Electoral (Regulation of Corflutes) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 23 September 2021.)

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (15:46): I rise to speak on this bill. This chamber has sat for 188 days since the last state election, and after today there are only eight more due, possibly, before the next election. We are seeing major changes to the way an election is conducted and campaigned for at the very last second. If this was a football match, we would be well into time-on in the final quarter, with the umpire then deciding, 'I'm going to change the rules. I'm going to change how the game is played and how you're allowed to play the football game.'

This is an outrage. These provisions have been considered by this chamber and rejected by this chamber previously, and we are back here again, at one minute to midnight, trying to change the rules for how the election is conducted. It is a shameful example of the Liberal government again acting at the very last minute to try to change the rules because they think there is some sort of benefit for themselves.

Not only is this government seeking to pass this electoral bill at one minute to midnight, but in the lower house when it was being considered they guillotined debate. They stopped the debate continuing so that members could consider the nature and effect of the changes that are happening. It is happening at one minute to midnight, and they stopped the democratic process in the lower house when this was being considered.

Members in the House of Assembly were given five minutes to debate each clause through the committee stage. That even led to a situation where the member for Florey, Frances Bedford, was prevented from speaking in relation to her own amendments because 'time has expired'. These are anti-democratic measures being conducted in an anti-democratic way. This is an outrage.

It was another concerning development that we have seen further changes to this not just at one minute to midnight, not in time-on in the last quarter, but as the whistle is about to blow. We have had amendments to consider on this bill filed at 11.49am this very morning. Before these amendments were filed it was almost certainly the case—even though the Attorney herself could not answer these questions in the lower house—and quite likely possibly even after these amendments were filed, that this bill would curtail significantly freedom of political speech.

The bill, as it was introduced in this place, would have absolutely meant that a person protesting, for example, climate change—if they were protesting that and it could have had an influence on the outcome of the election it would have been banned. That is what this government wanted to do. It is an outrage. It is anti-democratic.

The amendments that we have seen filed at one second to midnight, at 11.49 this morning, refer to the Public Assemblies Act. I am not certain that they allow lawful protests to happen. For example, if someone is wearing a T-shirt, is that an election sign that is not banned under this? I am not sure a protestor would be allowed to wear a T-shirt even with these amendments. It is an outrage and it is anti-democratic.

In relation to a question from the member for Kaurna, when the member for Kaurna asked, 'If somebody is doing a protest on a public street and they want to have a sign, is that prohibited under this legislation?' the Attorney answered, 'I am advised that depends entirely in relation to what it says and also the display of those and whether they contravene the proposed definition.' Further to that, the Attorney was asked about the possibility of constitutional issues in relation to regulating the freedom of political speech.

Again, these could not properly be answered and now we are supposed to accept that at 11.49 this morning the Attorney has had a sudden change of heart and suddenly has decided that these are now completely democratic and, 'I have some amendments that refer to the Public Assemblies Act and everything will be fine.' Well, I am not buying that; I am not buying that at all.

The Attorney-General has form in relation to these sorts of things. The Attorney-General has form in relation to taking this chamber for granted. We have seen, every time there has been COVID emergency powers legislation put before this place, that the Attorney has come the day before with legislation—or even on the day—and expected the crossbench and the opposition to support them. It is not good enough. The Attorney has form in taking people for granted here, making changes at the last minute and not giving due notice, and that is what is happening again.

The Attorney has form in overreach, complete and utter overreach in a lot of what she has suggested in her legislative reforms, and we are seeing this again here—the complete and utter banning of corflutes. Overreach in the past, at the start of this parliamentary session. Soon after the election, the Attorney brought changes to the Criminal Law Consolidation Act to make it illegal to have gaol time for minors for the possession of cannabis. Except for the Liberal government, every other member of the Legislative Council rejected those changes. It was overreach, and every other member of the Legislative Council saw it as such and rejected them.

Recently, we had changes in an identity theft bill. The Attorney tried to sneak in provisions that merely having information without any intention to do anything wrong with it could lead to serious consequences and gaol time. It was overreach, as it is here. The Attorney has form with this sort of overreach. Once again, the Attorney has come with a bill to ban corflutes that is complete and utter overreach to whatever problem she thinks is there.

It is clear that the Attorney thinks there is some sort of political advantage, perhaps it will be to the detriment of minor or smaller parties who often use corflutes as a cheap and effective way to get their message and their branding out. Maybe the Attorney thinks she can wipe out minor and small parties with this. Well, we are not going to be a party to these anti-democratic measures.

The Attorney has form in a whole lot of other areas, taking this parliament for granted and, in fact, acting against things that this parliament has decided. We saw just this morning in the House of Assembly a select committee voted on by a majority of the House of Assembly looking at potential conflict of interest issues to do with the Attorney's not approving a development application on Kangaroo Island.

We saw early on in this parliamentary term the Attorney investigated by the Anti-Corruption Branch for breaches of her own ICAC Act. That went all the way to referral for prosecution, and independent counsel had to be brought in, and we do not know why it did not proceed. We were not told that there were not breaches of the law from the Attorney herself. We were just told that the prosecution would not proceed.

The Attorney has form for overreach, the Attorney has form for doing things against what the parliament might have said, the Attorney has form for taking us for granted and I am not going to be a party to passing a bill that is clearly designed because the Attorney thinks there is some base political advantage to her or her party.

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (15:54): I rise in support of this bill on behalf of the Greens. In so doing, I recognise that, as is the case with all political parties, there are different views within the Greens on this matter. My predecessor in this parliament, Mark Parnell, organised a forum of Greens members when this issue first came on the agenda. I had the opportunity to talk with many members about this issue at that time, and indeed over the months and years when corflutes have been debated.

It is very clear to me that there is strong support for this change within the SA Greens membership. This has also been a strong campaign for the Greens interstate. In the ACT, for instance, the Greens have been campaigning strongly on this issue. Indeed, the parliamentary inquiry into the ACT election has recommended banning corflutes from roadsides. It is a parliamentary inquiry that has involved representation from the Labor Party, the Greens and others.

More importantly, there is strong support for this reform among the South Australian community. Most voters find these signs to be an eyesore and to be visual pollution, not to mention highly wasteful. There are a few exceptions, of course. I know my mum and dad will miss seeing my face on Stobie poles. I know the member for Kaurna, Mr Chris Picton, will be very disappointed, as he has a growing collection of my corflutes dating back to our days together at Flinders University. I can assure him that these signs will still be available for his personal collection, they just will not be in the public realm. He can still display my corflute on his private property or post it on his fan wall or whatever else he wants to do. There is no prohibition on that.

It is worth noting that the views of political parties on this issue have changed over the years as well. Back in 2009, the then Attorney-General, Michael Atkinson, first attempted to ban corflutes from public streets. The move at that time was opposed by the Liberals and the crossbench. I am sure Mr Atkinson will be tweeting in delight to see the Greens have changed our position on this.

Both former Labor minister Kate Ellis and former Liberal minister Christopher Pyne have argued for corflutes to be banned. Back in 2019, the Hon. Kate Ellis of the Labor Party told The Advertiser, and I quote directly from her statement:

It is a massive amount of resources, the public don't particularly like them and it's a huge distraction for the first week of the campaign.

Your office gets inundated with calls about 'you've got too many posters here, or you don't have enough posters there'.

Wouldn't it be great if we had an election campaign where we were talking about the issues that were going to be determined and how that would impact on our community?

She goes on:

There are too many of these signs, they don't serve much purpose and we have this debate every couple of years; the rest of the country do not do this the way that we do…Get rid of them, I say.

'Get rid of them, I say,' says Kate Ellis, former Labor minister. I could not agree more.

For my part, my views on corflutes have been on the public record for many years. As a city councillor, I advocated for corflutes to be banned for council elections. That move was opposed by the majority in Town Hall, but it did receive strong support from the local community. I welcome the fact that this change was legislated as part of the government's local government reforms.

For me, there are three very important considerations in this debate. The first is the impact that corflutes have on the environment. At a time when our state has taken bold and decisive action on single-use plastics, it seems absurd that the political class would be exempting ourselves from this through producing these costly and wasteful plastic signs, many of which will end up in landfill. Not all political parties recycle their candidates in the same way that I have been recycled, so that can lead to increased waste.

I do concede that you could legislate to use other materials less damaging on the environment, but there are also other issues for us to weigh up here. There is another fundamental consideration, and that is: who owns the public realm? The public realm belongs to all South Australians. Intrusion onto the public realm, onto our public streets, is heavily regulated for this reason. The idea that these streets should be populated with election signage in this way is a form of visual pollution and I think it offends that basic principle. I have heard it said that voters will not realise there is an election on if there are not corflutes on the streets. I do not accept that argument.

There are plenty of other ways that candidates and campaigners can engage with their electors. Signs really do not say anything about the policies or principles of a political party or a candidate. I mean no disrespect to anybody in this room but politics is hardly a beauty contest. A sea of smiling faces does nothing to advance the quality of political debate in our state. Under this bill, party members, supporters and volunteers can still display signs on their private property as is the case in other jurisdictions around our country, so there will still be plenty of opportunities for people to get the message out without dominating our streets in this way.

The final issue I want to touch on is equity. I have heard it argued—indeed the Leader of the Opposition made this point—that somehow banning corflutes will damage smaller parties. I do not accept that argument. The current regime is an arms race. It means that all parties are required to invest huge amounts of money and people power into putting up these signs and finding the volunteers to distribute them. This really favours those candidates or political parties who have deep pockets. At $7 a pop, corflutes can blow a very big hole in a campaign budget, particularly for a small party or a candidate. This bill just levels the playing field.

I know the Leader of the Opposition has argued that this would be the end of democracy as we know it in the state of South Australia but the reality is, if the Labor Party feel so strongly about this, they can go into the next election and say, 'Vote for the Labor Party and we will reverse this legislation. We are the bring back corflutes political party.' It is their choice to do that. If they want to run as having that as a key part of their platform at the next election, saying to the people of South Australia, 'We will bring back corflutes and reverse these changes,' then they should do so and let the people of South Australia decide. I suspect what they will find is that there is a huge amount of public support for these changes and that people will be very excited to see the parliament take action on this.

In concluding, the Greens have been in negotiation with the government and I understand that some amendments will be moved in the committee stage. These have been alluded to by the Leader of the Opposition and I will talk to those a bit later. What those amendments do, I think, is provide certainty in terms of ensuring that people can have signage at public rallies and events, street corner meetings and the like and the amendments that the government will talk to later will address those points.

I do hope that this will be the last time the parliament is required to debate this issue and I think that the public would overwhelmingly welcome this parliament's action on the matter.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (16:02): I was not slated to speak but I just wanted to express that SA-Best definitely will be opposing this bill. Just to reiterate the comments made by the honourable Leader of the Opposition—which he did in such an indelible way—it is an attack on democracy, it is an attack on free speech and the fairness of the election process which discriminates against smaller political parties and Independents.

This is all about eliminating those pesky minority voices that try to be heard during an election campaign. Everybody has a right to be heard and the ability to nominate for public office. Elections should not be dominated by those with huge cash reserves or the backing of donors from the big end of town. We could not possibly even contemplate rubbing out or airbrushing under-resourced candidates wishing to contest a state election.

As for the corflutes, if there is an environmental issue—as the Hon. Robert Simms has pointed out—I am sure we can legislate in this place that they are recycled or made out of recyclable materials, or that perhaps there are stiffer penalties if they are not removed in an appropriate period of time. I actually like corflutes because I can put a face to a name, because I am not particularly good at remembering names of people, particularly strangers. In saying that, I point out that we will certainly be opposing this bill strongly.

The Hon. J.A. DARLEY (16:05): For the record and for the reasons already outlined by the Leader of the Opposition and the Hon. Frank Pangallo, I will oppose this bill.

The Hon. C. BONAROS (16:05): My colleague has outlined what SA-Best's position is, but again—and I said this the last time I spoke on this bill, when it was wrapped up together with all those other changes that relate to the election, which is going to take place, as we know, in March—if the government were serious about this bill, and if the government were serious about its election reforms, then they would not be coming to us three minutes before an election with major changes to the way things are done. If the government were serious about getting rid of corflutes, they have had 3½ years to put that proposal to us, but they have not done that.

What we saw the last time the Attorney introduced the bill into this place was corflutes wrapped in together with OPV and a number of other ECSA recommendations, and we were expected then to deal with them as a package. I think this chamber made it abundantly clear to the Attorney at the time that we would not deal with it as a package, that we expected more from her and from this government in relation to the way we deal with reforms in this place, but especially when they relate to an election that is literally around the corner. This bill is no different from that.

Three minutes before the election the Attorney comes to us again. This time she has unravelled the package a little. She has put her ECSA recommendations in one bill and corflutes in another, but she has done so knowing full well what opposition there was to this bill previously and full well what opposition there is to this bill currently.

I have to say that I appreciate some of the comments the Hon. Robert Simms has made about the concerns around corflutes. We all know what those concerns are, but there is nothing that has prevented the government at any stage since the last election and since today from presenting this bill to this parliament, whether it be alone or as a package. They have not chosen to do that. They have chosen once again, at the last minute, to get us to vote on something that they know is divisive and that they know will undermine the minor parties and Independents of this place more than anyone else. It is for these reasons, in addition to the reasons outlined by my colleague, that we will not be supporting this bill.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (16:07): I welcome in some cases the restatement of positions members have placed on the record previously in relation to the proposals in this particular piece of legislation. On behalf of the Attorney-General, I thank the Hon. Mr Simms for the work he has done with the Attorney and her officers in crafting amendments for this chamber to consider, should the bill proceed past the second reading of this debate.

The Hon. Mr Simms' contribution was informative in many respects in the contrasting positions of individuals, members and parties over the years. I am sure, although I have not taken the trouble to go back on the public record, I would have expressed views different from the views that my government is expressing at this particular time at times in the past.

In fact, I recall one of the matters that was discussed at length with lawyers lined up for bidders for our electricity assets, and lawyers lined up supporting the government's position and the various merchant bankers and others, and they were, I think, bemused is probably the right word when, amidst all the issues of discussion as to what would go into the leasing arrangements for the poles and wires in South Australia, there was an insistence that ETSA, or the new body that replaced ETSA, continue for the term of its leasing arrangements to allow the erection of election corflutes at no cost to political parties during the duration of the lease.

There was a view that if a provision was not put in there either they might prevent it or, if they did not prevent it, they might want to charge a per poster fee for erecting election corflutes on Stobie poles. As I said, it was met with some bemusement because it was obviously not one of the issues that the lawyers on both sides, the merchant bankers and accountants and others were contemplating ever having to discuss when looking at the complicated leasing contracts that were being entered into at that particular time.

Times have changed, as the Hon. Mr Simms's contribution indicated. I would never have contemplated that I would be sitting down in the Myer food court eating my lunch with a wooden stick instead of the good old single-use plastic that I have been using for I do not know how long—10 or 20 years—but the world has moved on.

I think most observers acknowledge that the South Australian Liberal government has been at the forefront of change in many of these areas, including the banning of single-use plastics. Governments of Labor and Liberal persuasions were involved in relation to container deposit legislation. This government's open embrace of renewables and zero emissions by 2050 has demonstrated across the board that this government has been an enthusiastic embracer of the importance of combating the implications of climate change and tackling environmental issues.

Whilst I am sure there will be the odd issue that the Greens and the Liberal government might disagree on occasionally from time to time, there will of course also be issues where we are in furious agreement. In terms of protecting our environment there is a shared purpose between the Greens in this particular chamber and the Liberal government. It is disappointing to hear the Leader of the Opposition portray himself as one of the troglodytes in terms of wanting to continue to contribute to environmental degradation, with the continued support of thousands and thousands of plastic posters despoiling our environment for decades to come.

The Leader of the Opposition and the opposition are building a very impressive policy array for the next election, as I think the Hon. Mr Simms alluded to in part. They will be going to the election promising to reintroduce plastic corflutes for elections should they be elected, and they will be promising to abolish shopping on Boxing Day after people have enjoyed it for four years. They are putting together an impressive package of policy commitments and promises through the various positions that they continue to adopt in this chamber.

As I said, the positions on this particular issue have been ventilated only relatively recently, so it is not as if this issue is coming from the clouds unseen by anyone. We have had this debate. People's positions are pretty clear and the parliament is again being asked to express a view one way or another in relation to this particular proposal.

I might comment on the hypocrisy of the Australian Labor Party talking about last-minute changes that impact the electoral system, given their last-minute proposal in one of the election periods to abolish the fairness provisions in the electoral legislation is unprecedented in terms of the potential impacts on electoral prospects in the future, certainly compared to the issue of whether or not we should ban corflutes. This is small beer compared to the changes the Australian Labor Party successfully implemented right at the death knell of one particular parliamentary session.

But this is a bill about corflutes, so I do not intend to wax lyrical about other issues. I share a view that the Hon. Mr Simms has put that this chamber should consider the bill and the amendments that are going to be put at the committee stage.

The council divided on the second reading:

Ayes 10

Noes 11

Majority 1

Second reading thus negatived.