Page 2021 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 5 August 2014
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Let us be clear here. Not only do electorates with fewer members increase the quota required to be elected, they also deliver results that are less aligned with what the people have voted for, and this goes to the point that I was making earlier. The fewer members in each electorate, the less likely it is that the result reflects the wishes of the voters.
While it is important to get a balance between good proportional representation and the workability of a parliament, I do not believe that balance has been reached here today. I believe that the people of the ACT would have been better served by electorates of between seven and nine members, and that this outcome should have been placed ahead of some of the other principles that have been raised in this debate. As such, the Greens will not be supporting this bill.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Chief Minister, Minister for Health, Minister for Higher Education and Minister for Regional Development) (4.51): I welcome the opportunity to speak on both of these important bills today. My comments will cover both of these bills being debated today. They essentially do the same thing: create five electorates with five members and expand the size of the Assembly from 17 to 25.
This Assembly routinely deals with bills of very significant importance. These bills are no different. Following the 2012 election, a clear priority for me was to address early in the term when there was room to consider openly the issues required to reach a consensus position, or as near to a consensus position as we could, on this matter to expand the size of the Assembly. My views on this were informed from being a member of this place since 2001 as a member for Molonglo during a time of rapid expansion and as a minister in this place for a number of years covering various portfolios across the government’s administration.
During that time and through my dealings with ministers from other jurisdictions it became very clear to me that failure to deal with the issues of workload for this Assembly would be a failure on my part as Chief Minister. That is why I was very keen to address this cooperatively and collaboratively with fellow MLAs early in this electoral cycle.
About eight weeks after the election was declared—actually, I do not even think it was that long; I think about four weeks—and I was elected Chief Minister by this place I did appoint an expert reference group to conduct an up-to-date review into the size of this Assembly.
As you would note from reading the report, Madam Speaker, it also relied on previous work and reviews that had been done into the size of the Assembly over a number of years. The reference group was chaired by the ACT Electoral Commissioner, Mr Phil Green. Its membership was comprised of Ms Anne Cahill Lambert, Professor Meredith Edwards, Mr John Hindmarsh and Ms Louise Taylor. I again thank them for the work that they have provided for all members in this place.
The terms of reference for the review were to examine past reviews, to consider factors relevant to increasing the size of the Assembly, to consider any limitations
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