Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 6 Hansard (15 June) . . Page.. 1935 ..

MR RUGENDYKE (9.35): Once again, the commissioner did not recommend this-

Mr Moore: For good reason.

MR RUGENDYKE: For good reason. You have to be deeply suspicious about the motivation of the major parties when they give us this scandalous amendment as part of a secret deal. This is one of the most insidious of the scandalous deals-

Mr Moore: There are more insidious ones to come yet.

MR RUGENDYKE: There are more to come?

Mr Moore: Yes.

MR RUGENDYKE: I cannot believe it. It is a back door way of introducing how-to-vote cards, totally against the spirit of the Hare-Clark system. It is quite a scandalous, secret deal. But the numbers are there to get it through. That is a tragedy for the Hare-Clark system.

MS TUCKER (9.36): The Greens will not be supporting this amendment. The current section 143 in the legislation contains an offence against people who do anything to induce a person to apply for a postal vote, to send the postal vote to an address other than that of the Electoral Commissioner or to use a non-approved postal vote form. This offence is obviously to prevent voting fraud. By its nature, a postal vote is completed away from a polling booth and the supervision of Electoral Commission officials. There is thus potential for postal votes to be completed under duress or to be tampered with.

The ALP is now proposing to remove this offence and to allow postal vote forms to be included in party material sent out by parties. I agree that this is a dangerous move. I do not think the change has been adequately justified. If I correctly understand what has been said, the amendment is going to be supported by the Liberals. That is very disappointing.

Question put:

The Assembly voted-

	Ayes 10  		Noes 5

 Mr Berry  	Mr Quinlan  	Mr Kaine   
 Mrs Burke  	Mr Smyth  	Mr Moore   
 Mr Corbell  	Mr Stanhope  	Mr Osborne
 Mr Cornwell  	Mr Stefaniak  	Mr Rugendyke
 Mr Humphries  	Mr Wood  	Ms Tucker

Proposed new clause 19A agreed to.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .