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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (4 December) . . Page.. 4643 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

associated with the referendum, a sizeable amount of money will be needed, in addition to having people with the time and financial flexibility to be in a position to run and organise such a referendum. The only organisations capable of doing so are the well-funded sectional interest groups.

As these sectional interest groups fund and resource referendums to further their own interests, people within the community will be increasingly disenfranchised. Experience in both Australia and the United States has shown that the poorest members of the community, those without high levels of education, those who are financially insecure and/or migrants are the least likely to participate in the elections. The current vote for the constitutional convention demonstrates this, because these very groups are the ones who are showing up as not having voted in the voluntary vote. In the event of these people not participating, the potential for sectional interest groups to dictate to the rest of the community increases.

There is also, of course, the issue of taxpayers' money involved. Taxpayers expect to have access to services paid for or subsidised by their taxes. Yet, under the CIR proposal, these taxpayers' funds will be diverted to funding publicly financed citizen-initiated referenda. In addition to these concerns, Mr Speaker, it is also the case that once a well-funded sectional interest group has put before the people a proposal in relation to a matter, even though that proposal may not be in the interests of the vast majority of the community, including particularly disadvantaged groups, those disadvantaged groups will somehow have to marshal the resources to mount a campaign against a citizen-initiated referendum. So, merely by the process of putting propositions on the agenda, well-organised sectional interest groups can drain the resources of the less well off in the community in fights to protect their own interests - fights which, in a democracy, they should not have to mount.

It is easy for advocates of CIR to overlook the role that an MLA and the Assembly as a whole fulfil in a representative democracy. Many of the public policy issues that the community believes are important are quite complex. They do not lend themselves to simplistic, black-and-white answers. When an issue or a proposed law is debated in the Assembly, amendments are moved, issues are fully discussed, and members put forward their different views. This process recognises that laws are rarely black and white, but rather shades of grey.

The process also allows for a greater degree of understanding, as members acquire different information and have access to a broad cross-section of opinion. Through a process of compromise and negotiation, the law that is enacted, whilst never perfect, does represent the community's views and is generally good law, due to the process of discussion and debate. For an individual in the street, the problems with CIR are twofold. First, CIR assumes that all issues can be answered with a yes or a no. It does not comprehend the intricacies and complexities of political and policy debates. It also means that individuals are put in a position where, if they broadly support an issue but are concerned about a number of subissues, they may feel that they have no choice but to support the referendum, recognising that the end result may not, in fact, be reflective of their concerns.

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