Page 4828 - Week 15 - Thursday, 8 December 1994
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Mr Moore, Ms Szuty and members of the Liberal Party, along with me, could introduce that say through citizens referenda, in this Assembly today, even though it is the last day and the matter was put off yesterday by Mr Moore and Ms Szuty, along with the Labor Party.
Mrs Grassby: No; we did not put it off.
MR STEVENSON: Mrs Grassby must have been out of the Assembly at the time. They did not want to be seen to be voting against the right of the people to determine what they can have a say on. Let me say that again - the right of the people to determine what they can have a say on. The Liberal Party would have agreed with the right of the people to have a say; but, unfortunately, Mr Moore and Ms Szuty did not agree that the people should have the right to say what issues they want to have a say on.
Let me allude to the referendum in 1992, which concerned electoral matters. There is no doubt whatsoever that more people voted for one option than for the other. The difficulty, as I have mentioned a few hundred times in this Assembly - that is exaggerating slightly - was that they were not given reasonable options. That is like giving someone the option to choose between being boiled in oil and being hanged. It is not much of an option. I am not suggesting that both those choices were the equivalent of killing yourself; I am simply mentioning that, if you did not give the people the choice between boiling in oil or being hanged and having the opportunity to go free - which perhaps would be the best option of the lot - you restricted their choice.
If we maintain the idea that in Canberra we have some form of democracy, where the people have a say, then we should give them a choice. In 1992 we did not give them a choice. First of all, we did not allow them to have a say on whether or not they wanted a referendum. It was suggested that they needed to have a referendum and we would decide the questions that were asked. The Electoral Commission said that the existing system, with a good PR system, would be an ideal one for the ACT - one electorate with a good PR system. Notwithstanding whether or not that was right - whether or not most people would want to have that system - the truth of the matter is that they were not allowed a say. And they were not allowed a say on the status quo, the existing system. As I have mentioned in this Assembly a number of times, that was a fraud. There is no doubt about that. Some people might deny that that was a fraud, but everyone who denies that that was a fraud has to have a vested interest. It was obviously a fraud. Why else would you deny that a fraud is a fraud unless you have a vested interest? So, they were not allowed to vote for the status quo, perhaps with an optional preference of Hare-Clark, d'Hondt - or "don't", as we used to call it - or some other system. It was the perfect opportunity.
All of this is allowed under the Electors Initiative and Referendum Bill. So, if we brought on that Bill, or even the Liberal Bill, we would give the people the power in the coming year to have a referendum on whether they wish to change the electoral system or cement the electoral system. There may be some parts of the electoral system that they wish to cement - and then drop it in the harbour. But it should be up to them. This Bill does not let the people ask the questions. They did not have that opportunity in 1978, although it
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