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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-02-04 Daily Xml
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PREFERENTIAL VOTING SYSTEM

Mr KENYON (Newland) (14:57): Will the Attorney-General advise how the state's preferential voting system for lower house seats works and how it applied to the most recent election of a member?

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON (Croydon—Attorney-General, Minister for Justice, Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Veterans' Affairs) (14:58): Members of the House of Assembly are elected by the secret full preferential alternative vote counting method. This system requires an elector to indicate on the ballot paper a preference for every candidate using sequential numbers—that is, 1, 2, 3 and so on—until all boxes (except one that would automatically be taken to be the last preference) are numbered.

The preferential voting system was first introduced in South Australia in 1929. Our secret full preferential alternative vote counting method requires a candidate to obtain 50 per cent plus one of formal votes to win a seat in parliament. If at the first count no candidate has gained more than 50 per cent of the votes the candidate with the least number of first preferences is excluded, with his or her ballot papers then distributed to remaining candidates according to the second preference marked on those ballot papers. This preference of excluding the candidate with the least number of votes and distributing the next available preference continues until one candidate—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: —yes, it is—is elected by gaining more than 50 per cent of the vote. Advocates of the current full preferential system—and, until the past 10 days, that included the Liberal Party—argue that there are three principal virtues in the system. First, a full preferential system elects the candidate preferred by most voters. Second, allied parties can stand against each other without necessarily resulting in a win to their common opponent. I am thinking of two coalition parties, the names of which just escape me at the moment. Third, minor parties can influence the election result through the allocation of preferences. A candidate's voting ticket preferences can be advertised to the electorate by way of distribution of how-to-vote cards, and posters displaying the how-to-vote card may be placed inside the voting screen at polling booths.

The vote counting or scrutiny process is heavily regulated by the Electoral Act. The election night scrutiny is regulated by part 10 of the act, and begins almost immediately after the close of voting at 6pm on election day. The results of the preliminary scrutiny are sent to the returning officer and the South Australian electoral commission.

Mr Hanna interjecting:

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: The member for Mitchell knows that something wonderful happened to him at the last election, but I am telling him how it happened. The order of proceedings at scrutiny is first a count of House of Assembly formal ballot papers, then the count of ballot papers that may be rendered formal through voting tickets, and finally a notional distribution of preferences. Scrutineers may be present at all stages of the scrutiny—and I know that the South Australian Liberal Party took the Frome by-election very seriously, because it put the member for Schubert in charge of scrutineering.

The Hon. K.O. Foley: Who was?

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: The member for Schubert, and Paul Marcuccitti, our scrutineer, was able to help him on some of the finer points—particularly the trajectory of Mr Wilson's preferences. Post-election day counting is regulated by sections 91, 93, 94 and 95 of the act. On the Sunday immediately after polling day, House of Assembly ballot papers are rechecked in the district office. The returning officer conducts a complete recheck of all House of Assembly ballot papers booth by booth—that is a recheck the day after. Confirmed figures for ordinary votes in the House of Assembly district are then available.

Then there is preliminary sorting and processing of all envelopes containing ballot papers from electors who either voted before or on polling day by declaration. Final processing and acceptance or rejection of envelopes is by the returning officer, who opens accepted envelopes and sorts the ballot papers by formality and first preferences. During the week after polling day the returning officer will complete one or more declaration vote counts. Before a declaration vote envelope is accepted for further scrutiny all polling booth rolls are processed, within 96 hours of polling day, and the ordinary voting data is checked. Returning officers can then be certain that an elector has not voted as an ordinary voter at a polling booth on voting day.

On the Saturday, seven days after polling day, ordinary and declaration formal ballot papers are combined and preferences are distributed until only two candidates remain in the count. The returning officer will finalise the counts by amalgamating all the House of Assembly ballot papers into bundles for each candidate and distributing the preferences. The candidate with the least number of first preference votes is excluded or removed from the count and preferences are distributed to the next preferred candidate—I hope I am getting through here; please pay attention—and this process continues until two candidates remain. Since 1976, counts have continued until only two candidates remain, despite any one candidate gaining an absolute majority earlier in the count.

The Frome by-election was held on 17 January 2009. There were six candidates: John Rohde, Country Labor Party; Neville Wilson, National Party; Terry Boylan, Liberal Party; Joy O'Brien, Green Party (I think the Greens were a bit ambiguous about where she lived; she lived in the Mid-North but she did not live in Frome); Peter Fitzpatrick, One Nation Party; and Geoff Brock, Independent. A total of 19,309 votes were cast.

Of the first preference votes, Mr Boylan received 7,576; Mr Rohde, 5,041; Mr Brock, 4,557; Mr Wilson, 1,267; Ms O'Brien, 734. Mr Fitzpatrick received 134 votes and was the first excluded. His preferences were spread fairly evenly among the other candidates. Ms O'Brien of the Greens was the next candidate excluded with 756 votes after preferences. Her preferences went mainly to Mr Brock and Mr Rohde—315 and 277, respectively. The third candidate excluded was Mr Wilson of the National Party who had 1,374 votes after preferences. His preferences were spread in this manner: 660 to Mr Brock, 530 to Mr Boylan and 194 to Mr Rohde. This left Mr Rohde with 5,532 votes, Mr Brock with—wait for it—5,562 votes and Mr Boylan with 8,215 votes. Mr Rohde was then the fourth candidate excluded. His preferences were distributed: 4,425 to Mr Brock and 1,107 to Mr Boylan.

The Hon. K.O. Foley: When did they do the press release?

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: The press release was some time before this process. Thus, Mr Brock was elected the member for Frome with 51.7 per cent of the vote (9,987 votes in total) to Mr Boylan's 48.3 per cent of the vote (9,322 votes in total).

If the deputy leader could pay attention, yesterday on radio the member for Bragg said, 'It would be foolish of us if we didn't analyse the result; try and understand when you come first why you don't win; how somebody came third and still wins.'

The Hon. K.O. Foley: Who said that?

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: This is the member for Bragg, the deputy leader. But wait, there's more. She continued, 'It happened of course on the reverse before, and I can think of people like Terry Groom, going in as an Independent and then, of course, rejoining the Labor Party.' I repeat: going in as an Independent, then rejoining the Labor Party.

The Hon. P.F. Conlon: Close, but no cigar.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: Yes. In fact, Terry Groom was elected in 1977 as the Labor candidate for Morphett and was defeated in 1979. Terry Groom was elected again in 1982 as the Labor candidate for Hartley—

Ms Chapman: And went Independent.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: Terry Groom was never an elected as an Independent. It is a bit like that interconnector to New South Wales. To return to Frome, there were 537 informal votes; 14,505 votes were cast at polling places, and I was at one of them at Riverton.

The Hon. I.F. Evans: You were sitting under a tree.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: My chief of staff, Mr Louca, and I enjoyed ourselves enormously at Riverton—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: —and we had some tremendous company from the city. The Liberal Party had sent people up from the city to staff the Riverton booth; the National Party, of course, had a local. During the afternoon, it turned out to be a very tight contest. Only three of us were handing out how-to-vote cards to people who were coming in to Riverton: the National Party gentleman with his lovely embroidered blue shirt; Jack Humphries had come up from West Croydon to hand out for the Greens; and Mr Louca and I—

Mrs Redmond interjecting:

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: Yes. Mr Lewis had very important business to do: he was making very important mobile phone calls.

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