Independent MLA Michael Moore yesterday ended the Liberals’ hope of passing their citizen’s initiated referendums law before the next election.He joined Labor’s Annette Ellis in a majority committee report saying there were defects in Bill and its implications for ACT democracy had not been fully worked out. The report said the matter should be inquired into by a committee of the next Assembly.
The Bill would have forced a referendum on an issue if an organising committee collected signatures from 5 per cent of the electorate.
The fate of CIR will now depend on the composition of the next Assembly.
In a dissenting report Liberal Gary Humphries said the majority report did not reflect the evidence before the committee.
“”Not one of the 24 submissions received by the committee expressly argued against CIR,” he said. No submission had called for its deferral till after the election.
The majority had used arguments which insulted the intelligence of ACT voters by saying they might not understand complex issues in a referendum.
Mr Humphries said the same argument could be put against having elections where many complex issued were at stake.
The majority made the following arguments for deferral:
CIR might be used to recall MLAs, public servants and judges.
A majority government might repeal the legislation after the election anyway.
CIR attempted to unconstitutionally bind the Assembly against amending referendum-approved laws.
CIR could only be advisory and not binding in the ACT because the Federal Self-Government Act gave law-making power to the Assembly.
Such a fundamental change to ACT democracy required more discussion.
Mr Humphries countered that the Liberals would be happy to have a clause excluding recall and that while CIR would technically be advisory only, it would be a brave government that denied the will of the people or amended the substance of a CIR-approved law.
Mr Moore said during the debate he was not opposed to CIR in principle, “”but we have to get it right”.
Unless the Self-Government Act were changed to make the referendums binding, it would only be pretend CIR, which would be damaging to the whole idea.
“”We saw with the Hare-Clark referendum how easy it is for a government to undermine the whole spirit of a referendum with a small amendment,” he said. “”If Labor had had a majority it would have passed above-the-line voting which would have wrecked the intent of the referendum.”
If the referendums were not binding, it was not worth having.
There was no need to rush. Passing a Bill now just because the complexion of the Assembly might change at the election was no argument. A Labor majority would simply repeal a pretend CIR anyway.
Mr Moore promised that if after the election he held the balance of power he would move to establish a new CIR committee as soon as possible.
Mr Moore said he was concerned that if there was ever voluntary voting, CIR could be a formula for conservatism.
Mr Humphries said the committee process had been used as a tool of delay and obfuscation. The Labor party and Mr Moore were part of an elite which did not like the idea of losing some of their power to set the agenda and define the issues.
The deferral meant a rare chance in Australia’s history to enact CIR had been lost because the make-up of the new Assembly might have a majority against the idea.
Ms Ellis said the Liberals had got the wrong end of the stick. The deferral did not end CIR, rather it had opened the issue up to the community. It was a starting point.
She could easily, as a Labor Member, have just said she was against CIR, but she had agreed the issue had to be looked at.