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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 10 Hansard (4 September) . . Page.. 3007 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

For members, February is actually a quite convenient time, because in the Christmas period leading up to a February election most of Canberra is on holidays, we have no demands in our committees work or in other areas and we have the opportunity to prepare our work and prepare our campaign. Australia Day towards the end of January seems to mark the day when people get back into Canberra and things start operating as usual, and we wind up with a very intensive three-week campaign. Many people would agree that it is quite convenient for members to run a three-week campaign, because it means that the campaign is contained. However, that period is inconvenient for other people. The Electoral Commissioner reported that there is a high level of absence from Canberra at that time. This was reflected in a difference between the number of people who turned out for the Federal election and the number of people who voted in the ACT election. Many people who failed to vote in the ACT election gave as their reason the fact that they were out of Canberra. There are some inconveniences like that for the people of Canberra.

The second advantage of an October election, as far as I am concerned, is that it will fit in much more neatly with the budget period. I am not referring to the present system of an end-of-September budget that is passed in November. It is certainly this Government's intention to return to what happened under Rosemary Follett as Chief Minister, when we had a mid-year budget. There were a couple of problems associated with that in the last couple of years, but that should be back on track. When it is back on track it will be appropriate for us to change to an October election so that a government can present their budget and have it debated and passed prior to an election period. We would then go into the election period and the new government could begin the appropriate preparation of their own budget. That seems to me to be a sensible thing. That is why I believe it appropriate for us to have October elections.

The second issue is the issue of four-year terms. It has been my observation that governments in this house tend to spend the first 15 to 18 months preparing the work on what they had promised at the election - and sometimes they actually deliver on some of those promises - and setting the direction of their government. The difficulty that most of us would recognise even now is that governments, as well as non-government members responding to budget matters and community concerns, think in terms of the next election. Rather than being in the best interests of the community, decisions are often made in the best interests of members and their being re-elected at the next election. For me, there is a very solid case for a four-year term to ensure that decisions are made in the best interests of the community. That has to be balanced against how members are held accountable. The time that they are held accountable is, of course, election time. It seems to me that a four-year term will give the appropriate balance between members being held accountable regularly enough and a government being allowed to get on with its agenda and members of the opposition and crossbenches being able to pursue the agenda that they believe is in the best interests of the people of Canberra.

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