Page 861 - Week 03 - Thursday, 14 April 1994
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I suggest that that was entirely misleading. The key is three electorates, not Hare-Clark. It is not Hare-Clark; it is three electorates. It is important to mention that it is the Hare-Clark counting system that is going to be used. I think it is an excellent system, but the number of electorates is far more important. It is important to make the point again that Hare-Clark can be used for electorates with many different numbers of members. It can be used for a 17-member electorate, a single electorate, as well as three electorates with five, five and seven members. People in Canberra were never allowed a choice. I took the opportunity of the debate on above-the-line voting and other matters to try to let people in Canberra know that they were never allowed the choice. I think a lot more people now understand why I say that the referendum was a fraud. The referendum was a PIR - a politician-initiated referendum. It has been suggested that I said that the referendum result was a fraud. That is not true. I have mentioned again and again that the referendum was a fraud. The result was not a fraud, because that was the only choice people had.
Another point worth making is that it has been suggested that I proposed voting tickets. That is not true. I have never proposed voting tickets. I know that they have been proposed in a number of papers around Canberra. I was looking at Izvestia recently. I do not read Russian, but I noticed the letters CT used on more than one occasion. I wondered whether they stood for Communist Times, as many people in Canberra refer to the Canberra Times as. I wondered whether they were advertising for reporters. I was thinking of suggesting that I would be happy to give some of the political reporters on the Canberra Times a reference to Izvestia, but I decided that that really would not be fair to Izvestia for, after all, they are moving towards a more democratic system.
Let me refer to the survey that we have done over the last four days. The survey was conducted from 10 to 13 April 1994 in shopping centres in Civic, Woden, Weston, Dickson, Kippax, Belconnen, Tuggeranong and Mawson. A total of 507 persons completed the survey form. As shown in the results, not all chose to answer every survey question. For example, question No. 1 received the highest response at 489, and question No. 6 the lowest at 414. Let me go through some of the questions and the results. One question said:
This first question concerns how-to-vote cards being handed out to people as they approach polling booths on election day. Should this be ... Allowed? Banned?
Sixty-two cent said "Allowed"; 25 per cent said "Banned"; 10 per cent said "Not concerned about the issue"; and 3 per cent said "Not enough information". I mentioned this morning on radio that I would agree with the proposal already in the Bill regarding how-to-vote cards being handed out. Another question was:
Should there be public funding for candidates. This means that an amount, say one dollar, would be issued to candidates for each vote (1st preference) they received at the election. Should there be public funding?
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