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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 6 Hansard (15 June) . . Page.. 1917 ..

MS TUCKER: I move amendments Nos 1, 2 and 3 circulated in my name [see schedule 5 at page 1988]. I will speak to these three amendments together as they are interrelated. Amendments Nos 2 and 3 are consequential to amendment No 1.

Under the Electoral Act candidates from registered parties get their own column on the ballot paper, with the party name at the top of the column, and Independent candidates get listed together in one column at the end of the ballot paper. It is possible, however, for any Independent candidates in a particular electorate to group themselves by agreement in their own column, but they do not get a name on the top of the column.

Currently a party can be registered in the ACT if it has 100 members or an elected member of an Australian parliament. In previous elections Independent MLAs Mr Moore and Mr Osborne registered themselves as parties so that they could get a separate column on the ballot paper rather than be listed with all the other Independent candidates.

The Greens regard this as an abuse of the party registration scheme. The other candidates who stood under these parties of convenience were clearly not part of a larger political party, but were standing to support the incumbent MLA. The parties of convenience were also quickly abandoned after the election, as we have heard in some detail from Mr Berry.

However, rather than stop this, the government has now facilitated it by allowing Independent MLAs to register their own individual groups and to have their own columns on the ballot paper with the name of the group on the top, just like a party. These groups can contest any electorate, including those electorates where the Independent MLA does not actually sit.

I understand that no other state has a provision in their electoral act for ballot groups. These ballot groups have all the appearances of a party, but the only difference seems to be that they cannot use the word "party" in their name. This is a minor inconvenience, however, as many parties do not use the word "party" in their names-for example, the ACT Greens, Australian Democrats, and One Nation. Mr Osborne and Mr Moore did not use the word "party" anyway in their party names.

What worries me is that the voting public may be misled by seeing all the columns on the ballot paper with various names above them and thinking that they are all parties when in fact some of them could be just fronts to help existing Independent MLAs to be re-elected. It is certainly unfair to other Independent candidates who do not have any right to form their own ballot groups and end up being lumped together at the end of the ballot paper.

Having your name clearly seen on the ballot paper is quite important in the ACT because of our lack of how-to-vote cards, and getting your own column is the best way of doing this. The Robson rotation, which is so cherished by the Liberal Party, is based on the principle that all candidates should be treated equally on the ballot paper and not be given any special privileges, such as by being No 1 on a party ticket. The establishment of ballot groups flies in the face of this because it gives a formal advantage to sitting Independent MLAs over other candidates, as it gives them

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