Page 639 - Week 02 - Thursday, 19 February 2015
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MR RATTENBURY: No, we spent the cash, Mr Corbell, I can assure you.
Mr Corbell: You spent it?
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ms Lawder): Order, members!
MR RATTENBURY: We spent it on the federal election. That is well known; it is in the disclosures. That does not mean we should not be arguing for a better system. I also mention in this context that this morning my office delivered to both Mr Barr and Mr Hanson an open letter that had been signed by 690 people expressing their concerns about these changes.
Mr Hanson: The Greens membership list, is it?
MR RATTENBURY: Some of them are Greens members; some of them are members of the public—as you will. There are now over 700 signatures on it; people have continued to engage in it today because they have seen this debate in the public domain and they are concerned about it. It is fair to say that this is an issue of concern in the community. We see experts like Professor Williams making these comments. But the Labor and Liberal parties are prepared to come into this place and ignore all of those comments, in what I think is a surprising and retrograde step. Therefore, I commend my amendment to the Assembly.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Health, Minister for the Environment and Minister for Capital Metro) (4.40): The government does not support this amendment. Clause 4 of the bill already omits these references and a further reference to section 205J. So it is unclear to the government what the point of this amendment is. The amendment is misconceived if the intention is to retain the ACT election account, as it does not keep the references to the election account provisions.
Amendment negatived.
Clause 4 agreed to.
Proposed new clauses 4A and 4B.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (4.41), by leave: I move amendments Nos 2 and 3 circulated in my name together, which insert new clauses 4A and 4B [see schedule 1 at page 664].
These amendments relate to the penalties for failing to vote. This was an issue that was considered by the committee that did the investigation prior to this legislation. The committee actually recommended that it was time to increase the penalties for not voting. They have not been changed for some time. Certainly the penalty for failing to vote, at $20, was considered by the committee to not reflect the seriousness with which we expect members of the public to engage in the voting process.
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