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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Friday, 14 May 2004) . . Page.. 2069 ..

MRS CROSS: I neglected to mention this—and I thank Mr Stefaniak for prompting me—Bogey Musidlak did advise me that he would urge caution in bringing in a cut-off date too much forward from polling day, just because there is currently none. In 2001, three ballot groups, as Mr Stefaniak said, were registered in mid-August, without drama. In relation to how long it takes to achieve registration, a lot always depends on whether objections are made and whether there is any real basis for these.

I once again stress to members that there would have been no need for this particular amendment if this bill had been debated at least before this. Debate on this bill has been postponed because the government requested that it be postponed in order for the Chief Minister to get his head around it. Given that we extended him the courtesy of getting his head around this bill, I think it would be good for the Chief Minister to reciprocate by allowing at least an extra month for those to get their head around all these amendments and the new laws coming into place, or the amendments to these laws, in order to be fair. Given that the Chief Minister has advocated, with his Bill of Rights and other things, that he is into fairness and all sorts of other things, it would be good to allow that extra month.

MS TUCKER (11.19): The Greens will not be supporting this amendment. The bill sets the deadline for party registration at 30 June in an ordinary election year. This change, recommended by the Electoral Commissioner, is to ensure that applications are only accepted when there is enough time to fully resolve any potential appeals or complaints against the proposed registration. Currently the deadline is effective immediately before the pre-election period, but that does not allow time, and one party was caught in this trap at the last election and so was unable to register.

Mrs Cross’s amendment would make the deadline later, 31 July rather than 1 July. We do not support this change. The Electoral Commissioner has calculated the time necessary to work through all of the objection and appeal processes that are in place to protect the integrity of the electoral system, and this is how much time is needed.

While on the surface this means a trade-off between facilitating new parties getting established, and particularly new parties that form in response to topical issues, allowing adequate time for scrutiny of a party also contributes to democracy. Appeals are as much about having an opportunity for scrutiny to see if a party is genuine, or if it is misleadingly named, as they are about defence. If the public is to know whether a party genuinely stands for what it says it stands for, then there should be adequate time to have a look at what a party is saying and to object if that is necessary.

I will read from the review of the Electoral Act by the Electoral Commission on this. The office says:

The relevant periods in the party registration process are:

Receipt of application to register a party to publication of notice .........unspecified

Public objection period from date of publication of notice .............................14 days

Consideration of objections (if any) by Commissioner .........................unspecified

Objections (if any) forwarded to applicant for response .......................up to 14 days

Decision to register party notified ..............................................................unspecified

Further period in which review of decision can be sought.............................28 days

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