Page 1678 - Week 05 - Thursday, 8 May 2008
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and privatising the means of production. But it makes so little sense both in long-term financial benefits and in terms of minimising greenhouse emissions that in the light of the recent developer donation scandals one wonders whether the sale is not really motivated by a desire to benefit some prospective future owners as well. These are the questions that are asked. They may not be answered in the affirmative, but at the moment they are not being answered in any way at all.
I think ACT voters are rightly concerned about the level of almost unqualified support which the Labor government gives to the gambling industry in the ACT. They are right to question the linkage between this support and the source of a large proportion of funding received by the party. My amendments seek to minimise the corrupting potential of developer donations to the political decision-making process. Perhaps in future we can address the corrupting potential of donations sourced from poker machine revenue.
While I understand the drive to standardise amounts, and thus simplify the disclosure requirements, it would be nice to see a further strengthening of the legislation to allow voters to be more fully aware of who is backing any particular party or any particular politician. The amendments that I have proposed aim to begin this strengthening and I will speak to them shortly.
The major impact of the government’s bill is the removal of the non-party groups, which was attempted in the last Assembly and defeated. The scrutiny of bills committee in its investigation into this amendment has also brought this issue to our attention, as it may engage section 8 (3) of the Human Rights Act regarding the common law rights of candidates. While I sympathise with the wish of the ACT Electoral Commission to cut administrative costs and keep all options on one ballot paper, I question, as did Ms Dundas in 2003, whether this is really a good enough reason to remove the option to create a non-party group. To quote my predecessor Kerrie Tucker in 2003, non-party groups allow “independent candidates to stand out from the crowd”.
Despite our system it is difficult for independent candidates to be elected. Mr Corbell has advised us that the non-party group provision was put in place to serve the interests of certain incumbent independents and can often be used to give an unfair advantage to one independent over another. However, not having the option at all gives yet another advantage to political parties over independents.
The Robson rotation system is designed to give no candidate an unfair preference over another. But when all independents are lumped in the final column, does not this unfairly advantage the parties that are a part of the random rotation? Is not this, in fact, an undemocratic situation which further limits the chances for independents and small groups to be elected? No doubt it would be easier for the Electoral Commission to have fewer columns on the ballot paper, but where do we draw the line? The early problems with metre-long ballot papers have not recurred in recent elections and this amendment seems to be ostensibly aimed at solving a problem that no longer exists.
Yes, as argued by the Electoral Commission, non-party groups may possibly be used by people with no common stance, although if you disagree with someone’s politics it
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