Darren Churchill: Australian Democrats Campaigns

DARREN CHURCHILL

ACT Democrats President

Candidate for Ginninderra

Minor parties disadvantaged by Electoral Law!

“Candidates are being denied access to the Electoral Roll. The ACT Electoral Act is seriously flawed and must be changed!’ insisted ACT Democrats President and candidate for Ginninderra, Darren Churchill

Mr Churchill picked up the Democrats team’s nomination forms from Elections ACT this afternoon. But Mr Churchill was denied a copy of the ACT Electoral Roll, being told it was only available to registered parties.

“The Electoral Act will only allow registered tickets to have a copy of the Electoral Roll. So, the independents who pretend to be a political party, like Mulcahy and Pangallo, can have the Electoral Roll. But the federally registered Australian Democrats and the true independents who’ll share the Ungrouped column with us can’t” Mr Churchill said. “This clearly disadvantages some candidates and disadvantages others. It’s discrimatory! It’s undemocratic!”

Sections 61, 62 and 63 set out who is entitled to be provided with a copy of the Electoral Roll. It includes MLA’s and registered officers of registered political parties. But there seems to be no provision for candidates for office, unless they fall into one of those two categories.

“The benefits from having party status should be extended to all candidates – grouped or ungrouped.” claimed Mr Churchill “access should not be denied to a candidate for office to have a copy of the Electoral Roll”

“The Hare-Clark system with Robson Rotation has some extremely democratic aspects to it. But there are aspects of democracy being turned on its head because of the Electoral Act doesn’t allow for equal access to information.”

“The ACT Democrats will continue to fight for fair and democratic electoral laws!” We have long advocated fair and democratic electoral laws. If I am elected, I will introduce legislation to make ACT elections fair” Mr Churchill.concluded.

Darren Churchill
ACT Democrats President

Candidate for Ginninderra

darren.churchill@act.democrats.org.au

Tel: 0412 196 473

KEEP THE BASTARDS HONEST!

This entry was posted on 21/09/2008 at 2:12 pm and is filed under ACT Election 2008 Campaign, Electoral Reform. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.