Archive for June 27th, 2012

Media Release: Thursday, 28th June, 2012: Asylum seekers vote must be the art of the possible

27/06/2012

Media Release:  Thursday, 28th June, 2012

Asylum seekers vote must be the art of the possible

With the House of Representatives having passed Rob Oakeshott’s bill on offshore processing of asylum seekers, the Australian Democrats are calling for the major parties to allow a conscience vote on the bill when it is debated in the Senate today.

Democrats National President, Darren Churchill, says that although the Democrats do not support offshore processing, there must be a circuit breaker to prevent more drownings of desperate people seeking political asylum in Australia.

“If the major parties will not grant a conscience vote then we call on fair-minded people in the Liberal Party to use the conscience vote that their party theoretically says they are entitled to.

“While agreeing with The Greens on the need to observe our responsibilities under international law, their position makes no difference with the Government and Opposition both wanting offshore processing.

“The hardline position of The Greens will not make any difference in this current debate. They will apparently sink the bill, and in so doing allow the sinking of more boats.  Nothing will have been achieved.

“This is why the Democrats are needed back in Australia’s parliaments: we have always understood that a small percentage of something is better than 100% of nothing.

“Let’s get something in place as a stopgap measure, and work in the long term towards upholding Australia’s humanitarian obligations” said Mr Churchill.

DARREN CHURCHILL

National President

darren.churchill@democrats.org.au

Tel: 0412 196 473

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Political Parties, Registration and Electoral Reform

27/06/2012

The following is  a letter (written by me) published in the Canberra Times on Monday, 18th June, 2012.  The italicised sentence at the end was removed by the editors.  However, I have included it here for accuracy and the information of readers.

Democrats still here

The article, ”Find 100 members and register your party” (June 9, p5) by Ebony Vitucci, ends somewhat disparagingly with the comment: ”The Australian Democrats were deregistered in the ACT in 2007 for this reason.” However, the Australian Democrats are registered federally and have been since May 1977.

It is true that we did suffer a decline in our ACT Division with the loss of senators meaning they no longer had staff living in Canberra, and therefore fewer members in the division, which ultimately led to our loss of registration with Elections ACT in September 2007.

The ACT Electoral Act is problematic and in urgent need of reform as, under Section 99 of the act, the ACT Democrats were prevented from reregistering under their own name, regardless of whether we had signed up 100, 200 or even 500 new members, until after the 2008 ACT election. The problem was compounded by the amendments to Section 115 of the act in 2008 that prevented like-minded candidates from grouping together to secure a column on the ballot paper, as they can federally. This effectively prevents independents from having any chance of being elected in the ACT.

The ACT Democrats did however contest the 2008 ACT election as endorsed ungrouped independents and are again looking to reregister for this year’s ACT election.

(One of our key priorities will be electoral reform, to prevent the system favouring the three big parties, and the ACT Democrats look forward to the challenge.)

Darren Churchill, national president, Australian Democrats, Kaleen

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