Page 1220 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 April 1994
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But, of course, do not worry about what the people want; the Labor Party has to do it this way. Why do they have to do it this way? Because the machine says, "We need to protect, as much as we can, one or two or three individuals, notwithstanding what the community wants. What can we do in order to make sure that we satisfy what the backroom boys and girls in the machine want us to do?". That is what this issue is all about, and people opposite know that that is what this issue is all about. If they do not admit to knowing what this issue is all about, they are misleading themselves as well, and I am sure that they would not be doing that.
Mr Kaine: They are worried that nobody will recognise their names on the ballot-paper.
MR DE DOMENICO: That is right. Madam Speaker, as I have said - and I will stress it time and time again, as much as it might hurt people opposite - this is all about politics. You know that it is all about politics. You know that this is the only way you can save one or two of your people. What you do not know is that the community will savage you for it because once again you have turned your back on what the people wanted. Just as you tried to do it with above-the-line voting, you are doing it with how-to-vote cards. Who can ever forget going around the Canberra booths last time, Madam Speaker? There were incredible how-to-vote cards. There were how-to-vote cards for individual Labor candidates, for heavens sake, because certain factions wanted their people voted in, not what the whole party said.
Ms Ellis: Ha, ha!
MR DE DOMENICO: Ms Ellis might laugh, but it did happen. Mr Kaine and I can recall going around in Belconnen and seeing certain how-to-vote cards for Mr Lamont, for example. This was Mr Lamont's how-to-vote card, not the Labor Party's how-to-vote card.
Mr Kaine: Mr Lamont, your candidate for Belconnen.
MR DE DOMENICO: For Belconnen. One wonders where the other factional candidates were on Mr Lamont's card. Of course, they were right down the bottom of it. This is all about the A team and the B reserves. This is the way the Labor Party runs this town, and has for years and years. It wants to attempt to continue to do so.
Mr Stevenson comes in here and quite rightly talks about how he does not like party machines, and the way party machines dictate and rule. Mr Stevenson, should anybody want to support Ms Follett's point of view on this one, it is support for that party machine. It is support for the Labor Party telling the people of the ACT how they want them to vote. They say, "It does not matter what they want because we, the Labor Party, need to have control". This is what this amendment is all about. I say to Mr Stevenson, in particular: Think very carefully, because everything you have said to this house over the past three, four or five years that you have been here has been all about trying to stop party machines from having their way. If you do not support Mr Humphries's amendment, you will allow the left-wing ALP party machine to have its way.
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