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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 12 Hansard (6 December) . . Page.. 3773 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

I remind members, especially Mr Moore, because he does like to talk about Mr Pettit, that the Pettit Review of the Governance of the Australian Capital Territory, released in early 1998 recommended:

This bill was the result of a lot of discussion. We know that people will want to communicate this information to the ACT community. You have this information available only if people want it. The bill was clearly and carefully put together. We worked with the Electoral Commission when we came up with this bill, to make sure that it was well put together. It was developed in consultation with the Electoral Commission. They provided us with professional advice on the practicalities of conducting elections. So we certainly made an attempt to ensure that this was well thought out.

Mr Humphries' other argument seemed to be that there was a terrible danger of defacing the material on how to vote. Is he implying that the electoral officers and people at the polling booths who are employed to assist are not going to be able to take on that task? I think that would be fairly concerning. If this place supported this law, which it obviously is not going to, and supported this opportunity for the community to have access to information, if they should choose to have such information - a basic right, I would have thought - and there was the problem Mr Humphries has alluded to, he would have to do something about that. He would have to make sure that the Electoral Commission was appropriately resourced to support this legislation being able to work properly. I would have thought that would be a responsibility of government, no matter what the law was. It clearly is not the case that they do it very well.

We had a discussion on bike helmets at question time. It is not a reason to say that you do not do something. The onus is on the government to ensure that the officers concerned are properly resourced and supported to ensure that such problems do not occur.

It is clear we are not going to get support for this bill, but I think it was an important point to make on behalf of the community, particularly those members of the community who would like to be able to access that information. I think it would save paper, if anything. It would reduce the necessity for parties and Independents to spend so much time putting out this information.

Question put:

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