Page 1240 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 April 1994
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I find it hard to see how you can complain about the principle of that procedure. The principle surely is a good one which we should protect and pursue. Certainly, the voters with papers that do not have a next available preference could not complain about this because they are getting the full value for their vote, if that is at all possible. Nor could anyone else complain about these arrangements on any legitimate basis because the consequence of their efforts is still being processed here. The effect of these amendments is that we minimise the number of votes written off as exhausted in the count, and that means that we maximise the effective participation of voters.
Let me pose this question: What is the fundamental purpose of any electoral system? Surely it must be to maximise the participation of electors in the democratic process; and that in turn must mean ensuring that, where they indicate some point of view, some preference, their point of view or preference is given maximum effect, to the extent that that is reasonably possible. The scheme I put forward here is possible. It is more than possible; it is in practice in a number of places with similar formality provisions to the ones we have applied here. It should therefore be the norm that we use.
There are two possible sources of exhaustion. One is when a candidate is being excluded in those circumstances from the count. The person has fallen by the wayside, as it were. Nothing can be done to give those votes full effectiveness where that happens. The second circumstance is where a surplus has been distributed. Here something can be done, and that is why we have acted to put in these provisions. In Tasmania some 80 to 90 per cent of exhausted papers arise from exclusions rather than surpluses. That is usually when the last person from a party is excluded, and that is with at least seven numbers required to be put on the ballot-paper and with no errors allowed. That is the position in Tasmania - no errors are allowed. In the ACT with this new Bill, this new Act, we can expect a much higher proportion from surpluses than from exclusions, and higher levels, therefore, of exhausted votes than they get in Tasmania. In Tasmania, 2 to 4 per cent of votes are exhausted by virtue of those arrangements I referred to. In Tasmania, it is rather unusual for the last candidate elected to obtain a quota because of exhaustion and loss by fractions. We want to avoid exhaustion in votes as much as possible.
Madam Speaker, it seems to me that we need to ask ourselves this question: What is wrong with the suggestion that people should have less than a quota at the end of the count and still get elected? The difference between the Government's position and ours is that you may end up with a candidate being elected at the end of the count with perhaps 80 or 85 per cent of a quota. With our position they would be much nearer to a quota by virtue of the distribution of preferences, properly, from those votes which are still alive. So what? With Rosemary Follett's scheme, the last candidate gets 85 per cent of a quota. With ours, he might get 95 per cent of a quota or even more. What is the difference?
What it means is that there can be a perception on the part of the electors of the ACT that candidates in that position - candidates similar, in a sense, to Ms Szuty at the last ACT election who was, I think, the last candidate elected - are members of the Assembly with less value than other elected members who achieved full quotas. By giving as many voters as possible full value for their votes, and for their efforts, this possibility is not
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