Electoral (Candidate Declarations) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 15 November 2017.)

The Hon. A.L. McLACHLAN (00:11): I rise to speak to the Electoral (Candidate Declarations) Amendment Bill 2017. I speak on behalf of the Liberal Party in relation to this private member's bill. I indicate that we support the second reading, but the Liberal Party's view is that it is not inclined to support the bill at the third reading.

The bill, in our view, is well-intentioned, and the Liberal Party, probably more than any other party in this state, has suffered from members being elected under the Liberal banner or flag and then subsequently deciding to support another party or become Independent. However, we feel that this bill, if enacted, would be an unnecessary imposition on the free and natural flow of democratic processes.

The public can ask a member of parliament or a new candidate to declare their position. Should they give an unsatisfactory answer, they can vote accordingly or, even if they refuse, electors can make up their own mind. The media can discuss the answers of the candidate or MP and ultimately the community can make their judgement.

The community elects representatives for a variety of reasons. We never really know how an individual casts their vote, other than in accordance with their own conscience. Therefore, we do not think that imposing this sort of condition on an individual as a candidate will be the paramount factor in an election. I appreciate that it may be one factor, but people cast their vote for a variety of reasons, so we do not think it is helpful to make it binding.

Ultimately, the Liberal Party does not believe that it should interfere with this time-honoured democratic tradition. Whilst it has great sympathy for the bill, it will not be able to support it at the third reading but, as I indicated, it will support the second reading.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL (00:14): The Greens' position is quite similar to that of the Liberal opposition. The starting point, I think, is that the questions that the honourable member proposes be asked of candidates are absolutely legitimate questions—absolutely they are. The question before us, though, is whether the Electoral Commission ought have a formal role in delivering the answers to the question to the community, or whether in fact that is a role the media can play.

We fall on the side of it being a matter for the media. We have no problems at all, whether it is the media asking us as Greens, or whether the media is asking Mr Xenophon, for example, 'If you have people elected, and if no party has an absolute majority, which side might you support?' The public will judge the answers that are given or not given, and the answers fall into three categories: one, is, 'We'll support that side,' the other answer is, 'We'll support the other side,' there might be an answer, 'We support no side,' or there might be an answer, 'We'll wait and see.' At the end of the day the public will decide whether they are satisfied with the answers, and that potentially will impact where their primary vote goes.

It is more a role for the media than it is for the Electoral Commission. I think the honourable member knows this, but I will just point it out as well: there is a problem when you have an additional requirement on potential candidates on the basis of the party that they represent. What I mean by that is that there is more paperwork to fill out if you are not Liberal or Labor. You have an extra document you have to fill out.

The Hon. S.G. Wade: It's only one.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL: The Hon. Stephen Wade interjects, 'It's only one.' But, the point is that it's a matter of principle: why should someone have an additional administrative load in order to run for parliament because they don't represent one of the old two parties?

The consequence of not filling out the form presumably is that your nomination won't be accepted. The commissioner must insist on this form being completed. It is not an optional form, so in other words we are imposing a barrier to people entering the contest on the basis of the fact that they do not represent one of the old two parties. There is a fundamental flaw democratically in that process.

I guess the Liberal Party has said that they will support the second reading but not the third. I am easy either way: if people want a committee debate tonight we can do that, but the Greens position is that, whilst we accept the legitimacy of the questions being posed, we don't think that this is the right avenue to extract the answers from unwilling candidates, and that is what the honourable member is targeting: unwilling candidates who are not prepared to say to the community what they will do if they are elected and if there is a hung parliament.

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (00:17): I thank honourable colleagues who contributed to the debate. Due to the time in the election cycle we will not be able to now go through a committee and third reading, but I am interested to test the floor of the house on a second reading on the principles of this. I note with a lot of interest that there was a no show from the government on their position on this, which makes me quite cynical as to what sort of skulduggery, potentially, the government might get up to.

I saw some good contribution tonight, but since I introduced this bill there has been another dynamic come in, and that is the fact that the Hon. Mr Nick Xenophon, who was in this house (not far from where I am speaking now), saying to the people of South Australia, 'Give me a chance to fix poker machines and all the bad things that we all know occur with problem gambling.' We see more machines now, I understand, than when he first came in on that platform.

He left this place with about six years of his term to go, from memory, because he was going to then fix it better in Canberra. He went to Canberra for at least two terms and then he found that he could not fix it better in Canberra, so he might come back and fix it here, with what I see from some as an armchair ride from some of the media—not all media but from some. So he is now coming back here and is projected to be a serious force at the next election.

So, that actually strengthens my argument for what this piece of legislation is all about. At the end of the day, when the election is over and a new government is formed and the people have settled back into their lifestyles on a day-to-day basis in this state, they are going to say, 'I didn't expect this or that to happen.' I know from history that that is the case. It is already on the public record, but, in 2002, a family that I know extremely well, a very good family—and I do not want to speak badly of the deceased, but they lived in Hammond and they liked the then member, the late Hon. Peter Lewis—went to the polling booths and handed out how-to-vote cards and all the rest of it because they liked that person. That is good; that is what democracy is all about.

However, they asked him a question. It was: 'We are conservatives. If we work for you, are you going to put a Liberal government back into office?' I understand that the answer was that he would. We know the history: he walked down the hallway and Mr Randall Ashbourne and Kerry, his wife at the time—I think her name was Kerry—somehow got him into an office, and all that changed.

They were horrified, then, that they had actually assisted that person to effectively put in a socialist government. They did not like socialist governments. I am not a friend of socialist governments either, so I can well and truly, as a farmer, understand why they did not. As farmers, we do not see socialist governments help us very often, unless we were going back to the hoe and the old methods under the communist regime. That is the only time they would probably be happy with us. My son is out there with the contractors on the header right now, and I do not want him going back to a scythe.

We need to be transparent with the people. Australian Conservatives have no problem whatsoever when we have gone through the whole election cycle and have been out campaigning for months. You watch the polls, you listen to it all and you meet with the people. We will know a week before who the people really want to see in government. At the moment, I am not sure. The polls are tight, but we will see.

The Hon. Mark Parnell raises a very good point. He is prepared to support the second reading. We can only go to a second reading now, but we can then bring all this back in after the next election. My concern for the people of South Australia, right now with the new dynamics, is that I, as an individual, and our party as a party and every other individual and party should be transparent to the people. Sometimes they love us and sometimes they definitely do not love us, but they will make a balanced decision and they will have expectations.

What I have seen with Mr Xenophon, time and time again, is that he will not make a decision because he will want to make a deal. He has admitted that. That is something I would say anywhere because that is the truth. He has worked on deals and backflips and flip-flops and all that during the whole time he has been in, if you analyse him. However, on this occasion, if the media are right and if the projections are right, this deal is not going to be a deal about whether or not we put a $70 cheque out that cost about $455 million from memory—a large figure that went on to an accumulating deficit in the federal parliament and the commonwealth government—to give a one-off cheque to offset energy charges that he helped drive up because he is such a strong promoter of renewable energy at the expense of base load power when you transition.

However, on this occasion it will be a lot bigger than that—much bigger—because he may be the kingmaker or the white knight that came back here. He does not want to be the premier and he does not want to be a minister—he said that—but he actually wants to be a de facto premier so that he can manipulate, control and backflip on a Labor or Liberal government that is going to try to govern.

It is totally different to what we do on the crossbenches up here. We are watchdogs. We assess things on merit. We do the best we possibly can subject to one provision, and that is that we put the people first in the upper house and work with the government of the day. For every crossbench member, it is the same. This is really our role, but the dynamics have changed, which has actually strengthened my reasons for putting this piece of legislation forward. So I am going to call the division on the second reading. I give notice of that. And we will see what happens from there. Then, if re-elected, one of my pledges to the people, which I will honour 100 per cent, is that I will bring this back up again, and we will have four years to work through it.

In the meantime, taking on the Hon. Mark Parnell's point, I say to the media: we do not have the time to actually finalise this, but we will see the majority intent of the Legislative Council, the people's house, on this particular principle. Therefore, if you take the point of the Hon. Mark Parnell, from the Greens, a point I have some empathy with, then I say to the media: challenge all of us in the last week before the election.

Traditionally, on the Friday night when we get to the very, very pointy end, up until now, going by all of my memory as someone who is pretty loving of politics, I sit there, watching the 6 o'clock news and the 7 o'clock news on that Friday night. There have been two groups, two parties, that have been interviewed—the Liberal Party and the Labor Party—because they have been the options for government.

So, to take the Hon. Mark Parnell's point, if the media are going to do that then they should either stick to that tradition, or I ask them, in the interests of democratic process, to go to every party that is of relevance in this state on that Friday night, namely Liberal, Labor, Australian Conservatives, the Greens, Advance SA, Dignity and SA-Best, and ask us all to sum up what we are going to do for the people the next day when they vote.

I think that is at the moment the only fair and democratic way. If they just go to Liberal and Labor and to SA-Best, then what they are actually consciously or subconsciously saying is that only SA-Best is the third option. I do not see that as democratic, and at that point in time they should, as the Hon. Mark Parnell said, ask us all: 'You have seen it where it is. You have seen the polling every week of the election. If you do have the balance of power in the lower house, who will you put into government?' We should all say so and tell the truth to the people of South Australia. With that, I commend the bill to the house.

Bill read a second time.