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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Friday, 14 May 2004) . . Page.. 2059 ..

Commissioner from taking part in a review by the Electoral Commission of a decision not to conduct a recount of ballot papers, and bringing all the disclosure thresholds up to the same amount to remove inconsistencies in the current disclosure scheme.

I foreshadow that the government intends to move amendments to the bill to remove the provisions related to the registration of ballot groups. Last year’s events in Queensland regarding the registration of the One Nation Party have demonstrated the importance of having a robust party registration scheme. The amendments to the party registration scheme included in this bill are, in part, intended to clarify and strengthen the Electoral Commissioner’s power to verify that a party has the required number of members for registration.

These changes are intended to ensure that only political parties that demonstrably have 100 members will be able to apply for registration. By contrast, at present it is possible for a party to apply for registration before it has attained the necessary number of members needed for registration.

The bill brings forward to 30 June in an election year the latest date on which an application for party registration or an application to change the name or abbreviation of a registered political party may be made before an election. This cut-off date will ensure that there will be adequate time for verifying that a party is entitled to registration. It will also allow time for appeals against the decision to register a party to be made and considered before the election period commences.

By contrast, under the existing provisions, a party can wait until the last possible moment before applying for registration, leaving little time for checking the party’s credentials and no time for appeals to be heard against the registration. Again, bearing in mind the events surrounding the registration of the One Nation Party in Queensland, this change should serve to improve the ACT’s party registration process.

The bill removes the provisions that allow candidates to form non-party groups on the ballot papers. The government intends to move amendments to the bill to remove the provisions related to the registration of ballot groups. Taken together, these measures will ensure that only candidates belonging to registered political parties will be able to be listed in groups on ballot papers. All non-party candidates will be listed in ungrouped columns on the ballot papers.

In making its recommendations to remove non-party groups the Electoral Commission noted that, in the days before political party affiliations were listed on ballot papers, a non-party group was seen as a collection of like-minded candidates campaigning on a common platform. These days a non-party group is arguably just a vehicle for two or more candidates to distinguish themselves on the ballot paper by being listed in a separate column. Candidates in a non-party group are no longer expected to have any connection with each other beyond a desire to be listed in their own column.

I understand that amendments will be moved to retain the provisions related to non-party groups. For the reasons I have outlined, I consider that non-party groups no longer serve an electoral purpose and the government will oppose these amendments. The ballot group provisions were included in the Electoral Act before the 2001 election as part of a reform of the party registration scheme which saw the abolition of the concept of

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