Page 1159 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 April 1994
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Commonwealth Electoral Act. Two parties in this place, at least, and possibly others who contest elections for the ACT Assembly, are both Federal and Territorial parties, and those parties will be responsible for producing returns both for the Australian Electoral Commission and for the ACT Electoral Commission.
I think it is unfortunate that we put ourselves in the position of having different reporting requirements in those two places, because very often the paperwork necessary for one has to be quite different from the paperwork for another. Parties who operate at both levels and who have some kind of incorporated association status obviously have a number of requirements that are imposed on them which can be, on some occasions, quite onerous. My party, for example, has requirements for reporting to the Australian Electoral Commission; it has requirements for reporting, under this arrangement, to the ACT Electoral Commission; it has to produce a tax return every year; it has to produce a return under the companies legislation; and there is also our internal constitutional requirement for audit on an annual basis. They are a series of fairly complex and complicated arrangements.
It seems to me that there is no good reason in principle why we could not have the same requirements for Federal and Territorial reporting. This is a complex matter which, unfortunately, I did not have time to deal with before this Bill came forward. I flag that matter and I indicate that in the future I hope to be able to come back to this place with some provisions that might align our provisions more closely with those of the Commonwealth.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (1.33): Madam Speaker, I am advised that the reason why we have made it four years is in order to accommodate the peculiarities of the fixed election date for the ACT, that is, the third Saturday in February. If we were to make it three years, the third Saturday in February three years hence may be more than three years away.
Mr Moore: Three years and two days, yes.
MS FOLLETT: Yes, there could be a difference. That is the reason why there appears to be a difference; but, in fact, the intention of this scheme is the same as the intention of the Commonwealth scheme.
Amendment agreed to.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (1.34), by leave: Madam Speaker, again working from the Government's pink supplementary amendments D sheet, I move amendments d., e., f., g., h. and i. together. The amendments are as follows:
d. Page 82, line 7, proposed new subsection 200(1), after "party," insert "non-party group,".
e. Page 82, line 15, proposed new subparagraph 200(2)(b)(i), omit "or".
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