Parliamentary Committees (Petitions) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 3 April 2019.)

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General) (10:44): I rise to indicate the government's support for the Parliamentary Committees (Petitions) Amendment Bill introduced by the member for—I was going to say the grandmother of the house. Is that allowed these days? Is it politically correct to say that?

Ms Bedford interjecting:

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: The most senior of our members in contributing years.

Ms Bedford: The grandmother of the house.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: I think 'the mother of the house' is more suitable. It is fair to say that when the member for Florey does introduce matters of importance to the parliament we should listen because she has had an extraordinary amount of experience. She has been a dedicated advocate for the people of her electorate, notwithstanding fending off charges from left field—

Ms Bedford: Right field!

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: Yes. Notwithstanding that, she has prevailed and stands strong, continuing to advocate for her community. Consistent with that has been the introduction of this bill, which the government has considered and reviewed and supports. In summary, it proposes the obligation of a parliamentary review, via the Legislative Review Committee, in respect of petitions presented to us as a parliament once they achieve a defined threshold of 10,000 physical signatures.

I will comment on the process shortly but, in short, it will require a state government minister to respond to the petition as a transparency measure. When I first looked at this bill, I thought the member for Florey must have been reading the Liberal Party of Australia (SA Division) Constitution, and—

Ms Bedford: Perhaps I was.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: If she was, I would be pleased to make sure she is given a full copy, along with membership forms and everything else. We on this side of the house take very seriously the pleas that are presented to our hierarchy in our political organisation, so much so that when the state council of the Liberal Party of Australia (SA Division) makes a determination that may be inconsistent with the parliamentary representatives' position on a matter, there is an expectation of accountability back to the state council to identify their position and the basis upon which they may have formed their view. We support democracy—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: —and we support a process of accountability in relation to our democratic structures. Congratulations to the member on raising this matter. She does so because of what I think is at least a perceived lack of recognition of community concerns via the current process. I think what is implicit in that has been a circumstance where, when our petitions are quite rightly read out to this parliament before the commencement of business of the day, the number of petitioners is identified for the consideration of members, and to alert members to the seriousness of matters that are of concern to those particular signatory lists.

Those petitions are of course kept in the records of the parliament, and in some circumstances may not be revisited with any application or response they may duly deserve. Introducing a mandatory process of review and response essentially says that this is a serious process and that it is a matter that needs to be recognised. Where there is a mandatory model of accountability, a threshold of 10,000 signatures is not unreasonable.

I am sure all members would be aware of this, but I hope to remind them of this: those signatures must be of people who have identified an address in South Australia, so they are South Australian petitioners and not a list of people who might be advocating for a cause from another country or jurisdiction elsewhere in Australia. They need to be South Australians, at least identified by their address, for the purposes of the petition to be valid for the counting of signatures.

Secondly, the current process we have in respect of petitions requires a physical signature, not an electronic one, or registration by pressing a button. We all know that there are certain polls, surveys or petitions now commonly applied that give people a voice through our electronic mediums, and that has often concerned me.

The old days of having a strong and passionate protest about something has translated into today's younger advocates on public policy having the responsibility of pressing a button on a survey on a computer rather than actually taking up the challenge past that. There is some absolving of responsibility to say, 'I think that's a pretty good idea; I'm going to press that button. I'm going to be one of a number in a survey to indicate my support or objection to a particular initiative.' They feel as though they have been relieved of their responsibility by doing that and do little else.

It is very important to ensure that the message gets through and that the public voice and the community concern about matters do actually translate. So it is very important that we have a process here in the parliament where there can be a direct public voice via a petition and at a certain threshold. This bill, with 10,000 signatures as the threshold, imposes an obligation on us as a parliament to respond.

The process that the member has highlighted in this bill is one of referral to the Legislative Review Committee, which is a standing committee. It has a continuing role and a certain charter. From our perspective, in the first instance that is the appropriate referral body. One matter that we may need to consider in the future is the question of whether the parliament or, perhaps more appropriately, the Legislative Review Committee has the power—if it does not have the power now, that is something for us to consider—to delegate or re-refer that matter to another committee.

I raise this because the member quite rightly points out that some of our other committees, such as the Social Development Committee in the parliament, frequently have quite an overload of references. The Social Development Committee is also a standing committee that provides valuable work to the community. It may be that that committee, for example, is one that is either currently charged with a similar charter in respect of a term of reference that has been referred to it or has already done some work on something that is the same subject matter that may be, on further consideration, best or better able to deal with the review of the concerns raised in the petition.

I think we need to keep an open mind as to whether we might need to provide some added power to the Legislative Review Committee to refer the matter to another committee if, in their view, they consider that there could be some more valuable consideration or update provided on advice to us here in the parliament and, in due course, any minister can respond in the parliament to be fully briefed and informed.

Perhaps the most important thing about referring to a committee is the opportunity for committees of the parliament to take evidence and to receive further submissions in respect of the matter raised. We are yet to see how that is going to work. Again, we would need to see how that might operationally occur.

The member for Florey has introduced issues, as she is the sponsor of this legislation, regarding areas of interest in her electorate, including Modbury Hospital, an important health service in her electorate. It services a very large region statewide but is also used by others in her electorate. We need to support the sorts of issues where there is a big response, so we support the bill.

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (10:54): I rise to indicate my support on behalf of the opposition for the member for Florey's bill, the Parliamentary Committees (Petitions) Amendment Bill 2019. I think it is appropriate that in this 125^th year of commemoration since women were granted the right of universal suffrage in South Australia and as we look up upon an extract from that petition in the tapestry that was signed by 11,600 South Australians—a huge percentage of the population at that time—we acknowledge the importance and the right of South Australians to petition to their parliament, how those petitions can and should often lead to us considering matters and ministers considering the views of the public and making changes where appropriate.

This is an important piece of legislation. I am glad it has the support of both sides of the parliament. It makes an amendment to the Parliamentary Committees Act to require that petitions above 10,000 people be referred to the Legislative Review Committee, and that committee must then report on the petition, to which the minister must respond within six sitting days and explain to the parliament what action, if any, is to be taken.

We see a number of petitions tabled in this house; obviously the member for Florey has been a very prolific bringer of petitions recently to this parliament in relation to the issue of the closure of the Modbury Service SA centre, which was announced in the September 2018 state budget and has caused numerous concerns in her community, and it is appropriate that those petitions be brought to the parliament. But, at the moment, there is no mechanism by which the minister, in this case the Minister for Infrastructure, can respond to that petition and have to explain to the parliament what action he has taken.

Obviously, there are a lot of times when petitions are raised in the parliament and debates flow from there, through private members business', grievances, question time or other elements of debate, but this sets an important standard whereby it would be necessary for such a response to be provided by the minister after examination of that matter by the Legislative Review Committee. Potentially, there could be issues where large numbers of people have a view about something, but that view is not supported by members of parliament to the point of bringing it up in debate in any form here.

This piece of legislation gives the people of South Australia the ability to do that, but it also means that the minister who has responsibility for that area has to respond. There are many times, obviously, when the opposition or minor parties have a particular view about something, but that does not necessarily mean that the minister has a responsibility to respond to those issues.

I think that the member for Florey in her contribution gave an excellent outline of some of the history of petitions and also what is happening in other states in relation to petitions in standing orders across both Australian jurisdictions and across the world as well. There has been a lot of progress in the last five to 10 years to update those provisions, and I think it is appropriate that we do that here. I hope that is not the last step along that line.

I know that you, Mr Speaker, upon taking your lofty position, outlined your support for e-petitions, electronic petitions, being a mechanism by which people can have a say. I note your comments in The Advertiser at the time that you wanted to modernise the parliament and make it more appealing to a high-tech generation, and I quote:

There are so many great opportunities for the Parliament to become more widely accessible to the public as technology progresses.

You also said:

A lot of young people are using petitions online, on websites such as Change.org, but they're not really using the ancient system of personally signing the ones that are submitted to our Parliament.

In a time when the growing preferred method of communication is texting and emailing, you further stated:

I firmly believe making e-petitions available would improve the ability of [individuals and groups] to raise awareness on issues important to them. It makes it easier for people of all ages to better engage (with lawmakers).

That is obviously something that you, Mr Speaker, held dear upon your ascension to high office. It was not quite supported in the comments that we heard earlier from the Attorney-General dismissing e-petitions. The Standing Orders Committee probably has not been that busy over previous months, but now that I am a member of this committee, replacing the Hon. John Rau SC, I think it is going to be the hardest working committee of the parliament and it is really going to step up a notch. We will see the advent of a whole range of the Tarzia reforms to our standing orders to improve e-petitions and accessibility and accountability from ministers of the parliament.

I digress; back to the proposal from the member for Florey. Since August 1992, there have been 33 occasions when petitions or cumulative petitions rather than individual petitions presented in the House of Assembly and four occasions when petitions or cumulations presented in the Legislative Council have reached more than 10,000 signatures.

As I understand it, the petition regime proposed by the member for Florey is not hugely dissimilar to that in the New South Wales parliament, where standing orders state that a petition with over 10,000 signatures shall be automatically set down as an order of the day for 4.30pm on the Thursday of the next sitting week. The member for Florey has set an identical threshold for action.

There is different action that would happen in these circumstances, given the nature of amendments to the Parliamentary Committees Act rather than to standing orders, but a response is still generated. No doubt through our hardworking Standing Orders Committee, we will then consider what follow-on changes need to be made to facilitate this through the standing orders of this house after this legislation has passed.

The Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council, the Hon. Kyam Maher (shadow attorney-general), has been leading the majority of work on this subject and has outlined a number of areas where we think there are still some issues we need to consider, namely, what should the form of the response be? Should it be in writing or a speech of some sort? That is something we will need to consider through standing orders. Also, what remedy or penalty do members believe would be appropriate for a minister who does not provide a response within the appropriate time frame?

That is something that the Standing Orders Committee is currently considering in relation to the sessional order that states that responses to questions on notice should be provided within 30 days, which is regularly breached by ministers of this parliament, and there is currently no penalty provision and no follow-up action that occurs in the sessional orders. That is being considered in relation to that sessional order, and obviously what follow-up action would occur will need to be considered in relation to this legislation as well.

With those words, I indicate that the bill has the full support of the opposition. We thank the member for Florey for bringing the bill to the attention of the parliament. We hope that it brings a positive change whereby members of the public are more able to bring their issues to the forefront of the parliament and have them debated but, most importantly, have ministers respond to those issues on the floor of the house. I welcome the legislation.

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (11:03): I thank the Attorney-General for her welcome remarks on democracy and other things and her wise counsel, of course, on the bill, and also the member for Kaurna and for his agreement to the bill. As he said, the number of people who have petitioned the parliament in such a way that might require some action is very, very small. Perhaps we will see a flurry of democracy—you never know—but I do not envision that it will place a great strain on the Legislative Review Committee.

As mentioned by both the Attorney and the member for Kaurna, defined instructions on debate of the petitions report will all be done through standing orders. I am hoping that will be done sooner rather than later so that the full impact of this amendment can be felt immediately, as there is a petition very close to the threshold at the moment. This is the only real way for our electors to have a say in anything that happens in parliament between elections. Their voices will be heard by the 10,000 signatures or more that they lodge on a petition.

I thank all the speakers for their contributions today and, of course, the people who live in the north-eastern community who brought this idea to me and were so passionate about making sure that it actually came to pass. I commend the bill.

Bill read a second time.

Third Reading

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (11:05): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.