections over the years, it is very hard to sustain that point of view. I have no doubt that the Labor Party will do very well, thank you; but I am not so optimistic as to think we could win up to 17 seats, even as high as 14 or so, as some people claim. One noted commentator said recently in a newspaper article that that would happen.
A clear pattern over the years, going back to the 1920s, I think, when you compare the results of local elections with those of Federal elections is that there is a very, very big difference. In my local election area in Lyneham and O'Connor, some of the best booths for Labor in Canberra at any time, I think the best vote that we obtained in the last Assembly election was 32 per cent. As one who has seen this situation before, I know that for a candidate to progress beyond that 32 per cent, to get 50 per cent plus one vote, there is a very, very long way to go. We are confident, but we are not convinced by the arguments of Messrs Humphries and Stefaniak. When the election comes, we will do well enough, thank you, and we will do well enough under any system.
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