Bills

Constitution (One Vote One Value) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed.

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) (22:30): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

Mr van Holst Pellekaan: I am on my feet.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Yes, we know that. This is a procedural motion. I move:

That the second reading of the Constitution (One Vote One Value) Amendment Bill 2017 last 30 minutes from the passing of this motion; that the committee stage of this bill last 40 minutes, with 10 minutes for each clause; and that the third reading of this bill last five minutes.

The house divided on the motion:

Ayes 24

Noes 17

Majority 7

Motion thus carried.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (22:36): What an extraordinary disappointment this government has become in so many ways. It does not matter whether it is child protection. It does not matter whether it is energy. It does not matter whether it is the economy. It does not matter whether it is unemployment. It does not matter whether it is the foundation of our constitution. Of course we can debate the one vote one value, the fairness test and a whole range of other things that are in this bill but, goodness gracious, Mr Speaker, on your last day in the chair you are presiding over the government gagging debate on one of the most fundamental aspects of democracy in South Australia.

We have a bill here from the government that removes section 83 from the constitution of South Australia and replaces it with clause 83A, which states:

(1) The Premier must undertake a review of the operation of section 83.

(2) The review required under this section must commence not later than 12 months after the general election of members of the House of Assembly next occurring after the commencement of this section.

(3) The Premier must prepare a report based on the review and must, within 12 sitting days after the report is prepared, cause copies of the report to be laid before each House of Parliament.

What this says is that the Premier must undertake a review and the Premier must deliver the results of his review. What does that replace? It replaces, in the original section 83:

(1) 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.

Mr Speaker, you are presiding over the replacement of that fairness with 'the Premier must undertake a study and must report the study and must lay it on the table', which means absolutely nothing. This is an extraordinary situation. The government wants to use its numbers in this chamber to replace one of the most important foundations of our democracy with 'the Premier must do a study and deliver the study to parliament'. It does not even say what has to happen to it after that. It does not say what any member of parliament or what the government must do. It is just a dreadful disgrace.

This is one of the most important things that we will discuss. I know the government has had its heart broken now that the Electoral Commission has finally delivered on what the constitution asks it to do. The constitution essentially says that how the votes fall broadly across the state is how the boundaries must be changed, so that the next time around, if everybody voted roughly the same way, the seats would fall in line with how the votes fell across the state.

The Electoral Commission has finally delivered that, and the government's response is not to say, 'Well, after a lot of free kicks over quite a lot of elections, we finally got a fair fight. Okay, we will front up and we will accept that we finally have a fair fight, and we will take that fair fight on.' The government does not say that. The government does not say, 'Okay, we will finally have a fair fight; we'll cop it on the chin. We have had free kick, after free kick, after free kick for the last four, eight, 16 non-stop years.' The government says, 'We refuse a fair fight.' The government says—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: I warn the member for Colton.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: They say, 'We'll change the constitution instead; we will change the Constitution Act instead.' The government does not say, 'We accept the independent umpire's ruling and we finally have fair boundaries so we will finally fight fairly.' They will not change the rules. As soon as the rules are implemented fairly, the government says, 'We'll change the rules.' Not only does the government say they want to change the rules; they say, 'We refuse to participate in fair parliamentary debate about changing the rules.'

The Deputy Premier fronts up and says the government has just decided that we will only allow the parliament—this house—to discuss this for another 30 minutes. I do not know where 30 minutes comes from. We are all allowed to talk for 20 minutes, plus the lead speaker, and so the Deputy Premier has said—

Mr Marshall: No legal advice! Where's your Crown law advice, you cowards?

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: The Deputy Premier said, in a very arbitrary way—

The SPEAKER: The leader may not refer to another member as a coward.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Will the leader withdraw?

Members interjecting:

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Mr Speaker, the Deputy Premier turns up and at some arbitrary point in time he says, 'I've decided that only 1½ more speakers will get a turn on this issue.'

The SPEAKER: Is that not debating the previous motion rather than the second reading?

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: No, I am talking about how the government is handing this issue, sir. The Deputy Premier says that at an arbitrary time he has decided that 1.5 of what is normally the opposition speeches will be allowed to contribute to this debate. So they do not want fair rules. When the rules are finally made fair, they say they want to change the Constitution Act and, instead of allowing debate on the Constitution Act, they just say, 'We are going to shut down debate. We're not even going to let the opposition have anything to do with it.'

It is an absolute disgrace and it speaks volumes of the cowardice of this government when it comes to fighting a fair election. At the last election, the opposition got 53 per cent of the vote. At the election before that, the opposition got 51.6 per cent of the vote. The government loved it that way when the rules supported them. As soon as the rules are fair, they say, 'No, we want to change the rules,' and they will not even allow a fair debate on the rules. We have endless members of parliament who want to contribute to this debate in a responsible way on behalf of their electorates, and the government will not even allow it to happen.

The Hon. J.M. Rankine: Well, why didn't the member for Bragg give them a turn?

The SPEAKER: The member for Wright is called to order for interjecting out of her seat.

Ms Sanderson interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Adelaide is on two warnings.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: To remove from the Constitution Act that as far as possible the electoral redistribution is fair to prospective candidates and groups of candidates, that is what this government wants to remove. Let me just tell you that it does not matter whether a person, an elector, a South Australian, lives right next to the GPO in the middle of the CBD in Adelaide, or if they live in Mount Gambier or Port Lincoln or Oodnadatta or Innamincka, they deserve this fairness. By the government coming in here and rushing it through, using its numbers to gag debate on this issue, they are staring in the face of every single South Australian.

Whether they live in the electorate of Adelaide, the electorate of Mount Gambier, the electorate of Flinders, the electorate of Stuart, they are staring at that person and saying, 'We don't care about you. We do not care about you and we do not want you to have a fair election.' They are saying to every single elector in South Australia, 'We do not want you to have a fair vote to fairly choose the government of your choice,' and worse than that, 'We are not even going to allow the parliament to debate it properly.'

The Hon. J.M. Rankine: You moved adjournment.

The SPEAKER: The member for Wright is warned.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Worse than that, they are saying, 'We will not allow the parliament to even debate their own proposal to change the rules,' which have finally been made fair, Mr Speaker. I can only imagine how ashamed and embarrassed you must be on your last night here in parliament to preside over this debate with the government wrecking democracy in South Australia.

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (22:46): As usual, I am not able to fully support either side of this debate because I find it really quite distressing that this bill was brought on very late on the last day. However, I have sought legal advice about this matter and I am content to support the government in this particular case. We are the only state with this fairness clause and I believe the community of interest to be a really important part of this bill and that it was not looked after as well as it might have been last time in that the seat of Florey saw Modbury cut into three pieces, which may seem of little consequence to anyone in this chamber but the community of interest is really shattered in our seat.

In the past, we have had pieces tacked on to the old seat of Florey, with no community interest to Florey at all, just to make up the numbers. I have confidence that the bill has some protections in it still and on those grounds—

Members interjecting:

Ms BEDFORD: Because I feel we are just going around in circles. We are talking about the fact that to win an election you must win a number of seats and unfortunately no fairness clause, I do not think, will ever be able to manage that unless everyone votes exactly the same way as they did last time.

Mr Marshall: So the Supreme Court was wrong?

Ms BEDFORD: Well, I have taken advice; I am just telling you—

Mr Marshall: Five judges.

Ms BEDFORD: I am giving you the reasons why I am voting with the government. I am sorry if you cannot take it, but that is the way it is going to be for me.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Minister for the Arts) (22:48): This is one of the most significant bills that has been put before the—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The opposition has had more than 95 per cent of the time.

Mr GARDNER: Point of order: the Premier has had plenty of time to speak before his side gagged the debate with a guillotine. The standard practice is that when a member of the side opposite to the one that spoke last seeks the call, the call is given to that member, and the member for Mitchell was clearly up first.

The SPEAKER: Members have spoken in this debate. The Deputy Premier spoke briefly, opening it, and the members who have spoken are the members for MacKillop, Schubert, Morialta, Unley and the deputy leader. The opposition has had more than 90 per cent of the time on the second reading debate. The member for Florey, who is an Independent, just spoke for two minutes and I am now giving the Premier the call.

Mr PISONI: Point of order, sir: it was the government that gagged this and put a time limit on it. They had nothing else to say, they put a gag on this and now they want to use up top time that they knew the opposition wanted to use. Lift the gag. If the Premier wants to speak, lift the gag.

The SPEAKER: If the member sits down, perhaps the Premier will speak for just five minutes and we can allow the opposition the remaining five minutes.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: It is with great pride that I stand here to support this motion.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: To be lectured by those in this house who have sat there occupying these benches for much of the existence of this parliament relying upon a gerrymander to point the finger at us when we seek to uphold the principle of one vote one value in this place is to say the least galling. I am successor in title to Don Dunstan, who sat here in this place and argued for one vote one value, not a malapportionment of districts where the Labor Party's votes were locked up in larger electorates than Liberal electorates in a way which meant that Labor Party votes were counted and given less value than Liberal Party votes.

That shameful episode belongs in the dustbin of history, and today we consign it to the dustbin of history. It is an absolute outrage that those opposite would seek to cloak themselves in democracy when they sat in this place enjoying the benefits of malapportionment. Can I cite, Mr Speaker, with some protection, the remarks that have been made today—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: I warn the deputy leader.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: —by psephologist, Antony Green, where he was asked the question: could—

The Hon. J.M. Rankine interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Wright is warned for the second and final time.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: —it lead to gerrymandering? He said, 'The fairness criteria is gerrymandering.' The reason he reached that conclusion is that what we are seeing now is the creeping malapportionment, where the honourable court decided that it is permissible to have up to 20 per cent difference in the size of electorates between Labor electorates and Liberal electorates to try to get some mathematical—

Mr Knoll interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Schubert is warned for the second and final time.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: —precision about the two-party preferred vote in circumstances where we have—

Mr Knoll interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Schubert will depart from the house for the next 15 minutes under the sessional order.

The honourable member for Schubert having withdrawn from the chamber.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: What the Labor Party is standing up for is the principle of one vote one value. That is what this bill is called, and they can bleat as much as they like, but a majority of the upper house, a majority of people who do not necessarily share the interests of promoting the Labor Party arrived at the same conclusion. They arrived at the conclusion that we cannot ever—

Mr Marshall: Who arrived?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: The upper house arrived at a conclusion, the upper house that does not have the interests of the Labor Party at heart—

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Point of order: the five minutes that you allocated the Premier has expired.

The SPEAKER: There are another 15 minutes on the clock. When I suggested to the Premier he might just speak for five minutes, I thought there was only 10 minutes on the clock. In fact, we have an embarrassment of riches. The Premier.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Thank you, Mr Speaker, and if I could be heard in silence, it will go so much more quickly for those opposite and they will be out of their misery much sooner than they would otherwise be. Those opposite have been advancing an argument that somehow they have been unable to debate this matter. They were the very people who sought to adjourn the debate to run away from this question. This is a fundamental question that should be debated in the life of this parliament because it will affect the result of the next election, not the 2018 election but the 2022 election. It is critically important because we do not understand—

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: —what the configuration of the parliament will be after the next election, and it is absolutely crucial that we take the opportunity now, while all of us are unaware of the configuration of what the next parliament will be, to take these steps.

We have the very author of the fairness criterion and let me tell you that I had a conversation with Mr Mackerras. What he told me is that those opposite, who are complaining about the application of the—

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: This nonsense that somehow this is a Labor Party construction—this electoral system was designed by the Liberal Party for the Liberal Party, and they have complained for decades about the results that it threw up. Then, when this—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The leader will withdraw under sessional orders for 15 minutes for repeated interjection.

The honourable member for Dunstan having withdrawn from the chamber:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: When this clause was constructed to suit the convenience of the Liberal Party back in the day when it was inserted into the constitution, it has become more and more absurd each year. As the Electoral Commissioner has strained to give effect to this mathematical certainty, the precision of the two-party preferred vote in circumstances when the contest has always been the number of seats, it has created a debauched outcome.

We cannot criticise the judges for this, of making sense of a law which itself does not make sense. It will make even less sense after the next election if we are to believe the forecasts about the configuration of this chamber after the next election. It is critical that we act at this stage. Those opposite who suggest otherwise are being disingenuous. They are being disingenuous by suggesting that we should not deal with it in the life of this parliament. What they are hoping is that they are successful after the next election and, if they are successful after the next election, they can lock in and ensure that this gerrymander that now is reflected in the current arrangements—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Not my words, Antony Green's words. This gerrymander that is now reflected in the current arrangements will be continued in perpetuity. This is the only opportunity to remedy this injustice, and this is the last opportunity, potentially, for this parliament to reassert the principle of one vote one value, and I am very proud that we are taking that step today.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Colton will withdraw from the chamber for 15 minutes for repeated interjection.

The Hon. P. CAICA: What, after one warning, sir?

The SPEAKER: No, you had a full set of warnings. You earned them progressively during the day, starting in private members' time and question time.

The honourable member for Colton having withdrawn from the chamber:

Mr WINGARD (Mitchell) (22:57:79): I rise tonight in the limited time that has been afforded to us because of the gag that the government has moved on this bill, a sneaky bill that they are bringing through to amend the constitution at the very last minute of this term of government—it is quite amazing to see. I have listened intently to the history of what has happened here tonight, and to see a sneaky government, a desperate government, a dodgy government, looking to push through this at the last minute without seeking Crown advice, without allowing us to get more information on the detail and the devil of what they are trying to do is alarming and should be alarming for all South Australians.

In 1991, of course, we had a referendum to make our voting system fair here in South Australia. That is what the people of South Australia wanted and that is what they voted for: 70 per cent of people said that was what they wanted here in South Australia. But tonight we see again a sneaky move, a dodgy move from a dodgy government wishing to whip this through. People in South Australia want fairness. South Australians deserve fairness. We have seen this government before with tricks like 'putting your family first'. We saw them with the slogan, 'Can you trust Habib?' against the Liberal candidate for Elder at the last election. That is how this government operates, and South Australians deserve a heck of a lot better.

The SPEAKER: The member for Mitchell might turn his attention to the substance of the bill.

Mr WINGARD: And that we are, we are talking about the constitution and the fairness in this clause.

Ms Bedford: Divide!

Mr WINGARD: Fairness is vitally important in what we are talking about here—

The SPEAKER: The member for Florey is called to order.

Mr WINGARD: —and that is what the people of South Australia voted for at the referendum in 1991, and now the Premier wants this section removed. Section 83(1) is to be deleted, along with section 83(3), and now the Premier wants to bring in new section 83A, where:

(1) The Premier must undertake a review of the operation of section 83.

(2) The review required under this section must commence no later than 12 months after the general election of members of the House of Assembly next occurring after the commencement of this section.

(3) The Premier must prepare a report based on the review and must, within 12 sitting days after the report is prepared, cause copies of the report to be laid before each House of Parliament.

Nowhere do the people of South Australia get a say like they did in the referendum of 1991. It is a sneaky government that would whip this through at the last minute and try to shut down debate, what is more, as this side of the house looks to raise issues and concerns about this amendment to the Constitution Act 1934.

I have talked about Gillman, Oakden aged care, the Repat and child protection, not to mention the economy, unemployment, youth unemployment, etc.

The SPEAKER: Not even close.

Mr WINGARD: They are very serious issues—

The SPEAKER: The member for Mitchell is not even close to the substance of the bill.

Mr WINGARD: —in South Australia and South Australians are seeing now that they have a sneaky government. They are the examples of the sneaky government that we have had here in South Australia for 16 years, and trying to move through a review like that, in place of what the people of South Australia voted for, is absolutely abhorrent.

We saw in 2016 the redraw of the boundaries to make it fair. Again, that is what South Australians want here. I came into this place knowing that people wanted a fair situation for South Australians, the opportunity to have their say. At the last two elections: the Liberal Party got 51.6 per cent of the vote in 2010 (well before my time), but in 2014 we got 53 per cent of the state vote. South Australians know that, if you get 53 per cent of the vote, you deserve to form government.

In Queensland, the Labor Party got 51 per cent of the vote and formed a majority government. South Australians know that if you get 53 per cent of the vote in this state and you do not form government, that is not fair. That is why at the referendum in 1991 people voted to have the fairness clause inserted, yet here we have a sneaky government coming in and trying to whip this in.

We look back, too, at what Labor did after the redrawing of the boundaries. They bleated—that is right, they cried foul—and did everything in their power to prevent this redistribution. They went to the Full Court of the Supreme Court: five judges, including the Chief Justice, heard this case and it was dismissed five votes to nil. The SA Labor Party were proven wrong again.

They were proven wrong, and most honourable people would say then, 'The umpire has made their decision, we move on and we play the game.' That is how most people work in society; that is how fair people work in society. But, no, the Labor Party lost, and here we are, on the eve of closing this parliament before the next election, and this sneaky move is pushed through before parliament.

South Australians again voted for fairness. That is the essence of what we are looking at here; that is what South Australians want. We have seen sneaky operations, sneaky deals that I mentioned before, at election after election—

The SPEAKER: The member for Mitchell will be seated. Standing order 128 reads:

If a Member indulges in irrelevance or tedious repetition of substance already presented in a debate,

1 the Speaker…may call the attention of the House…to that fact, and

2 may direct the Member to cease speaking.

I am now drawing the attention of the house to the member for Mitchell's irrelevant and tedious repetition. I ask him, in the remaining six minutes, to introduce some fresh material.

Mr WINGARD: Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I will. I will turn our attention back to the constitution, which is what we are talking about here, and the amendment to the constitution that the Premier has put forward, sneakily through the upper house. He has gained support, obviously. Do we know how, do we know why? No, we do not, but he has gained the support of people in the upper house who originally were not looking at or supporting this amendment, but something has gone on and, again, the appropriate time to debate, inquire and get more information on this has been removed from our side of the chamber. There are questions that need to be asked, but debate is being shut down and members on my side of the house are not able to have those conversations or ask those questions.

The question has been asked: what Crown law advice did the government get on this bill? Again, we are not able to find any answers. When we look at the amendment to the constitution and what the Premier is proposing—bearing in mind that this was put in place because, as I have mentioned, in 1991, people voted at a referendum—the Premier is now allowing himself to decide for all South Australians exactly what he wants and how he wants to do it.

In effect, he is putting a gag on South Australians and that, in itself, is not fair. South Australians want a fair system. South Australians want a fair government. People are starting to look back over the past 16 years of this government and they are saying, 'Are they fair? Are they all about sneaky deals? Are they all about dodgy deals?' I have mentioned a number of those, and in spite of being asked not to mention them again, I will say that the people of South Australia have had enough.

When I came into this place, one thing I had driven into me by everyone I spoke to in my community when I doorknocked my local area was that, 'We don't like these sneaky deals. We don't like these dodgy deals.' Yet, here we are on the last day before the parliament rises before an election, and we are seeing one of the most sneaky, underhand, dodgy deals this government has ever produced, and they have produced plenty. I rattled them off before and I can rattle them off again—

The SPEAKER: If you do, I will rule under standing order 128 that you no longer be heard.

Mr GARDNER: Sir, would you please stop bullying the member for Mitchell on this point? You never do this to the Deputy Premier. You never do this to people on the other side, in terms of repetition.

The SPEAKER: The member for Morialta should be named, and I will confine myself to suspending him under the standing order for an hour.

Mr Gardner: Is that the standing order or the sessional order?

The SPEAKER: The sessional order—it has not yet been signed by the Governor.

The honourable member for Morialta having withdrawn from the chamber:

The SPEAKER: The member for Mitchell, who is not being bullied.

Mr WINGARD: I said I could name them, but South Australians know what they are. I do not need to name again all the dodgy deals that have gone on, but we can talk about this sneaky deal that has come before us tonight with the changes to the Constitution Act. I note that the bill has come through late on the last day of sitting, potentially, unless the government wants to sit again next week and debate it properly.

It is being raised tonight, which is the night before the test match starts, so we know that people will be enthralled with what happens with the cricket tomorrow. The government will be hoping that this slips through. That is the modus operandi and that is the guy that the government uses to bring through sneaky deals like that. Mr Speaker, while sharing a beverage at the races, you informed me of some of the wonderful tactics you use, like potentially photocopying notes of Liberal Party people who are holding—

The SPEAKER: I am sorry, I do not recall that at all.

Mr WINGARD: —listening post meetings and suggesting that you send down some of your people to have a chat to them. Those sorts of things are very sneaky. To send Labor Party people along—

Ms COOK: Point of order, Mr Speaker: relevance.

The SPEAKER: I do not recall any such conversation. We had a conversation at the races, but not about that. Anyway, do go on.

Mr WINGARD: Mr Speaker, if you have not done that, please say so, but it is on very good advice and conversations over a beverage. They are not illegal tactics, but they are very sneaky tactics, and that is what we are seeing with the bill. The member for Fisher asks for the relevance, and the relevance is the sneakiness we are seeing tonight. That is what happens. A lot of people have had many other things happen to them during campaigns and I have mentioned them before. I think South Australians have had enough of this sneaky, dodgy government and they will have their chance to vote accordingly at the next election. Sadly, my time has expired because of the gag on this debate put in place by the government.

The house divided on the second reading:

Ayes 24

Noes 17

Majority 7

Second reading thus carried.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clause 1.

Ms CHAPMAN: Clause 1 identifies that this bill, once it passes, becomes the Constitution (One Vote One Value) Amendment Act. Why is that reference being pursued, given that there is actually an abandonment of the one vote one value principle of equality of electors to supersede the fairness clause, when in fact all this bill now does is abolish the fairness clause and have a review?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: The answer to the question is first of all this was the title that the other place thought was most appropriate, obviously, for the short title, and as a matter of statutory interpretation the short title is little more than that, the short title. It does not necessarily have to be a comprehensive description of the bill.

The second important point about the bill is that, as I understand it, if one is to look at the constitution and delete sections 83(1) and 83(3), one is left with a set of criteria that puts one vote one value as the primary remaining element, which of course is—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.R. RAU: That is my answer. You may not like the answer, but that is my answer. My understanding is that it has always been the intention, certainly of the government in moving this in the first place, to achieve one vote one value, and by removing what was the distorting factor of the provisions that this bill from the Legislative Council moved, as I understand it, by Mr Parnell, does, this bill removes the elements that directed the boundaries commission to have regard to matters other than one vote one value.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The deputy leader has a second question.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Ms CHAPMAN: What is the Attorney's view, then, of section 77 of the constitution, which is untouched now by this bill, being so diversely different to what the Attorney had proposed and announced publicly back in September in his draft bill? Section 77, which I know that you are very familiar with, basically sets out the basis for redistribution and sets out how the electoral quota is to be calculated and what the permissible tolerance is. That still equates: number of electors divided by 47 seats, permissible tolerance of 10 per cent, so there is not going to necessarily be, even by this fairness clause being removed, equality of numbers of electors per seat, because the permissible tolerance is still 10 per cent. How is that going to work?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Again, all I can tell the deputy leader is what my understanding is, which is that by the removal of the provisions that even the Supreme Court, I think, in its recent determination indicated were the provisions that deflected them from what otherwise would have been a clear objective of one vote one value by the removal of those, what is left is the primary consideration of one vote one value. That is point No. 1.

Point No. 2 is that, in that context, one then gets into a consideration of the dates and the moments at which the tolerance is to be assessed relative to the—

Mr Marshall: What is the tolerance?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Am I allowed to finish, please—relevant to the day on which the question of what the boundaries are and what the numbers will be at the election time. We are dealing with—

Mr Duluk: What will they be after the new changes?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Davenport, it is not your turn to speak.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I am attempting to assist those who are interested.

The CHAIR: No, over here.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: The point is that the determination of the boundaries necessarily occurs and in fact lawfully must occur at a point in time prior to—some year or more or two years prior to—the actual election day. So there is a difference between what the population of a particular proposed district will be as at the moment of the handing down of the determination of the Electoral Boundaries Commission and what that district may be projected to be on election day. There are many matters to be considered, and I would encourage members who are really interested in the more arcane aspects of this to read the determinations of the Full Court.

The primary point, however, is quite simple. Because it is clear, as far as the court was concerned, that the elements of the current constitutional provisions that distracted the boundaries commission from its otherwise clear objective of achieving one vote one value as much as it possibly could are the ones that have been identified by Mr Parnell in his amendment, and those have been removed. Therefore, what is left is the primary objective as described by the Supreme Court. As I understand the Supreme Court's decision, they formed the view that that primary objective had been suppressed or overtaken or in some other way rendered secondary to the provisions in 83(1) and 83(3).

Ms CHAPMAN: I am looking then at the original bill, which provided a new section 77. The new section 77 was consistent with the statement the Attorney made in his press release the same day it was issued, which was:

This Bill requires the Commission to give paramount consideration to achieving equality in elector numbers across all electorates—in line with the principle of ‘one vote one value’.

Specifically, the bill that you commissioned—I can use that general term—provided:

The paramount principle that the Commission must apply in making an electoral redistribution is that the number of electors in each electoral district should (as at the first polling day for which the order is to be effective) be equal.

So the original position was to actually make equal numbers. My point is that without referring to that at all—because it is not in this bill that we have now anymore—we are left with the original section 77—

Mr Marshall: Which provides for the 10 per cent variance.

Ms CHAPMAN: —which allows for the 10 per cent variance. So I am just struggling to understand: if you are saying the effect then of this bill in its current form, given to us from the Legislative Council, is one of removing fairness and therefore allowing one vote one value in accordance with what your government were aspiring to in terms of having supremacy or paramountcy, it is still surely defective according to your definition, in allowing the tolerance of 10 per cent.

Members interjecting:

The CHAIR: Order!

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I understand the point. What I am trying to explain is this: the government's preferred position was to do what we did in our bills. We wanted to do that in that way, because so far as we were concerned that was the absolute 100 per cent outcome in terms of voter equality. We were so committed to that we were prepared to have a referendum on that, but what happened was, thanks to members of the opposition in the other place and other crossbenchers, we were told, 'No, you are not allowed to have a referendum on that. You are not even allowed to ask the people whether they want that. We won't let you do that.' That is what they said to us. 'There's no way you are getting a referendum'. Okay?

That means, because of the determination of your colleagues upstairs, we were not going to be given a referendum. That was for sure. At that point, Mr Parnell offered an alternative which did not require a referendum. I do not think it is as absolutely a 100 per cent outcome as ours, but it is a great deal better than what we have now.

So, the reason we accepted and ultimately supported the second-best alternative, which was being offered by Mr Parnell, was because it was being made clear by the opposition and the crossbenchers that they would not even allow the public to have a vote on what we considered to be the best outcome.

Mr Knoll: They had a vote in 1991.

The CHAIR: Order! Ten minutes have expired.

Clause passed.

Clause 2.

Ms CHAPMAN: There is provision here, 'referring to the amendment of a specified Act amends the Act so specified'. This is in the amendments to the constitution, as I understand it. Again, we come back to this question as to what we are going to call this act because, clearly, 'one vote one value' no longer applies, given what you have just acknowledged, namely, that if the quality of voters in electorates is what you have said is your defining aspect of 'one vote one value', we are still going to have a 10 per cent variance for different factors.

The Hon. J.R. Rau: No, we are not.

Ms CHAPMAN: We are. You tell me, with section 77 standing completely as it is.

Members interjecting:

The CHAIR: Order!

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I am taking a point of order under 128. We have moved on from the fascinating topic of what this four-clause, one-page bill is called. We are now on clause 2, which is a sentence with about 15 words in it, and so far all the comments—

Mr Duluk: Why don't you remove that from the constitution? Why don't you remove it?

The CHAIR: Order, member for Davenport!

The Hon. J.R. RAU: —have been pertinent.

Members interjecting:

The CHAIR: I am on my feet. The member for Davenport clearly does not want to stay in the chamber much longer. In fact, if he is not careful, he will leave immediately, so no more interjections.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: As I was saying, we have moved on from the topic of what it is called. The member for Bragg has expressed her point of view and I have attempted to respond, so these comments are not pertinent or relevant to clause 2.

Mr MARSHALL: I have a question regarding this clause and the amendment provisions. Both the Attorney-General and the Premier have spoken in this house, saying that the reason for these amendment provisions that are offered in this bill before the house is to have the primacy or paramountcy of the issue of having the same number of electors in each seat. They say this is absolutely paramount. This, of course, is exactly what they have said, both in the Premier's contribution in the house, only a few moments ago, and in the Attorney-General's comments, repeatedly. The reality is that the amendment provisions provided in this bill before the house do not actually achieve that.

There is no way that the amendments that are sought by the government are achieved by this because we go back to the original section 77, which clearly allows for a 10 per cent variance in either direction. So the very point that the Premier was making in the house only about an hour ago is not actually achieved. In fact, he was making the very point that a 20 per cent variance is allowable under the original act, which they seek to amend. This provision talks about the amendment provisions. He has said that these—

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Are you asking a question?

Mr MARSHALL: Yes, I would like to ask. Clearly, the question is: how can the Premier stand in this house and say that these amendment provisions provided in this bill before the house will not allow the continuation of up to a 20 per cent variance between the lowest and the highest, yet there is no amendment?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: At the risk of being repetitive—

Members interjecting:

The CHAIR: Order! I need to be able to hear the Attorney.

Members interjecting:

The CHAIR: Order! I need to hear him.

Mr Knoll interjecting:

The CHAIR: Member for Schubert!

The Hon. J.R. RAU: At the risk of being repetitive—but the questions have been repetitive, so unfortunately that becomes necessary—point number one: if you read what the Supreme Court had to say in their decision, what the Supreme Court is basically saying is, 'We have considered all the things that are supposed to be on the mind of the boundaries commission at the point in time at which it makes a decision.' We have come to the conclusion that because of the existence of 83(1) and 83(3), the most important consideration they have to have regard to is this.

The secondary matter of equality between the number of people from electorate to electorate gives way to that. That is broadly what they had to say. We then go to section 77(1) of the constitution, which provides:

Whenever an electoral redistribution is made, the redistribution shall be made upon the principle but the number of electors comprised in each electoral district must not—

and I get back to the point I was trying to make before—

(as at the relevant date)—

and we will come back to what that means in a minute—

Mr Duluk interjecting:

The CHAIR: Member for Davenport!

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Why doesn't the member for Davenport be quiet and learn something?

Members interjecting:

The CHAIR: I am on my feet. Sit down. I cannot believe that you are speaking that way with the live feed on for any poor person who is watching this tonight. You know the standing orders. You know the—

Members interjecting:

The CHAIR: I do not know any member in here who does not understand that the standing orders mean that the members need to be heard in silence. Your electors would be horrified.

Members interjecting:

The CHAIR: Order!

An honourable member interjecting:

The CHAIR: I will ask you to name them in a minute.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: As I was saying:

…each electoral district must not (as at the relevant date)—

which I will come back to in a moment—

vary from the electoral quota—

which I will also come back to in a moment—

by more than the permissible tolerance.

That is the broad proposition. Under subsection (2):

electoral quota means the nearest integral number obtained by dividing the total number of electors for the House of Assembly (as at the relevant date) by the number of electoral districts into which the State is to be divided as at—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Can you please just be quiet long enough for me to finish reading the sentence. You asked me a question and I am trying to give you an answer—

the first polling day for which the order is to be effective;

So we have two different dates that we are talking about here. One is the relevant date and one is the polling day. They are not the same, and the reason they are not the same is because:

the relevant date means—

and it is defined here—

a date specified in an order as the relevant date, being a—

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: —what has your question got to do with clause 2 is a better question—

date falling not earlier than six months before the date of the order.

That means that the relevant date is before the determination made by the electoral boundaries commission which means that on the day, which is the relevant date, the determination it makes must necessarily be a projection as to something that will be at a point in time a year or two in the future. The job of work that is being given to the boundaries commission by this provision is to say, 'Boundaries commission, you have the task of looking into the future. You have the task of imagining how many people are going to live in different places at a point in time in the future.'

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: You are starting to get what I am saying. This is good.

Members interjecting:

The CHAIR: Order! I am on my feet. The member for Davenport is persistently—

An honourable member: Name him.

The CHAIR: I will have to if he keeps—one more time. I am advised that under the sessional orders—

An honourable member interjecting:

The CHAIR: No, I mean you understand the rules of the house. I am supposed to be trying to prevent fights. I am also trying to listen—

Mr Marshall: Yet the rules of the house, we are being gagged at the moment.

The CHAIR: I can't deal with that. I am only dealing with the—

Mr Marshall: You can deal with whatever you like; you are in the chair.

The CHAIR: I can't because I can't hear anybody, and I am asking you all to obey the standing orders, which is to let him be heard in silence.

Mr Duluk: You know they are gagging debate anyway, so what is the point?

The CHAIR: I just ask you to observe the standing orders and, if you persist, I will have to name you and that makes everything really unpleasant on the last day. It is in your hands.

Mr Marshall: This isn't unpleasant—changing the constitution with this dodgy deal.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, the material before us is another thing. I mean the behaviour of the chamber.

Mr Marshall: This is outrageous. They haven't even got a decent point. This is all going round in circles.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, it is, but we only have a minute more of it on this clause.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: We are getting back to attempting to answer the question. There is a date selected by the commission, which is a date in the future, at which time the commission is obliged to do its best to make sure that the number of electors on that day in the future, divided by 47, is distributed equally amongst each of the 47 electoral districts. That is what the task is.

At the time, which is the relevant date, which could be a couple of years before that date, that may mean there is a difference between electorates which may be, according to this, permitted to be as much as 10 per cent. The electoral boundaries commission might know there is a new housing development about to go into an area. At the relevant date, they are under in the expectation they will be over later. I am sure I will get a chance to say this all again.

Time expired.

The committee divided on the clause:

Ayes 24

Noes 17

Majority 7

Sitting extended beyond 00:00 on motion of Hon. J.R. Rau.

Clause 3.

Ms CHAPMAN: Having abandoned the new section 77 clause—

Members interjecting:

The CHAIR: I cannot hear the member on her feet. Order!

Ms CHAPMAN: Having abandoned the new section 77 clause and only progressing with the deletions in section 83, as in this clause, does the Attorney agree that that has the effect of leaving a division into electorates with a 10 per cent tolerance?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Chair, can I just say—

Members interjecting:

The CHAIR: Order!

Ms CHAPMAN: There would be no change to section 77 and section 77 is still there, which still provides how it is to be divided with a permissible tolerance irrespective of the date that is there.

The Hon. J.R. Rau: This is not an argument. What is the question?

Ms CHAPMAN: Is it not that that all remains and it still includes a tolerance?

Mr Duluk interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Can I make two points. If the member for Davenport could stop bellowing for a moment, I will finish answering the question. The point is, first of all, 138: this is repetitive, irrelevant and I have already answered this half a dozen times. My answer to your question is, no, I do not agree with you.

Mr Duluk interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: No, for the reasons I—

The CHAIR: Order! The Attorney is on his feet. I want to hear the end of his answer.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Just so we do not hear this question another four or five times, the answer I gave at some length before we had our recent division—and I am not quite sure what that achieved, but nevertheless before we had that division—I explained, I thought, at some length the way I read the provisions and what I understand has happened.

I explained also to members that the government's preferred position was as contained in our legislation, but the government was left in a position where we were not able to proceed with that and the option presented itself, courtesy of Mr Parnell, to take an alternative which, for the reasons I have just explained, I think gets us as close as we possibly can to equality of electorates.

I do not agree with either the suggestion made by the member for Bragg or the suggestion made by others that we are adopting a position that contemplates a usual outcome of a 10 per cent tolerance on election day. Quite the contrary, I think the understanding is that on election day the proposals, if they are to be adopted by the house, will mean that we get as close as possible to equality in electorates.

Ms CHAPMAN: I understand that if you had progressed with section 77, as you were hoping to achieve. As you were hoping to achieve, it would just have an equal number of electors as at the first polling day for which the order was to be effective. That was your clause, right? I am just trying to understand. Having not progressed with that and being left with the current section 77, which still has in it a tolerance factor of 10 per cent, do you agree that, when looking at the redistribution, it still has a tolerance allowed? That is all I am trying to ascertain.

Clearly, you are moving on to add in a no fairness clause—I get that—and section 83(2) remains, setting out topography, population, demographics and so on. For the purposes of the future commission, they will be using the basis of redistribution as per currently published in the constitution, because I have not noticed any other change. I just want to be clear about it.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I have made it clear: the government had a preferred position. It was made clear by the opposition and the crossbenchers that the government was going to be denied that position. Mr Parnell offered an alternative, which a majority of the members of the other place agreed with. It is not as good, from a drafting point of view, as I think the original position of the government is, but, having looked at his suggestion, having looked at the constitution and having read the judgement of the court, I am reasonably confident that this particular amendment has the effect of requiring the commission to do its very best to have an equality of voters in each electorate on election day, and that is what we are after.

Ms CHAPMAN: Alright. Let's consider that, then. I appreciate that it is your opinion and your view. Did you obtain legal advice from the Crown Solicitor or anywhere else in respect of the drafting of the first set of bills?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I am sure that I did.

Ms CHAPMAN: At that time, a referendum bill was introduced and considered separately to the constitutional amendment. The referendum bill was to require a number of things, but basically to ask the question: do you approve of the Constitution (One Vote One Value) Amendment Bill 2017? That was the bill that went in with the original bill by Mr Malinauskas.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: If I can just explain again, what was being attempted originally—and there was no secret about this—was to directly deal with this problem in a particular way. That particular way required an amendment to the constitution, which in turn, because of the particular method that was chosen, required the constitutional amendment to be ratified not only by the parliament but by the people in a referendum, which is why there were two—

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Can the Leader of the Opposition please stop yelling? I am trying to answer a question. So, that is why we introduced two bills, two paired bills. There was no secret about this. They were introduced in the other place as paired bills and it was quite clear what we were trying to do. We have not been hiding it. It has been hidden in broad daylight ever since we introduced the bills. It has also been hidden in broad daylight, and in some contexts almost the subject of moderate self-congratulation, that there is no way the government was going to get the numbers to have a referendum on that.

In that context, the debate continued elsewhere and a proposition was advanced by one of the crossbenchers. That proposition offered a different way of pursuing the same outcome, which did not require a referendum because it was a different way of attempting the same outcome, and the other place decided that they were okay with that. I do not know whether that is because they do not like referenda or what it was, but that is what they did. And, because that was entirely consistent with the government's objectives, this proposal that has come from there—is their proposal; it is not the government's proposal; it is the upper house's proposal, actually—we accept. We say, 'We accept it.'

Ms CHAPMAN: Minister Malinauskas in the other place advised them that he had obtained legal advice. I do not know whether you have seen it. Have you seen any further legal advice on the proposal in this bill without there being a referendum?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I do not know what legal advice the minister was talking about. I was not—

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: As much as I am interested in what happens in the other place, during the course of the day, including today, I have not been in a position to listen to all the conversations going on in the other place. I do not know specifically what questions were put to the minister and I do not know what advice he may have been referring to, whether he is talking about advice leading up to the drafting of the bills that we put in in September; what he is talking about, I do not know. I do not know what he was talking about.

Ms CHAPMAN: Well, here is the situation Attorney: we have a bill before us, which is amending the state constitution, which is specifically to abolish what we all know is the fairness section 83(1), to remove it completely. It only got in the constitution by virtue of a referendum in 1991.

The CHAIR: Order! I draw members' attention to the clock. The time has expired, and I am bound by the previous motion of the house that clause 3 as printed be agreed to.

Clause passed.

Clause 4.

Ms CHAPMAN: Most concerning to me, Attorney, is that, given all of that, we are now being asked to deal with a bill pushed through the lower house today. You may or may not have been privy to all of what happened down there. We are being asked to change the constitution, in fact specifically to remove what the referendum determination had put in without a referendum, which was necessary, apparently, to go with your bill, but now that you are doing a different clause that you are changing the constitution—no referendum.

I did listen to some of the conversation down there today, and you have my concern and I would appreciate your comment on that. But, in relation to that, minister Malinauskas referred to having the Solicitor-General's further advice. If you have not had an opportunity to see it or be privy to what is happening, how can we possibly in this house progress this bill without having some clear answers to those fundamental questions in changing this constitution?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: There are several things here. First of all, there has been some ambiguity about what advice at what point in time the deputy leader is talking about. Can I tell you this: in answer to the first question she raised—why is it that a change to section 77 requires referendum and a change to 83(1) and 83(3) does not—the answer is: each bit of the constitution is not exactly the same from the perspective of special manner and form and so on. So my advice at the time of us preparing our bills was that our bills almost certainly were in that class of amendment which required the third step.

As I said, the reason we have not pursued that third step is not because we did not want to; it is because we were told we were not allowed to, which is, incidentally, the third time we have been told to do that in the course of the last couple of years, but that is by the by. We then had an alternative proposal put up by the Hon. Mr Parnell. It is my belief and my advice—

Mr MARSHALL: Based on what?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: My advice; I have advice.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: What is wrong with Mark Parnell? I am advised, and it is my belief, having thought about it, that this is correct and that 83(1) and 83(3) are not entrenched in the same way as the provision in 77 was. That is the government's view and the fact is this: if the government is wrong, then what has happened after the parliament passes this bill and it receives the royal assent is nothing because the special manner and form required has not been complied with.

The position of the government is that the appropriate manner and form for this is that it is an amendment to the constitution requiring only the compliance of both houses of parliament. That is our position. If those opposite disagree with that position, they have as much time as they want to take advice on that. They can seek whatever form of relief they want about that. If they are right and their advice is that the government is wrong and they want to take that matter up and there is a determination that special manner and form was required, no harm has been done and nothing has changed.

This particular change would not have effect until the boundaries commission was formed in approximately 2020 or whenever it is going to be. Our advice is that we are doing this in a constitutionally appropriate way, and if those opposite wish to seek their own advice and form a different view they are entitled to—

Mr Marshall: We can't. You gagged the debate. You brought it on without any warning whatsoever. Where can we seek advice from at midnight?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Well, the reason it is midnight is that you have been wasting so much time, but can I say—

Mr Marshall: Because we wanted to seek advice.

The CHAIR: Order! It is unparliamentary to interject and to respond to interjections. I do need to hear the members in silence.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: This is fairly straightforward. If the parliament passes a law that it cannot pass, the law actually does not ever start. Our view is—

Mr Marshall: What about passing laws that are constitutional?

The CHAIR: Is that a question? Is that your question, is it? Would you like to stand up and ask the question then?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Our view is and we are advised—

Mr MARSHALL: Can the Attorney-General provide advice to this parliament as to where he received his advice that this was a valid amendment to our constitution not requiring a referendum?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: The answer is that I have sought advice from—

Mr Marshall: From whom?

The CHAIR: Order! He cannot answer it if you are screaming at him.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: If you keep bellowing, I cannot answer you.

The CHAIR: Order!

The Hon. J.R. RAU: If you just tone it down a little bit—

The CHAIR: Order!

The Hon. J.R. RAU: —it is so much nicer.

The CHAIR: Let's all just stop and answer the question.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I have received advice from both the Crown and my—

Mr Marshall: When?

The CHAIR: Order! He has not finished the answer.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I am not going into all this for you. I am just telling you that I have received advice from the Crown—

The CHAIR: Solicitor.

Mr Marshall: Regarding?

The CHAIR: Order! Hang on, that is a—

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The CHAIR: Order! That is an answer to your question: where did you receive the advice from?

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The CHAIR: Hang on, you are wasting time. You get another question in a minute.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: The advice is that this is valid.

Ms CHAPMAN: I perfectly understand that you got advice at the time of drafting your bills and it required a referendum on section 77. Now that we are doing section 83, did you seek or obtain any other advice in respect of section 83, or are you just relying on the original advice?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Yes, we did seek additional advice because when the matter of Mr Parnell's amendment came into the picture—and I have to say that we did not initially have any idea as to what sort of additional support Mr Parnell might have had for his amendment—and it got to the point where it appeared to us that there was some prospect of there being support for that in the Legislative Council, we obviously thought we needed to find out a bit more about exactly how it would look and whether—

Ms Chapman: In the last week?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Yes.

Ms CHAPMAN: It is just that there is a question of section 83 in your original bill as well. You say that the advice was that you needed the referendum to change section 77. Is it not concerning to you that, in getting that advice, we are now deleting 83(1) and 83(3), the provision of which required a referendum to put it in there back in 1991? Did you, in getting that advice, ask your advisers to direct their attention to that?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I did, actually, quite specifically. I have to say I thought, much as the deputy leader thought, that, given the fact that a group of measures were contained in that material, there may have been a question as to whether, by reason of that group simply being clustered together, it all thereafter became material to which a special manner and form was attached. The other alternative was that some it required special manner and others, as a matter of law, became lawful once they passed both bits of parliament, but they were stuck in there as well anyway and the special manner and form bit of it made no difference. Ultimately, that is in essence the advice I have, in as much as it refers to section 83.

Ms CHAPMAN: Will you make that advice available?

The Hon. J.W. Weatherill interjecting:

Ms CHAPMAN: I beg your pardon? I had an interruption from the Premier, but I am happy to hear that from the Attorney. Will you make the advice available?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I am not in the habit of handing out legal advice provided to the government—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The CHAIR: Order! He is still answering the question.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I am telling the parliament that the advice that we received was as I have described. It was an important factor in us considering whether or not to support Mr Parnell's proposal that we have regard to that before we made a decision.

Ms CHAPMAN: Not making it available, will you then agree to adjourn further consideration of this debate until we have an opportunity to get our advice?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: No, because it will not make any difference. In the end, we are either right or wrong. We say we are right, and you might say we are wrong. If you want to pursue whether or not we are wrong, there is an avenue that is available to you. If it turns out that you disagree—your advisers disagree with what we understand the position to be—and you want to agitate that through the appropriate forum and ultimately that forum sides with you, then no harm has been done by any of this process because nothing ever happened.

Ms CHAPMAN: Apart from that being the most disgracefully amateur approach to legislation-making by this parliament, especially when we are being asked to change the constitution of South Australia—

The Hon. J.W. Weatherill interjecting:

Ms CHAPMAN: Can you just shut up—

The CHAIR: Unfortunately—

Ms CHAPMAN: Can you just ask the Premier to be quiet—

The CHAIR: Well, the time has expired.

Ms CHAPMAN: —because we are trying to deal with a very serious matter here—

Members interjecting:

The CHAIR: Order!

Ms CHAPMAN: —and my question, while we are on the Premier, is why is the Premier to undertake the review of the operation of section 83?

The CHAIR: Time has expired and I am bound to put the question, which is that clause 4 stand as printed.

Ms CHAPMAN: My question, specifically on 83A(1) is: why is the Premier asked to do this review?

The CHAIR: It is out of order.

Clause passed.

Title passed.

Bill reported without amendment.

Third 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) (00:03): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (00:03): I wish to make a brief contribution at the end here. Essentially, what we heard from the Premier is that this bill is designed to deal with the unfairness of there being electorates that have up to 10 per cent over quota in the number of people, and then electorates that have 10 per cent under quota. That is the same issue that we had prior to 1975 in South Australia. The interesting thing is that what we have heard during the committee stage of this bill is that the answer the government has come up with will not actually achieve what they want to achieve. The reason it will not is that page 33 of the 2016 Report of the Electoral District Boundaries Commission states the following:

The Commission considers it is appropriate to address the imbalance in the country districts by reducing the area and number of electors in each of those districts. In fact, the reduction in numbers has also been a function of falling population.

An additional factor is that, having slightly fewer electors in the larger electorates in the outlying districts allows for the needs of those electors to be better met. It should impact to a small extent on the time available to each Member to service each district. The demands on those Members—particularly for Giles and Stuart—in terms of time spent travelling are acknowledged to be onerous.

Those conditions still exist after this bill passes—they still exist. So, when the next boundaries commission makes its decision and has regard to the same issues that it has in the 2016 report, it is going to make the same decision. We are still going to have electorates with up to 10 per cent under quota and still have electorates with up to 10 per cent over quota. The reasons for it have nothing to do with section 83—nothing. It has to do with the fact that we have large regional electorates that have large distances for their MPs to travel to deal with their constituents' issues. Nothing.

We have heard from the Attorney the fact that we have some fairly vague understanding of the legal advice that he sought. He has asked us to make decisions based upon nothing, upon a 'trust me'. Nothing. What we are going to have now is a subversion of democracy and a corrupting of the process, and people in South Australia will not stand for it. This is the moment at which this government has gone too far. Of everything else that it has done in the last 16 years, this is the point at which South Australians will understand that these guys have to go.

In my closing remarks, can I just say that there is a famous quote about power: power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I have never seen a more clear example of that than what has happened just now in this house.

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (00:06): I do not make a habit and have not made a habit of speaking at the third reading of bills very often, yet it has not been very often in 20 years that I have experienced what I have experienced on my very last day in this house, and that is the use of the guillotine. To be quite honest, I do not understand the fourth clause of this bill. To be quite honest, I cannot, for the life of me, believe that the house understands it because we have not had the opportunity to ask questions. It states:

The Premier must undertake a review of the operation of section 83.

Is that section 83 as it stood before we have done what we have done this evening, which will be the section 83 under which the very next election will be held? What is the review about? Is it the impact of section 83 as amended today and the effect on the operation that that will have on the next election because, of course, it will have no effect on the next election? It states that the review under this section:

…must commence not later than 12 months after the general election of members of the House of Assembly next occurring after the commencement of this section.

Does that mean after the commencement of this section, which presumably will be fairly soon, which will be the next election, or does it really mean the implementation of this new section, which will be not later than 12 months after the following election, which will be the 2022 election? I make these points because the use of the guillotine denies the proper processing of the legislation.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Let the member for MacKillop finish.

Mr WILLIAMS: It denies the proper processing. I note the member for Colton is yet again quite vocal and I will guarantee that the member for Colton does not understand the full implications of these clauses. I will guarantee he does not, yet he is quite happy for the rest of the house to be as ignorant as himself.

The SPEAKER: I would like to make a couple of concluding remarks.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Well, I am just about to put it and I gave the member for MacKillop some extra time. I wanted to remark that at the caucus meeting at the Weintal in the Barossa many years ago, long ago and far away, I was the only speaker in the parliamentary Labor Party against the fairness clause. I have lived long enough in the house now to see the fairness clause removed, so it has bookended my vocation. The second thing I would like to say is that I have been told that the Hon. Rob Lucas did not have time to consult with the Hon. John Darley about this bill this week, and perhaps his mind was on other less relevant things.

The house divided on the third reading:

Ayes 24

Noes 17

Majority 7

Third reading thus carried; bill passed.