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 < Back Politicians Scared to Reveal their Parties says Chesterfield-Evans (Democrat) June 26th 2003 - A motion to put a candidate's political party on the ballot paper in Local Government elections was defeated 26-4 in the upper house of the NSW Parliament last night. The amendment to the Local Government Act by Democrats MLC, Dr Arthur Chesterfield-Evans sought to have the political party that candidates were in, or had been in in the last 5 years written on the ballot paper. "This was in the interests of transparency in government. It would have stopped bogus independents, or groups adopting friendly Community names, when they are actually members of a political party and beholden to that Party when there is any conflict of interest with other tiers of government," said Dr Chesterfield-Evans. "However, all the parties except the Democrats and Greens opposed my amendment and it was defeated 26-4! Labor, Liberals, Nationals, Christian Democrats (Fred Nile), One Nation (David Oldfield), Reform the Legal System (Peter Breen), Shooters (John Tingle) and Unity (Peter Wong) all voted against it". "This shows that they do not want to be honest with the voters, and have contempt for the idea that voters should know what they are getting," concluded Dr Chesterfield-Evans. The exact wording of the failed amendment was: If a candidate in a contested election for a civic office has been a member of a political party at any time in the last 5 years before the date of the election, the name of that political party must be printed on the ballot paper immediately under the candidate's name. |
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updated:
August 14, 2003
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