Page 1199 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 April 1994
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These are simple amendments which have the effect of expanding the definition of "electoral bribe". These add two further instances of electoral bribery. One is inducing a person not to apply, or to withdraw an application, under section 189 - that is a casual vacancy arrangement - and the second is inducing a person not to apply, or to withdraw an application, to the court of disputed returns under the provisions we have just been talking about. That is there to buttress the preceding provisions we have just passed which strengthen the integrity of the process. Where a person makes an application, that application should be dealt with by the court and should not be the subject of any manipulation. These provisions make it quite clear that that should not be tolerated and would constitute an offence under the Act.
Amendments agreed to.
MR HUMPHRIES (3.43): Madam Speaker, we come to one of the more significant elements of the legislation, the provision dealing with how-to-vote cards. I move:
zv. Page 123, line 15, proposed new subsection 296(1), omit "6", substitute "100".
Section 296 in the Bill, as it presently stands, has a prohibition on persons handing out material - we are referring here to how-to-vote cards, principally - within six metres of the entrance to a polling place. My amendment has the effect of extending that zone from six metres to 100 metres. How-to-vote cards are anathema to the Hare-Clark electoral system; but, what is worse, they are positively confusing to people who must vote under that system. That confusion will be particularly acute in the case of the first ACT election when people are adjusting to the new system and will be attempting to cast a vote using a Robson rotated ballot-paper. How-to-vote cards are not used in Tasmania. Indeed, they are banned in Tasmania. They are seen in that State as being anathema to the good operation of the Hare-Clark electoral system.
I believe that to permit how-to-vote cards in this context corrupts the principle of the Robson rotation. I believe that this provision, and the opposition of the Government to my amendment, has more to do with Labor's factions than it has to do with any measure or any notion of government. That is the perception of the broader community, and I believe that it is the perception that we should adopt in this place as well. There is a wider public interest than merely making sure that the factions of the ALP can put their preferred choice, their anointed candidates, squarely before the electorate and make every effort to ensure that those are the only persons or the first persons elected in an election held under this new system. The more important public interest is, I believe, to ensure that choice is maximised in the campaign and that the effect of the Robson rotation is not countered by the device of how-to-vote cards.
Madam Speaker, the Chief Minister said on the ABC, in connection with this debate, that she believed that how-to-vote cards were appropriate because they facilitated free speech. I would have found those comments a little more credible if they had not been coming from a person who was herself a very vocal supporter of the Federal Government's legislation not so long ago to ban electoral advertising and so on by parties in Federal, Territorial and State campaigns. If there had been a champion of free speech in the Assembly at that time I am sure that we would have heard the Chief Minister opposing
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