LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS

The Hon. M. PARNELL (15:55): I rise today to speak about openness and transparency in local council elections. One of the myths of local council elections, and it was as true in the elections this year as it has always been, is that local councils are not political, that the only people who run for and are elected to local councils are unaligned Independents. We know that that is not true. It has probably never been true, and in fact, in some areas, it is probably fair to say that local government has been the plaything of political parties—the grounds on which they train their up-and-coming state and federal MPs. We know that a large number of councils are dominated by party aligned elected members—Charles Sturt springs to mind. Now, at the election this year—

Members interjecting:

The ACTING PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. M. PARNELL: —the Port Adelaide branch of the Australian Greens, took the principled decision—

The Hon. R.I. Lucas interjecting:

The ACTING PRESIDENT: Order, the Hon. Mr Lucas!

The Hon. M. PARNELL: —to declare up-front the party affiliations of three local members who wished to run as candidates. Now, there was some nervousness about how that would be received, given the myth of non-political councils but, as it turns out, there was very little reaction at all, and certainly very little negative reaction. In fact, there was a fair bit of positive support, even from those who could not see their way clear to voting for them; they at least acknowledged that these people were upfront about what they stood for in terms of their party affiliations.

Members might be aware that, at the recent local government annual general meeting, Campbelltown council moved, and Tea Tree Gully council seconded, a motion as follows:

That the LGA petition the State Government to amend the Local Government (Elections) Act 1999 to include a requirement, consistent with that which applies to Elected Members through the register of interest provisions of the Local Government Act 1999, that all candidates in Local Government elections must declare in their nomination any membership of professional bodies including political parties in the preceding two years and that this disclosure be publicly available for the information of electors.

Now, that motion was amended in a minor way to provide for even more disclosure, but at the heart of it, it remained the same and was carried by the LGA at their AGM.

Now, what is important in this motion, and what I believe is important, is that voters have as much relevant information as possible about candidates before they vote, not afterwards. I would point out that my local mayor is a staffer to a Labor member of parliament, and one of the ward councillors in my area is a staffer to a Family First member of parliament. I congratulate all members who had the courage to run for election and were subsequently elected, so my comments are not against either those two or any particular candidates.

I presume that members who are staffers of MPs are probably, but not always, party members, and I think that information should be made available to voters. The disclosure rules should be consistent. It should not just be good enough to hope that parties will do what the Port Adelaide Greens did—that is, declare their affiliation. That is why I believe that the Campbelltown motion, as supported by the LGA, should be supported, and I would urge the government to introduce legislation to bring this about.

While we are at it, we should seriously review the caretaker provisions that applied during these last local council elections. It is one thing to prevent councils making important decisions during caretaker mode, but preventing candidates and elected councillors from speaking out during an election campaign was absolutely ridiculous and a gross breach of the basic rights of free speech. As I understand it, one mayoral candidate was actually told off as it were by a senior staffer for handing out business cards during the pre-election period. So, there are two important reforms this parliament should look at, and I urge the government to bring forward the bills, declaring party affiliations and fixing up the caretaker provisions.