Page 3382 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 24 November 1992
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MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (9.35): Madam Speaker, the amendment that Mr Moore has moved gives the Government no trouble and we will be supporting it. It merely seeks to increase the tolerance on the margins. Again I think it is a bit of a belt and braces approach because the later parts of the same clause of this Bill require that the Electoral Commission take into account the kinds of issues that Mr Moore mentioned, including things like community of interest, means of communication and travel, the boundaries of existing electorates and so on. Nevertheless, Madam Speaker, if members feel that it is important to allow that increased tolerance in order to make sure that the commission is able to fully implement that part of the clause, I have no difficulty with it.
Amendment agreed to.
MR HUMPHRIES (9.36): I move:
Subparagraph 30(c)(v), page 9, line 19, omit", sections and blocks", substitute "and sections".
This relates to the last of the criteria referred to in paragraph (c) of clause 30. Instead of saying that the augmented commission will consider the boundaries of divisions, sections and blocks, it provides that it will consider the boundaries of divisions and sections. We should not have a commission which is looking at the boundaries of blocks. It would be unfortunate if the commission were to feel that it ought to be looking at the boundaries of blocks - that is, blocks within sections - to draw the boundaries for electoral divisions.
Clearly, we would hope, given what Mr Moore has just successfully moved in the Assembly, that boundary lines did not cross the ridges surrounding townships; but we acknowledge that there may be occasions where, for the sake of complying with the formula in clause 30, it does have to come down off the ridges and come into the lines that divide suburbs. It might even be the case in certain circumstances - hopefully very rare, if ever - that those boundaries have to leave the main roads that divide suburbs and move into the suburbs themselves and travel along streets that divide sections one from another.
I sincerely hope that we never see boundaries drawn which divide blocks one from another, so that Mrs Jones, who is living on a contiguous block to Mrs Smith, is in a different electorate. That would be most undesirable. I think that, by making it clear that we are going to consider the divisions and the sections, but not necessarily the blocks, we do not entirely preclude that possibility but we do make it less likely that the commission would feel free to draw a boundary travelling down the edge of a block.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause, as amended, agreed to.
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