Page 2629 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 14 October 1992
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for what are termed unemployment benefits. I do not think there is any benefit from being unemployed. I repeat that 1.7 million people are getting benefits, when the figure, we are told, is less than one million. We talk about local figures of 8.3 per cent unemployed, and an unemployed youth figure of 56 per cent. I suggest that the figures are being fudged, to put it nicely.
How can you get a figure of less than one million when 1.7 million people are collecting money? I suggest that you could say that anybody is employed if they work two hours or more a week. That is one way. You can also say that anyone is employed if they are working for no money within a family business. In various other ways you can say that people are employed when they are not employed. There are many people who want to work part time. At least 7 per cent of the work force in Australia have indicated that, while they are on part-time work, they want full-time employment. If you add that 7 per cent figure to the supposed 11 per cent figure in Australia, or the 8.3 per cent figure in Canberra, you find an alarming result indeed. That is just for that 7 per cent figure. In reality, there appears to be far more. With the grave concern we have about youth unemployment - - -
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! The time for the MPI has expired, Mr Stevenson.
ELECTORAL BILL 1992
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (4.07): Madam Speaker, I present the Electoral Bill 1992.
Title read by Clerk.
MS FOLLETT: I move:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
Members will recall, Madam Speaker, that on 8 September I outlined to the Assembly the Government's timetable for the implementation of the Hare-Clark electoral system. This will be in two stages. Stage one involves the Electoral Bill 1992. The second stage will include the development of comprehensive electoral legislation for the ACT during 1993 which will provide in detail for the conduct of elections. The passage of the present Bill will allow determination of electoral boundaries to be carried out while the necessarily complex further legislation is developed.
Madam Speaker, the development of the ACT electoral system must occur within the parameters set by the Commonwealth self-government Act and the ACT Electoral Act. Some elements of the ACT legislation are dictated by the Commonwealth legislation, and others are only guided by it. For example, the ACT is bound by the quota formula set out in section 67D of the self-government Act and by the list of topics that the substantive electoral legislation will need to cover. These are set out in section 67B of the self-government Act.
I turn to today's Bill. The Electoral Bill establishes an Electoral Commission for the ACT and sets out an independent procedure for the determination of electoral boundaries. It is largely modelled on the Commonwealth Electoral Act. There has been some public discussion about the need for a separate ACT Electoral Commission. However, as a legislature we should remember that we are
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