Page 979 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 April 1994
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MR MOORE (8.35): Madam Speaker, Mr Stevenson's reference to his survey on this does not mean that he will follow his result. He is going to do what he likes. For Mr Stevenson surveys and referendums are a fraud. The reason I say that, Madam Speaker, is that Mr Stevenson, on many occasions, has come into this house and said that he does support the referendum on self-government, but he has never told us whether the right questions were asked or not. He says that he does not have to support the referendum on the Hare-Clark system because nobody asked the right question. Then he stands up here and tells us that he is going to vote, having done his survey, on the question of a term of three or four years. The question I ask is: Did he ask the right question? If I remember correctly, he asked, "Do you want two, three or four years?". Why did he not ask about eight years? Why did he not ask about one year? It seems to me that eight years is a perfectly reasonable question to ask.
Mr Kaine: It is a good question.
MR MOORE: It is a good question to ask. In fact, there are legislatures in this country that have six-year and eight-year terms. I think it was a perfectly reasonable question to ask. He did not ask this question and, therefore, there are real questions about his surveys. In fact, according to his own convictions, you would have to call this one a fraud. Even the briefest study of surveying techniques would teach people that the most important thing to sort out first is selection bias. No matter what method Mr Stevenson uses, he must have a selection bias in it. The reason I say that is that people around Canberra know that Mr Stevenson and his friends from the Abolish Self Government Coalition carry out these surveys at shopping centres around Canberra.
Mr Kaine: They always know that it is a Dennis poll.
MR MOORE: They are known as Dennis polls. Therefore, automatically, there is going to be selection bias. Those people who are happy to agree with Mr Stevenson or to answer his questions are already of the frame of mind that they are in some way supporting the Abolish Self Government Coalition. Those who are appalled by the way he operates or by the fact that he stays in this Assembly when he was elected to abolish self-government, and those who are appalled by some of the other stances he has taken from the far right wing, are going to avoid him like the plague. That, Madam Speaker, is known as selection bias. It is the very first bit of information that any student of surveys learns to deal with. The reality is that Mr Stevenson simply asks these questions in the way he wants so that he can get the answers he wants. There is no trick to it, Madam Speaker. He does not have to go through this charade. He can just vote the way he wants. We do not care.
MR HUMPHRIES (8.39): Madam Speaker, as has been noted, there is an Opposition amendment to the same effect and, obviously, we will support this amendment. We indicated at the very outset of this proposal being put on the table that we considered that there had been not only insufficient debate but, indeed, no debate in the Canberra community about the length of future terms of the Assembly, and it was therefore quite inappropriate for this parliament, late in its life, to extend the lives of future parliaments by a measure such as this.
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