Page 3372 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 24 November 1992
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
minor that in this community nobody around the place knows about it, I really wonder whether we would need to worry about it. If Fred Bloggs five years ago decided in a particular campaign that he was going to support the Greens Party because he felt that they had an environmental policy that surpassed all others and he gave very short-term assistance in a political campaign by handing out a couple of how-to-vote cards for an hour, I do not think that that should be a problem.
The other concern I have is a concern I expressed to Mr Humphries. The difficulty is that to a certain extent it expresses a tone that if you join a political party at any stage you cannot be trusted. Granted, this is specific to being an electoral commissioner and being involved in setting boundaries and so forth. It has that tone. I believe that there are enough protections in the Bill, with the amendments that other members have agreed to, and therefore I have decided to oppose this amendment.
Mr De Domenico: And you will not change your mind between now and when we vote on it?
MR MOORE: Quite possibly.
MR HUMPHRIES (9.04): Obviously, there is not much point in debating this at great length. I just want to make a few quick points in response to some points that have been raised. The omission of reference to Independents or associates of political parties, as Ms Follett put it, was a reflection of the fact that it is difficult to define what we mean by that. The phrase I had originally was that a person who had electioneered on behalf of a candidate or party should be disqualified. The very amorphous nature of that concept made the Liberal Party believe that we should remove it.
I find it puzzling to hear Ms Follett say that we could have this sort of protection if we were going to be comprehensive about the matter, but if we cannot be clear about that we should not have any protection at all of this kind. Surely, covering what probably would be 90 per cent of the field is better than covering none of the field, and that is the point of this amendment. It might not catch every person who would be biased, but we would catch some of them who would be biased or were perceived to be biased, and that is the point of the amendment.
Ms Follett suggested that modern drafting practices left out bankruptcy. If she looks at the amendments carried to the Commonwealth Electoral Act earlier this year, I think she will find that there was no attempt there to remove bankruptcy as a disqualification of a commissioner. If that really is modern drafting practice it would have been done there; but it has not been, to my knowledge.
Finally, Madam Speaker, Ms Follett suggested that I was suspicious of people who might be appointed under this process. No, Madam Speaker. I do not know who those people are going to be, so I cannot be suspicious of them; but I am suspicious of governments. I am suspicious of governments that have the levers of power at their fingertips and that are tempted by the way they make those decisions and pull those levers to have particular outcomes resolved.
This is not a reflection on the present ACT Government; it is comment on governments generally. We have seen countless examples from governments on both sides of the political spectrum who have chosen on occasions to manipulate circumstances - sometimes by a very small amount, sometimes by a great deal -
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .