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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (13 November) . . Page.. 4165 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

The amendments which I was proposing basically all relate to the insertion in the Electoral Act of a schedule which sets out a new system of rotation of candidates' names on the ballot papers as an enhancement to the Robson rotation system. This amendment is designed to reduce as much as possible the potential impact of donkey voting on the election of candidates. The Robson rotation of candidates' names on ballot papers was first adopted in Tasmania, and then in the ACT, for the express purpose of evening out the effect of the donkey vote and to reduce the influence of party machines over the election of candidates. Because each candidate in a party list is given an equal chance of being No. 1 on the ballot paper through Robson rotation, it is more difficult for a candidate to receive an advantage.

MR SPEAKER: Ms Tucker, are you speaking to the amendments that you are proposing to move?

MS TUCKER: I was attempting in my in-principle speech to deal with the amendments. If you do not like that, that is fine. I will put my amendments and I will go through the whole process. I am talking about the amendments that I think would have been good if I had had the numbers. Is that okay?

MR SPEAKER: If it is the wish of the Assembly to accept that it is in general terms, I have no great problem.

MS TUCKER: I thank members for that. Because each candidate in a party list is given an equal chance of being No. 1 on the ballot paper through Robson rotation, it is more difficult for a candidate to receive an advantage from the votes of people who just vote one, two, three, et cetera, down the column. However, the Electoral Commission's report on the conduct of the 1995 ACT election noted that the Robson rotation system can still lead to a donkey vote effect which has the potential to elect candidates on the luck of the draw rather than through the deliberate choice of voters. It appeared that less well known candidates who did not have a high first vote were able to boost their overall votes by receiving the donkey votes of other candidates who were earlier excluded from the count.

The commission pointed out that Mr Hird probably won his seat because of the donkey vote allowing him to overtake fellow Liberal Party candidate at the time, Cheryl Hill, who had more first preference votes. Mr Hird did this by picking up the donkey votes of excluded Liberal candidates, Martin Gordon and Lyle Dunne. Unfortunately, later on the donkey vote was to have a further influence on the make-up of this Assembly when the recount was done after the resignation of Tony De Domenico. It appears that Louise Littlewood narrowly won the seat on donkey votes from De Domenico ahead of the other Liberal candidates, Sandie Brooke and Brian Lowe.

In addition to the commission's analysis, the numbers to back up these claims have been crunched by CSIRO scientist and spare-time election analyst Dr Miko Kirschbaum, who in May this year released a report entitled "How to get the donkey out of Hare-Clark". This report was distributed to all Assembly members. He calculated that nearly 20 per cent of the electorate voted using the donkey vote method. He also found that the donkey vote would have to reduce to below 3 per cent to not have the effect it did on the election of Harold Hird.

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