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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 7 Hansard (17 October) . . Page.. 1740 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Ms Follett says that the Liberal Party is not united on this issue. Would she care to indicate a single Liberal anywhere who does not support the position we are now taking? She nods sagely, but she will not interject, of course. Ms Follett makes the point that now you cannot help a candidate who is a friend because you cannot assist them on polling day. Mr Speaker, any candidate who leaves it until polling day to get out there and explain who he or she is and what they are all about is, I think, assured of defeat.

There was a quite breathtaking error in Ms Follett's remarks. Ms Follett claimed that the Liberal Party cannot be serious about this because it did not attempt to entrench this position in the referendum held earlier this year. As Ms Follett would well know, we were able to entrench only elements of the existing electoral legislation. You cannot very well entrench something that is not there in the first place.

Ms Follett: You could have asked another question. Why did you not ask another question?

MR HUMPHRIES: I will educate Ms Follett. Entrenching means to dig in more deeply something that is already there, to cement in place a principle that is already in the law. We did not have a law to ban how-to-vote cards because you and your friends there voted against us. You all voted against us. That is why it was not entrenched in the legislation. There were some other things in that legislation that were entrenched, which I will come back to in a minute, and I will talk about the sham referendum Ms Follett tried to organise for this Territory.

Mr Speaker, I was taken by the comment by Ms Follett that this legislation will necessitate extra distributions to households, that there will be an explosion of material that has to be given to ACT households. For the record, let me go through some of the material that was available from a range of parties before the last ACT election, to indicate to members that there is really not any shortage of material on electoral matters available to electors prior to elections - "Your local Labor team in Molonglo, in Brindabella, in Ginninderra".

Mr De Domenico: How many of those were elected?

MR HUMPHRIES: Yes, that is another very good question. "David Lamont - Caring for Canberra, working for you"; "The Greens - Lasting Solutions"; "To the householder, introducing your local candidates". That is a good one. It did not mention that these were local Labor candidates, just "your local candidates". There was no mention of the word "Labor" anywhere on that little piece of paper.

Mr De Domenico: I would be ashamed too.

MR HUMPHRIES: I would be ashamed as well. "Securing Canberra's Future" - another thing from the Labor Party; "Mark Dunstone, a Moore Independent Candidate for Molonglo"; "Moore Independents", "Life in your hands", "For a Green left political alternative", "Vote for the Greens", "Hare-Clark ... simply the best". In this glossy publication here there is very little mention of the Labor Party, once again, but it has lots of pictures.

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