Page 3386 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 24 November 1992
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Also, Madam Speaker, we are here not just passing legislation that we happen to think is a good idea. We are not just thinking about this and saying, "Yes, let us do this and do that". We are doing something which legislators do not very often have to do, and that is to respond to a directly expressed wish of the people of the Territory. We have been given instructions in very clear terms. Those instructions were relatively specific and we are passing this legislation tonight as the first step in ensuring that that process conforms with the wishes of the electors of the Territory. I believe, Madam Speaker, that it is appropriate, therefore, to use the device of a preamble to make it clear that we are enacting not just the wishes of the Assembly but the wishes of the people of the Territory.
MR MOORE (9.48): Madam Speaker, this is a very sensible amendment. We heard an interjection from Mr Stevenson a short while ago expressing his dissatisfaction in some ways with the referendum. I find it very ironic that Mr Stevenson, who has long advocated a referendum system, voter's veto and so forth, is now finding difficulty with the results of a referendum because the questions that he would like to have asked were not asked. That is one of the great difficulties with either a referendum or polls, for that matter, Madam Speaker. Questions can be asked in such a way as either to elicit specific answers or not to provide a full range of information. With referendum questions there often is debate as to just how wide the range of questions should go. Obviously, you cannot have 30 or 40 questions on a referendum. On the other hand, is it enough to ask just one and two. That is a difficulty that Mr Stevenson seems to have and that no doubt he will respond to.
Mr Stevenson: You are not wrong.
MR MOORE: He may choose not to, of course. Madam Speaker, this preamble that Mr Humphries has moved as an amendment, I think, is a very positive idea. It sets the legislation in context and makes it more readable. I think we have moved very well in the direction of making legislation in the ACT more readable. There is still further to go and I think we all need to work on that.
MR STEVENSON (9.50): Mr Moore says that it is somewhat ironic that, because I so strongly agree with the right of citizens in Canberra to have some say as to what happens to them, by polling and so on, I have made comments about the referendum they were given in February this year and the choice of one of two questions to do with what electoral system they wanted. It is not ironic. It is the very reason that I ask that people be given a choice. There must be a choice. Everybody in here knows full well the point I make: That to leave out of the referendum the choice that most people in Canberra would agree with was appalling. To leave out the choice that the Australian Electoral Commission recommended is not okay.
I have listened to the debate this evening. I suggested earlier that, if somebody disagreed with that, let them present a reasonable viewpoint as to why the people should not have been given three choices rather than just two. One could have suggested d'Hondt, but because of the publicity about d'Hondt most people would not have wanted a say on d'Hondt. However, let us look at d'Hondt. It is fair to say that the d'Hondt system in the past has given a fairer proportional representative result than may be given in an election under the changed system as proposed by this Bill. Mr Lamont frowns a little. People had the opportunity with the d'Hondt system of at least getting some reasonable representation proportionally. As we all know, under the system proposed with three
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