Page 2031 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 5 August 2014
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MR RATTENBURY (5.31): As I indicated earlier, the Greens will be supporting this bill. We are pleased that the size of the Assembly is an issue that has been reviewed during this term despite, as I touched on earlier, the outcomes not being ideal. It is never popular for politicians to discuss increasing the number of politicians, and I do concur with the comments of Mr Hanson and Ms Gallagher in that I think we have conducted this discussion overall in a mature way. I think the process of having the expert reference group look at the issue and engage with the community was a very positive way to lead the discussion and come at it on an objective, factually-driven basis. In that context we have a good outcome in terms of the increase in the size of the Assembly.
Of course, various comments have been made about my earlier remarks. Mr Coe got all “colourful”, as Mr Hanson described it. It was interesting that all that I did was simply quote the experts. Mr Coe got rather carried away and used all sorts of terms like “moral” and “evil”, but it is worth reiterating that the expert reference group was the one that specifically stated that seven-member electorates were better than five or nine. So it was the experts who stated that. All of Mr Coe’s colourful comments cannot take that away.
Similarly, the Proportional Representation Society demonstrated clearly in their submission to the committee that representation is lowered when numbers of members go down. Again that was from the experts. It is not Greens self-interest, as members will seek to paint this, and that is what they will do, of course. It was the experts who said that. Clearly, the comments I have made have got rather close to the bone, because these are valid points made by external people with no self-interest whatsoever. I have simply quoted them. But given the ferocity of their reaction, and the sort of terms that Mr Coe threw around, it is quite clear that it has touched a little close to the bone.
It is interesting to reflect on the history of electorates in Tasmania. One of the conditions that has been put in place in the ACT is that we must have odd numbers of members in the electorates. I have discussed this matter with the Electoral Commissioner, because I was interested in that particular requirement. Certainly, in Tasmania there were six-member electorates for quite some years during the middle of the last century. The Senate often operates on a six-member basis. Of course there are 12 senators per state, but most often when we have a half-Senate electorate we have six members per electorate. So there is a range of possibilities open to us.
Mr Hanson made some observations about me seeking to reverse engineer it. I was quite comfortable with having 25 if that is the right number, and there is a range of possible permutations within that that we could have gone to. We could have had four electorates—three by six and one by seven. All sorts of permutations could have been possible. I think it is quite clear, and I have already given my reasons for why we have come to the model we have.
Overall I think increasing the size of the Assembly will deliver better governance for the people of the ACT. It will allow for a further increase in the size of the ministry. I think this is important because the role of the ACT government in combining both
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