Page 5120 - Week 12 - Thursday, 27 October 2011
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opposite. It did not suit them; so they opposed it outright. We are still paying the penalty for having too small an Assembly. We still pay the penalty for having too small an Assembly.
But it was okay at the time for those people opposite to support the increase for four years. That was okay. So this business of being on this moral high ground I am afraid does not cut it with me.
Opposition members interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Thank you, members!
Mr Doszpot interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Mr Doszpot, you are giving a speech.
MR HARGREAVES: Mr Speaker, I have used up a fair amount of time on all this stuff but it really is irritating. There is an issue for us, and for me, when I looked at this casual vacancy proposal. The question I asked myself was: what is so different in terms of the democratic process between the proposed change to the casual vacancy provisions and the way we select the Senate? I am reminded of Mrs Dunne’s opposition to the same process which saw Senator Humphries put into the Senate.
She worked for Mr Humphries. She worked closely with Mr Humphries. I know that she holds him in high regard and I know he reciprocates that. But I am somewhat bemused that, in fact, the then Mr Humphries was nominated by a party to succeed Senator Reid. That was okay, Mr Speaker, but it will not be okay if it happens in this Assembly. I see an inconsistency here.
Mr Speaker, we had a countback recently which saw Dr Bourke join us here. One of the people in that countback chose not to be included in the countback. There has been occasion in this place, and it happened to be the Labor Party but in the future it could be anybody, where there was a majority. In the interests of a 17-member Assembly, that means that a party will have three members in a five-member electorate. That means that there are only two people left. Certainly, I believe that people out there in the community vote for people as individuals. But they also vote for a party brand.
In the Senate they have above-the-line voting. We do not have above-the-line voting in the ACT. So the way in which people vote for the brand is to make sure that when a countback occurs, it stays in the box. If there is any doubt about that, ask me about Mrs Burke, Ms Littlewood and Dr Bourke. Ask me about Mr Corbell. Ask me about Mr Barr. All of those, in countback, stayed in their party box. That makes crystal clear to me, Mr Speaker, that people are voting for the brand as much as they are for an individual. It is therefore quite appropriate for a party, if they run out of people in the countback, to nominate someone to come forward in exactly the same way we do for the Senate vacancies. I do not see an inconsistency there in our approach, but I do see one for those opposite.
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