The ACT will go to the polls in February with how-to-vote cards, the last contentious issue in the new electoral laws.
The ACT will have three electorates of seven, five and five members with Robson rotation and no form of party-line voting on the Tasmanian model.
Abolish Self-Government MLA Dennis Stevenson sided with the Government to accept how-to-vote cards.
How-to-vote cards are not permitted in Tasmania, but the issue was not put as part of the 1992 referendum which voted 70-30 in favour of Hare-Clark and Robson rotation.
ACT voters will be able to vote at any polling booth for the candidates in their seat. The three seats are Molonglo (central with seven members), Ginninderra (based on Belconnen with five members) and Brindabella (based on Tuggeranong).
ACT voters will get a ballot paper with party candidates in columns. However, the order of the candidates in each column will not be in accordance with party pre-selection. Some papers will have the order, say, Follett, Connolly, Bloggs, Lamont, Jones. Other papers will have: Jones, Lamont, Follett, Bloggs and Connolly. Voters will have to work out what order they want candidate in.
Earlier suggestions that Mr Stevenson might move amendments for a system of below-the-line party voting did not eventuate.
The Assembly considered a raft of other detailed amendments, but the main structure of what was decided at the 1992 referendum is now law.
Liberal electoral spokesman Gary Humphries moved that how-to-vote cards be banned within 100 metres of a polling booth. The Government’s Bill had the ban at six metres, just like Commonwealth law.
The Chief Minister, Rosemary Follett, said the 1992 referendum did not mention how-to-vote cards and she could not reason why normal Commonwealth practice should not be followed.
Mr Humphries argued that how-to-vote cards broke the spirit of Hare-Clark because voters were supposed to work out which were the best candidates free from party pressures.
Two Independents, Michael Moore and Helen Szuty, agreed. However, Mr Stevenson said it was a question of freedom of speech, he said.
Mr Stevenson has argued that a 100-metre ban would favour major parties who had enough people to cover all approaches.
Mr Humphries predicted that February’s election would be the last with how-to-vote cards as people realised how confusing they were because their personal ballot would more than likely look different from any how-to-vote card.
He said that if there were any confusion or high informal vote in February it would be because of how-to-vote cards, not because of the Hare-Clark Robson rotation system.