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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Friday, 14 May 2004) . . Page.. 2077 ..

candidates. There is no provision for a column name, group into non-party groups. This allows Independent candidates to stand out from the crowd. Despite our system, it is difficult for Independent candidates to be elected. The current system lists all Independent candidates at the right-hand side of the ballot paper in columns no longer than the number of seats in the electorate—so columns of five or seven.

In the ACT, we inherited from the Senate the system of grouping non-party candidates. The Senate has had that system since before it admitted that parties were in operation, and allowed named party lists. It was also clearly part of the system as described in diagrams and words in the booklet that informed the referendum on our electoral system.

The Electoral Commissioner’s argument to remove this provision is that, while originally it was to allow Independent candidates to express some like-mindedness with another Independent candidate, in recent years it has been used by serious Independent candidates to boost their chances by getting someone else to run with them—not because the second person wants to be elected, but merely to boost the chances of the first Independent candidate.

The government seemed confused in describing this amendment. The arguments were around the ballot groups, which after all were introduced to keep two particular sitting Independents happy. We got rid of the ballot groups, which we do not like, but we are happy with the non-party groups.

MS DUNDAS (11.53): The Democrats are also opposing this clause. The issue here is whether non-party groups should be allowed to be grouped together on the ballot paper. The Electoral Commission recommended that non-party groups should be abolished in ACT elections. It put forward two arguments. The first argument is that it is used to distinguish an Independent on the ballot paper rather than forming a group of like-minded Independents. The commission claims:

There is no requirement or expectation that candidates listed in a non-party group have anything in common other than to be listed together in a separate column.

I am not convinced that this is entirely true; in fact, I think that, quite often, candidates listed together as a non-party group generally have very similar political views. They are quite often more similar than those of people who may run together as members of the same political party. I also believe that there is an expectation in the electorate that members of a non-party group do have something in common.

The commission’s second argument is that non-party groups result in larger ballot papers. As we have already discussed this evening, that does not seem to be a very good reason for making democratic decisions. The commission put forward the argument that the Molonglo ballot paper would have been 88 millimetres shorter if it were not for non-party groups. It also pointed out that it can be difficult to arrange a large number of groups on a screen for the purposes of electronic voting.

I understand that the commission can be very concerned about the administration of the election, its associated costs and logistics—it is their job to do so. However, my concern as a member of this Assembly is to ensure that candidates at an election are treated equally. It is important to remember that our Hare-Clark system of election is one that is

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