Page 863 - Week 03 - Thursday, 14 April 1994
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There should have been at least three questions, and under those questions there should have been the option of preferential voting. People should have had the option to vote for different things. As an example, under the single electorate of 17 members there could very easily have been a choice of Hare-Clark or d'Hondt. Then people would have had a fair say.
I do not think for a second that people would have voted for d'Hondt, but they should have had the opportunity to do so. That would have been fair and just, but that was not allowed. Why is it that all crusaders of justice we have heard again and again over the last weeks did not do anything to make sure that a fair referendum was held in the first place? Where were they? Where in Canberra were all these people? Where were the media when I put out media - - -
Mr Connolly: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Mr Stevenson was directing his question to the gentleman I can see disappearing out the door across the other side of London Circuit. He should be at least addressing members, if not addressing the Chair.
MR STEVENSON: They are coming in, as you will notice in a moment - - -
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Stevenson, address your remarks this way, please.
MR STEVENSON: Where were the media, the protectors of our freedom who let people know what goes on, to tell them?
Mr Humphries: They are up there.
MR STEVENSON: I know that they are up in the box. I see them. It should not have been up to me to tell people. Anyone would have known that the referendum did not allow a choice of the system that we had operated under for six years. They should have done their homework and known that the Electoral Commission had not recommended a multimember electorate. They also could have done a survey, but not like the one that the Canberra Times did, which said that most people favoured single-member electorates. We had already surveyed that. I immediately said, "That one is not right". Gary said that it was an amazing reversal. No, it was not. There was a reversal; but it was not amazing, because the initial poll was not okay. I put out a media release on it and sent it to the Canberra Times at the time, but they did not print it, which is not unusual.
What is the solution to politician-initiated referendums? Politicians should be able to initiate referendums, but what do you do when they are fraudulent? What we must have is a situation where they can be fixed. That is called the electors initiative and referenda principle. Under the principle that I have tabled in this parliament and that we will debate in the not too distant future, citizens would have been able to add another question. They could have said, "What about offering us the choice of a single electorate?". The Electors Initiative and Referendum Bill that I have before this house allows people preferential voting. They would have been able to do what the Electoral Commission did not do for us. You ticked one of two boxes. Was that a choice?
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