Page 1460 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 11 August 1992
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members of parliament that citizens should not have this right because they cannot make informed decisions. I think one of the difficulties there is that quite often we do not allow the time or give the information that would allow people in the community to make excellent decisions.
Mr Lamont: Four years, Dennis.
MR STEVENSON: Mr Lamont mentions four years. I suggest that the vast majority of people in Canberra do not have the slightest understanding that this particular debate has been on for four years. There is a more important factor than whether debate has been occurring or whether people have been talking about a particular issue. I think the key is when legislation is tabled in parliament. All that has happened before that does not have the same import. Once specific laws are proposed one can look at those laws, look at the specific clauses, and make a decision. That is when the publicity should start; that is when the public communication and consultation should happen.
So we have conducted a survey. We surveyed 410 people. In answer to the question, "Should circuses be banned in the ACT if they show animals such as elephants, monkeys and lions?", 58.8 per cent said no, 28.5 per cent said yes, and 11.7 per cent said that they either did not have enough information to make a decision, which is an interesting point - they felt that they did not have that consultation process - or were unconcerned about that issue.
Most of the people we polled were in Woden, in the Garema Place area, outside shopping centres, or in Glebe Park. To double-check our results we are now doing a telephone poll in case some people have an understanding of who we are. When we survey we do an independent telephone poll. We telephoned 50 names selected systematically from the white pages phone book to get a random result. Of these people, 70 per cent opposed a ban, 22 per cent supported a ban, and 8 per cent either were unconcerned or did not have enough information to make a decision.
Mr Lamont: It is too small to be statistically significant.
MR STEVENSON: Mr Lamont says that the sampling was too small.
Mr Lamont: The phone poll.
MR STEVENSON: Once again the phone poll is basically to check the other poll. As for whether it is statistically correct, if anybody would like to have a little side wager with me we will go out and survey 5,000 - provided the wager is worthwhile. Once again, I think it is a reasonable thing. It was a fair question and it was done quite reasonably. I think it clearly shows us that the majority of people in Canberra would support circuses coming to Canberra. I well understand that some people may vehemently oppose that. Certainly there were people who would ban circuses and they felt very strongly about that. But one thing that did surprise me was the number of people who felt very strongly, equally, about circuses being allowed to come to Canberra. They felt just as strongly. I thought they may not feel as strongly in that case, but they do.
There is something else that I feel is quite important. We were sent - I have no doubt that this went to all members - a list of many incidents with a title at the top saying, "List of incidents involving Australian circus animals". There were 40 sent to us by people concerned with animal welfare and I think that we should look at some of these particular incidents. At item 4 it stated that in January 1978,
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