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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 11 Hansard (14 December) . . Page.. 3089 ..

MS HORODNY (continuing):

Indeed, Mr Moore and Mr Osborne, while talking tough through the budget debate, for example, at the end of the debate and the end of the day toed the line that the Executive must be allowed to govern, no matter what the cost, even if the cost be a very bad budget for the people of Canberra. The effect of continually kowtowing to the Government is to strengthen the power of the Executive at the cost of power to other members who have been democratically elected to represent the people. The result of this loss is that people call for a new system that will better represent their views and values. In this case the new system on offer is CIR.

Mr Speaker, if representative government is failing, then we must fix it. CIR is being held up as the world's answer to the failings of representative government. This is a highly simplistic and ignorant argument. We must work to reform, and we must also work on increasing the level of participation of citizens in policy debate and decision-making. Participatory democracy is much broader than CIR. Access to information is obviously a key to participatory democracy, and we await with great interest Mr Osborne's sunshine legislation giving improved access to information in the Territory. There are a number of other mechanisms for improving participatory democracy. These include an opening up of board meetings, community right to know legislation, and a commitment to community education throughout the ACT, as well as entrenchment of a social and environmental Bill of Rights.

Mr Speaker, proponents of CIR argue that money does not influence outcomes. This is not the case, however. Unfortunately, money is power and, while the major parties may not want to admit it, they actually know this. A study conducted over six years into the outcomes of voter-initiated referendums in four States in the US showed that the highest spender won the outcome of the referendum in 78 per cent of the cases. We know that the Liberals have a fundamental belief in the power of money. We have been told over and over that the best people cost the most, and we have seen that in their arguments on the need to offer enormous and unrealistic salaries to entice good people. We have also heard as an argument for CIR that powerful lobby groups can influence decisions of parliament members in an inappropriate way. Even more powerful lobby groups would come into play with CIR, and their power could well be based on slick advertising, not quality information. In the US, collecting signatures for petitions has become an industry in itself. Imagine a referendum on the issue of smoking in restaurants. There would be nothing to stop the tobacco lobby from mounting a huge campaign which could not be matched by individuals or groups with opposing opinions.

Mr Speaker, referendums have severe limitations. They are a blunt device, focusing on single issues in a simplified and isolated fashion. They are about yes or no and nothing in between. There is no capacity to consider these issues in an integrated manner. If the community votes to cap property taxes, then we are not asked which services we would have to reduce at the same time. Moreover, unlike the US, Australia has no formal legislative instrument to protect the rights of minorities or to protect fundamental social and environmental objectives. In the proposed legislation the Chief Minister has to make an estimate of the financial impact of the legislation, but there is no requirement for any neutral social or environmental assessment to be made.

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