Page 2643 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 10 August 2016
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Every member of this community is free in a plebiscite to vote as they wish. That is the very point of a plebiscite; it is the bottom-up process. You give a chance to our community to have its say, to make its point, to have a view as individuals. I think you will find that, a little bit like the republic debate, this is not on party lines. It should not be decided that if you are Labor you have to vote this way or if you are Liberal you have to vote that way. The point of the plebiscite is we are free to vote as we wish, as occurred in the republic referendum.
I do not think this place should dictate which way we are to vote one way or the other. I would not support it if it were taking it the other way either, I will make it very clear. If it were a different government saying, “No, we should be supporting a no case,” I would equally say, “No, I do not think so. I do not think that is right.” If you are having the plebiscite you have to the let the people make their decision.
One part of the motion talks about government employees participating in constructive, respectful and informed decisions. The problem is that the earlier part of the motion says the ACT government has to take one side of the debate. So on one hand it is saying that the ACT government is taking one side of the debate but you are all out there able to engage in the debate. I do not think having this top-down view of the plebiscite meets the intent of where we are going.
Concerns have been raised about a plebiscite. It is being characterised as a terrible process, but I remind members that this is the process the federal Labor leader, Bill Shorten, supported up until a couple of years ago. So until a couple of years ago this was Labor Party policy federally. The federal leader of the Labor Party said a plebiscite was the way to go. So it is difficult for me to believe it is credible that it was all good a couple of years ago and the right way to go but now it is all damnation if we go down this route. That is not credible. It reeks of politicking, and I do not think that is helpful. I personally want this to go through and politicking on this is not helpful.
The motion also talks about a free vote in the parliament. I assume there will be a free vote in the parliament after the plebiscite. I am not sure whether it will be on party lines or not, but ultimately that is a matter for the federal parliament and we should not be trying to run the federal parliament from the ACT Assembly. I do not think we would appreciate it if the Tasmanian House of Assembly were trying to tell us how to vote and conduct our business. I hear regularly from those on the other side, including the Greens, that we need to stand more independently from the federal government, so I do not think it is helpful that we are trying to tell them how to conduct their business when we would not want them telling us how to conduct ours. It is very much for individuals to make that decision.
As to the debate on whether the plebiscite is the way to go, I think it is. I make the point that it is a matter of giving people their chance. The Labor Party and the Greens are saying we should not have the plebiscite and it should be a free vote. I remind members that not only was a plebiscite Bill Shorten’s position a couple of years ago but when Labor was last in office federally they had six years to do just that, and they had the numbers. They had the numbers in both the lower and upper houses and they
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