Page 4725 - Week 15 - Thursday, 16 December 1993
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Electoral Legislation
MR CORNWELL: Madam Speaker, my question is to the Chief Minister without notice. I refer the Chief Minister to the Government's dishonest electoral legislation. If this fraudulent legislation is supposed to be an enhancement of Robson rotation, why is not the marking of preferences below the line given favoured treatment over the marking of preferences above the line? Well may you frown and try to grasp it, Chief Minister. For example, why is a one, a tick or a cross acceptable above the line, but any error in numbering to five or to seven below the line enough to make the vote informal? Why have you departed from the Senate system which favours the formality of below-the-line voting and which allows a few mistakes not to disqualify an elector's votes below the line?
MS FOLLETT: Madam Speaker, as far as I am aware, the rules in the Bill which I have put forward mirror those for the Senate ballot.
Members interjected.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! I am quite willing to not give the Liberal Party any more questions if you are not choosing to listen to the answers. I have called for order.
MS FOLLETT: Madam Speaker, as far as I am aware, the above-the-line option is exactly the same as it is in the Senate, and that is a ruling that the Electoral Commissioner has made previously. I have scrutineered many times and I can tell you that there are a great many indications. The test is whether the voter's intention is clear. If there is only one box to be marked, then there are a number of ways in which the voter's marking of that box is accepted. As far as below-the-line voting goes, it is obviously important that there are two conditions satisfied. The first is that the voter votes in as many boxes as there are candidates to be elected. That is very important. The second is that there is a consecutive sequence, Madam Speaker, including a number one and so on. The way that I have seen that dealt with if the voter has made a mistake is that the votes are counted up to the point where the intention is clear; but, Madam Speaker, where there is also a requirement that all boxes be marked up to the number of candidates to be elected, there is clearly a problem with satisfying those two criteria together.
I say again to the Liberals, Madam Speaker, that if they want to discuss these matters, if they want briefing on these matters, if they want to negotiate with other parties on these matters, that opportunity is available to them. If they do not want to do that, they are very much on their own. That clearly is the way that they want to go. They want to continue this debate along the strictly adversarial lines that they have been adopting for some time now, and I think that is extremely regrettable, Madam Speaker. I think this is a very important piece of legislation. There is a huge number of issues contained in the legislation which I am quite sure all members of this house have views on. It seems to me a great shame that members are not prepared to sit down in a reasonable fashion and thrash those issues out.
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