Page 4688 - Week 15 - Thursday, 21 November 1991
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MR DUBY: If you want to get into bed and call yourself a major party, feel free, Dr Kinloch, because they would have scorn heaped upon them by most thinking people. As a result, we would wind up with nothing but the two old guard parties left in this Assembly, and that would be a real shame for the ACT electorate. That is what the Labor Party is hoping for.
If that were to happen, it would mean that the Labor Party might well pull - let us pick a figure - 35 per cent or 30 per cent of the valid vote but still wind up electing nine, 10 or even 11 if they have them - do they have 11 candidates? I cannot remember - members elected. The Liberal Party, with an abysmal showing of 20 to 25 per cent of the vote, would probably wind up getting six or seven members elected. That would suit the major parties entirely. I am pleased to see that Mr Humphries and Mr Stefaniak are taking the big picture approach and supporting the change from the d'Hondt system when it probably is, in all honesty, to the disadvantage of their party to do so. I commend the Liberal Party for doing that.
The debate is then switched onto the coming referendum. We have heard the protagonists for and against both the single-member and Hare-Clark systems. I shall not get into that debate because, as a representative of the Hare-Clark Independence Party, I think it is fairly apparent which way I would go. I just suggest that, of all people, they could not have picked a worse person than Mr Wood to argue the point for single-member electorates because Mr Wood, as you know, is non-factioned. It means that if there were single-member electorates Mr Wood would not be in this Assembly because he would not have the numbers to control a branch and as a result he would not get the nomination from a branch for a seat.
It would be interesting to see what would happen under those circumstances: We would wind up with a parliament of 17, as has been suggested already, with perhaps 11 or 12 from the Left and maybe five or six from the Right. People like Mr Wood, who may represent a faction that is different from the two majors, would be left out in the cold. I would not be at all surprised if, when people like Bill Wood and other like-minded members of the Labor Party cast their vote in the referendum on 15 February, the party coordinators, such as Mr Berry, insist that a scrutineer go into the box with them to make sure that they do cast a vote for single-member electorates and follow the party line.
Mr Connolly: On a point of order: Mr Duby would be aware that he is suggesting that the Deputy Chief Minister would in some way breach the Commonwealth Electoral Act in respect of electoral referendum voting. It is a really appalling suggestion to make.
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