Bills

Parliamentary Committees (Electoral Laws and Practices Committee) Amendment Bill

Committee Stage

In committee.

(Continued from 23 September 2014.)

Clause 1.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: In my comments at the committee stage on Tuesday, I highlighted to the house the fact that the honourable Leader of the Opposition in the other place, the member for Dunstan, has tabled a bill called the Commission of Inquiry on Electoral Reform Bill. In the opposition's view, that provides a circuit-breaker in the form of an independent commission of inquiry on electoral reform with a focus on electoral fairness.

The council at that stage supported the opposition's suggestion that the consideration of this bill be adjourned until the government progresses the commission bill, but I thought it might be of assistance to the committee at this stage if I could sketch in a tad more detail of the logic there. As I said in my previous committee stage contribution, the government and the opposition are actually not at variance in the conviction that there are a significant number of electoral reform matters that need to be addressed. The Attorney-General in the House of Assembly debate on this particular parliamentary committees bill said:

I do make it clear that, as far as I am concerned, the government is very, very interested in electoral reform—

He reiterated that by saying:

very interested—and we are interested in reform to the Electoral Act as well. That is why we are asking to have a committee, which is a committee of both houses of parliament, so that both houses can participate in the preparation of recommendations for us all to consider.

In saying that, the Attorney is being completely consistent. It is a point that he made a number of times last year in the context of the optional preferential voting bills and related bills.

As members would recall, we had very limited time to digest the implications of the Senate election at the last federal election before our own election. The government and the opposition were significantly at variance as to whether even short-term reform was achievable for the 2014 election, particularly in the context of the advice of the Electoral Commissioner, but let me stress that the Liberal opposition does not suggest there is not a need for reform, and many of the issues that the Attorney has highlighted as on the agenda, we do not disagree with.

We think there is a significant range of issues that should be addressed and we are interested in that. One of the things that concerns us greatly, though, is that the most acute issue of electoral reform in South Australia that needs to be looked at, in our view, is addressing the fundamental issue of fairness. A democratic system fails in its key duty if it does not deliver the people of any particular democracy the government that they vote for.

In both the consideration of the bills last year and comments in relation to this parliamentary committees bill and in relation to the leader's commission of inquiry bill in the other place, we have repeatedly indicated our interest in electoral reform and, specifically, we have indicated our interest in a parliamentary committee on electoral reform. Forgive me for not knowing the precise details of the recommendation, but I seem to recall that the committee that I was part of after the 2010 election specifically recommended a parliamentary committee on electoral reform. As the government says in its second reading speech, there are such bodies in Victoria, Queensland, the Commonwealth and so forth.

The opposition's point in seeking the Council's concurrence with the adjournment is not to say that electoral reform is not important; it is also not to say that a parliamentary committee is not a significant and useful contribution to that debate. Where we differ is on the value of an independent inquiry.

The Attorney gave us an insight into the government's thinking on the relevance of an independent inquiry in comments that he made in the second reading debate on this bill in the other place. As I understand it, he has not made a contribution to the Commission of Inquiry Bill but he took the opportunity to, shall I say, share his wisdom on this issue in the parliamentary committees speech, if I could quote him:

The opposition has a position where it is asking for an independent inquiry. Some members have been here for a little while and some have been here for longer than me, but there is something I have learned about this place in the time I have been here, and that is that anybody who thinks they are going to tell members of parliament how to run parliament from outside—in other words not a peer but some other person—has got rocks in their head. All you will be doing is wasting everybody's time. It will be the equivalent of the Catholic Church appointing an academic to report on how it should deal with difficult and complex theological issues: (a) it would never happen, and (b) whatever the report said it would be ignored and thrown straight in the bin, and quite rightly so.

I stand here as a person with rocks in my head because, and perhaps with some precedence behind me, let me refer the Attorney-General to the 1969 UK Royal Commission on the Constitution, also referred to as the Kilbrandon commission, which was set up to investigate possible arrangements for independent governments for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The commission reported in 1973 and recommended devolved directly elected Scottish and Welsh assemblies with limited powers rather than complete independence of these countries.

In 1989 the Scottish Constitution Convention was established by several organisations. It will not surprise you that that included the Scottish National Party and, for the Attorney-General's information, it also included the Catholic Church. In 1991 the United Kingdom Labour Party National Executive established a working party into the electoral system chaired by Professor Raymond Plant. Let me stress again: these are parliamentary and electoral reform initiatives that were not within the parliament, where the parliament or political parties saw fit to engage independent experts.

In 1995 the Scottish Constitutional Convention published its blueprint for devolution, Scotland's Parliament Scotland's Right, which proposed an additional member system to elect members to a new Scottish parliament—73 members to represent single member districts and 56 elected from party lists. In 1997, and I think perhaps this is the best example, the United Kingdom government, which I presume at that stage was a Labour government, appointed an independent commission on the voting system. It sounds remarkably similar to my leader's commission of inquiry into electoral reform.

It was chaired by the Right Honourable Lord Jenkins of Hillhead and the commission was asked to reconsider the voting system looking for the best alternative vote system or combination of systems to the existing commonly-called first past the post system of election to the Westminster parliament. The reason I think that that is the best example is because they were considering fundamental reform to how the people of Britain would express their preference for the formation of government.

Now I just want to take you across the water to Canada. In 2004, a Citizen's Assembly on Electoral Reform was conducted in British Columbia, where 161 members of the public were appointed to the commission and held 50 public hearings across the province. They recommended an MMP system with multi-member districts. (I stress that the previous comment was in relation to British Columbia). In 2005, Ontario empanelled a citizen's assembly on electoral reform. One member was chosen from each Ontario constituency. It recommended an MMP system.

Again, across the water, we come to New Zealand. In 1985, New Zealand established a royal commission into the electoral system. It was established to review the electoral system after New Zealand's National Party came second to the Labor Party despite winning a majority of votes at two consecutive elections. If I can just quietly note that we can beat that. We have had not just two majority votes and still lost the election, we have managed to have three losses out of four in spite of a majority of votes.

That commission was made up of five non-party expert commissioners. They were asked to look at parliamentary terms, the number of members, the voting system, redistribution provisions and funding and disclosure provisions. The most important of the royal commission's recommendations was to establish a multi-member proportional system. In 2012, the New Zealan Electoral Commission conducted a review of the operation of the MMP system and my understanding is that the New Zealand electorate went to a referendum and endorsed the operation of that system.

So, I may have rocks in my head but I am not alone. There are plenty of examples where parliament has seen fit to engage independent external experts in the development of parliament and electoral reform. In that context, we believe it is particularly relevant, and perhaps the relevance might be clearer if I sketch briefly for members what the bill foreshadows. The bill that my leader has tabled in the other place foreshadows establishing an independent inquiry which will provide an appointment process for the membership of the inquiry which will ensure its independence.

The inquiry would have a narrow focus on an open question, a narrow focus in the sense that it only has one issue to address: what does it take to make sure that the majority will is reflected in the formation of government? It is narrow but it is also open. It does not have any predetermined preferences. It does not put up any options that the commission is asked to go through. You have an appointed committee of the parliament which includes every political group, even the Greens get a guernsey, as part of the appointment process for the commissioners to try to guarantee the independence of the commissioners and then the commissioners have an open question: what would it take to give us a fair system?

Let me stress that the Liberal Party is not doing that naively. We know that that is not without risks. We will not have control of the process. We are not insisting on a preferred model. We are not even hinting at a pre-determined model. We think it is important for the commission to complete its work in a timely way so that any reform can be achieved before the 2018 election. I also expect that there will be other reforms that come forward through parliamentary committees or by whatever means.

So, the Liberal Party has formed that view. We have demonstrated that by tabling a bill in the other place called the Commission of Inquiry on Electoral Reform Bill. When the Parliamentary Committees (Electoral Laws and Practices Committee) Amendment Bill was heading our way (when I say 'our way' I mean had been passed by the House of Assembly and was due to be considered by the Legislative Council) we saw the opportunity to reiterate our view that the most important issue to be addressed is the issue of fairness in the formation of government and to do that by, if you like, inserting the commission of inquiry bill into the Parliamentary Committees (Electoral Laws and Practices Committee) Amendment Bill that is being considered this afternoon.

The wise advice of the Clerk is that that would be beyond the bill's reference and so therefore would not be in order. However, I do not think it hurts members to see, in transparent terms, what we are proposing. Amendment Nos 1 and 2 of the set filed for this bill are the amendments that relate to the commission of inquiry. I understand the Clerk has no objection to Amendment Nos 3 to 5, and they will be considered later in the committee stage.

Having moved the bill in the House of Assembly and having also tabled amendments that reflect our commitment in the Legislative Council, I humbly submit to this council that as the government has committed to a non-partisan process—it is very interested in electoral reform—we believe this is a conversation in which every party participates on an equal basis. No party owns electoral reform, so we think it is very important that the parliament consider all the options before it and are keen that our commission of inquiry proposal is given due consideration by both houses.

With those few remarks I seek the council's concurrence. I ask the council to maintain the support it offered me earlier this week by adjourning consideration of clause 1 of this bill for another day. I do not know whether or not any other members want to make a contribution today; if they do not I intend to move to report progress.

Progress reported; committee to sit again.