Page 999 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 April 1994
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Madam Speaker, I would like to repeat that the Electoral (Amendment) Bill does provide for a very comprehensive party registration scheme, and it is designed to ensure that only political parties with a genuine level of support are able to derive the benefits of party status. Considerable mischief, as members know, was caused at the first ACT Assembly election when party registration was open to all, regardless of any demonstrable level of support. We have made some modifications to that since that time, and to be eligible for registration now a political party must have a demonstrated level of support - that is, they must have either at least one member in one of the Commonwealth, State or Territory legislatures, or at least 100 members who are eligible to enrol for ACT elections. A party which is unable to achieve this very modest level of support should not be entitled, in my view, to registration and the benefits that flow from it.
To open up the ballot-paper in the way that has been proposed, by giving any group of two or more people the right to be grouped on the ballot-paper, would be to run the risk that ACT elections would again be frustrated, as they have been in the past, by mischievous elements in the community who would take the opportunity to give us another metre-long ballot-paper. By providing that all non-party candidates must be contained in one or more ungrouped columns on the ballot-paper, the Bill as proposed ensures that these mischievous nominations would not have the effect of giving us that enormously long ballot-paper.
Madam Speaker, the Assembly election that was held in 1992 allowed only registered party candidates to be grouped on the ballot-paper, and, for that election, unlike the first election, the party registration rules were tightened to require that non-parliamentary parties had to have a minimum of 100 members. This requirement was not a source of controversy at the time, as far as I am aware, and I was pretty close to the events of the last election. On the contrary, the 1992 ballot-paper was considerably smaller. It was certainly more manageable for the voters than was the record-breaking 1989 ballot-paper.
If these amendments are passed - I think that would be regrettable - as members are aware, there are a number of consequential amendments that will have to be taken care of, to include non-party groups in the funding and disclosure schemes and to provide for identifying group letters to be printed above the groups on the ballot-papers. Madam Speaker, I am basically opposed to both of the proposals in Mr Humphries's amendment. I am forced to support Ms Szuty's amendments because they at least cut down some of the more appalling aspects of Mr Humphries's amendment. I think members ought to think very carefully about this whole scheme and the reasons why the amendments are being opposed. The reasons, I think, are very good ones.
MR MOORE (10.10): Madam Speaker, the referendum options description sheet is quite clear on group non-party candidates. That is why I feel that it is appropriate to support the concept that Mr Humphries is talking about in terms of group non-party candidates. The fact that it is not mentioned in the description sheet does not mean that it is inconsistent; it just means that it is not mentioned in that.
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