Page 5114 - Week 12 - Thursday, 27 October 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
what happens when a member of the Legislative Assembly vacates their seat before the end of the term. The bills before the committee for this inquiry—the Electoral Legislation Amendment Bill and the Electoral Act (Casual Vacancies) Amendment Bill—address these things. Both are responses to the Electoral Commission’s report on the ACT Legislative Assembly 2008 election, which documents the election and made 16 recommendations.
The report provided an important snapshot of where and how we were going on electoral matters in the ACT. We now have more voters going to the polls than ever before. There are interesting and significant developments that require a response, such as increasing trends for voters to cast their votes before polling day. Of course, there are innovations which the commission has introduced to do with electronic voting and electronic counting of votes. This is an important report, and I commend the Electoral Commissioner for it and I commend the report to the Assembly.
Our job as a committee has been to consider the two bills and reflect on whether they represent improvements to the Hare-Clark electoral system now in place in the ACT. As members know, the ACT has a distinctive electoral system. It has gone to some trouble to furnish a system that is fair to participants in elections. Its overall slant has been to work against inherent advantages of certain kinds of candidates over others.
In doing so, we have had a long history in the ACT of trying to improve the Hare-Clark system, and perhaps the most important of those improvements I would contend were the enhancements to the Robson rotation after the 1995 election that increased the number of rotations from five and seven respectively to a very large number—47, and I cannot remember what the other number is, but it was a big number—so that Molonglo has a very large number of rotations to ensure the minimisation of the donkey vote and that there are no disadvantages on the ballot paper because of where you are drawn. By doing this, we have served electors well by more truly reflecting their will at the ballot box.
A number of the features support this: from the principle of proportional representation embedded in the Hare-Clark system itself, to the Robson rotation of candidates’ names, to the rule preventing canvassers for candidates and political parties from coming within 100 metres of polling booths during voting.
Of course, the central elements of the system were entrenched as a result of the referendum in 1995, and the entrenchment is something that I worked for. I need to place on the record—I placed this on the record formally and it is reflected in the report—that I have a long association with the implementation of Hare-Clark in the ACT. I was an active member of the Hare-Clark campaign committee in the run-up to the 1992 referendum which entrenched Hare-Clark.
Mr Seselja: We have got you to thank.
MRS DUNNE: Yes, you do, amongst others. I am very proud of the achievements of the Hare-Clark campaign committee, because when we started the process, 27 per cent of people in the ACT thought that Hare-Clark was a good idea and the vast majority—more than 70 per cent—of people thought that single member electorates
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video