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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 9 Hansard (23 August) . . Page.. 3287 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

The community is seriously angry about how this government has listened to it. This government has upset the people through its processes in terms of democracy. Now they come out with this approach of citizen-initiated referendum which clearly fails to take into account the broader responsibility for the parliament.

MR RUGENDYKE (4.05): I have listened carefully to all these very good speeches about this issue from Mr Stanhope, Mr Moore, Mrs Burke and Ms Tucker. They spoke very eloquently, searching for a direction in which to head in this debate. I looked to a debate on 4 December 1997 that seemed to sum it up fairly well. These words came from Mr Moore:

In summary, this legislation is anti-democratic. It does not look after the minorities in our society.

I will not repeat the next part of the quote about contestability in case of more derision from Ms Tucker, since she seemed to have a concern about that. I also read in that debate concern about citizen-initiated referenda in California where, among other things, it had been used to vote down taxes and to prevent tax increases.

Mr Speaker, I have heard nothing in this debate to persuade me to support this bill. All the speeches in this debate from those opposing the bill seem to be much more sensible than those supporting it. I will not support the bill.

MR HUMPHRIES (Chief Minister, Minister for Community Affairs and Treasurer) (4.07): While I find the bill not very sensible, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a contribution to this debate. This will be the fourth time that the Liberal Party has presented this bill to the Legislative Assembly.

Mr Stefaniak: Fifth time lucky, mate.

MR HUMPHRIES: The fifth time, is it?

Mr Stefaniak: It sounds like it.

MR HUMPHRIES: The fifth time?

Mr Stanhope: It sounds like the tenth to me.

MR HUMPHRIES: It sounds like about the tenth time, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, but my colleague the Attorney-General tells me it is the fifth time. I will take his word for that. The fifth time that-

Mr Stefaniak: No, I think it is the fourth time, mate. I said maybe fifth time lucky at working out the numbers. That's what I meant.

MR HUMPHRIES: Yes. Well, it is the fourth time by my counting that we have presented this bill to the Assembly, and I think it will be the fourth time this bill will be defeated. It is interesting that this legislation is by no means new in concept. This idea is one which is now practised in a large number of countries around the world, including

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