Page 1151 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 April 1994
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Mr Berry: Like salary caps in rugby league.
MR MOORE: We have an interjection from Mr Berry, who draws attention to the fact that they have tried to do salary capping in rugby league. It just does not work. There are so many ways around it that it is better to deal with a law in a straightforward way rather than introducing a law that is not going to work. There is a major difference between this and rugby league, of course. We know that there is an overall cap, and that is the number of voters in the ACT. The most money that we can possibly spend on this issue is limited to a dollar per voter. At the moment, as I recall, that is some $180,000. It will vary a little from that as we get more voters. The amount of money in terms of an election process is not great. It assists us in delivering some important social justice values, and it also assists in delivering some anti-fraud measures. For those reasons, Madam Speaker, I shall be opposing this amendment and that series of amendments.
MR STEVENSON (1.00): On the general idea of public funding, our recently conducted survey of 507 people, over four days at eight shopping centres during business hours, after hours and at the weekend, showed that most people do not agree with public funding. The question we asked was:
Should there be public funding for candidates. This means that an amount, say one dollar, would be issued to candidates for each vote (1st preference) they received at the election.
Then we asked the question, "Should there be public funding?". The result was that 18 per cent said yes, 77 per cent said no, 2 per cent were not concerned about the issue, and 2 per cent said that there was not enough information to make a decision.
As we know, there was public funding for the first election in the ACT but not for the second election in the ACT. As a general rule, we try to steer clear of mentioning in a survey question what the current situation is with any factor because that tends to cause bias. I do not disagree with members doing so here, and saying, "Look, this is the way it is in most other States in Australia" or, "It is not like that in most other States in Australia". The reason we do that is to suggest that it is a good idea and it should be supported. We do not do that when we survey because that usually biases the question. What I will do on any question to do with public funding is: (1) vote against it and support the majority rule of the people; or (2) vote for the least amount of public funding on any question. I would commend Mr Humphries and his Liberal Party colleagues on supporting the will of the people in this matter, and I call on all members to do the same thing.
MR KAINE (1.02): Madam Speaker, I have left it to Mr Humphries to speak to this Bill, essentially, because he has done a lot more work on it than I have. I think he puts the case very well, but this is one issue on which I feel that I should make my position clear. I believe that this is one of the least defensible of the provisions contained in this Bill. For the Labor Party to substantiate its position it would have to demonstrate, first of all, that there have been people who might have stood for this Assembly had funding been available to them in the past. I do not believe that that is the case. I do not know of
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