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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 3 Hansard (23 October) . . Page.. 3985 ..

MS TUCKER

though not the Democrats, and probably not the Greens either were they to be in a situation of having a number of members in this place. I note that federally there is a capacity for a conscience vote. So, if the Greens and the Democrats were major parties, there would be the capacity for backbenchers to hold the executive and cabinet accountable in the way that was originally designed to occur under the notion of responsible government that we talked about a bit yesterday. But that is obviously not the case now, so there is definitely a relationship between the sovereignty of voters and the nature of the electoral system as well as the length of the term. That is why I have made that link. The Greens are not saying that we are absolutely opposed to four-year terms-I need to make that clear-but we are saying that it does need to be accompanied with this electoral reform as well as a referendum.

On the question of a referendum, I think there is the perception of a conflict of interest, as I explained in my dissenting report, even though this particular proposal is that it would not occur until after this term has finished and, as Mr Hargreaves has pointed out, there is a turnover of members. Nothing is certain in politics, but it is most likely that people who are here now will still be here after the election, and I think it is not healthy in a democracy for a parliament to be able to, at whim, just increase the length of term of members. That is a question that should go to the people, really as a measure of respect for the community, because there is definitely some loss of accountability by extending the term and we need to know that the community is comfortable with that certain loss of sovereignty that will occur.

The argument has been put that it is going to save money to have fewer elections. I do not think that is a convincing argument because it raises the question: what price democracy? So the price issue cannot be seen as a very important one in this debate. I would be concerned if it was.

I am not convinced by the arguments that the extension of the term will allow a government or parliamentarians, as Mr Hargreaves said, time to get to know their electorates or convince the electorate that they are doing a good job or otherwise, or that it would give government a better chance of introducing longer-term policies. I think the addition of one year is not going to make much difference to the paradigm shift that is actually required in the view of the Greens. It is asserted in research that any kind of long-term social policy would take at least about 15 years to show results, and results in terms of environmental protection can take much longer. In fact, the Greens have a check question for policy, which is: will people thank us in 100 years for what we do today? That is a very long-term approach that we think is necessary. Adding one year to an electoral term I do not think is going to influence that. I would suggest that, even if we add one year, we will still see the electoral cycle fundamentally determining what government does. Adding one year is not going to make a significant difference to outcomes for the community now or in the long term.

I concede that an extension might make some policy work easier-that it would give some advantage; I am not saying that there would be no advantages-but what I am saying is that in the view of the Greens that does not justify extending the term at this point, unless we ensure as much as possible that the electoral system will allow diversity of voices within parliament and a real reflection of the community's view on who should be in government. That is not just about diversity of voices in the parliament; it is also

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