Page 1232 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 April 1994
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MR HUMPHRIES: That is a decision for my party machine. Madam Speaker, the point is that, in the context of this election, it is impossible to make a decision - - -
Mr Lamont: It is a machine matter.
Mr Connolly: I did not think there was a Liberal machine.
MR HUMPHRIES: Madam Speaker, can I have a little bit of order?
MADAM SPEAKER: Order!
MR HUMPHRIES: Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is impossible to stop shonky how-to-vote cards being issued before polling day because they can appear on polling day. They are thrust into people's hands as they are approaching the polling booths. They have not been seen before and, naturally enough, they cannot be detected until that time. Mr Stevenson, nothing is going to stop those sorts of Maggie Deahm things from appearing in people's hands on polling day, because it will be too late to do anything about it by that stage. It will be impossible to do anything about it. I suspect that those opposite will use exactly that kind of tactic if the matter comes to that point.
I think there will be two sorts of Labor voters on polling day. There will be, first of all, those who understand absolutely how the system is going to work. They are going to be the people who will have been intelligent enough to have followed the debate to some extent at least and will understand that the essential element of the Hare-Clark system is choice. They can choose the candidates that they want. They are the sort of people, by the way, who would have gone into the polling booth in February of 1992 and voted 1 for Rosemary Follett and then voted 1 for the Hare-Clark system. There were many thousands of Labor voters who did exactly that. They were smart enough to tell the difference between Labor propaganda and the truth. They were the people who voted that way, and they are the same people who will go into the polling booth and decide exactly which members of the ALP team they want to vote for on polling day.
The second category of people on polling day will be those people who do not understand how the system works, who have perhaps a slender knowledge of politics generally and who will want to vote Labor but who will need something to tell them what to do. Those are the people who are going to get into the polling booth, pull out their pencils, and see a how-to-vote card which says, "Vote 1 Rosemary Follett, 2 David Lamont, and 3 Terry Connolly", and they are going to see a ballot-paper with Terry Connolly's name at the top. They are going to think, "I have the wrong ballot-paper; I could be in the wrong electorate". They will go back to the polling clerk and say, "I have the wrong polling paper". The clerk will say, "No, you haven't, madam. You have the right one. Please go back. The names are rotated". Those people are going to be hopelessly confused because they are not the people who follow politics closely. They are those who do not follow politics closely and do not understand this system.
Madam Speaker, it should not be any surprise to people to realise that this tactic on the part of the ALP will cost the ALP more than any other party in this place or outside it. These people are the ones who are throwing votes away hand over fist, and they know it.
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