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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Friday, 14 May 2004) . . Page.. 2055 ..

MR STEFANIAK (10.29) The Liberal Party will be supporting the Electoral Amendment Bill 2003; but, as Ms Dundas says, we want to see a number of clauses deleted, for very good reason. We will not be supporting Ms Tucker’s bill, which is basically a regurgitation of what she would have liked to have seen happen in 2001. I note that she has upgraded a few things there in amendments that she has just circulated, but we will not be supporting her bill.

In relation to the Electoral Amendment Bill 2003, the Electoral Commissioner, Mr Green, put forward a number of suggestions and this bill has been placed before the Assembly. It has had a rather tortured history. I think that it is coming up to 12 months that it has been going on. It has been a bill that has been put off and put off, and here we are debating it at 10.30 tonight.

Might I say on what has been put up by the government, that there is a certain attraction in having a ballot paper which would be a lot cleaner and would have only five columns for each electorate—Liberal, Labor, Greens, Democrats, and others However, that is not what democracy is all about. Canberra has got used to the Hare-Clark system. It is also a city that likes to vote for a wide range of candidates. Indeed, the Liberal Party see absolutely nothing wrong—in fact, we think it is healthy for democracy—if like-minded Independents or even ballot groups want to form and be accorded a column on the ballot paper. Accordingly, we will be opposing a number of clauses of the bill which would take out those ballot groups and non-party groupings.

We thing that is good for a democracy. I can recall being asked in an ABC interview concerning one of the false starts on this bill about why we, a major party, were opposing a bill that was going to get rid of all the funny little Independent groupings. I do not know whether the interviewer believed me, but I said that actually it was good for the democratic process. People can tell whether they want to vote for Independents or not. We have seen Independents voted into this Assembly and we have seen Independents voted out of this Assembly, depending on the mood of the electorate at the time.

The people of Canberra, just like the people of the rest of Australia, are not fools. They know exactly how they want to vote at any particular time. If a government displeases them, they will put in another one. If members displease them, they will get rid of them and give new members a go. I think that it is eminently fair that this situation continue. Accordingly, we will be opposing a number of clauses, namely, clauses 12 and 13, 20 to 33, 35 to 40, 42 to 47, 49 to 53, 55 to 57, 59 to 61 and 66. They will have, effectively, the same result, so I will only speak briefly on one occasion in relation to them. I hope I have the numbers on those because, depending on that, after clauses 12 and 13 we will go to the government’s blue amendment sheet as opposed to the white amendment sheet.

The government is now changing its bill and wants also to exclude the ballot groupings. I suppose I should give the definition for that. A registered ballot group is a group of candidates with a sponsoring MLA who is not a member of a registered party. A non-party group, which I have been talking about until now, is two or more candidates grouping under one column on a ballot paper.

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