Page 3369 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 24 November 1992
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other States to be valid ways of protecting the political process and the electoral process? In a sense I would argue to you that it is very hard to have too many barriers or safeguards against the abuse of the process, and that is the case here. The two provisions provided for here are to ensure that those who are involved in the political process in certain defined ways should not be the same sort of people who actually become electoral commissioners and guide, from what should be a position of neutrality, the process of the ACT's drawing of boundaries and conducting of elections.
My amendment refers to a number of categories which are ineligible. One is a person who has been a member of a political party at any time during the last five years. Basically, the provision from Victoria is picked up and applied here, almost without amendment. Paragraph (b) broadens that very slightly to cover people who are not just members or have been members of parties but people who have stood as candidates in elections either for the Assembly or for other parliaments around the country during that same period. Very clearly, a number of people in our community do get involved in politics or attempt to become involved in politics otherwise than as a member of a political party, and it is appropriate, I would argue, that those people should, similarly, be put at some distance from the sensitive process of drawing boundaries and the like. This is, again, a protection for the integrity of the process we are putting in place.
The third point is that we make bankrupts and those who have applied for the benefit of bankruptcy laws ineligible to be commissioners. I have nothing against bankrupts or people in this category personally, but I concede that there is a real perception that such people might be considered to be at risk in that process and constitute some weak link in the chain which conducts those important processes. That, no doubt, Madam Speaker, is why every other jurisdiction in this country, to my knowledge, State and Federal, has the same barrier. It is a provision which is universal, and it will be universal unless the ACT chooses not to accept this amendment. This is not meant to be an attack on the status of bankruptcy. It is an acknowledgment, I believe, that in this situation bankruptcy might be incompatible with a person doing that job without fear or favour.
Madam Speaker, it has been suggested, and I think the argument will be put forward, that we have here other processes - for example, the amendment being put forward by Mr Moore - which will protect the process of appointing a commissioner. If we have a person who comes forward who is an obvious political stooge, for example, then Mr Moore's amendment, which provides for the Assembly to disallow that appointment, if it is carried - and I think it will be - will provide all the protection that we need. I would say, Madam Speaker, that that is not the case. There are other problems which might occur which might not be picked up by that process. Obviously, no government is going to bring forward an obviously political appointee in these circumstances; but they could, with the greatest respect, possibly consider bringing forward an appointee who is not clearly political, but in fact, nonetheless, has an association with a particular party that might be in government at the time. That person will often have been a member of the party concerned.
Therefore, this is in a sense a test of honesty. Political parties in this Territory and other places, to my knowledge, do not publish lists of their members, so it is very much a question of a person who puts themselves forward as a candidate for this position ensuring that they fit all the tests of integrity and honesty which are required for a person holding that office. That means them honestly answering
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