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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Friday, 14 May 2004) . . Page.. 2072 ..

of parliamentary party, which allowed any MLA or any member of a parliament in another jurisdiction to register a political party without any membership requirement.

The current registration model is a two-tiered scheme consisting of registered political parties, all of which must have at least 100 members who are ACT electors, and registered ballot groups established by Independent MLAs. In considering the operation of this two-tiered arrangement, the government has concluded that it would be preferable to put all registered ballot entities on an equal footing rather than give Independent MLAs an advantage over other candidates and allow them to register a ballot group name without any demonstrated community support.

This amendment would remove all references to ballot groups in the Electoral Act and require all political participants to register a political party containing at least 100 members if they wish to have a party name listed on the ballot papers. In my view, there is no justification for distinguishing between non-elected non-party candidates and elected non-party candidates. The criteria for establishing a political party are clear and are not onerous. Each candidate has had considerable time in which to organise themselves into a party, and this is particularly so in the case of elected non-party candidates. I commend this amendment to the Assembly.

MR STEFANIAK (11.30): As I said earlier, the Liberal Party will be opposing this amendment. We have no problems with non-party groupings and like-minded Independents forming a group or indeed a ballot group. I think this amendment will get up. I understand the Greens are voting for it. It is interesting, given that Bob Brown, the effective head of the Greens in Australia, in a debate in 2000 on a very similar point, made a number of comments very much in favour, to the effect of “what does it matter if you have a large number of parties?” In the federal Senate Hansard of 11 October 2000, he stated:

I think some members of parliament have actually registered parties under their own names—Pauline Hanson might have been one of those in the past and I think Senator Harradine, if I am not wrong, may also have registered a party—and that is a legitimate thing to do. If you have the votes to get into parliament, then the public have voted for that and said, ‘We give enough support to this person for them to get into parliament,’ and a party registration should be valid in the wake of that.

That is a not dissimilar point to this.

Mr Stanhope: It’s quite different, Bill.

MR STEFANIAK: Yes, it is different.

Mr Stanhope: They were elected.

MR STEFANIAK: I think he is referring to someone who is in parliament who then formed an actual party as such. It is not a huge difference really in terms of the concept of people here forming a ballot group. What is wrong with that? We have seen that done in the past in this Assembly by several individuals. While they had the confidence of a sufficient section of the public, they were elected. Once the public decided they did not want them any more, out they went. That applies to anyone. It applies to governments,

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