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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Friday, 14 May 2004) . . Page.. 2061 ..

when they donate above $1,500 do so at risk of prosecution by the Electoral Commissioner. I note that a recent audit conducted by the Electoral Commissioner identified several donors in this category who have now submitted returns that are available on the Electoral Commission website.

Given that significant donors are obliged to submit disclosure returns, there does not appear to be any justification for imposing an onerous reporting requirement on parties, MLAs and associated entities that would require them to go into the detail of every small donation made to them. For these reasons, the government intends to oppose any disclosure amendments.

Turning to the other amendments to this bill that have been foreshadowed, I understand that Mrs Cross intends to move amendments aimed at reducing the number of members needed to register a political party from 100 to 50. It is the government’s view that a political party should be representative of a significant number of ACT electors if it is to enjoy the benefits and responsibilities of registration under the ACT’s Electoral Act.

Registration under the Electoral Act is a signal to voters that it is a real political party with a genuine support base and a constitution that is made publicly available for anyone to see. Just where the bar should be set for how many members are needed to demonstrate a genuine support base is, of course, somewhat arbitrary. However, the ACT has adopted 100 members as its standard and those parties that have been registered in the ACT have apparently had no difficulty in meeting this requirement. The government will therefore oppose this amendment.

Another amendment has been foreshadowed that would provide that the ungrouped column of candidates is to be included in the random draw for column order so that it could appear in any position on the ballot paper. It is my view that this proposal would simply serve to confuse voters. The purpose of a ballot paper is as a communication medium to voters. It is a recognised feature of both ACT and Senate ballot papers that ungrouped candidates appear in the right-hand column or columns.

Voters wanting to vote for ungrouped and Independent candidates should know to expect this. If the ungrouped columns were to be included randomly anywhere on the ballot papers, voters might not be able either to find them or to recognise them for what they are. Printing ungrouped candidates always in the same place is a longstanding convention and I suggest that including them in the random draw for positions may be more likely to lead to people not voting for them than otherwise. The government will oppose this amendment.

Ms Dundas has foreshadowed an amendment to make it an offence to induce a person to complete a postal vote application and return it to an address other than an address specified by the Electoral Commissioner and to make it an offence to solicit postal vote applications that are not in the approved form. This amendment seeks to remove the ability of parties to include applications for postal votes in their own material, with the party’s address given as the return address.

This system is utilised in every federal election and was used at the 2001 ACT election. In every federal election, including here in the ACT, candidates, political parties and others distribute throughout the electorate declaration forms for postal votes. It seems to

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