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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
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ELECTORAL (MISCELLANEOUS) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 5 March 2009. Page 1924.)

Mr VENNING: Madam Deputy Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the house.

A quorum having been formed:

Mrs REDMOND (Heysen) (12:02): I indicate that I am the lead speaker for the opposition. At this stage, I will begin with some comments on the various aspects of the bill. There are numerous different aspects and I anticipate that quite a number of members will be making some comments in relation to it because, unlike some of the bills that the Attorney and I manage in this house, this one contains a number of issues with which virtually everyone in the chamber would be familiar and about which many people will have some opinions. Probably the most remarkable of those is the proposition that we should basically do away with having corflutes or other electoral advertising material in public places.

With respect to many of the comments I have received in the public arena when discussing this bill, the instant response of people to the proposition that we not have corflutes put about when elections are imminent is that it is a blessed relief, in their view. They do not want to have this dreadful littering of our landscape with corflutes. I am no great lover of corflutes. I have to say that one of the worst parts of taking on this job is the fact that you have to have your photo on corflutes on Stobie poles all around the electorate, and when it comes to election time I like to try—

Members interjecting:

Mrs REDMOND: I think there is enough discussion going on without me even trying to make a speech. I do not like having to drive around the place seeing pictures of me on Stobie poles all around the electorate. I really find it one of the most awful parts of the job. It is almost as bad as fundraising, in fact—not that I resent going to fundraising functions but that headache of always consistently having to think about getting the money together for the next election. When you talk to many people about it, they do not realise that unless it is raised with them; that is, if you are in this game, it is expected that you will have pictures of yourself on these corflutes on every available Stobie pole. My electorate is about 1,000 square kilometres, so I can drive almost to Victor Harbor and still come across pictures of me on Stobie poles.

Then, of course, there is the joy of having to put them up and then take them down. I know that sometimes obscure places have been chosen and someone will say to me, 'By the way, there is still a picture of you up at a certain place,' and we have to send someone out to pick up a corflute that was not collected when it should have been. Indeed, after the election, on occasions, I have done the courtesy to other people of getting their corflutes down at the same time that we have taken ours down and returning them to the people. I know, indeed, that the member for Davenport has some rather lovely corflutes which some of his staffers collected after one his elections and which had been vandalised in such a way that they became really quite beautiful works of art. They were obtained by his staffers and I think block mounted and presented to him as a gift—and he did have them on the wall of his office.

Corflutes are no doubt the source of a lot of fun for some people. Certainly the guerrilla warfare tactics involved by some people in some electorates can be problematic. Many people in the community do not realise that they are relatively expensive to get organised and that it is problematic. I remember that, I think with my first election, many of my corflutes were taken. We complained to the police, and the next thing it turned up in a Neighbourhood Watch newsletter as though it was some great joke that there had been a complaint that the corflutes were being taken. I remember that, during the last election, the young Labor candidate was seen by one of my staffers to be taking down one of my corflutes. We contacted him and very politely pointed out to him that he might not be aware that that was an offence under the act, but that we were not going to take it any further—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Why don't you make that allegation outside without parliamentary privilege? Make it outside.

Mrs REDMOND: I did; you can ask him. The Attorney suggests that I make it outside parliamentary privilege. The Attorney makes the mistake of thinking that I am making this up, but if you talk to your young Labor candidate from that election, you will find out that he did get a very polite and very nice phone call from us saying that we would appreciate—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Well, he may have, but it may have been based on a falsehood.

Mrs REDMOND: The Attorney says that it may have been based on a falsehood. I can guarantee the Attorney that my PA (who has been my employee for the last 15 years) was the person who saw him doing it. We did not take any action or make any formal complaint; we simply took appropriate steps to have it dealt with.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Yet another smear under parliamentary privilege. You have a reputation for it.

Mrs REDMOND: The Attorney makes the comment that I am making a smear—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! There is unnecessary innuendo flying across the chamber. Could the member please address the bill directly?

Mrs REDMOND: I certainly will, Madam Deputy Speaker, but the Attorney-General accused me of making another smear under parliamentary privilege. This is from an attorney-general who recently made an apology to the Deputy Chief Magistrate—we wonder why—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Mrs REDMOND: —and then an apology on radio.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The chamber is not the place for gratuitous insults from either side. Standing orders are very clear about this. My duty is to maintain orderly debate, and I will do so. Member for Heysen, please address the bill.

Mrs REDMOND: Well, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would ask you to maintain orderly debate in a fair and even-handed manner. I do not complain that, normally, you would not do that, but the Attorney-General for some minutes was attacking me on the basis that he claims that I make unfair smears against people and that I have a reputation for it. Now to deny me the opportunity to respond, when he has not been called to order over that attack—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The Attorney-General will also maintain silence. I have called both sides to order over interjections. I will give a slight indulgence to the honourable member in order to explain herself but not to make accusations about other members of parliament. Please address the topic of the debate, with an indulgence to explain yourself.

Mrs REDMOND: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was not attacking any other members of parliament but, rather, reporting the fact that during an election campaign in 2006 the Labor candidate in my area was observed to be taking down one of my corflutes; rather than taking any official action about that activity, we chose to behave in a very mild mannered and polite way. We approached him and reported to him that he had been seeing doing it, that it was an offence and that we would appreciate his not doing it again.

But for the Attorney-General's interjection, I would not have taken the discussion of that point further. The overall point I was trying to make was that in relation to corflutes the public at large, in my view, as an instant response to the proposal in this bill, says, 'That's a great idea because we think corflutes are litter on the landscape and we don't want to put up with them any longer.' It seems to me that there is more to corflutes than simply assuming they are litter.

My view as a sitting member is that the proposition that we get rid of corflutes except on private property has an attraction to all sitting members in that it gives an unfair advantage to a sitting member. As a sitting member, generally I have the capacity to get more publicity than someone who might want to mount a campaign against me, whether it be from within the Liberal Party or another party or as an Independent. I have the capacity to put out a newsletter, which I conscientiously do every three months, so that my name and my picture are out there. On the other hand, someone who wants to become a member of parliament—a candidate or would-be candidate of whatever nature—will struggle to get their name out there.

It seems to be a proposition that, while it has some attraction for the population at large, it is problematic for the nature of our democracy and the nature of freedom of speech. Freedom of speech extends beyond merely the ability to get up on a soapbox and sprout and spruik about whatever topic you might want to talk about. Very few people approach the political process in that way these days. As part of our political process, we are used to seeing the television news and images of things. In my view, it is fundamental to our political process that people have the right to put their name out there in the public domain.

This purports to say that no electoral advertising can be anywhere on a road or on other public property, that it will be restricted to private property. In my electorate there might be quite a number of people who would be happy to put a corflute on their fence that faces a road, and I might be able to get my message out to some extent in that way, but I think there are some difficulties with that approach as well.

I say that because I know that, on both sides of parliament—and, indeed, among people who support other parties—there are people who choose to quietly support their preferred political party or candidate but if, for instance, you are living in a country area and you are running a local business, be it a newsagency, butcher shop or whatever the business might be, you might have a very definite preference in your private political leanings for one candidate or another, but it is understandably potentially a risk to your business if you put someone's name out as your preferred candidate on the window of your business, for instance. That would be within the private property concept that is talked about in this legislation, and that is fine.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Well, don't put it there. Don't do it.

Mrs REDMOND: The Attorney says don't do it then, and that is exactly the point. Whilst the legislation contemplates that notices can be put on private property, I think that, quite reasonably, many people, although they have a private preference for a candidate and may even support a particular candidate—may even do so to the point of doorknocking or handing out how-to-vote cards at the polling booths, or whatever it is—they may nevertheless feel reluctant about putting a sign on their fence or in the window of their premises. They may feel that that might expose them to the risk of vandalism, or they might simply feel that it might expose them to the risk that someone no longer wants to visit their business as a customer because of that political preference.

In this country we have voting which enables everyone's vote to be kept secret should they choose to keep it secret. They are at liberty to share it, but everyone can have a private vote. Our polling booths are set up to allow it and we are allowed to vote in private. By far the vast majority of the population do not go around talking about which side of politics, which party or which individual they support. Indeed, I think it is one of the peculiarities of the Australian culture that it is one of the topics that is of most interest and has most effect in the country, but it is a topic that is steadfastly avoided on a number of occasions.

So, in my view, the proposition put by this bill is—I will not go so far as to say dangerous—certainly heading us in a direction which I consider to be undemocratic. I think it purports to infringe upon our freedom of speech and our freedom of political action.

The proposition is not, of course, restricted to simply dealing with corflutes and not being able to put them on Stobie poles. The proposition in the legislation is that there be no electoral advertising allowed on any road. During election campaigns, for instance, I have, and have had since I first became a candidate, a little triangular sign that goes on the top of my car that says 'Isobel Redmond, Liberal for Heysen'.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Exempted by regulation. No problem.

Mrs REDMOND: And the Attorney calls out across the chamber that it is exempted by regulation, but he has not tabled any regulation, nor is he intending to, and nor were his advisers at the briefing—and I thank the advisers and the Electoral Commissioner for the briefing. However, we have no guarantee about that whatsoever under the Attorney's proposition.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Well, I guarantee it, on the record.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The Attorney-General has the opportunity to respond in an orderly manner. There is no need for this continuing interjection.

Mrs REDMOND: During the briefing, I specifically asked about the new magnetised signs for the side of my car which simply say 'Isobel Redmond MP, Member for Heysen'. Is that electoral advertising? It is on my car; it names me as the member for Heysen. The Electoral Commissioner and the advisers were unable to give a definitive answer to that question during our three hour briefing—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Mrs REDMOND: The member for Florey, for instance, Frances Bedford, has a wonderful van that she has emblazoned with the words 'Mobile electoral office for Frances Bedford, member for Florey'. Under this proposition, as it stands in the bill presented to this parliament and in spite of any guarantee given by the Attorney-General—I know how reliable his word is—such a van may well breach this legislation. We are not able to get any definition of whether or not it constitutes electoral advertising; we have no assurance whatsoever. We had a three hour briefing which finished at 6 o'clock only because people could not stay any longer. I make no complaint about that briefing, but we were not able to get clarity on a range of issues that came up.

However the proposition says, fundamentally, that you are no longer allowed to put electoral advertising out in any public place during an election campaign. I think that is an unreasonable infringement of the liberty of people in this state to be made aware of who is running in their seat. I will be very interested to see what the Independents and minor parties think about this legislation; it seems to me that, regardless of party or of anyone's status, it is a risk to our democratic freedom to say that we are not allowed to put this information out into the public arena.

I know that the public at large says that it is litter, but it is for a very limited time. That so-called 'litter' cannot be put out there until the writs for the election are issued—which will basically be four weeks beforehand. There is a strict regime that requires that they not be put up before that, and there is also a strict regime that requires they be taken down immediately afterwards. With a few exceptions, where odd corflutes and so on may accidentally be left up, everyone generally obeys that regime: they go up very quickly; they are up for a very limited time; the election is held, and they come down very quickly.

I do not have a problem with a regime where we have that ability. We put things up, everyone gets a chance to get their message out there, and it is all removed in a quite orderly fashion. I am not aware of any particular problems with the regime we currently have operating. Philosophically, I would have no difficulty if we in some way narrowed the time limit but I am not here to try to argue for that. At the end of the day it seems to me to be only reasonable that people be allowed to put up their signs and put out their message when contesting an election.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: You're on the record now.

Mrs REDMOND: I do not need the Attorney's help in any way in addressing the issues involved this particular matter, thank you. As I said, in my view, it will deny candidates the opportunity to put their information out there in a reasonable way.

The other point I want to make about it is that in this state, unlike under our federal legislation, we already have very tight controls about the size of the signage we can put up. It is one square metre basically; for instance, the little sign on top of my car is specifically designed not to infringe the one square metre rule.

If you are in the federal parliament, you could put up a sign as big as you want; indeed, before my first election, I was offered gratis by a supporter one of those giant billboards that go on the back of a car, and they were going to drive it around the electorate for the duration of the election campaign, but they were unable to do that because I could only put up, at best, a sign of one square metre. Indeed, all the corflutes are designed specifically to comply with that one square metre. So, it is not as though we are not already regulated in terms of what we can do to put the information out there.

However, it seems to me that taking away the right to put up corflutes in any public place—or to have any electoral advertising in any public place, including on a road—is detrimental to the nature of our freedom, our democracy, and the way it operates. On balance, therefore, whilst I recognise that people look at these corflutes and think of it as urban littering, it is for such a small period of time that, ultimately, I think the balance goes in favour of allowing the continued use of corflutes (even if it were more restricted) against the idea of abandoning them altogether. So, that is our position on that issue. A matter dear to the Attorney's heart, of course—

Mr Pisoni interjecting:

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Sorry?

Mr Pisoni: How many people did you talk to on the corner of Bond and Bertie on the 14th?

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: We had about 15.

Mr Pisoni: Not at one time.

Mrs Geraghty: Would you two like to go outside and have your conversation?

Mrs REDMOND: I thank the Government Whip.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: You should do it.

Mr Venning: Attorney-General, you ought to be a better example to everybody.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Mrs REDMOND: Perhaps I will move to an issue which is clearly near and dear to the Attorney's heart, which is the issue of the registration of political parties. Currently, a party seeking registration under the state Electoral Act has to have either 150 members or an elected member of an Australian parliament. No doubt, the Attorney will be delighted to hear that I support the notion put forward by him that, first, we change that reference to Australian parliament and narrow it effectively to a reference to the South Australian parliament so that, instead of having recognition instantly of someone as a party in this state because someone has a registered member in another state, we will require under the proposed provision that either the purported party have an elected member in the state parliament in one or other house or an elected member in the federal parliament who is elected from the state of South Australia. That seems to me to be eminently sensible.

It prevents, for instance—and I know to some extent I am making up the situation—the following scenario: if Pauline Hanson had stood as Pauline Hanson, member of One Nation, for the seat of Beaudesert in the Queensland elections last weekend and had been elected thereto, under the current provisions, that would have entitled One Nation automatic registration as a political party in South Australia. That is the narrowing which the Attorney-General is addressing in the first part of this particular aspect of registering political parties.

What will happen now is that, if someone is elected to this parliament, be it the House of Assembly or the Legislative Council, or someone is elected to the federal parliament from South Australia, that will entitle you to automatic registration as a political party in South Australia, but not otherwise. So, the alternative for anyone else wanting to be registered as a political party in South Australia will be that you have to have a certain number of members.

At present, we require in this state that there be only 150 members of a political party. I have had a look at the other states. The only other state that has a lower number is Tasmania, which requires only 100 registrants to be recognised as a political party. Western Australia requires 750, and most of the other states, from memory, require 500; certainly, New South Wales requires 500.

The argument put by the Attorney in his second reading is essentially that the provision which proposes that we increase to 500 from 150 is because we want to avoid sham political parties being able to register. There is some merit in that argument. However, again, it is a matter of reaching a balance. The balance is: what is magical about 500 people as opposed to 150 people? If 150 people genuinely got together and said,' We want to form a new political party', why will that not be allowed, but 500 will be accepted?

The Liberal Party has agreed not to oppose this change. We accept that there is some validity in the idea that we do not want to waste time with sham political parties forming but, whilst we do not oppose the figure of 500, I indicate that I do not see any magic in that particular figure. It is reasonably consistent around the country, so we will not be opposing it.

The provisions in this bill go on to provide that, once you have registered a political party, you cannot contest an election within six months. Again, these issues have been subjected to quite considerable debate within our party room, because they do touch on fundamental principles. It is within contemplation, for instance, that an issue could arise shortly before an election—three or four months before an election, let us say—that so agitates people that they are prepared to get their required number of registrants together and form a political party and fight on a particular issue.

That being said, we then need to contemplate where, again, the balance needs to be struck. If we are going to have a provision that requires that there be registration, and that registration will have to be tested for its bona fides by the state Electoral Commission, which will have to do either some sort of spot check auditing type thing or literally go through every one of the 500 or however many people listed as the new members of this newly registered party, then we do have to allow for the state Electoral Commission to test that they are genuine registrants and they are not fictitious names and addresses: they are actual electors who are entitled to be taken into account to form this party.

We accept that there may need to be some delay between the time when a party first registers and when it can contest an election; however, we formed the view that six months is probably longer than is needed. Our preliminary view—and I remain open to be persuaded in another direction—is that two months ought to be sufficient for the Electoral Commission to check the bona fides of a newly registered party and its registrant members to enable that party to contest an election.

As I said, there could be any number of reasons why a party might want to form very quickly to contest an election, and it is only reasonable, in our view, in terms of the operation of our democracy, that it be allowed to do so subject to some reasonable rules about whether it can be registered as a party.

Our view is that probably two months is a sufficient time frame from registration to enable the necessary auditing or testing process to ensure that it is not a sham party and that it does not have sham addresses but, subject to that testing, it should be entitled to contest the election as the party that has been registered.

Within this whole area of registration of political parties, however, we then get onto what is probably the most difficult aspect, that is, the issue of the names of parties. The intention, I think, of the legislation is to stop a contestant or candidate from misleading the public about their political alliance and political thinking and misleading people into voting for them on a false premise.

I do not think that there is any dispute about that, and I think we are at one about the legitimacy of that concern. It is intended, of course, to prevent someone from, say, standing as an Independent Liberal when they may have nothing to do with the Liberal Party and may be diametrically opposed to everything that the Liberal Party stands for. However, by putting the term 'liberal' into their title, they may think that that is going to get them more votes. So, in principle, the idea is good.

However, it gets very complicated, and this had to be the area during the briefing we had (which as I said, went for three hours) that was the subject of the most difficulty because where, for instance, does that place Country Labor? We all know that in the recent Frome by-election the ALP would not even run a candidate under its own banner.

Ms Breuer: Absolute rubbish! Shows you what you know.

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mrs REDMOND: In spite of that, it still had a 16 per cent loss of vote, but I am not here to discuss that. The fact is that its candidate ran under the banner 'Country Labor'. When we questioned the Electoral Commissioner about it, she confirmed that, indeed, the membership of Country Labor is exactly the same as the membership of the Australian Labor Party. She called it an affiliate but, if you look in the legislation, there is no reference to any capacity to recognise affiliates.

It may be that what we should do is amend the legislation so that we could recognise affiliates and then we could all register everything. Just as McDonald's has certain trademarks like the golden arches, Macca's and all sorts of other things that are all names for the same organisation, maybe we need to have the capacity to register, say, that the ALP has these affiliates called 'Country Labor' or maybe 'Suburban Labor', or whatever they are going to register, so that people will be able to see quite apparently that when they dress themselves up as Country Labor it is, in fact, still Labor. So, there is that problem.

The next problem, however, is that the provision also talks about using the name of a public institution. I have no doubt that one of the debates in the next election is going to be the issue of the Glenside Hospital. What if, separately to Labor and Liberal, a group of local people—or even a group of not so local people but a group of concerned people—form a registered political party and they want to call it 'Save Glenside Hospital Party'? That is obviously what it has been formed to do; that is its only agenda. It is forming for the specific purpose of running for election on the fundamental principle of saving Glenside Hospital.

It seems to me (and it seemed to be confirmed in the briefing) that they would not be able to register that party because that would be using the name of a public institution. In my view of the world, it in no way suggests that the Glenside Hospital (the campus, the employees, the government, whoever is running it) is actually saying that it is forming the political party. Nevertheless, using the name of that major public institution appears likely to offend the proposed provisions, and I think that is wrong. I think that the residents, or whoever, should be entitled to form their party and call it the Save the Glenside Hospital Party, because that is exactly what it is being formed to do and, subject to meeting the requirements of registering as a political party, whatever they may turn out to be, contest an election under that name.

It does get to be very complicated when you start talking about this idea of who can register and what names they can use. As I said, I think we are at one on the issue of not allowing people to use names that are misleading. One might wonder at times to what extent the term 'independent' could be misleading. It would seem to me that there could be many people who would call themselves independent who are, in fact, already aligned with political parties.

I think the examples I have been giving will make it amply clear that, whilst we do not have a philosophical difficulty with what the government is trying to achieve in preventing the registration of what were referred to in the second reading explanation as 'sham political parties' and in preventing people from giving themselves a brand which misleads the public and which would prevent the election process from being as open and transparent as it needs to be, but we do have considerable difficulty with some of the propositions through which the government seeks to achieve that outcome. Quite frankly, based on the responses we received during the briefing, we are not satisfied that a number of those proposed measures will indeed lead to the outcome that the government intends.

Once again, we need to be very careful. I think this is a very, very serious bill. It is all very well to think of it in the rough and tumble of this place but, at the end of the day, what we are really talking about is the principles on which our democracy operates in this state and how we will address issues in the long term. I do not want to see us in this debate merely concentrating on tomorrow's headline or the next election, or anything else.

It is interesting to note, of course, that, in terms of the issue of the corflutes and electoral advertising, peculiarly, the government wants that to operate only for the election next year and the election in 2014. Pardon me for being cynical, but I think the government has an ulterior agenda in putting forward a proposition that will operate only for the next election and the one after that, and then, no, we will not have it after that.

As I have said, we will not oppose the change to 500, although we see no magic in that particular number as the minimum number for registration, but we grant you that, other than Tasmania, we have the lowest number required for registration of a political party. We support the change to restrict recognition of a political party in South Australia to people having an elected member either in this state or from this state in the federal arena. We oppose the provision which prevents a party from contesting a state election within six months, but we do so on the basis that we simply say that it should be a shorter period. There needs to be some break between the registration and when you can actually contest an election as that party, but it does not need to be as long as six months.

The issue of the ability to refuse to register a party which incorporates either another party's name or the name of a public institution is an issue upon which we have not actually reached a conclusion at this stage, because we want more clarity about just how that is going to operate in practice. That will no doubt come about during what I expect will be a fairly lengthy consideration of this bill during the committee stage. We will come to a conclusion after we hear the government's position on that.

The next issue that I want to deal with is that of compulsory enrolment. It is an interesting proposition, really. When the Attorney-General went on radio to promote this bill, he made it very clear—a matter which I think is clear already—that in this state it is not compulsory to vote: it is only compulsory to attend at a polling place, get your name marked off and collect your papers. It does not matter what you do with the papers: you can shove them in your pocket and walk out. You do not have to actually vote. There is no compulsion to vote.

The proposition in this bill is that we will make it compulsory to enrol to vote. It strikes me as somewhat incongruous that we are going to make it compulsory to enrol; so, someone can be compulsorily made to attend, but it is still not compulsory to vote. The Liberal Party position is that we do not think it should be compulsory anyway, so we do not agree with the proposition. A number of people, of course, think it is compulsory to enrol because, in the commonwealth legislation, it is compulsory to enrol.

However, you have to be alive to the issue that, when you enrol, it is actually a two-sided form: one side is the commonwealth enrolment and one side is the state enrolment. It is true that, if you choose to, you can simply fill out and sign one side—the compulsory side—and become enrolled as is compulsory for commonwealth voting, but it is not compulsory to sign the other side and become enrolled for state voting. That is a quirky little thing but, given that our position has long been that we do not actually accept the idea of compulsion to vote—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Although your party introduced it, at both federal and state levels.

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mrs REDMOND: —we think that, really, it is inconsistent for us to then say that this is a good idea. As I go through the discussion on this bill, it will become obvious why the briefing took so long—because there were so many sort of curly questions. The bill talks about compulsory enrolment and transfer. Putting aside the initial enrolment—and that is one issue—there is then the issue of what happens if you move. Technically, the requirement is that, if you move and live in a new place for one month, you have 21 days within which to enrol. So, effectively, about seven weeks after you move, you should be enrolled at your new address.

What the legislation says is that it will be compulsory to make a claim for enrolment within 21 days of becoming entitled to enrol. So, that will be within 21 days of—well, I am not really quite sure. To be fair, it was not an issue that was explored at the briefing. I was going to say within 21 days of turning 18, because that is when you are entitled to vote; but, indeed, you are entitled to enrol at the age of 17. Therefore, perhaps the correct reading of that particular part of the legislation is that you will be liable to a fine if, within 21 days of attaining the age of 17, you have not enrolled.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

Mrs REDMOND: I am saying to the Attorney that the provision is that it is compulsory to make a claim for enrolment within 21 days of becoming entitled to enrol. If it is at 17, that is one proposition. If it is at 18, that is a different proposition, since at 18 you are legally an adult. In any event, whichever way that turns out to be addressed, as I said, no doubt we will be addressing these issues at some length in the committee stage.

What it then says is that if you fail to make the claim for enrolment in those circumstances, that is, as soon as you become eligible to enrol, there is a fine of $75, but proceedings for an offence cannot be commenced after a claim for enrolment has been made. I think that is a fairly simplified way of saying, 'Okay, what is going to happen is that you become entitled to enrol because you have lived at the place for long enough or you have turned 18, or whatever it is, and you failed to put in your form.'

The Electoral Commissioner will write to you. He might write a warning, or he could send a fine notice, but he will not proceed against you for that failure if you then enrol. But the way it is worded is it says, 'proceedings for an offence'. I asked a number of questions of the Electoral Commissioner about just what that meant because it is one thing to have the ability to impose a fine, but 'proceedings' really contemplates court action.

The question then becomes: are you saying that once someone has not enrolled and you have issued the fine, you will then commence court proceedings against them to take action against them for failure to enrol, and possibly failure to pay the fine—none of this was clear at the briefing—and it is only when someone enrols at that point that this bit of the legislation applies, that they cannot then commence legal proceedings if the person in the meantime lodges their enrolment?

It is worth noting at this point, on this particular issue, that the Electoral Commissioner was not able to give any instances of where people have actually been fined for failure to enrol, failure to attend to vote and so on. You may recall that fairly recently we had a by-election in the federal seat of Mayo and for some reason a large percentage of the population did not become aware that voting in that election was compulsory. Something like 20 per cent of the population did not vote, and a lot of letters went out to people saying—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: 20 per cent of the enrolled people, not the population.

Mrs REDMOND: Sorry, the Attorney corrects me, quite correctly—20 per cent of those enrolled to vote did not vote. That was a massive non-turnout. We are one of the few countries in the world where turning up at the polling place (but not voting) is compulsory and, therefore, we have a very high voter turnout at elections, consistently. Yet at this election, because it was a by-election people did not even think about it, they did not recognise that it was going to be compulsory and they did not show up.

Now, what happened? I know, for a fact, that the Electoral Commissioner sent out lots and lots of letters, because my second son got one of them. He did not vote, not because he was not here to vote but because he was overseas. He did not forget, he happened to be genuinely overseas, and he had to write and explain that he was overseas, and he could show from his passport that he was overseas at the time and was, indeed, in transit and did not vote.

So, I know that letters went out from the Electoral Commissioner about failure to vote, but the Electoral Commissioner did not indicate during our briefing that people have been fined, let alone that any proceedings have ever been issued for failure to enrol. As I said, it is going to be an issue which we will explore in some depth at the time of the committee stage because it does not make a lot of sense.

One of the other things we contemplated in thinking about this particular issue was: what if you have, say, a teenager or young adult in your household who becomes entitled to enrol, is perfectly happy to enrol and does enrol but who then leaves home to live with a mate for a couple of months? Technically, having lived at a different address for one month, plus the requisite 21 days, they should then change their enrolment and enrol at that new address. They might then move to somewhere else for another couple of months, and it can become quite complex.

I would think that the reality, in practical terms, for most of those young people is that, for quite a while, they leave their enrolment address at their own home rather than changing to a new address. However, what this says is that if they fail (after their seven weeks or thereabouts—their month plus 21 days) to enrol at that new address they are in breach of this legislation and liable to a $75 fine. So, that was yet another topic that became one of considerable discussion. The other issue related to that, of course, is: how on earth is the Electoral Commissioner going to know? Ultimately, when we thought about all of this, as I said, our longstanding position was that we do not think that voting should be compulsory, so it is inconsistent with our fundamental position to then make enrolment compulsory.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

Mrs REDMOND: In any event, it is, to us, a nonsense to make it compulsory to enrol and make it compulsory to attend at a polling place when, in any event, it is not compulsory to actually vote. It does not make a lot of sense to us to go down that particular path. I will be interested in getting some more information about this in due course.

The next issue that I will commence addressing is the issue of access to electoral rolls. The Attorney will no doubt be happy to know that, fundamentally, we agree with the essence of the proposition in relation to the ability to utilise electronic data rather than hard copies of the electoral rolls. Personally, I still find it quirky that the members of the Legislative Council, being elected for the whole of the state of South Australia, can access the rolls for the whole of South Australia, but if I want access to those rolls (as the member for Heysen) I can only get direct access to the electoral roll for the electorate of Heysen.

Ms Bedford: Phone a friend!

Mrs REDMOND: And, if I want to, I can—as the member for Florey says—phone a friend and get access to the electoral rolls for the whole state, but only through my colleagues in the upper house.

Mrs Geraghty: Go to the Electoral Commission and have a look at the rolls.

Mrs REDMOND: As the member for Torrens correctly points out, anyone at any time can go there and have a look at the electoral rolls. Indeed, again, that itself was the subject of considerable debate in the house, because some were concerned, for instance, about domestic violence situations. We have ultimately come to the conclusion that the proposition of the freedom to access that information for largely legitimate purposes outweighs the protection needs, inasmuch as there is already provision to have what is referred to as a silent listing. In fact, just like a silent listing telephone number, where you can still have a telephone but your number is not listed in the phone book, the same thing, effectively, can happen with the electoral rolls.

We considered that, on balance—although it is a very legitimate question—we did not favour moving from that proposition, and we do favour moving to the proposition whereby electronic data can be provided in lieu of hard copy rolls. The reality of that proposition, as I understand the information we were given at the briefing, is that it will thereby enable much more up-to-date information to be provided. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.


[Sitting suspended from 13:01 to 14:00]


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