Bills

Constitution (One Vote One Value) Amendment Bill

Introduction and First Reading

Received from the Legislative Council and read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Child Protection Reform, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for Consumer and Business Services, Minister for the City of Adelaide) (19:31): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

This bill seeks to amend part 5 of the Constitution Act 1934, and I seek leave to incorporate the second reading explanation without my reading it.

The SPEAKER: Leave is not granted.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I will read it. The bill relates to electoral redistribution.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Can I read it in silence, please, Mr Speaker. The bill relates to electoral redistribution. The bill originated in the other place and, when it was introduced there, contained amendment that proposed to delete and substitute section 77 of the Constitution Act. The bill was amended by the Legislative Council. As a result of those amendments, the bill no longer amends section 77 of the Constitution Act. Rather, amendments in the other place moved by the Hon. Mr Parnell were accepted so that the bill now has the effect of repealing subsections 83(1) and 83(3) of the Constitution Act. The bill also now provides that there is to be a review of section 83, which is to be commenced within 12 months of the next general election.

The amendments to section 83 of the Constitution Act bring the task of the Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission more into line with the task of the equivalent bodies in other jurisdictions in Australia. The commission will in future be required to make its redistributions on the basis of the principle in section 77 of the Constitution Act, as well as having regard, as far as practicable, to the factors in section 83(2) of the Constitution Act.

The bill seeks to reinstate the primacy of equality between electorates and acknowledges the obvious political reality in contemporary politics that a notion of voters only directing their minds to one of two parties is transparently not in accordance with reality. I commend the bill to the house.

Explanation of Clauses

Part 1—Preliminary

1—Short title

This clause is formal.

2—Amendment provisions

This clause is formal.

Part 2—Amendment of Constitution Act 1934

3—Amendment of section 83—Criteria

Section 83 is amended to delete subsections (1) and (3).

4—Insertion of section 83A

This clause inserts a new section requiring the Premier to review the operation of section 83 within the period of 12 months following the next general election.

Standing Orders Suspension

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Child Protection Reform, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for Consumer and Business Services, Minister for the City of Adelaide) (19:34): I move, without notice:

That standing orders be so far suspended as to enable the bill to pass through all stages without delay.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: There not being an absolute majority present, ring the bells.

A quorum having been formed:

Motion carried.

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (19:35): This is a sad, sad day for South Australia. I can understand members of the government saying, 'Oh,' because the last thing the members of this government want to do is fight an election with a fair system. That is the last thing they want to do because they are all gutless—absolutely gutless. We have a government in this state that is representative of merely 47 per cent of the popular vote.

As the late Don Dunstan said in 1968, the people of South Australia deserve to have an electoral system that allows them to get the government they want and, furthermore, allows them to get rid of the government they do not want.

The Hon. J.M. Rankine interjecting:

Mr WILLIAMS: In 2010—

The SPEAKER: The member for Wright is already on two warnings and accordingly, under the sessional orders, you will depart for 10 minutes.

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: Mr Speaker, I ask you to refer to your notes. I was not on two warnings.

Mr WILLIAMS: Under the sessional orders, there is no debate.

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: Excuse me, I am speaking.

Mr WILLIAMS: There is no question—you are out! You are out!

The Hon. J.M. Rankine: Sit down!

Mr WILLIAMS: They are your sessional orders, now get out and let us get on with this important business.

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: I am on my feet. I am on my feet.

Ms Chapman: Mr Speaker, I ask that the Serjeant-at-Arms remove the member for Wright.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: Mr Speaker, I ask you to refer to your notes. I was not on two warnings; I was on one warning.

The SPEAKER: No, you acquired a second warning late in question time. Please depart for 10 minutes, so that the house can regain its composure.

The honourable member for Wright having withdrawn from the chamber:

The SPEAKER: The member for MacKillop.

Mr WILLIAMS: Thank you for your protection, Mr Speaker. As I was saying, Don Dunstan, who argued for many decades for electoral fairness in South Australia, argued that the people of South Australia should be able not only to have the government they want but to get rid of the government they do not want. In 2010, the people of South Australia resoundingly voted to get rid of this government. In 2014, they voted in even greater numbers to get rid of this government.

As I have said in this place many times before, it is harder for the Liberal Party to win an election in South Australia under the gerrymandered electoral system that we have had than it was ever for the Labor Party to win an election in Queensland. This is an absolute travesty. For the first time in 50 years, we have the prospect of an election being held on fair boundaries in South Australia. Everybody in South Australia is rejoicing but the members of the Labor Party, who are shaking in their boots because the last thing that they are prepared to do is face the people in a fair contest. That is something that the members of this Labor government fear the most. They fear the people in a fair contest because they know what the result will be. We all know what the result will be.

There is no way that the Labor Party and this Labor government has attracted more support in the last four years than they received at the previous election in 2014, which means that this government would be lucky to get within cooee of 47 per cent of the popular vote in 2018—and they know it. They know that, if they can maintain the gerrymander that has operated in South Australia since 1975, they might only be out of government for one term. That has been the circumstance in South Australia since 1975. It has been almost impossible for the Liberal Party to win an election because the system is unfair.

If members opposite care to read the final report of not just the most recent boundaries commission but, if they go back, the report of the commission in 1991, they will understand that it is very clear that there is an imbalance. There has been an imbalance in our electoral system, and it has been marked. Every serious political analyst, every serious political commentator, in this state—there are not too many of them that fit that descriptor of a serious political commentator or serious political analyst—and, mark my words, those who do look at the numbers, those who do study, those who do understand the will of the people of South Australia, understand that the people of South Australia have been dudded time and time again by an electoral system that is rigged.

Since 1991, we have had a system that would work in theory. Unfortunately, the supposed independent boundaries commissions have failed in their duty time and time again. In 2010, we had the situation where, for every 24,000 votes recorded in favour of the Liberal Party, the Liberal Party returned one member to this chamber, yet for the Labor Party it only took 18,000 votes to return one member to this chamber. The 2010 election was one of the most unfair elections that I have been able to find in years of study of election outcomes.

The Liberal Party won 51.6 per cent of the vote in 2010, but such was the independence of the commission, which this government would argue upholds the democratic principles for the people of South Australia, that they drew boundaries that meant that the Liberal Party had to get a greater swing towards it on top of the 51.6 per cent it had already recorded. Indeed, we did achieve that in 2014. We achieved 53 per cent of the vote, yet we were unable to be within cooee of forming government. We should have had 26, 27 or 28 seats in the house if we had a fair electoral system but, sadly, the Labor Party in this state will do anything to stay in power.

Mr Goldsworthy: And everything.

Mr WILLIAMS: And everything, as my colleague the member for Kavel remarks. This is the lowest of the low. I was commenting earlier this afternoon in my valedictory comments that I had some serious input into the outcome of the most recent boundaries redistribution. I was very proud of that. I thought it might be a legacy, that the work that I, and others, had been doing over recent years would be for the benefit of the people of South Australia. The reality is that we have a government in South Australia that only a minority of South Australians wanted. We have a government in South Australia that is not interested in governing for all South Australians.

I could give dozens of examples of how the electors in my constituency have been disadvantaged for no other reason than that they live in a Liberal seat. We have a government that is interested in one thing only: self-serving in the interests of staying in power. This is a travesty of democracy. I see the members of the government lining up. They will line up and they will come in here and debate this, but none of them will talk about the reality of what the will of the people would be. They will do what they always do in this place: they will attack people personally and they will commit character assassination. They will do everything but defend the principles that Don Dunstan argued for close to 30 years.

An honourable member: One vote one value.

Mr WILLIAMS: One vote one value. I agree with one vote one value. That is why—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: No you don't.

Mr WILLIAMS: —I put on the record a moment ago that in 2010 it took 24,000 for the Liberal Party to elect a member to this house but only 18,000 or thereabouts for the Labor Party to put a member in this house. We have members like the member for West Torrens who talk about one vote one value. The member for West Torrens is a joke. If he knew anything about grade 2 or 3 arithmetic he would know there is no such thing as one vote one value in the electoral system that has been used in South Australia since 1975. The reality is that bringing this on on the last sitting day of this parliament—

Mr Goldsworthy: After the valedictories.

Mr WILLIAMS: —after the valedictories, whilst I was on my feet talking about what I had been doing for the last 20 years, sneaking this through the upper house and bringing this in here at the eleventh hour, using their numbers to corrupt the democratic system in this state, I did not hear the Attorney make an argument as to what was wrong with the current system that needed fixing. I did not hear the Attorney make a cogent argument that South Australia, through the electoral system that we hope to enjoy in March next year and that we should have been enjoying for the last 20 years—I have not heard a cogent argument from anybody in the government—as to what the ill is with that system.

The argument about one vote one value is a nonsense, and anybody who looks at the results of the 2010 election will see that. Indeed, if they look at the results of the 2014 election they will see it. How can it be that 53 per cent of the vote has a lower value than 47 per cent of the vote? I ask the member for West Torrens: how can that be?

I know the argument he will make. He will say, 'It's the Liberal Party's fault because they spend their resources in the wrong place. They have poor quality candidates.' He will say, 'They do everything wrong. They don't know how to campaign in marginal seats.' But the reality is: how is it that the Liberal Party are such poor campaigners, have such poor candidates, target their campaigns so poorly that they still win 53 per cent of the popular vote? How is that? It is because of the way the lines are drawn on the map.

The drawing of the lines is subjective. Anybody with a modicum of understanding of arithmetic—very basic arithmetic, probably over the head of the members of West Torrens, but very basic arithmetic—could draw a set of lines on the map of South Australia to get any outcome they wanted. That is why, in 1991, 72 per cent of South Australians voted to insert the fairness clause into the Constitution Act—section 83(1). That is why 72 per cent of South Australians voted in support of that measure. They saw that the gerrymander that they had been saddled with since 1975 was producing a wrong winner outcome too regularly.

What this government has done now has opened up a new debate. They think that they can win the Don Dunstan argument about one vote one value. What they fail to understand is that Don Dunstan mounted that argument on the back of a malapportionment, and it was a pretty easy argument to prosecute. The argument that this government is going to seek to mount and prosecute will be done on the back of a gerrymander in its favour. This government is way behind the eight ball, a position that Don Dunstan was never in in this argument.

The people of South Australia are not so stupid to fall for this ruse. I would urge the Attorney-General, if he is running the show here tonight—and God knows who is—to rethink this position. Whatever happens, the election, come 17 March, will be fought on the existing boundaries. The reality is that the government is heading for a hiding under a fair contest, and a hiding is what will be delivered to it.

The government is hoping is that, notwithstanding that hiding in 2018, the gerrymander will be re-established for the 2022 election and, lo and behold, they will claim that they were magnificent campaigners with fantastic candidates and targeted the marginal seats. What they are really hoping is that the re-establishment of the gerrymander will see them back in government in 2022 at the earliest, if not 2026 at the latest.

I sincerely believe that this government, in having gone down this path at this juncture in the state's political history when this government is so much on the nose for all the things that it has got wrong—not the least being education policy, not the least being all the lies about federal funding for education, health, etc.—and is facing a hiding to nothing. This government is hoping that the electorate will be confused by the entry of one Mr Xenophon and his candidates at the next election. This government is hoping that that will confuse the outcome of the next election.

The one good thing in my mind about this measure that has come before the house at this eleventh hour is that this will now give us the opportunity to put some pressure on Mr Xenophon, who has a penchant for cherrypicking popular issues. He has made an art form out of it and he is very good at it. I admire him for it.

But what Mr Xenophon is going to have to do now is make a call, and that is something he is not very good at. He is going to have to make a call as to whether he supports the fairness clause; that is, if he supports the democratic principle that 50 per cent of South Australians plus one, or a small handful, should be able to elect a government or, indeed, should be able to get rid of a government that it does not want. Alternatively, Mr Xenophon is going to have to make the call that he would prefer the gerrymander that operated in South Australia for so many years.

It is my firm belief that the government has painted Mr Xenophon into a corner that he does not want to be in. It is my firm belief that the government has actually given the Liberal Party a much better platform to fight not only against the Labor Party but also against other minor interest groups in this state.

I did not agree with much of what Dunstan said, but his fundamental argument that every man, woman and child in South Australia has to live by the laws of this state, and thus they should have an equal say in the formation of those laws, is fundamental to our democracy. I implore the house to support that principle.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Finance, Minister for State Development, Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy) (19:56): The Liberal Party at the last state election did not achieve the majority of the vote. The last political party ever to receive the majority of the primary vote in this state was the Dunstan opposition. They achieved over 50 per cent of the primary vote. The Liberal Party did not achieve a majority of the vote. A majority of South Australians voted for someone other than the Liberal Party at the last state election. That is an indisputable fact—an indisputable fact.

What we are seeing now is the Liberal Party pretending, regarding the two-party preferred vote, when the two non-major parties are receiving above 20 per cent of a primary vote. The idea that the two-party preferred vote has any significance anymore is ridiculous. I posed this to the member for MacKillop through his ramblings and shouting at the chamber: what if a political party only contested 24 seats and won those 24? Would they be a legitimate government?

In a two-party system, of course, they would not win the two-party preferred vote because they were not contesting the other seats. The argument is wrong. The only argument that matters is that all seats are equally divided and everyone's voice is equal, but now we have a system in place that allows the Liberal Party to have smaller seats and the Labor Party to have larger seats, so that a Liberal voter has more votes and more power in their seats, disenfranchising people in the city who live in the electorates that have a larger population. The member for MacKillop is just fine with that. He is fine with that, just like Tom Playford was, and he pretends that the two-party preferred vote is somehow an expression of the public will.

This parliament is debating a measure that passed the upper house. We are dealing with it here. It was done appropriately and properly. It was done by the Legislative Council and we are now considering it. It was a type of personal attack, after the member said that there would be no character assassinations and then launched into character assassinations. What we are debating here is fairness. We believe that all electorates should have the same number of people in them, so everyone's vote is equal. It is a simple democratic principle: all votes should be equal. I am just surprised that anyone does not support that.

The Legislative Council, for the information of members opposite, is not controlled by the government. It has not been controlled by a major party since 1975. It is a house that has a very powerful crossbench, and the crossbench have sent this to us for our consideration. So, there is no conspiracy here. Nothing underhanded is being done. It was on the Notice Paper, it was voted on, and now it is here. It is not our fault that the crossbench did not side with the opposition in the Legislative Council. It is not our fault that this has come here, but we are going to deal with it.

I do not understand why there is so much name-calling by the member for MacKillop in his final contribution to this house, which I think is probably a bit beneath the standards he has previously held. The Labor Party always supports every South Australian having an equal say in the democratic outcomes of this state.

The SPEAKER: It may not be the member for MacKillop's last speech; he may continue his valedictory remarks if he so chooses.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: I apologise, Your Majesty. I support the Attorney-General's second reading remarks.

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (20:01): I am also not the lead speaker. I rise to speak on the Constitution (One Vote One Value) Amendment Bill. The Leader of Government Business sends a note to the opposition of all the bills the government wishes to debate, and this bill did not appear in any form in any of the notes that his office sent the opposition over the past week. That is fine; the government can ignore that. It is possible the leader of the house himself was not kept in the loop.

When there are debates on legislation that has not been introduced into the house before, it is custom that the leader of the house advises the opposition that they want it dealt with in the house. Bills do not necessarily always emerge from the Attorney-General's office in the first instance; sometimes they come from the upper house, and they usually let us know. For years, the member for Playford would send me a note, through his adviser, saying what was going to be debated; this one was not. That is fine, they can do that. It is not against the standing orders, but it is the custom of the house—another custom amongst many that this government has failed to uphold.

In the speech by the Treasurer, there was more name-calling of the member for MacKillop, accusing him of name-calling the Treasurer; it is undignified. The whole presentation by the Treasurer was undignified, but we are used to that as well. What we have here is a bill that will take away from the South Australian people a fairness clause for which the South Australian people voted in a referendum. This government is seeking to suborn the will of the South Australian people through an act of parliament for which there was no real notice given. As the member for MacKillop rightly said, the people of South Australia will be very angry at them about this.

However, it will get lost amongst the anger at so many other things. We currently have a government that about one in four South Australians, at best, are suggesting they might want to vote for, so what is one more issue to make them angry? The reason for the fairness clause is quite simple: the will of the South Australian people should be expressed through the people who form a majority and form the government. Over the last seven elections, the South Australian electoral system has spectacularly failed to deliver that.

This government had no problem with the fairness clause until the Electoral Commissioner, the Surveyor-General and the senior puisne judge decided to apply it, as they did in the most recent redistribution. In doing so, they noticed the primacy of the fairness clause in the provisions identifying what to do in the redistribution. The secondary clause is the one identifying that you must be within a 10 per cent margin of error, and the third aspect is community of interest and other matters that the Electoral Commission might see fit to consider.

Ahead of the 2014 election, that tertiary consideration—other issues of the Electoral Commissioner, the Surveyor-General and the senior puisne judge—was used by the Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission to elevate a further consideration that they had. They said that they wanted to not move people out of their electorates into other electorates more than was necessary, which is clearly, under the Constitution Act, a consideration that is lower than the 10 per cent margin of error and that is lower than the fairness clause. However, that Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission decided to elevate that and clearly were not implementing the fairness clause in the way it was supposed to be implemented. That is how we had a result where about one in three South Australians vote for the Labor Party and they form government. That is how that happened: because the fairness clause was not applied.

So, in this redistribution for this election, the commission chose to implement the fairness clause and they noticed the primacy of the fairness clause over the other considerations and therefore used the 10 per cent tolerance in some seats—not the full 10 per cent tolerance, but approaching it—to deliver that fairness outcome that the Constitution Act seeks to achieve, for which the South Australian people voted.

The 2014 election was not the first election at which the will of the South Australian people was not reflected in the make-up of the government. In 2006, the government got a majority; they won a lot of the seats. In 2002, however, there is another example. The Liberal Party won the majority of the vote. They went back and counted every seat between Liberal and Labor and they found that well over 57 per cent of people in South Australia preferred a Liberal government to a Labor government, and they got a Labor government.

In that case, there were challenges posed by the Independent Peter Lewis, who said to his constituents before the election that he would support a Liberal government, and yet after the election he betrayed them and supported the Rann government into office. It was a negotiation that the Speaker claims personal credit for, and well he might, because it was an unfortunate game that was played, but the losers were the people of the South Australian community.

At previous elections, in 1997 it was a close election with a hung parliament, and the Liberals won, which was good. In 1993, it was a 60 per cent to 40 per cent outcome, and that is the last time the Liberal Party was able to win government off Labor: 53 per cent will not cut it; 52 per cent will not cut it; but when we got 60 per cent, that was sufficient to get 37 seats in the parliament, so that was good. Even in 1989, the election that provoked the fairness clause in the first place, John Olsen got 52 per cent of the vote and was not able to form government because of the electoral anomalies identified by the member for MacKillop, so a subcommittee looked at and came up with a suggestion that the people of South Australia chose to follow: to introduce a fairness clause.

The fact that the will of the South Australian people is not primary, secondary or even a remote consideration in the government's thinking is purely because they know that, without the fairness clause, they have been the beneficiaries of the most extraordinary good favour and good luck through winning elections when the people of South Australia do not want them. It has happened time and time again: 1989, 2002 and 2010. The member for Heysen would have been premier in 2010 if the will of 51½ per cent of the South Australian people had been followed in the make-up of who formed government, but it was not. Then it happened again in 2014, which makes it four out of seven elections. Of the others, the Labor Party has won a majority of the vote in only one of the last seven elections: in 2006, and that is the only time.

The Treasurer comes in from time to time to talk about this issue. It is his favourite topic. He talks about how clever they are at campaigning. He says that the Liberal Party spends too much money in seats that we already hold and is very bad at campaigning in their seats. He can judge from his ivory tower how much money is being spent in the seat of Flinders, but it is possible that the people of Flinders just really like the member Flinders. I suspect that is actually true because I know he is very frugal and very generous towards our marginal seats with the money he raises in Flinders, and yet 80 per cent of people of Flinders vote for him. They are South Australians too and just because four out of five of them want to see a Liberal government should not make the individual insights of those 80 per cent of people worth less than the desire of the 51 per cent of people in another seat who might want to see a different party elected.

Ultimately I think the best outcome that can be seen from an electoral system is where a majority of the people in that system get the outcome that they want. It is the whole point of liberal democracy. The liberal part of it is supposed to ensure that there are protections for minorities, that no tyranny of the majority is able to overrule the rights of the minorities. But the democracy part of it, the representative government part, is supposed to say that the government side, the government benches, is occupied by the party or the group of people or the group of parties that the people of South Australia want. That has not happened in four of the last seven elections. It is an outrage, and it is an outrage that after the first of those occasions, in 1989, the response was to put in this fairness clause and the people of South Australia had a say in that. That is a say that the government seeks to abrogate now.

Eighty per cent of the people of Australia recently voted in a postal vote plebiscite—

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr GARDNER: —62 per cent voted in favour and 80 per cent of them voted, and that was in a voluntary vote. The rhetoric from the Labor Party and people across the political spectrum for those members of parliament who seek to uphold a point of view that they hold dear, or potentially in some cases that their electorates did—because I think 17 electorates or thereabouts voted differently to the nation or their states, and the rhetoric from Labor members against those members of parliament for fulfilling what they think is the right course of action has been astonishing.

These Labor members sitting opposite right now tonight would be appalled at those members for voting against their electorates and ignoring the popular vote. And yet, having had a referendum to change the constitution, these same members a few elections on are happy to completely ignore the will of the South Australian people.

We know what the will of the South Australian people is about this clause. Most legislation does not get that sort of treatment; most legislation is introduced into the parliament by a minister, it sits on the table for a week, it goes to the other house after it is voted on and then sits on the table there for a week, and in five sitting weeks, from go to whoa, all of a sudden you have a piece of legislation. Some legislation passes more quickly than that and the people of South Australia by and large never hear about it. This is one of the very few exceptions where we have a test of what the people of South Australia wanted. We know their answer, and it is one that the Labor Party, the Greens I believe, the Dignity Party and whatever John Darley's party is now called have seen fit to completely abrogate, completely ignore.

It turns out that the Labor Party's greatest offence with this fairness clause is that they are concerned if everyone votes the same way they did at the last election—and let's say the Liberal Party does not win an extra vote—they would lose government and the Liberal Party would be elected in a landslide with 27 seats; 53 per cent of the vote on a two-party preferred basis is a landslide anywhere in the world except South Australia.

The Electoral District Boundaries Commission, the redistribution commission, saw that and responded and thought, 'Okay, here is this fairness clause. It is the primary clause in the constitution governing how we should do our job. Let's apply it,' and this is what they came up with, a redistribution which potentially, as I said, if everybody voted the same way they did last time, would actually see the will of the South Australian people reflected in the government that is there to serve them.

'Serve' is an interesting word, because I think what we have seen from the government tonight is a perfect example—along with their antics in question time and their antics throughout the week and throughout the years—of what service is about, and they are here to serve themselves. They are not interested in the democratic principle; they are interested in what might serve the interests of the Labor Party. Their job is not that, though. Their job as members of parliament is to serve the interests of the South Australian people. As I said, this is one of those bills where we have a unique insight into the views and desires of the South Australian people because they told us; they told us with their votes.

The member for Florey has a wonderful opportunity to identify herself as an Independent tonight, and I look forward to seeing her exercise it—I hope she will. I think the member for Waite and the member for Frome have a similar opportunity. They call themselves Independents so this is their opportunity to show that they are not beholden to the Labor Party that they have, up to this point, served. They can instead choose the South Australian people to serve; the South Australian people who have told them how they want to vote, because the South Australian people were asked to fill in a form and vote on it, and they did.

The practical effect of this is very important. The idea that removing fairness from the constitution is the last act of a government before parliament closes before an election is, frankly, a stunning one to me that can only be explained because they are focused on their medium to long-term political interests. I suggest that those members in marginal seats who are allowing this to be done to them should reflect on that because it is clearly not their interests that their party's leadership is seeking to serve tonight, it is only the Labor Party's interests: how can we best get the system right that is going to deliver us another four-term administration into the future? That is what they are thinking about.

We hear it all the time from senior frontbenchers from the Labor Party, swanning around the building, full of testosterone and saying, 'Oh yeah, even if we lose the election we will be back in a term.' It is very unseemly and this bill that we have before us just goes to show that. I do not know what motivated those other parties in the Legislative Council who sought to make these changes. It is disappointing but they have done it and we have the bill ahead of us and now for the next little while we will deal with it. We will sit as long as it takes to do that.

I see members opposite who were paired, had reasonable reasons not to be in the parliament, and the opposition has always said that we would honour those pairs. The government has clearly brought them back tonight because they intend, presumably, to suspend standing orders at midnight and sit until it is done. If that is what they want to do then good luck to them, if we are still debating it at that stage. I say again to those members that I am sorry for what your party leadership is doing to you. If you are ill you probably should not be here, and the opposition has a tradition and always does grant pairs for people who are unwell, and that is on the record. The opposition was not doing anything about that. That is a decision of the Labor Party's leadership and management. Again, more service of the Labor Party and not of the South Australia people.

It is very disappointing that we have to have this debate tonight. It would have been useful for the opposition to have some notice if the government wanted to bring it on this week and we could have managed it in an orderly fashion amongst our other business. I note that we have had the indulgence of the Speaker for several hours this afternoon and yesterday while members gave valedictory remarks. I note that there have been some extraordinary uses of question time, today in particular, for ministers to take up the time of the house—not you, minister—quoting Monty Python and—

Members interjecting:

Mr GARDNER: Not any more. There is a wonderful video that the Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion should check out on the Liberal Party's website right now. The fact is that the government saw fit to do all sorts of things with the time of the house this week. In recent weeks we have seen hours used for debates brought on without notice, since the winter break. These are things that the government has decided to spend its time doing, and now here we are, well into the evening, after 8 o'clock, and debating a bill for which there was no notice given.

It is a bill that is a bad bill. It is a bill that I oppose. It is a bill that I will vote against. I call on members to vote against it. Frankly, I think that all members should vote against it and instead put the needs of the South Australian people first, put service to the South Australia people first, and put the desires of the South Australian people to have a fair electoral system first. I oppose the bill. Mr Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the house.

A quorum having been formed:

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (20:21): I rise to oppose this bill in the strongest of terms, and in doing so think that it is important that South Australians, the Labor Party and everybody in this parliament witness the derogation of democracy here in South Australia. What we are witnessing is one step in the removal of fair and free democracy in South Australia. This is the kind of behaviour that exists when a government has been around for too long.

We have seen it in other jurisdictions—in New South Wales, we have seen it in Queensland and we are seeing it here in South Australia. It manifests itself like this: in little things, like earlier today when the Labor Party saw fit to use question time as somehow their joke and their plaything, that answering questions from Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition is no longer as important as insider jokes that only a few who actually understand UK humour will get.

It manifests itself in more serious ways, though, when we look at the Gillman land deal or the mess that is the Festival Plaza redevelopment, where governments seek to thwart normal and proper process, seek to hide away from proper process. We had huge numbers of questions today to the Minister for Infrastructure, who just gently sat there and batted back any suggestion that anything was wrong in the face of mounting evidence, evidence that we have received, evidence that has been outlined in an Auditor-General's Report.

Today what we have seen is the next step in the evidence that exists to show that this government has been around too long and, dare I say, a government that is becoming corrupted in its processes. The step the government is taking today, in conjunction with the crossbench, will do more to take away the democratic rights of South Australians than at any time since the mid-1970s. This is a retrograde and backward step. Why are we taking this step? Why is the government choosing to take this step? It is because of the biggest bunch of sooks and whingers in South Australian political history.

Since 1991, when over 70 per cent of the population said, 'We believe that the party that gets more than 50 per cent of the two-party preferred vote should form government,' an overwhelming majority said, 'This is what we want.' Yet, what we understand is that the government has found some legal advice that suggests that they can take that away without going to the people of South Australia and asking their opinion on the matter. They believe that their opinion is more important than the opinion of South Australians—once again, a dangerous step in the corrupting of the political and democratic process.

Having had unchallenged boundaries for the last two decades, the first time they get an adverse result, they crack the sads and move to change the game. Instead of accepting the result, instead of standing up and saying, 'We're going to cop this on the chin,' what do they do? They circumvent the democratic process to suit themselves. That is not what democracy is about and that is what South Australians are sick and tired of.

South Australia has wanted a change of government since at least 2010. At that election, 51.8 per cent of the population said, 'We want a change of government.' Those cries for a change of government got louder in 2014 when 53 per cent of people said, 'We want a change of government,' and here we are, with the boundaries commission having listened, in a situation where once again the Labor Party would say, 'We believe that our opinion is more important than the opinions of South Australians.' What we have seen is a dodgy backroom last-minute deal through the upper house to get this piece of legislation up, to keep us late to jam this through.

To those who are out the back having end-of-session drinks and clinking their glasses because they believe they have won some great victory, can I say that this victory will be short lived because you cannot get away from the fact that, on 17 March next year, the people of South Australia are going to pass their judgement. They are frustrated and they are angry. They said it in 1991, with over 70 per cent of the vote. They said it again in 1993, 1997, 2002 and 2010. With the biggest cry of 53 per cent of the population in 2014, they have been passing judgement on the Labor Party and the Labor Party has been found wanting.

If a referendum is what it takes to put this clause into legislation, the fact that the government believes it can take away this clause without a referendum is an absolute disgrace and an act of pure cowardice. If they had any sense of decency, if they had any sense of trying to uphold the democratic principles that have helped the Western world achieve the greatness it has, they would not take this step. They are doing everything they can to prop up a party that has been sliding in electoral terms and in its standing in the community for a generation. They are doing everything they can to prop up a dying, decrepit, soulless and valueless party.

I know that there are people of principle who sit on the other side of the fence. The Speaker has shown himself to be somebody who has at times been fair and has sought to have this chamber become a better Socratic place, to have better debate, to have greater levels of scrutiny, yet in this one fell swoop, in this one decision, the government is going back to worse than square one. It is going back to pre 1975. This is no longer the party of Don Dunstan. This is no longer the party of people who stand up for principle: it is the party of people who will stand up and do whoever it takes, say whatever it takes and legislate whatever it takes to keep themselves in power.

I look forward to members opposite standing up and actually saying what they truly believe, instead of smiling like Cheshire cats, sitting out the back having a drink and believing that they have won some sort of great victory. And the Labor Party thinks that this is a good move, but I do not know how many people have to give you the same advice before you start listening. The first piece of advice came during the 2016 boundary redistribution committee's report, a report submitted by two senior mathematicians from Adelaide University, which states:

There were two main findings. First, there is strong statistical evidence that the probability that an election in South Australia is unfair is higher than in the other seven jurisdictions under consideration. The results show that the predicted probability of an unfair election result in the other jurisdictions is [12 per cent], and in South Australia is [44 per cent]. Second, if predicting the proportion of seats that will be delivered to either major party with a given two-party preferred vote in South Australia, it is necessary to know which of the two parties is the subject of prediction. For example, given a two-party preferred vote of 50 per cent, it is predicted that the Liberal Party will win 43 per cent of the seats. For the same vote, the Labor Party is predicted to win 51 per cent of the seats.

That is exhibit No.1. Exhibit No. 2 is this extract from the Supreme Court judgement when the Labor Party challenged. After having suggested to the Liberal Party in previous redistributions to either put up or shut up, we put up. What did the full bench of the Supreme Court find? The commission found:

…having regard to election results over the last 40 years, there was an innate imbalance against the Liberal Party caused by voting patterns in South Australia upon which had been imposed successive redistributions as a result of which the Liberal Party could win a significant majority of State-wide votes but not win a majority of seats.

The commission referred to an argument by the Labor Party that the imbalance was a function of poor placement of resources at the last election but said that there was no evidence that this had occurred.

In the other place today it seems that at least one crossbencher's vote was swayed by advice from the government that said that there was no need to have a referendum and that this was somehow the tipping point at which that crossbencher and others have chosen to change their votes. How is it that not wanting to go to the people of South Australia and ask them the question is something that pushed you over the edge, that that is the bit that got you to say, 'Yes, this is okay; this bill is okay to become law as long as South Australians do not get a direct say in it'?

How is that an argument that is consistent with the principles of Western democracy; the principles that have helped South Australia to be the free and fair state that it is? How is that right? The answer is that it is not. They are hollow, shallow, cowardly arguments used by people who do not want to face the wrath of the electors on this question. They would prefer a deal done in the last hours of the last sitting of this parliament instead of asking the people of South Australia what they think. South Australians want a chance to have that say.

The bill itself does a couple of things. First off, what it does is delete section 83 of the Constitution Act. That section provides:

In making an electoral redistribution the Commission must ensure, as far as practicable, that the electoral redistribution is fair to prospective candidates and groups of candidates so that, if candidates of a particular group attract more than 50 per cent of the popular vote (determined by aggregating votes cast throughout the State and allocating preferences to the necessary extent), they will be elected in sufficient numbers to enable a government to be formed.

It is fairly straightforward. For a Labor Party that stands up and says that they are for fairness, to take away the fairness clause is the biggest piece of hypocrisy in itself. This is no longer the Labor Party of Don Dunstan. In fact, this is no longer a Labor Party. What this is is a group of careerists who seek to hold on to the greasy pole of power for as long as they can using any method possible to continue to do that.

Do you know what? On 17 March next year, the people of South Australia will rip the Labor Party from this greasy pole and not before time. It should have happened in 2010. It should have happened in 2014 and it certainly is going to happen in 2018. This next election will be a referendum on what the Labor Party is seeking to do here tonight. Amongst all the other failures and all the other issues that this government has had, especially over the last four years, this question is going to form the basis of part of what South Australians are going to decide at the next election.

The Hon. John Darley in the other place had the government insert an amendment to review the operation of section 83(2)(c) requiring that this review must commence no later than 12 months after the general election. How can you have a review into section 83 if section 83 does not exist? How can you have a review into a fairness clause that you have just taken out of the Constitution Act? Are we supposed to review thin air? Are we supposed to review an empty piece of paper on the statute book? I do not know how you hoodwinked him, but he has been hoodwinked nonetheless, and South Australians are all the poorer for it. This review will be a farce.

The member for MacKillop said earlier that the people of South Australia should have the right to get rid of the government if they want and have elected to them the government that they want. This is not about us.

What I was excited by in this outcome from the boundary redistribution is that finally every single vote mattered because every single vote counted towards the 2PP, the two-party preferred percentage. A vote in Port Lincoln mattered as much as a vote in Hartley. Every vote was worth it. The reason we know that and the reason that we know that the Labor Party know that is that it is the first time we have seen them in the country for 20 years. Finally, they have the Speaker, the member for Croydon, doing multiple trips and street-corner meetings in my electorate, the first time in decades we have seen anybody out there.

In the 2014 election, I did not see my opponent from the Labor Party once. The poor bloke got no help from central office. There was only his family on polling booths. You could tell by the candidate they put up and the effort they put into the seat of Schubert that they did not care about Schubert voters. This electoral system and this outcome from the Supreme Court meant that every single voter across South Australia mattered.

It is not just regional South Australia that matters in this regard. It is safe Labor seats as well, where voters have been ignored for a generation also, where finally their vote matters as much as a vote in a marginal seat. Again, the way we know that is because the Labor Party have been changing the way they operate as well.

Every single voter being enfranchised has to be a good thing for democracy. I thought it was an exciting part of the Supreme Court's judgement because finally we were going to get to one vote one value. That one vote one value sure gets defined by different people for different purposes, but finally a person in a safe electorate for either the Liberal or the Labor Party could actually have their vote count towards the next redistribution. Because of that fact, it meant that every vote mattered.

That is what is being lost here today. We are going to go back to the dark days where there are only a few electorates that matter and the majority of South Australians get ignored, where the decision on who forms government is left to a couple of hundred thousand voters as opposed to the over 1 million voters that exist in South Australia.

This is what is at stake here. The Labor Party needs to wake up. They are the only ones left who believe that this is a good decision. At successive elections, the people of South Australia have told them. In the 1991 referendum, overwhelmingly the people of South Australia told them that they wanted fairness. In 2010, they got a message and in 2014 they got a stronger message. Then we had a boundary redistribution committee that sent them a clear message. Justice Ann Vanstone said: 'There has been an imbalance against one party for the last 40 years, and I am going to rectify it.'

After the Labor Party taunting us since 2010, saying, 'If you don't like the redistribution, why don't you challenge it? Why don't you guys just get over it and get on with it?', we did challenge it, and the boundary redistribution committee, the electoral redistribution committee, agreed with us. And what did the Labor Party do after having an adverse finding against them, that did not go in their favour, for the first time? They challenged it, to the full bench of the Supreme Court.

So much for just grinning and bearing it. At the first opportunity where something did not go away, they cracked the sads and went to the full bench of the Supreme Court. We were happy by this because we thought, 'Finally, we are going to get an answer.' The people of South Australia and the electors have been telling the Labor Party; the boundary redistribution committee was telling the Labor Party and now the full bench of the Supreme Court has told the Labor Party that this is what matters, that the fairness clause matters, that every vote matters, and that getting the majority of the two-party preferred vote matters. It is the overriding principle.

The first example we are going to see the results of that is in the election in March 2018. Instead of the government waiting to see what happens, waiting to see how the system works, they have decided to change the system. Before we even get one vote, before we even get one chance to test out this new arrangement, this new system, this new understanding of where the value of a vote lies, they seek to change it because it does not work in their favour. It is a dark, dark day.

For those members opposite, who at various times quietly whispered to me in the corner saying, 'Come on, Stef, this is important; this is the right thing to do. Why don't you stand up for what's right?' Stand up for what is right here and now, because you cannot stand up and say what you are saying and have anybody in South Australia believe you. This is a corruption of the process.

The people of South Australia in previous elections have spoken. The boundary redistribution committee has spoken. The full bench of the Supreme Court of South Australia has spoken. And, at the moment, with the primary vote below 30 per cent, the vast majority of South Australians are giving a message to the Labor Party and that is, 'We do not like the dark path that you are going down. We do not like the ICAC hearings held in secret. We don't like the dodgy deals on the Festival Plaza and Gillman. We don't like the way you're acting,' but they do not seem to get the message.

This here is the most tin-eared example of the decline into a boggy sewer of mess that the Labor Party has undertaken yet. If they will not hear the message, then the overwhelming majority of South Australians are going to give it to them. Make no mistake: this is going to be seen as a corrupting of the process. This is going to be seen as nothing more than a dirty grab for continued power by a bunch of careerists who see power as an end in itself instead of a principle to uphold.

We here in this place are only here for a short period of time. There are those who have come before, some 800 in our chamber, and those who will come after. It is up to us as members of parliament to uphold the principles of democracy, to uphold the principles of this parliament, and that is not what is happening here today.

Back when the fairness clause was put in, it was put in because South Australians were sick and tired of the imbalance. And finally, after all this time, the Supreme Court made its judgement on how we are supposed to deal with that. The Labor Party have chosen not to listen to all of that and instead to go down their own path to serve their own petty ends, to serve themselves—the very, very few members of them left, certainly less after the next election—instead of serving the people of South Australia.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Point of order, member for Morialta.

Mr GARDNER: I draw your attention to the state of the house.

A quorum having been formed:

Mr PISONI (Unley) (20:42): I rise to speak on the Constitution (One Vote One Value) Amendment Bill 2017. This bill was rushed into the parliament as a political tactic of the Labor Party, the party that crusaded for decades against the gerrymander that was in South Australia in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. When I was growing up, Don Dunstan was the first political leader I was old enough to remember being a leader. As a matter of fact, when I was collecting glasses at the Parafield Gardens Community Club as a 15 year old after school one day, I vividly remember him in his pyjamas at the hospital, resigning as premier due to ill health. I think everybody remembered what they were doing on that day.

He was a strong campaigner for delivering election results that reflected the decisions or the majority of the votes in South Australia. Of course it took a Liberal premier to deliver that here in South Australia. It was very tough for this side of the parliament when Steele Hall decided that he thought it was time to even up the balance between the city and the country when it came to electoral fairness. It was such a difficult situation for what was the Liberal and Country League at that time that we saw a split in the Liberal Party.

We saw those who were believers in the values of Steele Hall wanting to see a democratic process here in South Australia. We saw those moved to the Liberal Movement, and I think the 1975 election was the first time we saw so many seats decided on preferences, because there were Liberal and Country League candidates, Liberal Movement candidates and Labor candidates running for the same seat.

Of course, generally those three-way contests were in the seats that were held by the non-Labor side of politics. Compulsory preferential voting saw that either a Liberal or a Liberal Movement candidate would have been elected in those seats. That was something the Liberal Party had to deal with for quite some time. It paid a very heavy price to bring fairness into the system. I remember the 1989 election, when John Olsen had 52 per cent of the vote after a prolonged period of Labor government. I remember that election very well because I remember the 1985 election when Labor moved from a minority government, picking up about five seats, I think, from the Liberal Party in opposition, to become a very strong government.

One of their major promises was an entertainment centre in Adelaide. Between 1985 and 1989, they did not deliver it. Breaking promises after 1982—between 1982 and 1985—did not seem to have much of an effect, and they thought they could get away with it again in 1985 and between 1985 and 1989. I remember when Michael Armitage was the candidate for the seat of Adelaide. It was a key major issue. I was there with Michael Armitage at many of the concert events that were held outside at either Football Park or at Adelaide Oval, handing out flyers to anyone who would take them and reminding people, 'You shouldn't be doing this. You shouldn't have to be going to this concert outside, because Labor promised an entertainment centre in 1985 and they still haven't delivered.'

South Australians wanted to punish the Bannon government at that time. They had had enough. Fifty-two per cent of South Australians voted for a change, and it still did not deliver a change of government. The Liberal Party picked up five seats, but they fell one seat short. Labor formed government with the Independent member for Elizabeth, Martyn Evans. I think there was also the Independent member for Semaphore at that time, Norman Peterson. Did I get that right, Deputy Speaker?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: How could you forget?

Mr PISONI: He is not from my side of politics, so do forgive me that I stumbled a little bit in my political history.

An honourable member: Do you remember Gil Langley?

Mr PISONI: I do remember Gill Langley. I still come across—

Ms Chapman: Former member for Unley.

Mr PISONI: Yes, the former member for Unley. I still come across the occasional very senior person in Unley these days, who, as a child or a younger person, remembered how Gil Langley always carried a screwdriver with him when he went doorknocking.

An honourable member: He fixed their toasters.

Mr PISONI: He did fix their toasters.

The Hon. S.W. KEY: Point of order.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just a minute, we have a point of order from the member for Ashford.

The Hon. S.W. KEY: My point of order is that I seem to remember the Hon. Stephen Wade and also the member for Unley actually giving out the Gil Langley prize at the Unley Amateur Swimming Club, so I am surprised that the honourable member does not remember who Gil Langley is.

Mr PISONI: The member for Ashford has obviously been napping.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can we just step back?

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I am actually in charge, and I would like to get back to the debate. Off you go.

Mr PISONI: I accept the apology from the member for Ashford for being just a little bit distracted. It has been a long day. I think that many members expected today to be a fairly quick day, but it is now probably going to be one of the longest sitting days that I can recall in this place in my nearly 12 years of being here.

Getting back to the electoral system and the point of the Constitution (One Vote One Value) Amendment Bill, I want to finish on the former member for Unley, Gil Langley. He was a tradesman, an electrician, a very practical person. He took a screwdriver with him when he went doorknocking and he would do odd jobs for people. I have found myself in that situation occasionally when people—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: You have been helpful?

Mr PISONI: Yes, of course—when people purchased furniture from me, when I had my business.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: You fixed it up or polished it?

Mr PISONI: One person reminded me that they purchased a coffee table from me but there was no Pisoni badge on it. I had one left over, so I returned back to the home a week later and screwed the Pisoni badge underneath the coffee table for them so that they could have it branded as they expected when it was first delivered. It was one that got past the inspection program before delivery, but we rectified it at the first opportunity.

The bill before us is an extraordinary admission from this government that it does not have the support of the majority of South Australians in this state. It is a tricky attempt to steal government with an illegitimate election outcome, just as they did in 2010 and just like Labor did in 2014. Remember that in 2010 we had the member for Mawson and the member for—

Mr Gardner: 'Put your family first.' The former member for Bright and the former member for Morialta.

Mr PISONI: The former member for Morialta, the member for Mawson and the former member for Hartley got their union mates to turn up in blue T-shirts saying, 'Put your family first.' There were conservative Family First people—and this is what is so ironic: they were the two most left wing Labor MPs who would find so much of what Family First stood for uncomfortable using the Family First name to steal votes from people who thought they were voting to give Family First the best chance they had of entering the House of Assembly, but in fact delivering their preferences to Labor. It was an absolute disgrace.

Labor initially tried to defend that, but they then realised it was morally wrong. Then, because they could not trust themselves not to do it again, they changed the law so you could not do it again. They will do anything to hold on to the position that they are in at the moment. It is not just the members of parliament, of course. You need to look at the whole structure of the Labor Party. The pyramid of power that is the Labor Party is all about union membership at the base of the pyramid. The wider the base of the pyramid, the faster you can push yourself up to the pointy end, and the pointy end is a seat in parliament.

Of course, if you do not have a seat in parliament with your little pyramid of power, with whatever union you are in or with whatever faction you are in, you will end up as a ministerial staffer or you will end up on a board. There will be some reward for you in the Labor Party system for being loyal, recruiting members and building those bases on the pyramids of power so that the chosen few can push themselves up to the pointy end of that pyramid into a seat in parliament and then of course into the ministry.

It is all about them. It is not about the people of South Australia. The people of South Australia want to see a change in South Australia. This government knows and the Labor Party knows that, if the new boundaries that we will be contesting as candidates at the 2018 election were in place for the 2014 election, it would have been a landslide win for the Liberal Party. With 53 per cent of the vote, it would have delivered 27 seats.

We have this crazy situation where a government was able to form a majority with 47 per cent of the vote. The boundaries are now fair. After giving the Labor Party an advantage for so many years, the boundaries are now fair. Labor needs a swing of 3 per cent towards them to even have any chance of holding on to office. They will lose some skin. We all know that election campaigns never end up with a uniform swing, but there is an average swing. That average swing needs to be 3 per cent for the Labor Party to retain any chance of holding on to government under this current system. Even if they get a bigger slice of the vote they will still lose government because they are unlikely to reach the 50 per cent. This is the system that we have had: a system that has allowed a party with only 47 per cent of the vote to form government.

Look at what they are saying about the polls out of Canberra: 47 per cent and 53 per cent is being described as being an horrific disaster for the government. If an election were held today, there would be a landslide win for the Labor Party, yet historically in South Australia we have known that the Liberal Party has to do so much better than 50 per cent plus one—51 per cent, 52 per cent or even 53 per cent is not enough.

Mr Gardner: We needed 60 per cent last time.

Mr PISONI: As the member for Morialta reminds me, 60 per cent was the last figure we needed to return to government. In the 50 years since the gerrymander in the 1968 election, we have seen Labor in office for 37 years and what do they have to show for it? In 1965, Adelaide was the third largest city in the country and we had full employment in South Australia. We were a state that was punching well above its weight. People were choosing to come to live in South Australia.

The issue that actually cost Tom Playford the 1965 election was the growth of the metropolitan area into regional seats. The demographic in those regional seats changed and in 1965 Condor Laucke, the member for Modbury, warned Sir Thomas Playford that he had to revise his conservative stance on 6 o'clock closing and state lotteries because his English migrant constituents, who were used to a culture where they could go out for a drink in the evening and could also buy a lottery ticket, could not understand why that could not be done in South Australia.

That 1965 election was lost by one seat and it was the seat of Modbury. He was a local member who was switched on to his constituency, but unfortunately it was a government that had become too comfortable and did not realise that things were changing, which is the same sort of thing that is happening in South Australia at the moment. That is why it is so important that we have a fair electoral system in South Australia.

I am more than happy to be judged on my performance and on what I can deliver as a member of parliament if we do have the honour of forming a government after 17 March next year. I am more than happy to stand before the people as a member of that executive government four years later and say, 'Look at what we have done. We have more to do. Please consider us for another four years.'

We are not interested in manipulating the system, unlike the Labor Party, and you have to go back in history. Why is it that the Labor Party continues to go back to looking at ways to get around the rules, looking at ways of manipulating the system? Because they are based on the trade union movement and that is what the trade union movement does. It is in their DNA. Look at the way the shoppies union recruits 15 and 16 year olds to sign up to the shoppies union on their induction night at Coles, Woolworths, KFC, Subway or any of those other organisations that have enterprise bargaining agreements that have been drawn up by Mr Malinauskas, in his former role, and others.

Why is it that they think they can hold a legally binding contract that has been signed by a 15 or a 16 year old but not countersigned by a parent? It is an extraordinary situation. But that is what happens on their induction night and the EBA says that the union has access to those new staff members, those kids, on that day. It is a manipulation of a situation that is exactly what this bill is about.

The Labor Party took the decision of the Electoral District Boundaries Commission to the Supreme Court and there was not a single vote in favour of their position. They knew they could not take it to the High Court because there were precedents all around Australia where there are variances that are allowed. For example, Tasmania has a constitutional right to five lower house seats. They only have 60,000 people in each federal seat, in each seat of the House of Representatives in the Australian parliament. They have a constitutional right in order to do that.

In South Australia, you will find it is around about 100,000 to 110,000 and there is a variance in there in order for that to be managed. When the Electoral Commissioner is predicting what the populations will be in each seat, it is just a prediction. Sure, there is some science involved, but it is not guaranteed. Just because the commissioner might say that the seat of Unley might grow by a certain number between the time of the redistribution and the next election does not mean that is necessarily going to happen. A regional seat is exactly the same; it may grow more. There might be an increased price in a particular product. We could see some short-term migration into regional South Australia which would see that seat increase beyond the predictions that were made by the Electoral District Boundaries Commission.

So, it is important that the commission has all the tools that it possibly can have in order to deliver a fair result when those boundaries are reviewed after every election. It is a sad day for democracy when you have a government that is spending tens of millions of dollars on advertising, telling South Australians what a great job it has done but is much more interested in manipulating the system than being judged on its record.

Mr GARDNER: I draw your attention to the state of the house, ma'am.

A quorum having been formed:

The Hon. T.R. KENYON (Newland) (21:04): I rise to make a contribution, but not before I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.