Page 869 - Week 03 - Thursday, 14 April 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Let us stick to the business at hand. Let us produce at the end of this debate an Act that provides what the people of Canberra asked for, and that is a system that is the same as that which is used in Tasmania. I hope, from now on, that we can confine our debate to that question; that we can eliminate those things that are in this Bill that do not achieve that objective and come up with an Act that will do just what the people want, and nothing more, and nothing less.
MR MOORE (4.11): Madam Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise to speak on the Electoral (Amendment) Bill. I would like to address some of the contentious issues while at the same time recognising the great deal of work that has gone into such an extensive Bill which is so important for this Territory. We have the extraordinary opportunity, with this Bill containing over 300 clauses, to be able to establish our own electoral system. We have the extra benefit of a referendum which has clearly expressed the view of the people of the ACT that their preference is for the Hare-Clark system as it is used in Tasmania. Madam Speaker, when I say, "as it is used in Tasmania", my mind immediately goes to the fact that there are a number of electorates in Tasmania, not just one electorate, in spite of the fact that the population of Tasmania is not so different from the population of the ACT. I shall come back to that matter, Madam Speaker, when I address some of the points raised by Dennis Stevenson and his allegations of fraud.
I think it is most important, though, Madam Speaker, to address the attempted fraud of the Labor Government in attempting to introduce the above-the-line ticket voting option. It would be churlish to go into that in too much depth because, clearly, the Labor Party has finally agreed to do the right thing - to recognise the result of the referendum and to deliver it. I heard the Chief Minister speaking this morning on the Matthew Abraham show, and my understanding of what she said was that, unequivocally, she would not support a ticket voting option. If that is not the case, the Chief Minister has the opportunity to correct me. I believe that Labor, in the end, has done the right thing, and that is due to the fact that there is a minority government here. They are accountable to the Assembly. If that was not the fact, Madam Speaker, this is one example of how the people of the ACT would have missed out.
Madam Speaker, the second issue that I think needs to be addressed is that of how-to-vote cards. It seems to me that, when we talk about the electoral system as used in Tasmania, the perception of the people who voted is of a system without how-to-vote cards. However, it is fair to say that how-to-vote cards did not appear in the referendum sheet that was given to the people of the ACT. Therefore, it is not an issue of the same magnitude that we talk about in terms of the way Labor have voted. They have indicated quite clearly that they will support how-to-vote cards. The amendment put forward by Gary Humphries to have how-to-vote cards used only 100 metres from a polling booth is, I think, a very sensible amendment because it deals with the issue that has gone to the High Court about the right of people to publish and to present material to others. However, at the same time, it works, in what is clearly an acceptable way, to restrict people as to how close they are to a polling booth. At the moment the Bill says six metres. The proposal is a simple change to 100 metres.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .