Page 4682 - Week 15 - Thursday, 21 November 1991
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MR HUMPHRIES (3.58): We have done the full turn now, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker. There was a time when the Labor Party was very happy to portray the Liberal Party and probably also the others on this side of the house as the great friends of the d'Hondt system, the ones who held the d'Hondt system to our breast and secretly coveted its reassuring certainty of creating many non-Labor seats. I recall Mr Berry's accusation that I was a lover of the Hill amendment or something of that kind. It now turns out, apparently, that the real friend of the d'Hondt system - the "discredited d'Hondt" system, as this MPI refers to it - is the Labor Party. It is the party that is prepared to defend it in this Assembly.
Mr Kaine: I always said that they were the most conservative party in the Assembly.
MR HUMPHRIES: Indeed. The most conservative party in the Assembly apparently wants to keep things just the way they are, with the nice, satisfying d'Hondt system with its nice, protective 5.55 per cent threshold. I have to say, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, that I can well understand their caution, their conservatism, in this matter. They are facing a very difficult election; it is going to be a very, very tough election. Having taken government back prematurely, they are facing all sorts of problems. They are facing tremendous difficulties, and they know that they are going to miss out on many of the votes that they would have expected if they had not taken back government when they did. Nonetheless, that is their problem.
Mr Duby: Stolen.
MR HUMPHRIES: "Stolen", yes, is a much better word. They stole back government. But that is not a problem that I am going to mention today.
Mr Duby: They bought it with a bouncing cheque.
MR HUMPHRIES: Yes, I approve of that terminology. Labor bought government back with a bouncing cheque and are now caught holding the goods.
Mr Duby: Just ask the Rally.
MR HUMPHRIES: Indeed. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I remind the Assembly, as if anyone would have forgotten, that the Labor Party introduced the whole concept of d'Hondt not only to this Assembly but also to this country in 1988. It was a relatively clever device that was introduced by the then Minister for Territories, Gary Punch, to break a longstanding deadlock.
I can recall meeting, in my capacity as the then president of the Liberal Party in the ACT, with the then president of the Labor Party in the ACT, one R. Follett, to discuss the question of what we could do to break the deadlock about self-government. Ms Follett was happy to discuss with me
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