Page 1528 - Week 04 - Thursday, 7 April 2011
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future, is one of the most difficult things I have done in my 13½ years in this place. I find it very difficult. So here is another opportunity where we can go out there and start to engage with people.
As I say, I particularly welcome this reference and I look forward to the discussion in the committee around how we are going to progress it—how we are actually going to go out to the community and say, “Please engage.” I am the only member of the committee who was there last time, so I do have some contribution to make about the lack of promotion of the inquiry out there in the community.
When we did it last time, it was the usual story—we stuck an ad in the paper and then that was it. I do not think we can do that this time. We have now got other media that we can employ. We have got Facebook-type approaches and this sort of thing in order to reach a particular part of the community that would not otherwise be aware that we are doing it.
I look forward to engaging very heavily in this particular process and I welcome the referral from the Attorney-General.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (10.53): The Greens will also be supporting this referral to the committee. As members have touched on previously, we think that these are important matters that warrant some further scrutiny.
Some of the issues that have certainly occurred to us, from a first look at these bills, are as I think the attorney highlighted in his introductory speech last week. The government has not agreed to all of the recommendations from the Electoral Commissioner. The attorney gave some reasons around that and I think it warrants further scrutiny in that some have been supported and some have not. I make no comment on the merits of that at this stage, but I think, given that it is not a consistent approach, it is worth exploring these more closely.
The other obvious issue is the one of casual vacancies. The proposal from the government exposes some real tensions. Michael Moore’s article in this week’s CityNews probably highlights those tensions quite well, and perhaps the proposal picks it up too in the sense of wanting to ensure some stability through the term of the Assembly versus the notion of the ultimate act of democracy, in that the preferences that elected a member are the ones that continue to choose a member through the course of that term.
I think there is a real tension there and one that does warrant further conversation, both amongst members of this place and with other members of the community, for which the community process will provide an opportunity.
There are even some scenarios there which I have not yet been able to resolve in looking at the legislation. What happens if we go down a path where there are nominees from a certain party and yet those nominees do not prevail out of preferences? How does that play out in terms of what the government’s suggested policy approach is here?
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