Page 4317 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 30 November 1994
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It was very clear to me that there was not support in the Assembly for that above-the-line voting system. I also considered that it was not a matter I was prepared to lose government over ...
So, Madam Speaker, I think it is true to say that the changes to the electoral system which were mooted in this place a year ago - which, I believe, would make it unacceptably different from the system that people supported at the referendum of 1992 - are still very much on the agenda of at least one party in this place. It is essential, therefore, that we look at the question of how we ensure that those sorts of changes are not possible, contrary - if that is the case - to the will of the people in the ACT.
Mr Berry put the issue slightly differently yesterday. He said, on radio, that the things that were proposed by the Government at that time were no change at all and that the measure was designed to demystify the electoral system. I think we know otherwise. We know that that was an attempt to tailor key aspects of the system to suit the Government. It is a temptation with which all governments have been confronted at various times and which is as old as the hills. Unfortunately, historically, many have succumbed to it. Queensland and Western Australian governments in recent years spring to mind.
This Bill's objective is to put key elements of the electoral system well out of the reach of majority governments. It entrenches what, I think, could be argued to be essential principles of the Hare-Clark electoral system, described in deliberately broad terms, in order to ensure that legislation which is enacted contrary to those principles cannot stand unless it also secures a majority, as required by clause 5 of this Bill. Madam Speaker, these principles are broadly stated, and they are an attempt to ensure that legislation elsewhere does not contradict it.
If, and when, this becomes law, the capacity of the Assembly to pass subsequent laws to affect those principles is limited, pursuant to section 26 of the self-government Act, by this law. It can be changed, according to clause 5 of my Bill, only by one of two things - either by a majority of electors of the ACT supporting a referendum to that effect, conducted in accordance with the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Act, which we passed a few weeks ago, or by a two-thirds majority of members of the Legislative Assembly. The reason I have inserted that provision is that, from time to time, minor or technical amendments to other legislation might be necessary or other measures might need to be enacted in laws which could be argued to contradict some element of this essential Hare-Clark legislation. The best way of dealing with that is not to put that minor matter to a referendum but to secure bipartisan or multipartisan support on the floor of the Assembly and to pass it with that special majority.
It is obvious, therefore, under the provisions of section 26 of the self-government Act that, in order to pass this Bill in the first place, these provisions need that special majority for them to be, in a sense, entrenched in that way. Madam Speaker, obviously that depends on support from all parties in this chamber, or at least from across the chamber by my colleagues on the Labor Party benches, to ensure that that two-thirds majority is reached. In this matter the ball is entirely in the Government's court. I do not expect that two-thirds majority support, if it is obtained, to indicate that the Government would
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