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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 7 Hansard (17 October) . . Page.. 1706 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

We have a serious situation for the community. It is not as it is being spun by Mr Humphries. The fact of the matter is that this is not something that the community were directly asked about at the last referendum. You can put whatever spin on it you like. The community would have the right to point their finger at you and say, "Liar. We were not asked the question". That is just like the Liberals. This is an incorrect spin on the referendum. I was not asked whether I wanted how-to-vote cards or not.

Mr Humphries: You did not vote for it anyway. You voted against the Hare-Clark system.

MR BERRY: I was not asked whether I wanted how-to-vote cards or not. The incumbents here and a few of those with Messiah complexes who seek to elbow everybody else off the television will be safe, but anybody out there in the community who at some time in the future wants to get a message across to constituents at the polling booth will not be allowed to do so. Of course, Mrs Carnell would be opposed to the message "Vote for me". It is most important that members of the community be able to put forward election information if they choose to become candidates. I think the Liberals have a hide to interpret the last referendum as having incorporated a question about how-to-vote cards, but that is nothing new for the Liberals. I think it is worth protecting people's right to be able to go to a polling booth and hand out a piece of paper which contains information about them and asks people to vote for them. You are seriously infringing upon their right to provide information to people who might wish to vote for them. I think you ought to think a bit more seriously about this.

MR OSBORNE (12.05): Mr Speaker, at the election held early this year I was one of the two candidates who did not have a host of helpers handing out how-to-vote cards.

Mr Moore: They were out playing football.

MR OSBORNE: No; I was playing football. The other exception was Arthur Burns, but I think he had a pretty good reason! There was definitely no-one else. During the lead-up to the election I was asked by a few people what I was going to do in regard to how-to-vote cards and where I was going to get the 50 or 60 people needed to hand them out. To be quite frank, Mr Speaker, I do not think I have 50 or 60 friends in Canberra. I did a quick tally and I think I counted about five. My daughter was only three at the time.

Mr Moore: Your family accounts for three. Who are the other two?

Ms Follett: This bans trash packs too, Paul; no more trash packs.

MR SPEAKER: Order! I cannot hear the member for the bouquets flying around.

MR OSBORNE: I thought that this was a good question, Mr Speaker, because at the time I did not really know the answer. I was not eligible to vote in the election in 1992. I was not eligible to vote on the referendum, so I basically inherited the Hare-Clark system. However, I voted in Sydney several times. I voted for the Labor Party, I might add. Like everyone else, I had to run the gauntlet of would-be

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