The ACT electoral authorities should work out the theme for the naming of the three ACT electorates and then call for public comment, Independent MLA Helen Szuty said yesterday.
The ACT redistribution committee is meeting this week to draw up provisional boundaries and give provisional names for the electorates.
Very few submissions have been received about the names.
Ms Szuty said to date they fell into three groups: geographic, Aboriginal and names of people who had made a contribution to Canberra.
“”It may be helpful in the resolution of this process if the redistribution committee nominated a theme before deciding specific names,” she said.
Personally she would be happy with any of the three themes.
In her submission on the boundaries she used the names Belconnen, Central Canberra and Tuggeranong.
The Labor Party submitted that the electoral commission should “”consult local aboriginal groups to find appropriate aboriginal names for the electorates”.
The Liberal Party said the names should be different from the Federal ones and reflect their geographic position. They should be different from existing names. It suggested Ginninderra, Burley Griffin and Brindabella.
A.P. Gay, of Red Hill, wrote that one of the electorates should be named after Arthur Blakeley, Minister for Home Affairs (including responsibility for Canberra) in the Scullin Government. He built and lived in the first private house here and fought against plans in the Depression to abandon Canberra as the national capital.
The Director of ACT Electoral Office, Phil Green, said there were no legislative guidelines on the naming of the electorates other than that the names go through the same submission and objection process as the boundaries.
The redistribution committee will do its provisional redistribution and naming as soon as possible. Objections can be lodged for 28 days after publication of them. Commonwealth experience suggests that most interest is generated at this stage.
The objections will be considered by the augmented Electoral Commission which may call public hearings before publishing a second proposed redistribution (which could be unchanged).
Further objections can be put and heard as with the first redistribution before a final unappealable redistribution and naming.
The process is expected to be finished by August.
The next election is to be held on the third Saturday in February, 1995.
There has been broad agreement between the major parties and the independents that the large seven-member electorate be in the centre, including old North and South Canberra and nearly all of Woden, and that Belconnen and Tuggeranong would form five-member electorates. There were some marginal differences.
Labor and Liberal parties recommended that Hall go into the Belconnen electorate and that Gungahlin go to the central electorate.
The Liberals and Michael Moore thought Torrens, Isaacs and Farrer should go into the Tuggeranong electorate. Labor thought O’Malley, Isaacs, Swinger Hill, Mawson and Farrer should go to Tuggeranong.
Ms Szuty wants Gungahlin in the Belconnen electorate.
All agreed that Weston Creek should be in one electorate, the central one.