Page 4738 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 7 December 1994
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MR STEVENSON: The suggestion that someone is incompetent to do something is a perfectly parliamentary one. When you have a committee which reports that a further cause of concern is that the legislation might be able to be used for recall of politicians, judges or ACT public servants, it suggests that the people who would make that statement are not competent. You cannot recall members of parliament in a multimember electorate. This is basic CIR knowledge. I was not having a go at the committee members; I was simply saying that, from the report, they are not competent.
Mr Humphries: You said that they were biased, Dennis.
MR STEVENSON: That is another issue. I will get to that. Let me take one point at a time. The report stated:
... the Popular Initiative and Referendum Bill in Queensland in 1915 ... like every subsequent CIR bill introduced into a State or Federal parliament, was defeated.
It was not defeated; it was passed by both houses. Because of the death of T.J. Ryan, it simply was not implemented. How do you call that a defeat? The preface to the report stated:
... it would be unwise to rush through legislation ... No compelling arguments were made for haste ...
The Committee ... cannot, at this stage, recommend rushing to adopt either piece of legislation.
Let us look at the history of CIR in Australia. As members know, I have been supporting the matter for six years, as other people have. In our first parliament I was about to introduce CIR legislation, when Mr Prowse introduced a draft on behalf of the Liberal Party. As members know, in October 1993, I first introduced an EIR Bill, in the form of the Voice of the Electorate Bill 1993. I subsequently introduced the Voice of the Electorate Bill 1993 [No. 2] and the original EIR Bill and the current Bill, the Electors Initiative and Referendum Bill 1994 [No. 2]. The Liberal Party introduced the Community Referendum Bill a few short months ago, and we had a committee of this parliament look at CIR.
At page 1 of the report, under "Introduction", it states:
... the committee feels it was disadvantaged in its task by the absence of any organisation or individual presenting a contrary position.
Everyone was for it; indeed, all the submissions were in favour. It has been supported for six years; five Bills on it have been introduced into this Assembly; a committee has looked at it; every submission was in favour of it; and what does the committee say? It says, "We should not proceed". I suggest that that is just a touch biased. People could suggest, "No; not really. It was because everybody was in support. We have had so many Bills; you have kept talking about it in this Assembly every chance that you get; and we are so sick to death of it that we will suggest that it should not go ahead".
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