Page 853 - Week 03 - Thursday, 14 April 1994
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radical new concepts - and the criticism can be levelled at the Government that it should have put these concepts, these ideas, these issues, on the table for the electors of the ACT to have some chance to comment on them, not necessarily even just at the referendum of 1992.
I note that Rosemary Follett, as the woman in government, the woman who led the Territory at the time of the referendum and the woman who hoped to - in fact did, as it transpired - run the Government that would be interpreting that referendum result, took no opportunity at any stage to say, "We prefer single-member electorates. That is our preferred position. But, if we are not successful on that, this is what we see the Hare-Clark system being all about". Her party, of course, had not been involved in drafting the case for Hare-Clark. She knew, or we thought she knew, that she was bound by the terms of that case as presented to the electors in the booklet sent to all their homes. Yet there was no attempt on her part to say, "Yes, we think Hare-Clark is actually all about having a rotated ballot-paper, but it is a system, we believe, or as we believe it is defined in this referendum, that allows for some kind of above-the-line voting as well, some kind of ticket arrangement. We do not think that how-to-vote cards are really part of the Hare-Clark system, and we believe this and that and the other". To describe the fox being in charge of the hen house as the way in which this Bill has been drafted and the issues have been put on the table for the consumption of the citizens of this Territory would not be an exaggeration. Certainly, the Bill before the Assembly today will need to be a very different Bill before members of this place can believe or say with confidence that this is the Hare-Clark system for which people voted in 1992.
Madam Speaker, I think the Chief Minister was given notice of these sorts of arguments some time ago, but I think she had some matters put to her in January, shortly after her famous backdown, when she was interviewed by Matthew Abraham on the ABC. When she returned from her summer holiday Mr Abraham asked her a number of questions about what she was going to be doing and how she was going to handle this electoral Bill in the Assembly. She was asked why it was that she had dropped above-the-line voting after taking all the pain and arguing for the case and putting it forward in this place. I want to quote her words. She said:
It was very clear to me that there was not support in the Assembly for that above-the-line voting system ...
That is an interesting argument. She asserts that she believes that she did not have the numbers. That is basically what she was saying with that phrase. That is a very important phrase to bear in mind, Madam Speaker, because, in looking at that argument, one has to accept that the Government has no sense of contrition about having put forward above-the-line voting. The Government does not have one iota of regret, one iota of guilt, a sense of shame even, for having put this idea forward. It follows from that that the next opportunity Ms Follett has to get the numbers to introduce some form of ticket voting system, whether it be above-the-line or below-the-line - we have to assume this on the basis of what she told the people of Canberra at that time - she will use it to give us once again bastardised Hare-Clark. We have to assume that.
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