Page 1441 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 11 May 1994
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ASSOCIATIONS INCORPORATION (AMENDMENT) BILL 1993
Debate resumed from 1 March 1994, on motion by Mr Connolly:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR HUMPHRIES (4.38): Madam Speaker, this is also a fairly straightforward piece of legislation. Members may be aware that there are a number of national bodies which are registered in the ACT under the ACT's Associations Incorporation Act. These bodies often have voting members with multiple votes. For example, certain organisations which make up a national body will have a certain number of votes perhaps proportional to their size or to their shareholdings or whatever it might be, and that is the way in which those organisations operate. Until now, under our associations incorporation rules, for a special resolution to pass through an association so registered under that Act it has been necessary for three-quarters of all the members of the national association to support the resolution, even though they might not equal three-quarters of the actual voting power of the national organisation.
Madam Speaker, that is the reason that the Opposition will be opposing this piece of legislation. We can see a very good reason why this legislation will actually disadvantage people and organisations that come from the ACT. Many of these national bodies are divided into State and Territory components. We have all had the experience of being part of a small ACT delegation going to a national meeting, trying to get our voice heard and being voted down by the larger States. Of course, under the present legislation it has been possible for a coalition of small jurisdictions to get together and block the moves of the bigger jurisdictions, because two or three small jurisdictions can constitute 25 per cent or more of the votes making up the national organisation.
With the passage of this legislation we will now see it possible for New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, or New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia - they are the usual line-ups that I have noticed in national organisations - to gang up together and to knock off little places such as the ACT. I do not think we are very enthusiastic about this legislation, Minister, and I hope that you realise that you are probably putting a rod to the back of many small ACT delegations rolling up to all sorts of national bodies, but I am sure that you have your reasons.
MR CONNOLLY: (Attorney-General and Minister for Health) (4.41): Madam Speaker, I seek leave to speak without closing the debate.
Leave granted.
MR CONNOLLY: Mr Humphries began his remarks so reasonably that I thought he was supporting the Bill, but then at the end of the day there was this possibility of the dastardly big States ganging up on the plucky little States, so we should oppose this Bill. This amendment to the Associations Incorporation Act does not itself say how federated organisations should arrange themselves. They may choose to say that New South Wales has the same vote as the ACT, or they may not.
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