Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .
Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 3 Hansard (23 October) . . Page.. 3986 ..
MS TUCKER
(continuing):about the electorate having the capacity to express its preference between the major parties, which obviously is constrained in five-member electorates where you can have a significant difference in vote between the two major parties but the seats will be the same; each major party will still get two seats. So there is a strong argument that, if you increase the term of the Assembly, you must ensure that as much as possible the community's preference is expressed at the time of the election.
I also briefly remind members that the major parties did support this before. When the committee looked at the appropriateness of the size of the Legislative Assembly, there was a recommendation that the government consider increasing the term. I dissented from that view at that point because I said that I did not think that the committee had even looked at that issue-and we had not-and that there was need for further debate before I would support it. We have had the opportunity to have that further debate here and, while accepting some of the arguments, I am not able to support the majority recommendations of the committee, for the reasons I have just explained.
MS DUNDAS
(11.09): I would like to use this opportunity to put on the record the opposition of the ACT Democrats to the proposal to change the term of the Assembly to four years as outlined by the majority of the committee in this report.It is always the case that in a relatively new electoral system there is continued debate about how best to adapt the system to the particular needs of a specific jurisdiction. But this proposal for four-year terms has been debated and rejected multiple times by the Assembly in the past. It has been interesting to watch the about-face by the ACT Labor Party on this issue since coming to government, considering they were so vigorously opposed to the idea when they were in opposition. The ACT Democrats are prepared to make the case for retaining the existing system of three-year terms for the Legislative Assembly.
The first point to make is that the ACT government is not the same as a state government. The ACT system of government does not have the same number of checks and balances as in other jurisdictions. We have no upper house, no vice-regal assent and no separate level of local government. We have adopted a system that combines both state and local government duties that would be separately elected in other jurisdictions and we have a far wider range of duties than in state governments because we also take on local responsibilities.
In other jurisdictions voters have the opportunity to vote not only in state elections every few years but also at local government elections. We need to keep in mind that here in the ACT we have rolled local and state responsibilities into one, meaning that our voters have only one opportunity-instead of the rest of Australia's two-to make a judgment on the issues that are important to them in each electoral cycle.
We have a small population and cover a small geographic area. By any measure the ACT government is much closer to the people of Canberra than is any state government to its voters, and that also applies for the ACT parliament and all members here. Our three-year term reflects the unique system of representation we have.
I would like to put forward the viewpoint that elections provide an essential and welcome interaction between the Assembly and the people of the ACT. Many members
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .