Page 963 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 April 1994
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MR STEVENSON (5.32): I agree strongly and I would ask other MLAs to reconsider this matter because people should have that right. There are many groups or individuals who can have a perfectly valid reason for wanting to scrutinise the democratic process, the voting process which elects members of this Assembly. They should be encouraged. We have penalties for abuse of that right. As Mr Humphries mentions, if there are amendments that need to be made, by all means make them; but do not restrict that right just to MLAs.
MS SZUTY (5.32): I believe that we are talking about changes in wording in this amendment. All the Government amendment does is remove from paragraph 57(2)(c), as it stands at the moment, the words "a purpose connected with an election" and, secondly, "monitoring the accuracy of information contained in the roll". I agree with the Chief Minister that all we are doing is removing those potential loopholes. In relation to any person having access to roll extracts, they can still do so on the basis of a prescribed purpose. I do not see any harm whatsoever in the Government's amendment.
MR MOORE (5.33): The question, Madam Speaker, really is the same question of balance. If the electoral roll is made broadly available there is more likely to be a chance of misuse. It is really a question of where the line is drawn. Mr Humphries and Mr Stevenson have the view that it should be drawn broadly. I have a view that concurs with the Government - that it should be drawn fairly tightly. However, the information in the electoral roll is still available.
Amendment agreed to.
MR HUMPHRIES (5.34): Madam Speaker, I move:
d. Page 19, lines 6 and 7, proposed new paragraph 65(1)(c), omit the paragraph.
The proposed amendment, amendment d., has the effect of giving itinerant voters the capacity to cast a vote. For some reason which has never been explained, that I have never heard anyway, we were to exclude itinerant voters from enrolment. They have a capacity to be enrolled under the Commonwealth Electoral Act but were excluded specifically by proposed new section 65.
It seems to me that there is not, perhaps, the same scope for people to fall into the category of itinerant voters in the ACT that there might be in, say, Queensland or New South Wales. Nonetheless, there are people who are unable to vote in ACT elections because they cannot prove that they have been resident at a particular address for three months. In fact I have been contacted by two such people who are professional house-sitters. It is their job to mind other people's homes. They have no address other than those people's homes. They are not vagrants. They are people with jobs and are respectable people in other senses, but they cannot cast a vote because they cannot show that they have been resident at any particular place for three months. If they are resident for three months it might not necessarily be for a period immediately before enrolment in an election, and if they do have that enrolment they would lose it, of course, by moving on to their next house. I think, Madam Speaker, it is important to make sure that we do not unnecessarily exclude such people from entitlement to vote.
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