Page 1102 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 20 April 1994
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MR STEVENSON: I understand the point. Nevertheless, the closest indication I can get from people is that they approve of that happening. The other question we asked was this:
If banned, should one card from each party/independent/group be displayed inside each polling booth showing their recommendation of how electors should vote and direct their preferences?
The result for that was even higher, with 73 per cent saying yes, 18 per cent saying no; 7 per cent saying that they were not concerned, and 3 per cent saying that there was not enough information. Either way you look at those results on those two questions, they show that most people are in favour of how-to-vote cards being available. There was no distinction made in those specific areas.
Mr Humphries: You did not ask for a distinction.
MR STEVENSON: I grant you that; but they are mobile polling booths, so it obviously relates.
MR HUMPHRIES (5.39): Madam Speaker, I regret that Mr Stevenson has not picked up the difference in this particular situation. This is not an ordinary polling booth.
Ms Follett: You have not made a case for a difference.
MR HUMPHRIES: There is a very significant difference. The difference will be revealed not through anything that I have had to say, but through the informal votes which will be recorded, particularly by those who might be attempting to vote Labor at those booths, because it is Labor that will be putting out the most confusing how-to-vote card under this arrangement. There will be considerable confusion amongst those people. I predict - I hope that Mr Stevenson will come back and read what I have said and see whether it comes true - that there will be a particularly high informal vote in those mobile polling booths. I do not wish to be responsible for that, because informal votes represent wasted votes. People's democratic right to engage in the process is reduced or denied. That seems to me to be the opposite of what Mr Stevenson has talked about in this place before.
I do not want to get into the debate about how-to-vote cards now; but I might indicate that, in my view, the question, "Are you in favour of how-to-vote cards?" is extremely difficult to answer properly if you do not know about the implications of Robson rotation. If you do not know about Robson rotation, or have not been told about it, if you have not had explained to you that there is a huge difference between ordinary elections and an election where the ballot-paper is going to look quite different from any how-to-vote card, the complexion of that argument is changed. But that is a debate to be held later on in these proceedings. I hope that Mr Stevenson watches carefully what happens in those aged persons units. I would have thought he would have had a constituency there that might have been interested in the outcome here. He would realise that there will be a serious consequence of the failure of these amendments. That will be measured in the lack of say that elderly people get in the outcome of the next ACT election.
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