Page 864 - Week 03 - Thursday, 14 April 1994
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An interesting thing is that people did not get a say on above-the-line boxes or below-the-line ticket voting - something I have never suggested - because obviously you do not tick a party if there are 17 single-member electorates and you do not tick a party under Hare-Clark. That was not a choice for people who may have wanted that. That is why I asked the question about voting tickets. I thought I would find out what people in Canberra want. One can say that they are wrong, but they were not given a choice. That is the point.
Mr Humphries: What do they want on that score? Do they want tickets?
MR STEVENSON: The point is that what they wanted initially was obviously a choice of a single electorate, and they were not given that choice. The referendum should have offered a fair choice. Mr Humphries and others have mentioned entrenchment. I would agree entirely with a referendum on entrenchment, provided, of course, that the first questions that were asked at the referendum were the ones that should have been asked at the 1992 referendum and it was done correctly, with the choice of preferential voting. Then I would vote for it.
I mentioned one point before, when Mr Humphries was talking and I called a quorum in the house. I was walking past the theatre outside yesterday, and as I looked up I noticed a computerised sign scrolling across. It said, "arry Humphries 'Look at me when I'm talking to you!'". I thought, "Good heavens! He has taken his act to the theatre". But I waited until it came around again and it said, of course, "Barry Humphries". It was not "Gary", as I thought when I picked it up right at that point.
Mr De Domenico: Which theatre? This one or the other one?
MR STEVENSON: The other theatre, next-door. They are both close together now, Mr De Domenico. Once again, it was a poor show, and anyone looking at the evidence will understand that it was a poor show. Many people do not know that the media whipped up a frenzy about above-the-line voting tickets as proposed in the initial Bill, but why did they not do the same about Canberrans being denied the opportunity?
MS SZUTY (3.56): Madam Speaker, in speaking at the in-principle stage of this debate, I am reminded that Australia is a signatory to the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Article 25 of this covenant says:
Every citizen shall have the right and the opportunity, without any of the distinctions mentioned in article 2 and without unreasonable restrictions:
(a) To take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly or through freely chosen representatives;
(b) To vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the electors;
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