Page 1233 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 April 1994
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Mr Connolly: In that case you should be voting with us, with a smile on your face, and saying, "You silly Labor people; you are helping the Liberals".
MR HUMPHRIES: No; because I do not want those opposite to come back to this place, or outside it, and say, "The system is confusing. See what you got with this confusing Hare-Clark system which nobody understands. Look at all the informal votes. This proves that we need above-the-line voting. Look at all the informal votes we produced in this election". That is what you are going to achieve with this outcome. Madam Speaker, that second category of people are the people who are not going to forgive the Labor Party for having hopelessly confused them and possibly invalidated their vote because of the way they have behaved.
There is a great irony in this, of course, Madam Speaker. We are talking about a Labor Party how-to-vote card with a particular order on it. I wonder whether Mrs Grassby, for example, at, say, No. 2 or No. 3 on the Belconnen ticket, will be following a Labor Party how-to-vote card. No way. Will Mr Connolly, at No. 3 on the Labor Party ticket in Molonglo, be following thatcard? Will he vote 1 Rosemary Follett? I do not think so, Madam Speaker. Will Mr Wood at, say, No. 3 on the Tuggeranong ticket, vote 1, Annette Ellis? I very much doubt it. I have a funny feeling that he is not going to follow it. The basic question is this: If you people across the way are not going to follow your own how-to-vote cards, why do you expect the people of the ACT to do so? You are hypocrites. You should let people go to that poll and exercise the choice that Hare-Clark with Robson rotation gives them, and that means supporting this amendment.
MR STEVENSON: Madam Speaker, I seek leave to make a statement under standing order 46.
MADAM SPEAKER: Yes, Mr Stevenson. Proceed.
MR STEVENSON: Mr Moore mentioned that I have taken the opportunity to vote for how-to-vote cards and suggested that there was some benefit that I would get. There can be only two reasons for an unjustified attack on me and on other people who are members of our party and Canberrans who assist in design, in carrying out the polls and in counting. The first of the two reasons why Mr Moore would do that is that he lacks perception of the logic - the logic that I have presented a number of things and I simply vote that way, whether I agree with it or not. Normally I do not say what my personal opinion is. On a number of matters I vote as a result of surveys. In this particular case, were it to be my choice, I would not have how-to-vote cards handed out at the polling booth; but that is neither here nor there. That is just my opinion. That is what some politicians, when it suits them, call their conscience. If it is truly a matter of conscience, they can leave, because they are not good servants if they will not serve the people who hire them and pay them. I am concerned about unjustified attacks. Mr Moore often makes them on me. When they also are made on people who assist us, that certainly should be commented upon.
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