Page 4633 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 15 December 1993
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Mr Moore: It is pretty close to the mark on this issue.
MADAM SPEAKER: Excuse me, Mr Moore. As usual, whether it is right or wrong, true or not true, is not the point. It is the imputation within either an interjection or a direct comment, as you know. I am afraid, Mr Humphries, that I am going to have to ask you to withdraw that.
Mr Humphries: I withdraw.
MADAM SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Humphries.
MS FOLLETT: Madam Speaker, Ms Szuty's question to me about Robson rotation has been answered. The Robson rotation system is contained in the legislation. That system, as is recorded in the description sheet, is one where the names of candidates within party groups will not be printed in the same position within the group on every ballot-paper. That will be incorporated into the legislation. It is incorporated into the legislation.
MR MOORE: I ask a supplementary question, Madam Speaker. Mr Humphries drew attention to a visual representation of how the ballot-paper would look and how that would be undermined by above-the-line voting. Further, in the sheet that was handed out in terms of the arguments on page 8, it was also stated that the ballot-paper is simpler than the Senate's, without above-the-line and below-the-line options. Surely the Chief Minister recognises that to answer Ms Szuty's question in a clear and honest way and then to have above-the-line voting would mean that, at either that time or when introducing the legislation, the Assembly has been misled.
MS FOLLETT: No, Madam Speaker, I do not agree. As I have said on numerous occasions, the referendum was based upon the description sheet. If you look at the Commonwealth Act that sets out the referendum, you will see that it is based on those two models that are put forward on two page 2s of the referendum description sheet. That describes the single-member electorate system and it describes the Hare-Clark system.
Mr Moore: No; page 1 and page 2. It says "Description sheet continued". So it is page 1, which has a visual representation.
MS FOLLETT: The section Mr Moore has pointed to is not part of that description sheet. It is part of the "case for", if you read the heading, Mr Moore. I think it is drawing a very long bow indeed to say that that part is in some way binding. It is not. It is quite clearly a description. In fact, it is a description that, as I recall, was prepared by the Hare-Clark committee.
Mr Kaine: Are you saying that people did not vote for what was described there; they were voting for something else?
MS FOLLETT: What people voted on was not that. It was the description sheet that was incorporated in the Commonwealth's legislation, which members will see has been incorporated also into the electoral legislation they will see tomorrow.
Mr Moore: A slippery answer.
MS FOLLETT: But true.
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