Page 860 - Week 03 - Thursday, 14 April 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
In other words, the choices in the referendum were restricted so as to strongly advantage the major parties (Labor and Liberal) and discriminate against independents and minor parties.
I also mentioned that, when we took the vote on the ACT Electoral Bill after I called for a division, the vote was actually 16 to one. The reason I voted against it was that Canberrans were not allowed the choice of a single electorate. As I said, the mere fact that that had been the system that operated for two elections would have been a mandate for Canberrans to have that choice. Let me refer to the information that was given out to people in Canberra via the post. It was entitled "A Referendum for a new electoral system for the ACT Legislative Assembly". Under the heading "A message from the Electoral Commissioner", it says:
On polling day, Saturday 15 February 1992, you will be asked to choose between two electoral systems:
the Single Member Electorates system, or
the Proportional Representation (Hare-Clark) system.
I suggest that it would have been far more unbiased or fair to give a choice between the single electorate system and three electorates, with a Hare-Clark - proportional representation -type of system. This document mentions that the ACT will be divided into three separate electorates, of which two will elect five members each and one will elect seven members to the Legislative Assembly. However, it is very important to note - and I bring this to the attention of the ACT Electoral Commission - that on the day of the poll when people went to vote they were handed a ballot-paper that said:
Please put the number '1' in one of the boxes below to show which electoral system you believe should be used to elect members to the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly.
Leave the other box empty.
EITHER
A proportional representation (Hare-Clark) system
(as outlined in the Commonwealth's Referendum Options Description Sheet)
OR
A single member electorates system
(as outlined in the Commonwealth's Referendum Options Description Sheet)
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .