Page 3368 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 24 November 1992
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(c) is or has been bankrupt, has applied to take the benefit of any law for the relief of bankrupt or insolvent debtors, has compounded with creditors or has made an assignment of remuneration for their benefit.".
Madam Speaker, this provision is one on which I gather we have no agreement and we are going to have to argue it. It was the intention of the Liberal Party in bringing forward these amendments to provide the strongest possible protection for the process of drawing boundaries and otherwise conducting elections in the ACT. I make no apology for the fact that basically we have plagiarised legislation from all over the country to establish the best and most extensive protections that might be afforded in legislation from around the country to the electoral process in the Territory and thence to the citizens of the ACT. Consequently, we have picked up a number of provisions - quite often provisions that exist or have been created by Labor jurisdictions - to put in the Bill those sorts of guardians against corruption, fraud or manipulation of the electoral process.
The provisions that were our guide in this particular case, Madam Speaker, came from Queensland and Victoria. Victoria, for example - I think it was the Cain Government at the time - enacted legislation, and I will quote from Part 5 of their Constitution Act Amendment Act:
The Governor in Council must not appoint any person to be the Electoral Commissioner who -
(a) is a member of a registered political party; or
(b) has been a member of a political party at any time during the period of 5 years (whether before or after the commencement of section 4(2) of The Constitution Act Amendment (Electoral Reform) Act 1988) immediately preceding the date of the proposed appointment.
That obviously was designed to make sure that the person appointed to sit on the Electoral Commission - in this case the commissioner himself or herself - was a person whose integrity could not be attacked on the basis of any connection or association with a political party.
The provision was also picked up very recently - in fact, in the last few months, I understand - in Queensland, which, as members will know, has recently undergone a very extensive process of strengthening their electoral legislation, no doubt with a legacy of the Bjelke-Petersen Government in mind. Their provision occurs in their Electoral Act and is provided in section 14. It says:
The Governor in Council must terminate the appointment of an appointed commissioner if the appointed commissioner -
(a) ...
(b) becomes a member of a political party;
... ... ...
The question that has to be asked, Madam Speaker, is this: Why should we not have for our political process every reasonable form of protection that exists in other places in this country? Why should we not provide for the examples of other States to be incorporated in our legislation if they are clearly considered by
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