Electoral (Funding, Expenditure and Disclosure) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 29 November 2016.)

The Hon. J.A. DARLEY (16:29): I agree with the majority of the bill as I understand it is mainly to clarify certain points of administration of the act, but I wanted to put on the public record my concerns and opposition to clauses 9 and 10 of the bill.

Currently, moneys are paid twice a year to parties in special assistance funding. To be eligible for the funding, the political party must be registered, have a member of the party who is a member of the parliament, and submit a claim to the Electoral Commissioner. Small parties, that is, parties with five or less elected members in parliament, are entitled to $7,000, and large parties, those with more than five elected members, are entitled to $12,000.

This fund is currently in the act, and clause 9 of the bill proposes to prescribe it in regulation. The government has been very open that the intention is to increase this funding once it is prescribed in regulation, and I understand the reasoning for this is because other states offer much more. To remove these provisions from the act and prescribe them in regulation with the intention of increasing the amount of public monies that are paid to political parties does not sit well with me. I think that most taxpayers would be unhappy to hear that political parties will be getting more money when these funds could go towards other community priorities. It does not seem to be a good expenditure of public funds, and I will be opposing this clause.

Similarly, clause 10 of the bill will introduce a new one-off payment for special assistance funding. I understand this is a completely new payment which does not currently exist. This funding is only available to those who are eligible for payments under section 130U of the act and will provide for political parties to apply for a one-off payment of either $56,000 for small parties or $96,000 for large parties. I understand these monies are essentially to reimburse parties for the costs associated with complying with the act, and note that this payment, and the payment referred to in clause 9 and section 130U of the act, is only available to political parties, and not groups or individual candidates.

Again, I doubt many taxpayers would be supportive of giving additional monies to political parties just so they can comply with the law. There have been many examples of this parliament passing legislation which imposes a financial impost onto individuals or businesses, and we do not allow for public funds to be made available to assist in these circumstances. I do not see why we should be amending the act to help political parties just to meet their legal obligations. For this reason, I will be opposing this clause.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (16:32): I rise on behalf of Liberal members to indicate the Liberal Party's support for the legislation. Whilst some in the community and many in the media have been most unfair to the Attorney-General, referring to him as 'Chairman Rau' or 'Chairman Rau SC' these days, I must pay him due credit for his willingness in relation to the electoral issues generally that I have had the responsibility of negotiating with him, part of which has been the Electoral (Funding, Expenditure and Disclosure) Amendment Bill. Certainly, he has been willing to listen to the arguments and the debate.

I come to this as a Johnny-come-lately to a certain extent. The original legislation passed back in 2013. It was negotiated significantly between the Attorney and the former member for Davenport, Iain Evans, and it has only been since Iain left the parliament that I have taken over the negotiating responsibilities on behalf of the Liberal Party. As the Hon. Mr Darley has indicated, there are significant sections of this which are largely technical in nature, but there are three or four more significant sections to which I do want to refer.

The amendments to 130Q have been designed to try to ensure that no candidate or party obtains a windfall benefit from the public funding scheme. What had evidently been identified, either by the Electoral Commissioner or Attorney-General staff, is that the way the bill was originally drafted had the potential for a candidate or a party to, in certain circumstances, obtain a windfall benefit from the operations of the scheme.

The amendment to 130Q is designed to try to limit or close that particular loophole, and that is a loophole where the political expenditure that was incurred is less than the amount of public funding that was to be payable. In something as complicated as this new public funding arrangement, there are always going to be loopholes and errors in the original drafting. I think it was acknowledged at the time that the parliament may well need to revisit the legislation on a number of occasions. This is the first.

I suspect that after we have seen it operate at the first election campaign, whoever is in government after March 2018 will need to come back and revisit and refine elements of the scheme because in some instances it can be quite onerous, perhaps overly so. Whilst clearly the goals of the scheme are admirable in terms of transparency and accountability for the money that is given to political parties to help them run campaigns, there should be disclosure of the amounts of money parties receive. I am sure that there will be a review and there will need to be refinements of the legislation as we get further down the path.

The Liberal Party certainly supports the amendments to section 130Q. There are some minor amendments to section 130A in relation to rounding arrangements, in terms of how it is paid. They are eminently sensible and we certainly support those. There are some significant amendments to sections 130ZF, 130ZN, 130ZO and 130ZP. I note that it would be wonderful if, at some stage in the future, we could actually redraft the Electoral Act to get rid of all the ZFs, ZOs and so forth and just go from section 1 to section 500. It would make reference to the act much easier.

Putting that to one side, the second reading explanation makes clear that these amendments are not intended to water down the reporting requirements but actually try to make them workable while still providing accountability. Let me identify one of the problems. In that period between 1 January 2018 and the date of the election, weekly reporting is required towards the end of what is called the designated period and, clearly, the bigger the party, the more onerous the requirements will be.

Let us assume that the end of the seven days is on Saturday night at midnight. Parties had to produce a report and an audited report by midnight of the Saturday night. If you were still receiving donations from a Saturday night fundraising dinner all over the state of South Australia on the Saturday night to which that reporting requirement relates, and you are still adding up how much money is coming in, you are required under the legislation not only to produce a report by midnight but to have actually had it audited. It made no sense at all when you looked at the practical implications of that in the cool light of day.

Credit to Attorney-General Rau. When this was raised with him, he understood the problem and accepted it. He said, 'Let's look at something sensible.' These amendments allow you five days after each period to produce some of these reports. During this period, there were to be onerous requirements in terms of production of audit certificates. There will now be the requirement for two audit certificates during this period, one just before the election and one in the nature of a wrap-up audit certificate after the election, in terms of accounting for all the financial arrangements relating to fundraising and expenditure during that election period. All those amendments make sense to us and we certainly support them.

When we emerge from the 2018 election campaign, everyone—big and small parties—will say, 'This was an unforeseen problem that you didn't realise and this was a particular issue that we had in terms of meeting the requirements of the legislation.' Upon review, I suspect that we will be back here seeking to clarify some of those issues. The amendments also give the Electoral Commissioner discretion to extend the period for providing an audit certificate by up to 30 days outside the designated period. That will be a decision to be taken by the independent Electoral Commissioner.

There is also the 'Keep Reggie Martin and Sascha Meldrum out of gaol if at all possible' clause, which is 130ZZE. It still sets out a range of offences, but it does insert a new defence for a person who can prove that they exercised all reasonable diligence to prevent the commission of the offence. The people who get locked up if this does not all work out are generally the state director in terms of the Liberal Party, Sascha Meldrum, or—

The Hon. T.T. Ngo: Reggie Martin.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: Yes, I know, but what is he called?

The Hon. K.J. Maher: State secretary.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: —the state secretary of the Labor Party, Reggie Martin. They are the ones who have to put their names to the returns. If someone else or they themselves cause a problem and do not disclose, or make an error, they are the ones who have to take responsibility. This particular provision we think is a reasonable one. It says that if you can demonstrate that you have exercised all reasonable diligence in terms of preventing the commission of the offence, that is at least a defence.

It does not get you off the hook, because in the end that will be a decision that a court will need to take, but at least you will be able to argue that this is what you did to try to ensure that the requirements of the legislation were complied with. As I said, needless to say, both Ms Meldrum and Mr Martin are passionately supportive of this particular amendment to the legislation.

The bill also amends section 107 of the Electoral Act to provide for the Court of Disputed Returns to declare an election void where a person has incurred political expenditure in excess of the applicable expenditure cap during the capped expenditure period in relation to the election. The Court of Disputed Returns has to be of the view that the result of the election was affected by the breach. That is obviously a high threshold; nevertheless, if the Court of Disputed Returns can satisfy themselves that that threshold has been breached, then there is a very significant penalty potentially available, which is that an election might be voided as a result of breaching these provisions of the legislation.

There are two remaining sections I want to refer to. There have been ongoing negotiations in relation to the proposed repeal of section 130C. I think all members have now received an email from the Attorney's advisers indicating that the government—and I can indicate that the opposition will be supporting this—will not be moving to repeal 130C in this particular bill. We will leave 130C there.

Everyone acknowledges that there are potential problems in clarifying exactly what 130C means, and there have been frantic endeavours over the last days and weeks to try to craft a new 130C rather than just removing it completely. In the end, given the desire to see this legislation pass today, we thought it unreasonable to drop that on Independent and minor party members this afternoon when we are still trying to work out what it means anyway.

Essentially, the intention of the government and the opposition will be to leave 130C as it is. We passed it before; it still sits there. We will be honest and say there are now significant questions about what it actually means and how it should be implemented, etc. We have given a commitment to the Attorney-General that, between now and February when we debate the Electoral (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill, which is still before us and will not pass before Christmas, if there is an agreed 130C provision, that will potentially be added to the miscellaneous bill which we debate in February or March next year, so I just flag that.

The remaining issue is one that the Hon. Mr Darley has addressed. The Liberal Party certainly has no problem with standing up and indicating that, together with the government, we support the provision of one-off special assistance funding to political parties in an endeavour to ensure proper compliance with the disclosure requirements of the legislation.

In the context of the total expenditure, I cannot remember what the number is. It might be out of public funding, which is probably $4 million or $5 million—I might stand corrected on that—to be paid to all political parties. There is potential for one-off special assistance funding of up to $96,000 for, in essence, two major parties, I think, and $56,000 for three smaller parties. The Hon. Mr Hood sticks three fingers up at me, so I assume that means three parties. Lucky it was not two or indeed one.

In the scheme of things, if we are spending four or five million, or whatever that total amount of money is, on a one-off up-front expenditure it is modest in terms of that particular context and there is a genuine argument for it. I know, from the discussions I have had with Ms Meldrum and Mr Martin, that both major parties, and I am sure it is the same for the minor parties—certainly, in our case, if I can plead the case, it is a much more complicated animal than, for example, the Labor Party. I am not sure about the Greens and Family First, for example, but the Liberal Party has been structured on committees and branches all over the state, and trying to herd them together has been a bit like herding cats.

Unlike the Labor Party, which has, for at least a period of time, had a very centralised fundraising control arrangement, the Liberal Party has been very decentralised, consistent with our Liberal philosophies and principles, but they are inconsistent with the tenor of disclosure and expenditure for a public funding regime. So, the Liberal Party has had to implement a complicated new software arrangement in terms of trying to ensure compliance up-front and there will be ongoing costs in terms of trying to herd the political cats, if I can use the colloquial expression, of branches of the Liberal Party all over the state in terms of ensuring compliance with the legislation.

Whilst I acknowledge the concerns the Hon. Mr Darley has raised, I stand up on behalf of the Liberal Party and support the government amendments in relation to that one-off special assistance funding. Regarding the issue of the ongoing special assistance funding being done by regulation, the government will do that by regulation and if it is out of kilter with what a majority of people in the parliament are prepared to support, then clearly it will be a disallowable instrument in terms of whatever is proposed from that viewpoint. Again, the power will rest with the parliament, ultimately, should they so wish to disallow that particular regulation. With that, I indicate that the Liberal Party supports the second reading.

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (16:47): I rise to speak on the Electoral (Funding, Expenditure and Disclosure) Amendment Bill before the chamber at the moment. I think the Hon. Mr Lucas has very eloquently, as he often does, put forward the case for supporting this bill and, in a nutshell, it is essentially Family First's position as well. There may be some cynicism in the community that this is political parties receiving more money from the taxpayers' purse.

I think members in this chamber would acknowledge that our party, and not exclusively our party, of course, has had a record of encouraging frugality where possible with taxpayers' funds, but when it comes to the funding of political party expenditure, it is fair to say, and I do not think this is a contentious statement at all, that political parties have never been forced to be more transparent than ever in this state.

Certainly, in my 11 years (almost) in this place, the expectations, the requirements, the legal requirements on the reporting of political donations, for example, and the finances of political parties have never been more rigorous than they are today. With that comes a cost, as the Hon. Mr Lucas outlined. There are quite onerous, although legitimate—I do not mean the word 'onerous' in a negative way, but 'stringent' perhaps is a better way of putting it—requirements with respect to auditing of donations in particular for political parties, and especially in the period immediately preceding and immediately after a general election.

We support the stringency of those measures but they do come at a cost because they require very regular audits. At the moment, I think the current requirement is a weekly audit and, in fact, not only is a weekly audit required but the audit is required to be done immediately upon the cessation of the particular designated period, which is seven days. So, what you get is the situation the Hon. Mr Lucas has just outlined.

I will not labour the point but, just to touch on it briefly, what you get is a situation that is actually impossible to meet under the act; that is, that the donations could still be coming in and yet they were required to be audited almost in a future tense or, certainly, right at the moment when they came in. So, compliance was impossible. As the Hon. Mr Lucas pointed out, it is a credit to the Attorney-General for acknowledging this and looking to address the matter in a way that was acceptable to all of the parties. He has discussed that with our party as well, and we were happy to try to work towards a solution.

I will turn to my notes that are in more detail to touch on the bill more generally, but that is our general view. I indicate that we will be supporting the bill. I might touch on the concerns raised by the Hon. Mr Darley. I acknowledge the Hon. Mr Darley's concerns and I think all members of this chamber, certainly those involved in any way, whether directly or indirectly, with the organisational side of their party, would acknowledge that the Hon. Mr Darley's points raised should be treated with respect. They should be treated as serious concerns and concerns that would be raised in the community, and he is quite right in raising them. However, I can assure you, sir, and our constituents that this is something that we have agreed to because we believe it will heighten transparency, and not the contrary.

Changes made to the Electoral Act, when we passed that legislation not that long ago, included a range of new obligations imposed on political parties that have opted in for public funding. Part 13A of the act places particular emphasis on maintaining financial equality, transparency and upholding public confidence. Periodic reporting and disclosure was introduced, as well as political expenditure caps and an obligation to disclose large donations, in particular, and any gifts.

Weekly reporting during designated periods was another responsibility that was introduced. Under the current act, weekly political party returns during the designated period must be provided with audit reports. There is consensus that complying with this obligation would be very challenging, as I have just outlined—and I think the Hon. Mr Lucas makes a good point—not only for minor parties, as we would raise in this place, but probably more so for the major parties, but certainly the requirements placed on minor parties are not insignificant either.

This bill proposes that, instead of weekly audit reports, two audit certificates covering the designated period will be required. This proposal is a lot more realistic and workable but, at the same time, does not compromise the core values of accountability and transparency, which we wholeheartedly support. This bill also makes provisions for an additional one-off payment of special assistance funding. I understand the amount will be in accordance with the number of members of parliament a registered political party has elected at the time of the claim.

Parties with six or more members—that is, Liberal or Labor, essentially—will be eligible for a $96,000 one-off payment, and $56,000 would be applicable to those parties with five or less members. This payment will provide needed financial assistance, especially to smaller parties, with the administrative costs involved in complying with this act. Overall, this bill proposes sensible amendments to the current disclosure scheme and the public funding model that applies under this act. It addresses some deficiencies under the current regime and provides for sensible improvements.

I might, in my final comments, make a few remarks regarding the specific amounts that have been allocated. We think the amounts are reasonable. I would like to allay any constituents' concerns that the amount is excessive. Auditors are very expensive. Given the quantity of audits that are required, in many cases these amounts will not go anywhere near covering the expenses that will be incurred. Transparency comes at a cost. I think these are very modest costs, which should give the public a great deal of confidence that they can be certain, through these measures, that political party operations are highly scrutinised and well and truly audited and, as such, not subject to any questionable practices.

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT (16:53): I would like to take to the floor very briefly to indicate Dignity for Disability's support for the second reading of this bill and, of course, thank the Attorney-General in the other place and his staff for briefing my office on it. Other members have outlined—quite reasonably, I think—why this bill is beneficial. I do not intend to reiterate those comments that have been made, but I would like to point out a couple of things; namely, that this is about transparency and making sure that funds are being spent on the correct things, including expending funds on making sure political parties' websites are up to date with accessibility requirements and are compliant with accessibility standards, which is certainly a positive thing. Given that people with disabilities already face so many barriers to political and social participation, that is something that we welcome, and we would love to see other members striving as hard as we do to provide an accessible website, as well as other materials, of course.

I would also, while it is not directly necessarily related to this bill, hasten to add that I believe that if the Attorney-General really cared about democracy and participation and diversity within it, he would amend the Electoral Act further to remove the now outrageous $3,000 deposit required to run for the lower house in this state. This is between five and eight times more than what it costs in the majority of other Australian jurisdictions to run for the lower house.

There are many minorities which experience economic and social disadvantage and therefore face significant barriers to having their voices heard in this place, but just to give one example, 45 per cent of people with an identified disability live at or below the poverty line in 21^st century Australia. That is four million of us nationwide (45 per cent) at or even below the poverty line.

For this particular group, just as one example, $450 is already a significant indication of our commitment to a cause and our commitment to standing up for our beliefs and working to make South Australia a better place. We do have very serious concerns that the now $3,000 deposit will further impede many so-called minority groups, including people with disabilities, in running for parliament and having their voices heard by this place, and therefore we think it is a sad indictment on democracy.

There are certainly many other measures, of course, that the Attorney-General could look at, such as the proposals which Dignity for Disability has put forward for electronic voting, for making sure that there are more wheelchair accessible polling booths, and for the banning of corflutes so that we can focus on policy and not on photographs and what people look like, but on what they are actually offering to the community; banning those visual blights on our landscape, a danger to drivers and, of course, a danger to our environment.

I will leave those comments there. We welcome this bill for transparency and for the efficient running of political parties and thereby the efficient running of this place, but it certainly does not end here. We look forward to continuing to work with the Attorney-General and the government and whoever else we must to make sure that our democracy becomes truly inviting of everyone to participate.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL (16:57): I have added myself to the speaking list now that the time pressure to pass all these bills this afternoon has gone and we are coming back next week. I have now decided that I will take an opportunity to speak briefly on this bill. My first observation very much follows on from what the Hon. Kelly Vincent has said. I am very keen to see that we have another Electoral (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill coming next year, because that will be our opportunity to fix up some of the outrageous impositions that the Attorney-General has put on small parties in particular.

The worst of those is the $3,000 deposit for the lower house seats. I know there is an argument that it is too high for the upper house as well but, from the Greens' perspective, we did support a modest increase, less than what was put forward, but we agreed with a modest increase in upper house deposits. The idea that lower house deposits should also be increased to $3,000 was sprung on us without consultation. It was snuck through in regulations in a very sneaky manner, and the Greens will take every opportunity we can to oppose them. I am sure we will have allies in the Dignity for Disability party in relation to that. I do not think the name change has gone through?

The Hon. K.L. Vincent: About four more days.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL: Okay. In four more days, the Hon. Kelly Vincent will be representing a new party, but I will leave that announcement to her; I do not need to pre-empt that. The consequence for small parties wanting to contest every seat is that you have to find in cash, up front, $150,000 to contest a state election: that is, 47 lower house seats at $3,000 per seat and perhaps a team of three contesting the upper house at another $9,000.

It is $150,000 in cash up-front. Bear in mind that for small parties that might not reach the threshold of 4 per cent to get electoral funding, that is effectively money that they will never get back. It is not something that the big parties have to worry about. They always get their deposit back in every seat, but for small parties, that is not the case. The Hon. Dennis Hood's party, certainly the Greens, whilst we aspire to reaching the threshold in every seat, the reality is that we do not, and so those deposits are gone and there is no public funding. We really do need to address that issue of the up-front deposits. The opportunity to do that, I think, will be in the miscellaneous amendment bill that we see next year.

The Hon. S.G. Wade: You don’t run in every seat, anyway.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL: The honourable member has interjected that the Greens do not run in every seat, we do. In the last three elections the Greens have contested every seat in the state parliament. It is making it harder, with the $3,000 deposit, but certainly that has been our aim and I hope we can do it again at the next election. That brings me—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL: I am not going to be baited by any honourable members. I will not be responding to any of these unruly and out of order interjections. I do want to reflect very briefly on some of the comments that the Hon. John Darley made, when he indicated that they would be opposing clauses 9 and 10, I think it was, of the bill, which deal with special assistance funding.

The case, as I understand the honourable member put it, is that around the water cooler or in the front bar, people do not like the idea that they are paying money to political parties for administration. I think we need to be a bit careful about how far we take that argument, because the last time I looked, the Nick Xenophon Team has collected all of the public funding that has been offered to them in terms of federal elections, and I am expecting that they will accept the public funding that is offered to them at this next state election. The idea that the taxpayers are funding elections and funding political parties is something that is already in our federal system and it is soon to be in our state system.

From the Greens' perspective, we certainly accept that when you put it to people out of context, 'Do you think it's okay for the taxpayers to be funding political parties contesting elections?' most people would probably say no. But if you offered them a choice and said, 'If we got rid of corporate political donations, if we stopped pokey companies or tobacco companies or armament companies or asbestos companies, if we prevented corporations from donating to political parties, if we banned that, would you accept the taxpayers funding elections?' I am sure the hands would all go up. So really we have to be a bit careful about taking a purely populist line and going out there saying 'We're trying to save the taxpayers' money,' when in fact the vast bulk of the money that political parties will receive is in public election funding and it will not be in the special assistance grants.

The onerous obligations on political parties to comply with these new reporting requirements does, I think, reasonably require some assistance of the state to allow us to meet those obligations. If you look at a worst case scenario, that is a small party that is going to have to find $150,000 cash if they want to contest every seat, they are not going to get public funding because they are a small party, they will not get the 4 per cent threshold, yet they still have the same onerous reporting requirements, and if we were to remove those special assistance grants, then effectively you are saying small parties are not welcome in South Australia, not welcome to contest elections. I think that is a bad result for our democracy.

Having got that off my chest, most of the bill is fairly innocuous. In fact, probably I should be more generous than that. It is quite sensible. It actually improves the ability of parties to properly comply with the law by making sure that reporting and auditing requirements are clarified so that the circumstances that the Hon. Rob Lucas described, with people having to not only report pretty much in real-time but having to audit in real-time, is not imposed. We have to bear in mind that there are serious consequences for not complying with these rules, and those consequences are financial in terms of missing out on public funding. It does make sense for the law to make it as easy as possible for political parties to comply with their reporting and their auditing requirements.

We certainly do not intend to oppose this bill going through now because the sooner we clarify the accounting and the bookkeeping and the administrative requirements the better, but we do put the chamber on notice. I expect I will have some support on the crossbench and I hope on government and opposition benches as well, that when we deal with this next bill we are going to have to do tackle the more serious fundamental issue about whether small parties are indeed welcome to contest elections in this state. If the answer is 'Yes, we are a democracy; small parties should be able to contest,' then we have to reduce some of these barriers to entry, and the highest of those is, in fact, the $3,000 per seat.

I made the point that I said it was done in a sneaky and underhanded way: the point is that there was never any problem identified with enormous numbers of people abusing the electoral process by nominating for lower house seats without the intention of taking the election seriously. For the vast majority of seats, it is the major parties and the smallish number of minor parties that contest it. We do not see any abuse of the process. There was no case made for increasing lower house deposits: the Greens objected to them at the time.

My recollection is that they were done in regulations after parliament had risen with no ability to disallow them. That is my recollection. They came in, parliament was not sitting because we were in a pre-election period—there was no ability to disallow those regulations. No such excuses this time. Whilst the window to disallow the regulations might have passed, the ability of parliament to set a cap on the deposits is open. It will be open next year with the miscellaneous amendment bill and the Greens will certainly be taking that opportunity.

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS (Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (17:06): I would like to thank those members who have contributed to the debate on this very important bill. The bill will provide clarity on a number of issues that have arisen in relation to the operation of the funding expenditure and disclosure scheme in part 13A of the Electoral Act. There is one issue that was raised in discussions on this bill outside the parliament, namely the process for applying for one-off special assistance funding and what sort of evidence will be required to support a claim.

The bill provides that claims for one-off special assistance funding will be in a form determined by the Electoral Commissioner. The bill is not yet law and so, the Electoral Commission has not yet developed any form. However, it is anticipated that the form will be along the lines of the form that is used for the half-yearly special assistance funding claims. It will most likely require the agent of the party to declare that. The amounts claimed relate to prescribed administrative expenditure, being administrative expenditure incurred for the purposes of complying with part 13A, and the amounts have not already been claimed in previous special assistance funding claims.

Clause 17 of the bill requires that the claim be accompanied by an audit certificate. Section 130ZV of the Electoral Act provides that the audit certificate must set out that the auditor was given full and free access at reasonable times to the accounts and documents of the agent responsible for the return, examined the accounts and the documents, and received all the information and explanations that the auditor asked for in relation to any matter required to be stated in the certificate.

I am aware that there are a number of amendments that will be moved to this bill. The amendments have been filed by the Hon. Rob Lucas to clause 6 of the bill, which relates to section 130C of the Electoral Act. The government proposes to continue to consult on the amendments that may be required to 130C. For the time being, while those issues are worked through, it is proposed that no amendments should be made to section 130C and that clause 6 of the bill should be opposed in committee stage. Any amendments required to 130C of the Electoral Act will be dealt with in the Electoral (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill, which I understand is being considered in the other place. I commend the bill to honourable members.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clauses 1 to 5 passed.

Clause 6.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: I am not proceeding with my amendment.

Clause negatived.

Clauses 7 to 16 passed.

Clause 17.

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS: I move:

Amendment No 1 [Police–1]—

Page 10, line 12 [clause 17(5), inserted subsection (2a)]—Delete 'during' and substitute 'in respect of'

This is the first of two government amendments which relate to the audit certificate requirements in a designated period. The designated period will commence on 1 January, prior to a general election. In the designated period, there is weekly reporting. The bill makes changes so that an audit certificate is not required in relation to each weekly report.

Instead, two audit certificates are required in relation to the designated period as follows: the first audit certificate is due a week before polling day and relates to all returns furnished up until that time. In relation to the second audit certificate, the intention is that it will be required on the day on which the last return is required to be furnished in relation to the designated period.

The issue is that the last return, or sometimes the last two returns, for the designated period will be due after the end of the designated period. Currently, the second audit certificate is only required in relation to returns due during the designated period. Two minor changes are made to clause 17 of the bill to address this: 'returns furnished during or in the relevant period' becomes 'returns furnished in respect of the relevant period.'

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: It is an eminently sensible amendment, and we support it.

Amendment carried.

The CHAIR: Amendment No. 2 is consequential.

Clause as amended passed.

Remaining clauses (18 and 19) and title passed.

Bill reported with amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS (Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (17:13): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.