State Election Campaign

The Hon. C. BONAROS (17:53): I move:

1. That a select committee of the Legislative Council be established to inquire into and report on—

(a) all aspects of the 2018 state election and matters related thereto, with particular reference to—

(i) the operation of the funding, expenditure and disclosure scheme as outlined in the Electoral Act 1985 (the act);

(ii) the operation of changes to the voting provisions of the act;

(iii) the application of provisions requiring authorisation of electoral material to all forms of communication to voters;

(iv) the influence of advertising by associated entities and/or third parties who are not registered political parties during the campaign targeting candidates and political parties;

(v) the need for 'truth in advertising' provisions to communication to voters including third party communications;

(vi) the regulation of associated entities and/or third parties undertaking campaign activities; and

(vii) the potential application of new technology to voting, scrutiny and counting.

(b) the regulatory regime regarding donations and contributions from persons and entities to political parties, associated entities and other third parties and entities undertaking campaign activities;

(c) the extent to which fundraising and expenditure by associated entities and/or third parties is conducted in concert with registered political parties and the applicability and utilisation of tax deductibility by entities involved in campaign activities; and

(d) any related matters.

2. That standing order 389 be so far suspended as to enable the chairperson of the committee to have a deliberative vote only.

3. That this council permits the select committee to authorise the disclosure or publication, as it sees fit, of any evidence or documents presented to the committee prior to such evidence being presented to the council.

4. That standing order 396 be suspended to enable strangers to be admitted when the select committee is examining witnesses unless the committee otherwise resolves, but they shall be excluded when the committee is deliberating.

The 2018 state election campaign was described by respected ABC election analyst Antony Green as 'a bit like a First World War battlefield'. For a person who lived and breathed every day of that campaign as the campaign director of SA-Best, that description could not be more apt. Those in this place who very kindly indulged me yesterday during my maiden speech would have heard me describe the state election as being the most targeted and bitter campaign I have ever been involved with, and I have been involved with a few. SA-Best, and specifically our leader at the time, Nick Xenophon, copped it from every which way. It was outrageous.

In such battles the Liberals can see their arch nemesis, the Labor Party, coming straight at them and mount an attack accordingly. Similarly, the Labor Party sees the Liberals in their crosshairs and aims their machinery accordingly. Nothing much else distracts either party on their chosen pathway to success—that was, until SA-Best arrived on the scene and genuinely and seriously challenged their privileged positions of power.

We set out to position ourselves as a genuine alternative political power. We wanted to strike some common ground with voters disenchanted with the major parties who were seeking to vote for a party that could make a real difference. We went to the election seeking to win enough seats to hold the balance of power to ensure that, whichever major party won the most number of seats, they would need our imprimatur to form government.

Wow—did that set the proverbial cat amongst the pigeons. Both major parties and their vested interest groups unleashed a tsunami of lies, mistruths, slurs and downright gutter politics against us, the likes of which have never been seen before. As Nick said at the time, 'Labor says SA-Best will support the Liberals. The Liberals say we'll support Labor. They can't both be right.'

Unlike the Liberals and Labor, we copped it from all sides. We fought a war on all fronts and, while we set out and were expecting to fight a good fight, the others were not. It was win at all costs—all costs—for the Liberals and ALP, regardless of the fallout. The Liberals jumped into bed with the rich poker machine barons who control the AHA, the Australian Hotels Association. We estimate that the AHA invested at least $250,000 in its advertising campaign that expressly told lie after lie about SA-Best and the impact our gambling reforms would have in South Australia.

Labor, and the powerful union movement that controls it and dictates who should represent the party in parliament, unleashed a disgusting campaign of its own. Anything was on the agenda to ensure that SA-Best did not gain a foothold in the South Australian parliament. It was an election fought on a scale never seen before, with huge amounts of money spent by the AHA and unions urging people to vote not against any of the major parties but against SA-Best. This was unheralded in South Australia's political history, and was motivated to undermine Nick and keep us out of parliament.

While we did not achieve anywhere near the result we had hoped for, the election of Frank and me to the Legislative Council shows that we were not vanquished. In fact, as everyone in this place would know, more than 200,000 South Australians, or nearly one in five South Australian voters, voted for SA-Best. On their behalf, Frank and I will continue to do all we can to hold the government to account. We also stand tall and proud in the knowledge that we were not, and are not, beholden to big business or the unions. We are not a party of vested interests but a party that will only ever be beholden to our constituents.

The Australian Hotels Association is a powerful, vested interest group which had unprecedented influence on the outcome of this election. It saw SA-Best as the main threat to its livelihood and the insidious poker machines that have infiltrated nearly every pub and hotel in South Australia. It had everything to lose and nothing to win if SA-Best achieved what it set out to achieve.

If the status quo remained and poker machine numbers in South Australia remained at current levels, the AHA's members would continue to make huge profits on the back of gambling addicts' misery. As a result, pubs across the city were plastered with posters urging people to vote against Nick as though he were public enemy number one, and we know that busloads of volunteers were brought in on election day to do the same.

As I said, this was an election like no other, using technologies never before implemented. Reuters reported that the SA Liberals used a data mining program to intensify lobbying in marginal seats during the election. The Liberals used the i360 app imported from the United States that:

uses information gleaned from social media, polls and surveys to pinpoint vacillating voters' addresses and the issues they care about in key marginal seats so they can be targeted for lobbying.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported:

…the tool is said to have been critical to their victory [and] the Victorian Liberals are also using the platform ahead of the state election later this year.

i360 is funded by the US billionaire brothers, Charles and David Koch, who have played a crucial role in helping conservatives win countless American elections. Data mining is playing a more significant role in campaigns across the political spectrum. As such, it is vital that we examine whether our electoral laws are keeping up to date with these emerging technologies.

Then there is the outrage and controversy caused by Cambridge Analytica in the UK after it pilfered the data of 50 million Facebook users and secretly kept it. Cambridge Analytica is a British political consulting firm that combined data mining, data brokerage and data analysis with strategic communication during the electoral processes. Serious questions about this technology and how it is used are now being asked after it was revealed that the data analytics firm worked for Donald Trump's election team and the winning Brexit campaign.

The election landscape is changing—we accept that—and changing rapidly as technologies change and become even more accessible. I personally lodged complaint after complaint to the Electoral Commissioner on behalf of SA-Best during the election campaign and, to be frank, some of those complaints are still outstanding. The fact that the AHA was able to produce and circulate a 'scratchie ticket' featuring Nick Xenophon and, even more disturbingly, the fact that that ticket was somehow able to be delivered to residents' letterboxes inside one of our own candidate's election pamphlets is no coincidence.

It is for these reasons, amongst many others, that a select committee inquiry into the results of the 2018 state election is needed. It is my intention to outline more fully a number of other complaints and issues that were raised during the campaign on the next day of sitting. For now, I seek leave to conclude my remarks on this motion until such time.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.