Page 955 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 April 1994
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I present the supplementary explanatory memorandum. Briefly, Madam Speaker, these amendments are to paragraph 6(c). Amendment No. 1 seeks to amend the definition of "elector" to ensure that the definition includes people who are taken to be electors by virtue of being Commonwealth electors. The other proposed amendments seek to delete the definitions of "registered voting ticket" and "voting ticket square" as a consequence of the removal of the party ticket voting scheme.
MR HUMPHRIES (5.03): Madam Speaker, obviously the Opposition supports these amendments. They begin to remove the most iniquitous features of the Electoral (Amendment) Bill as it stands before the Assembly, features which would have made this Bill a totally different proposition from the one which the people of the ACT supported at the referendum of 1992. I am very pleased to see that the Government has taken that decision. We support these amendments.
MR MOORE (5.03): Madam Speaker, I rise to place on the record how pleased I am with the beginning of this process of removing that odious proposition that the Government had put up which was in total conflict with what people had decided at the referendum. It seems to me that the goodwill of the Government now in so doing has not come about through any volition on the part of the Government, or anything like that, but rather because of the fact that Ms Szuty and I went to the Chief Minister and made it very clear to her, prior to Christmas, that should she proceed with this we would have to consider it a matter on which we could not have confidence in the Government. I hope that the Government has learnt a lesson and is prepared to be genuine about consultation with the people of Canberra. There is no more direct consultation than a referendum and it is our responsibility to deliver that referendum result. I believe that the people of Canberra are fortunate - it is demonstrated no better than in this case - in that there is a minority government. Had we not had a minority government, Madam Speaker, the wishes of the electorate as expressed through that referendum would not have been delivered.
Amendments agreed to.
Clause, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 7 agreed to.
Clause 8
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (5.05): I move:
4. Page 8, lines 11 and 12, proposed new paragraph 7(1)(b), omit "referred to it by the Minister relating to elections", substitute "relating to elections referred to it by the Minister".
This amendment is more or less an editorial amendment. It seeks to omit the words "referred to it by the Minister relating to elections", which clearly is an ambiguous phrase, and to substitute for those words the words "relating to elections referred to it by the Minister".
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