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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 7 Hansard (17 October) . . Page.. 1756 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

strongly of the view that we ought to prevent tobacco companies from putting advertisements in places where people, particularly young people, would see them. Tobacco advertisements, like any other form of advertising, do not say, "You, consumer, must use our product". These days they do not suggest anything which is a compelling reason for a person to use a particular product.

Mr Connolly: They do not say anything these days.

MR HUMPHRIES: Indeed, they do not say anything about tobacco these days. Advertisements for other products available on the market do not say to the consumer, "You must do these things". Nonetheless, we all accept that they have a very persuasive power. People in advertising companies are not paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to think up advertising campaigns for the sake simply of getting some excess money off the hands of their clients. No, Mr Speaker, those words in newspapers and magazines and those things on television, radio and so on are there to persuade people to a point of view.

I would suspect that anything that appeared on the wall of a polling booth on polling day would be designed by the author - the political parties and candidates - to persuade people to vote for particular parties and, indeed, more to the point, to vote for particular parties in a particular order. That, in a sense, is the whole reason that they are there. It is really quite pointless expecting people to introduce themselves to the Labor Party for the first time when they roll into the polling booth. That would be silly. It is the intention that they should be able to see the preferred order of candidates and that the party should be able to suggest that that is the order in which people ought to vote for the party. It goes without saying that, if that is the purpose of it being there, then we are entitled to ask whether that kind of suggestion or persuasion about an order of candidates is compatible with the system of Hare-Clark with Robson rotation. The answer is clearly no, it is not. That is not what this system is all about, and those opposite simply do not seem to understand that.

We are not saying that you cannot make suggestions in information given to people. We are not saying that you cannot sell the merits of your party before polling day. But on polling day you must not tell people, as has been the case traditionally in the past, that to vote for a particular party they should vote for candidates in a particular order. That is what this Bill is designed to defeat. Mr Speaker, I think that is very laudable. Mr Berry made the statement that the strongest vote for a party is one that follows a ticket. That in fact is not true. Under Hare-Clark with Robson rotation, dispersing the party's vote amongst several candidates actually strengthens the vote. Believe it or not, we are doing you a favour with this provision, but you obviously do not believe that.

Mr Speaker, finally, we are told by those opposite that we are entitled to trust the candidates put forward by the Labor Party because the party candidates have faced their peers. I do not believe that, Mr Speaker. I think that the numbers get crunched; that you produce a particular outcome that accords with the wishes of factions within the party. A very small minority of electors in this Territory dictate the party order. In my view, that is a very compelling reason why candidates and party voters, even those supporting the Labor Party, ought to have a wider real choice. This Bill enhances that real choice.

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