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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Friday, 14 May 2004) . . Page.. 2081 ..

Amendment negatived.

Clause 13 negatived.

Clause 14 to 16, by leave, taken together and agreed to.

Proposed new clause 16A.

MS DUNDAS (12.10 am): I move amendment No 2 circulated in my name to insert a new clause 16A [see schedule 2 at page 2120].

I spoke to the substance of what this amendment does when talking to my first amendment, which this Assembly supported. As the amendments are linked, it would be good law-making practice if the Assembly also saw fit to support the second amendment. To quickly summarise for members, if they have forgotten the debate that happened before, this amendment goes to the issue of postal voting and helps to ensure that all applications for postal voting are returned directly to the Electoral Commission and not sent via a political party.

Amendment agreed to.

Proposed new clause 16A agreed to.

Clauses 17 to 19, by leave, taken together and agreed to.

Clause 20.

MR STEFANIAK (12.11 am): Consequential on clauses 12 and 13, I will be opposing this clause.

MR STANHOPE (Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Environment and Minister for Community Affairs) (12.11 am): I move amendment No 1 circulated in my name on the blue sheet [see schedule 5 at page 2133].

This amendment is essentially of the same order or consequence as the amendment I moved previously in relation to changes to the bill to remove all references to “ballot groups” in the Electoral Act. I gave a detailed explanation of the basis of the amendment previously. I could repeat that but I do not believe it would really enhance the understanding of members. Members will recall that this relates to the provision under the Electoral Act as it currently stands that a ballot group is an entity that can be registered by a member of the Assembly who is not a member of a registered political party. A registered ballot group is able to nominate candidates for election to the Assembly with candidates identified on the ballot paper by printing the ballot group’s registered name or abbreviation. I went into some detail on that. It is the same issue and, for the same reasons, the government supports this particular amendment.

MR STEFANIAK (12.13 am): Given the previous votes, which basically omit clauses 12 and 13 so that “non-party group” now goes into this act, and given the success of Mr Stanhope’s earlier amendment where he managed to omit “ballot group”, what he is

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