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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (4 December) . . Page.. 4649 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

is concerned. California was raised by Mr Osborne as a problem jurisdiction. I want to point out that we have a very high threshold for the initiation of referenda in the ACT proposal. There is a reasonable cooling-off period, which does not occur very often in other jurisdictions. Perhaps the most important distinction of all is that we have compulsory voting in the ACT proposal. Many of the distortions which result in referenda in other jurisdictions, where people get referenda results up with only 30 per cent of the electorate voting or whatever, could not, I believe, occur in a system where something like 90 per cent or more of the electors have to cast their vote because that is the law of the Territory.

Mr Speaker, I want to address a few of the arguments that have been raised here about CIR, mainly in-principle arguments. We have heard an argument from Mr Whitecross particularly - and it was echoed to some extent by Mr Moore and, I think, also by Mr Osborne, and possibly by Ms Tucker as well - that CIR gives power to sectional groups; that sectional groups have had influence, and particularly money to be able to influence the outcome of votes on particular issues. This was manifested in Mr Whitecross's argument that CIR gives power to sectional interests.

I want to quote from an article that appeared in the Economist a year ago, where they had a very extensive debate about the shape of the twenty-first century and where they ran a series of articles that suggested that participatory democracy is actually likely to be a feature of politics around the world in the twenty-first century. One of the things that they argued here was:

The other reason for not letting the money issue decide the argument is that money-power almost certainly distorts the old sort of democracy -

that is, representative democracy -

more than it does the new sort. In a direct democracy, the lobbyists have to aim their money at the whole body of voters. Since most of the money is spent on public propaganda campaigns, it is hard for them to conceal what they are up to. In a representative democracy, however, the lobbyists' chief target is much smaller - just a few hundred members of the government and the legislature - and so it is much easier for them to keep what they are doing secret.

That is very true, Mr Speaker. Who here can sit in this place and not acknowledge the role that, if you like, power and money have played in the representative democracy in which we live? Who has not been lobbied in this place by people that have come through the door with considerable influence because they purport to control a number of organisations - representative bodies - in their wake, that cause members to reconsider their position?

I can give you an example just from today. We had a vote on motor sport. I know that representatives of motor sport went and lobbied the Opposition, and they changed the Opposition's view about allowing motor sport to make a certain amount of noise. I know that the arguments they put to those people opposite were, "We have lots and lots of voters in our organisation and they are all going to vote against you if you do not

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