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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
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Parliamentary Committees (Electoral Laws and Practices Committee) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 4 June 2014.)

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (16:27): I rise to speak on the Parliamentary Committees (Electoral Laws and Practices Committee) Amendment Bill 2014, and I indicate to the house that I will be the lead speaker. I fully appreciate that this bill will more than likely pass the house today, but we will not be offering our support to it to pass because we do not believe that this should in any way supersede the bill that we currently have before the house to establish an independent inquiry into electoral reform here in South Australia.

It is fair to say that, following on from the election, there have been a number of things which have occurred to us in the Liberal Party that need to take place: we believe that there needs to be a review of the election itself; obviously we are required under our laws here in South Australia to review the electoral boundaries; and we unequivocally believe that there also needs to be some overarching reform of our system here in South Australia. I will briefly address those three areas.

After the election, in another place a select committee was established to review the 2014 election. This was done on 4 June. It is very disappointing, I think, that on 5 June the Labor members who had been appointed to this committee resigned. This select committee was specifically established to review the election result. Until 5 June it had enjoyed support from across all parties here in South Australia—certainly all those represented in this parliament—and it was extraordinarily disappointing that the government decided to act in what I think was a very disrespectful way towards that select committee that was established. I encourage the government to place representatives back onto that select committee, because I think there is a very genuine need for a review of the election.

I also highlighted that under our laws here in South Australia there has to be a review of the electoral boundaries. I will not harp on that today but it is something that needs to be done, and it needs to begin within 24 months of an election. I am not convinced that leaving it for 24 months to begin the review is ideal, because if that review starts, let us say, in the 24th month there may be some months taken for the determination to be made, or there may be an appeal. Quite frankly, I think there needs to be work done as soon as possible on that matter.

The Hon. J.R. Rau interjecting:

Mr MARSHALL: The Deputy Premier informs me that that used to be the case. I am not sure why that changed—

The Hon. J.R. Rau: Neither am I.

Mr MARSHALL: And neither is he. That is something we should definitely look at. We certainly need to have electoral reform here in South Australia, because we have a system which, although compliant with our law, is not really producing an outcome which is in accordance with the democratic view of the people.

Some people might suggest that I am raising this only because it is the Liberal Party that won the majority of votes in the election, and that I am somehow a sore loser. No; I am in here, in this parliament today, to champion the cause of democracy, because it seems like there are not many other people around this place who would like to champion the cause of the people of South Australia, who have been denied their democratic will with the election result here in South Australia in 2014.

Throughout history South Australia has used a variety of electoral systems. For example, between 1857 and 1929 we used the first-past-the-post electoral system here in South Australia. That would have produced a different result in the election. Between 1929 and 1936 we used the contingency voting system. I am not particularly familiar with this system, but it would have to be a better system than the one we currently have. Of course, from 1936 onwards we have used the preferential voting system here in South Australia.

We have also had differing requirements for the number of members per electoral district here in South Australia. For example, from 1888 we had 27 electorates which returned two members each; from 1901 one seat returned five members. So we had a variety of electoral systems here in South Australia over an extended period of time. At the moment, of course, our electoral system elects 47 individuals to the House of Assembly across 47 separate electoral contests. It is the individual, not the party, who holds the seat, and it is groupings of individual members that form the majority in the House of Assembly, which determines the government. Therein, of course, lies the problem.

The electoral system is not designed to award parliamentary seats on the basis of statewide support for parties or groups. However, there is a strong democratic argument, with solid community support, that the party with the highest statewide vote should govern.

This argument has been made by both South Australian major parties for more than 50 years here in South Australia. The two-party preferred vote is often used as the measure of statewide support, despite the fact that the vote has only an incidental relationship to the outcome of the 47 separate contests.

The combined outcome of the 47 separate contests determines the two PP; the two PP does not determine the outcome of the 47 separate contests. In the most extreme circumstances, it would be possible to win an assembly majority and government under the current electoral system with just 25.6 per cent of the statewide vote. It is true: 50 per cent plus one vote in 24 seats. Therein lies the problem for us here in South Australia.

Both the Labor Party and the Liberal Party have expressed their concerns about the electoral system. The year that I was born (1968) Labor won 52 per cent of the first preference votes but the Liberal Country League won government with the support of a country independent. Premier Dunstan at the time—after whom my electorate is currently named—said that he could ‘only regret'—

The Hon. S.W. Key: What do you mean ‘currently’?

Mr MARSHALL: Well, it was previously Norwood, when I was elected.

The Hon. S.W. Key: You’re not going to change it, are you?

Mr MARSHALL: Perish the thought.

The Hon. S.W. Key: Good, just making sure.

Mr MARSHALL: I am just saying that it is currently Dunstan and it was previously Norwood. Mr Dunstan could:

...only regret that Mr Stott has seen fit to make a statement of this kind which ignores the fact that the government has the support of the majority of electors and that Mr Stott was elected in Ridley on the preferences of those who wished the [Labor] government to remain in office.

For the six weeks between election day and the first day of sitting when Labor lost a vote on the floor of the house and lost government, Labor waged a one vote one value campaign—

Sounds good to me—

…[which referred] to Labor’s disadvantage due to the overconcentration of its support in safe seats, as well as to malapportionment.

At four of the last seven South Australian elections, governments that did not win the majority of the two-party preferred vote have been elected. Following the 1989 election—members of this place would remember in that election that Labor was re-elected despite the Liberal Party winning 52.1 per cent of the two-party preferred vote—the fairness clause was inserted into the Constitution Act 1934 by a referendum.

This required that distributions (1) be held after every election and (2) ensure as far as possible that boundaries are fair between groups of candidates, such that a group that wins the majority of votes at the election should win the majority of seats. This has clearly not been the case since 1989, and I have canvassed those thoughts in a previous contribution I made to another bill which is before the house at the moment.

I am not suggesting that the challenge of redistribution is an easy one. The Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission (EDBC) needs to essentially predict population changes. It also needs to predict voting intentions. These are not easy things to do. Of course, variability of swings has a major outcome. They are not uniform. This again, with our current electoral system, provides another layer of complexity, as does the conduct of Independents.

In our current parliament, of course, the three Independents all reside in seats with extraordinarily strong two-party preferred preference to the Liberal Party over the Labor Party. Yet, in our current situation, the member for Frome and the member for Waite have decided to support the Labor Party to form government. Poor choices as they be, they are completely legal.

The fairness clause in the Constitution Act has not delivered the fairness in electoral outcomes that was hoped for. While the Liberal Party needs to achieve what we can in upcoming redistributions, we need to be realistic about the limitations of the electoral system, the limited capacity of prospective redistributions to deliver fairness, given the concentration of majorities in Liberal seats at the moment.

If the party considers that the statewide vote should determine who governs, then fundamental reform of the electoral system needs to be considered. That is our party position, and that is why we believe unequivocally that we need to establish a statutory inquiry into our electoral system so that we can review the overall system. This is not what is being proposed by the bill currently before the house, and that is why I have made those comments. That is why we will not be supporting the bill here today, but we certainly appreciate that it will pass this house.

We have considerable concerns regarding this bill. We believe that once the overall electoral reform is effected here in South Australia, a standing committee of the parliament would be ideal to monitor that, but we do not believe that this body which is being proposed by the government will have the requisite skills and independence to come up with a system which is fair for all South Australians.

Do not forget we are not here as parliamentarians to design the system which is going to suit the government of the day or, for that matter, the opposition of the day, but for the people of South Australia we want a truly democratic outcome here in South Australia, and I think the people of South Australia have been denied this for an extended period of time. We have concerns regarding the membership of the committee as proposed by the government.

The Hon. J.R. Rau: You can be on it.

Mr MARSHALL: Whilst the Deputy Premier has offered me my own personal seat on this, whether he moves an amendment to enshrine my position on this committee permanently or not remains to be seen. We have had some indication from the government today that they will be moving an amendment to their own bill which essentially deletes the reference to a minister of the Crown being eligible and essentially substituting it with a clause which states that a minister of the Crown is not eligible to be appointed to the committee.

There will be, under this bill, four members elected from each house. One of those members must be from the opposition but with the government numbers, of course, it is likely that three members of the four from this house will be from the government. This means that the government will essentially have a minimum of four members on this eight-person committee. The government to date has been silent about whether the presiding member of the committee will have voting rights or just rights to break a tie in the unlikely case that we have three on each side and an abstention. So, we need to get clarification on that, because we certainly would not be supporting a government-controlled committee in this area.

The Hon. J.R. Rau interjecting:

Mr MARSHALL: The Deputy Premier raises the question of the select committee in the other place which is looking at the 2014 election and conducting a review, and again, I say to the Deputy Premier—he is complaining because there is no government representation on this committee. Well, let me tell you, that is not by design. That is completely and utterly the responsibility of the government, which appointed members to the committee on 4 June—

The Hon. J.R. Rau interjecting:

Mr MARSHALL: Well, presumably—I am not going to reflect on a vote in the other place, but I would just make the point that on 4 June the committee was established and there were Labor members appointed. On 5 June, those Labor members who had been appointed just 24 hours earlier—maybe even less than 24 hours—resigned. They were exhausted by the work that they had done in that year, and I think that they made it clear that their work there was done.

It is extraordinarily disrespectful of this government, which won less than 36 per cent of the primary vote at the election, and extraordinarily arrogant that a party that received less than 36 per cent should say, 'We are not even going to participate in a legitimately constituted select committee to look at the election.' It is extraordinary, yet this is what they want.

The Hon. J.R. Rau interjecting:

Mr MARSHALL: The deputy leader continues his disparaging remarks regarding the other place. He has made them over an extended period of time; they are legendary. Anyway, we certainly support the select committee which has been established in the other place, and we certainly support the establishment of a parliamentary inquiry into electoral reform here in South Australia. We will not be supporting this bill in this house. We appreciate that it may well pass today, and we will then look at what happens with regard to the progress of our bill currently before the house before we make a decision on exactly how we may or may not support the government's bill in the other place.

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (16:46): I will try not to repeat what our leader has just said, or necessarily go over the exact same ground, but let me take the opportunity also to quote something that the late Don Dunstan said in 1968, following the election where the Labor Party clearly won the two-party preferred vote but narrowly failed to have enough seats in the house to form government.

The Hon. J.R. Rau: Gerrymander.

Mr WILLIAMS: That is the second time the Deputy Premier has used the word 'gerrymander'. I thought that the Deputy Premier would actually understand a little more about electoral matters in South Australia. Prior to 1968, there was not a gerrymander in South Australia: there was a malapportionment.

The Hon. J.R. Rau: One man's gerrymander is another man's malapportionment.

Mr WILLIAMS: No. If you look at where the word—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Everyone needs to be quiet. It is unparliamentary to interject. I want to hear the member for MacKillop in silence.

Mr WILLIAMS: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for your protection. Let me explain to the house the difference between a malapportionment and a gerrymander, or more particularly explain what a gerrymander is. A gerrymander is where you draw electoral boundaries to advantage yourself. That is what a gerrymander is; that is not what South Australia had before 1968.

South Australia had a malapportionment where we had the state divided into two zones—the metropolitan zone and the country zone—and the seats in the country zones had fewer voters putting one member into the house than the city-based seats had; that was a malapportionment. Lo and behold, it was the Liberal Party under Steele Hall that recognised the unfairness of that and started the reform. What we have in South Australia today, quite clearly, is a gerrymander. It is quite clear that the boundaries are drawn such that one party is advantaged over the other.

Let me go back to where I wanted to start before the Deputy Premier interjected with that fine political term 'gerrymander', which is one which is very important and I may utilise more in my contribution. Don Dunstan, in 1968, made this statement: 'In order to win, we have not only to get the majority of votes, we have to beat the system.' Not only do we have to get the majority of votes, we have to beat the system. That is the exact situation that the Liberal Party finds itself in in South Australia today: not only do we have to get the majority of votes, we have to beat the system.

To illustrate my point, following the 2010 election where the Liberal Party won 51.6 per cent of the vote, the Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission redrew the boundaries, notwithstanding clause 83(1) of the Constitution Act, which basically says the party that wins 50 per cent of the vote plus one vote—and this is the two-party preferred vote statewide—should have an even chance of forming government. That is, they should have an even chance of winning enough seats to maintain a majority on the floor of the house. That is what the constitution says.

Notwithstanding that, the Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission in their report of 2012 which established the boundaries under which the most recent election was held drew up the new boundaries, then re-threw the votes from the 2010 election, box by box, on those new boundaries. If that commission was seriously addressing section 83(1) of the Constitution Act, it would have said that we have made a mistake, because what they came up with was, notwithstanding that the Liberal Party had won 51.6 per cent of the vote, when they applied that vote to their new boundaries the Labor Party still won 25 seats out of a 47-seat house.

To my mind, the commission got it terribly wrong and the commission knew it got it terribly wrong, because they have said as much in the report. The reality is that those of us who looked at that report at the time when it came out in 2012 said, 'Well, it is going to get harder. We have won 51.6 per cent of the vote, but now we are going to have to win damn near 54.6 per cent of the vote to have an even chance of winning'—not of winning, but to have an even chance of winning. Lo and behold, if you look at the figures from the most recent election, that is what transpired. The Liberal Party, to have won the additional seats to enable them to form government would have had to have won 54.6 per cent of the vote at least. That is the reality.

That is because the boundaries are drawn in such a way that Liberal Party votes are locked up in seats like the seat that I represent and Labor Party votes are spread more evenly over a wide number of seats, allowing the Labor Party to pick up more seats with a lower vote. I am delighted that the Deputy Premier introduced the word 'gerrymander', because that is a classic gerrymander. South Australia has a classic gerrymander. In South Australia, it is more difficult for the Liberal Party to win an election in this state than it ever was for the Labor Party to win an election in the days of Joh Bjelke-Peterson in Queensland. That is the reality.

Another thing that the Deputy Premier is wont to say with regard to the election in South Australia is that there is no such thing as the two-party preferred vote—that it is a mathematical construct are the words that he used. I will accept that, for instance, in 1968 when Don Dunstan said that not only did the Labor Party have to win the majority of votes but they had to beat the system as well, in those days the two-party preferred vote was a mathematical construct.

It was a mathematical construct because there was no way of determining exactly what the two-party preferred vote was, for a number of reasons, one being that a number of seats were not contested, so it was very hard to determine exactly what the vote would have been in those seats. Another was that the Electoral Commission, when it was counting the ballot, did not do an exhaustive count, and it did not distribute all of the preferences. Once it got to a point where they were able to declare a winner, they stopped distributing the preferences so nobody really knew what the two-party preferred vote was. But that did not stop Don Dunstan from declaring that he had won the two-party preferred vote.

Today, the Electoral Commission does indeed do an exhaustive count of the ballot. They keep counting the votes and keep distributing the preferences until there are only two candidates left. The Electoral Commission publishes those figures which give a very, very, very accurate representation of the two-party preferred vote.

For the Deputy Premier to suggest that it is a mathematical construct absolutely ignores the reality. We have a preferential voting system. How can we have a preferential voting system when people cannot indicate their preference? In the Constitution Act, in the law of the state, we have Clause 83(1) which says that the two-party preferred vote should be used by the Electoral District Boundaries Commission in redrawing the boundaries after each election. How would that be possible if there was no such thing as the two-party preferred vote?

The reality is the Deputy Premier, along with all his colleagues on that side, is very happy with the current situation. They are very happy to live and operate in a state where there is a gerrymander which supports them in government. They are very happy to accept the advantage that the electoral system in South Australia delivers to them.

We have seen, historically, how unhappy the Labor Party was when the electoral system of the day advantaged their opposition. We saw for years how unhappy the Labor Party were, but as soon as the electoral system advantages the Labor Party the Labor Party is very happy. Don Dunstan spent many years arguing 'one vote one value' and having the same number of electors in every seat—he spent years doing it.

When the Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission in the mid-1980s wrote to the then premier and to the then leader of the opposition and said, 'By the way, I think that parliament should change the law to allow us to do a redistribution because the numbers in the seats have got way out of kilter'—we had the seat of Elizabeth with about 15,000 voters and the seat of Fisher with 27-odd thousand voters—what did the Labor Party do? It did absolutely nothing, because they knew that they could take advantage of that situation in the upcoming election.

Lo and behold they were returned to government in 1989 without a majority of the two-party preferred vote: something like 48 per cent, as opposed to the Liberal opposition's 52 per cent. Bear in mind that the public backlash at that time was much greater than it is at the moment, because the debate that had happened not that many years before was still fresh in people's minds, the debate that had happened through the late 1960s and into the mid to late-1970s. It was still fresh in people's minds and the community were motivated to argue for reform, and that is what we did following the 1989 election and we saw the introduction of the fairness clause.

The select committee that was established by this house which brought about the introduction of the fairness clause in the early 1990s also recommended that we look at another scheme, another system, if we found that the fairness clause did not deliver what it should—and that is what is known as a top-up system. That was recommended by the select committee which was chaired by Don Hopgood, I believe, and it was recommended that they look after the ensuing election. Of course, the 1993 election was the State Bank election and you could not take very much out of that election—the swing was so great against the then sitting Labor government and, obviously, nothing has happened since, except that it has been proved election after election after election that the fairness clause does not work.

My concern with the bill before us today is that the government is not serious about electoral reform. The government is very happy to stick with the gerrymander. I have not heard one member of the government make one comment acknowledging that the people of South Australia want a different government. I have not heard one member of this government acknowledge that the people of South Australia wanted a different government in 2010 and they wanted a different government in 2014. It is the people of South Australia who have been dudded by this gerrymander.

Interestingly, one of the political commentators who has probably had more to say about electoral matters in South Australia than anybody else, Dr Dean Jaensch, wrote in his article in The Advertiser in I think the week following the March 2014 election that we have a serious problem with our electoral system and he suggested that we look across the Tasman at the system in New Zealand.

I can report to the house that, indeed, I went to New Zealand a few weeks ago and had a meeting with their electoral commission. I have been briefed and got a lot of information on their system. I am now working through that information, which includes a royal commission report into their system which was produced in the late 1980s.

They had the exact same situation that we have here in South Australia today. They had a situation where the will of the people was not reflected in the outcome of the election, in seats won and lost by the various parties. They instituted a royal commission and came up with a system of MMP, a multi member proportional system, in that country.

The Hon. J.R. Rau: What a system that is.

Mr WILLIAMS: It is an interesting system. I agree with the Deputy Premier that it is an interesting system. But what I can tell the Deputy Premier, and I think it is obvious to anybody who looks at the electoral history of South Australia, is that the system we have in South Australia does not deliver what the people of South Australia are asking for.

The concern the opposition has with the bill before the house is that we do not believe that the government, in proposing this, is serious about addressing the problems that we have with our electoral system. We believe that this is a bit of window-dressing designed to divert attention away from the key problem, that is, that we have an electoral system that does not allow the people of South Australia to get the government that they want. Just as importantly, it does not allow the people of South Australia to get rid of the government that they do not want.

We find ourselves in South Australia with no serious political competition. The Labor Party knows very well that it is almost impossible for it to be unseated and thrown out of government under the current electoral system, and it governs with that knowledge in the back of its head. That is why South Australia now enjoys a position, amongst the various jurisdictions of this nation, below Tasmania when you look at some of the key economic indicators.

That is why unemployment in South Australia is now below that of Tasmania, I would argue, because we do not have serious political competition. We have a government that has become both arrogant and tired, and the people of South Australia deserve something a hell of a lot better. They deserve something a hell of a lot better than somebody standing up and saying, 'Everything you are saying is wrong because the two-party preferred vote is a mathematical construct. There is no such thing, really.'

The reality is that the majority of people in South Australia know that the electoral system here is wrong, because they want to get rid of this government and they have been wanting to get rid of it for eight years. There is no better demonstration of a flawed system which thwarts the will of the people, and that is what we have got in South Australia. It is a classic gerrymander.

The Hon. T.R. Kenyon: It’s not a gerrymander. You don’t know what a gerrymander is.

Mr WILLIAMS: It is a classic gerrymander. A gerrymander is when you draw boundaries to advantage yourself.

The Hon. T.R. Kenyon: Yes; we don’t draw them.

Mr WILLIAMS: I know you don't draw them. Let me quote what the electoral commissioner told the Legislative Council select committee last week. She said:

The Westminster system of government requires that the party that wins the most number of seats or districts forms government, not whether they have won most of the two-party preferred vote.

Well, hello, Electoral Commissioner! Have you not read section 83(1) of the Constitution Act, which says that the party that wins 50 per cent of the two-party preferred vote, plus one vote, should have an equal chance of winning government?

In South Australia, the Liberal Party has to win over 54 per cent of the vote before it gets within cooee of having an equal chance of winning, and the Labor Party can win less than 46 per  cent of the vote and still win government. I do not think anybody in their right mind would suggest that that is not a gerrymander.

The noise that is coming from the Deputy Premier and his cheer squad over there only convinces me more that the matter that he has put before us today is designed to be a smokescreen. It is designed not to get serious reform of our electoral system in South Australia. It is designed to stop the people of South Australia from getting their will at the ballot box. That is what this matter is designed to do, and that is why the Liberal opposition believes that it cannot support it here and, when it gets to the other place, we will be submitting a number of amendments.

Time expired.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Treasurer, Minister for Finance, Minister for State Development, Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy, Minister for Small Business) (17:06): Very interesting remarks by the member for MacKillop, whose understanding of our electoral system I think is basically—I do not want to call it naïve because I think that would be unfair.

The Hon. J.R. Rau: To the naïve.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: It would be unfair to the naïve. So I suppose I will pose a hypothetical question to the member for MacKillop: what if the Australian Labor Party only contested 24 seats and won them? Would he have the Electoral Commissioner then overturn the result because we were unable to achieve a majority of the two-party preferred vote, even though we won a majority of the 47 seats in the House of Assembly?

That little light bulb moment he just had then—well, hopefully he did—makes you realise that this is not about the two-party preferred vote—it never has been—and that is why the Liberal Party is consigned to another four years of opposition. It makes the mistake that it has made for generations, that is, not understanding how to campaign in marginal seats.

I do not think it is the member for MacKillop's fault, because he actually won his marginal seat. He knocked off a former Liberal leader when it was marginal and then made it safe, so he is good at winning marginal seats, he is just bad at doing it anywhere outside regional South Australia. When all this is over—and halfway through their fourth term of opposition—there may be some quiet reflection about why they are in the predicament that they are in.

Perhaps, rather than looking to blame the Electoral Commissioner, the volunteers on election day, the Australian Labor Party, Family First or anyone else, they may have a moment where they think to themselves: 'What was our internal party structure? Who were the people in the room making the decisions about what policies we would have and who we were targeting? Was it wise to target all our expenditure and tax cuts at an elite group of people who are already voting Liberal? Was it perhaps not the right approach to choose candidates not on the basis of their appeal locally but because of their appeal within the Liberal Party?'

Perhaps then the member for MacKillop will have what alcoholics have, which is a moment of clarity, when they realise that everything they have been doing for the last 16 years has been a failure, and it has been a failure not because it is anyone else's fault but because it is theirs. It is in my interest for you to continue to blame the Electoral Commissioner. It is in my interest for you to continue to blame everyone else but yourselves. The last thing I would want you to do is to ever look inwards and say: 'Ah, here is the real problem!'

I prefer your model: lash out at the world, blame the Electoral Commission, make stupid submissions to the Redistribution Committee like you always do, campaign badly in marginal seats—continue—spend money in seats you are never going to lose, by all means. I can tell you that if I caught my party secretary spending a dollar in the seat of MacKillop, we would sack him. But you all championed it. I can imagine afterwards, after the election, in their party room: 'Look at my margin; it's 26 per cent!' You are a genius; what a genius. You lost Ashford though, you lost Elder. You are geniuses.

Of course, it is never your own fault; it is always someone else's. Then you go to the high moral ground about principles of democracy, and you accuse the Electoral Commissioner of corruption. Then you say it is a gerrymander. Well quite frankly, if your honest, intellectual argument to this parliament is that there is an imposed gerrymander on the Liberal Party you have lost the idea of why you keep on losing elections; you do not understand the basic principles of marginal seat campaigning and our system of government. You just do not understand it. My moment of clarity is that when your opponent is making mistakes, do not get in their way.

An honourable member: Sun Tzu.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Sun Tzu; he was absolutely right. My guess is that you will continue to make these mistakes because you go down this moral argument of 'We've got more votes than you and therefore we deserve to win.' If it were a PR ballot you are right, but it is not a PR  ballot. It is a series of ballots in a series of districts, and you have to win a majority of them. It is that simple. If you do not understand that then I cannot help you, no-one can.

Perhaps another four years of sitting in opposition, idle, might make you fundamentally realise that you are not the smartest guy in the room, and that you have been doing something wrong for the last 16 years. My guess is that you will not, because the one smart guy in the room is leaving. What is left? The same strategists, the same people; you promote the same, old tired voices to your front bench and they give you the same old strategy. You leave your young ones on the backbench to be squandered, to get lazy. That is what you do; that is the Liberal Party way. You have good leaders and you tear them down. Why do you tear them down? No particular reason: you are bored—

The Hon. T.R. Kenyon: Don't like them.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: You don't like them; there is some feud that went on 30  years ago, whatever it might be. I have to say that I was listening to the cries, in my office, of the Leader of the Opposition, quoting Dunstan when he was winning, I think, 53 per cent of the primary vote—not the two-party preferred vote—and losing. I heard this at the 2010 election as well. When they count through Independents, they cannot win their own seats and they count their votes as theirs, it astonishes me that they can actually make an honest, intellectual argument and keep a straight face. My guess is that the new breed, the ones sitting quietly at the back, the member for Bright, the member for—

An honourable member: Hartley.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: No; I said the new breed, not the accidental MPs.

An honourable member: Schubert.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Schubert, the member for Mitchell. These are the ones who will watch the mistakes of the last 16 years, and it will be 16 years by the time they face another election. I suspect what will happen with the Liberal Party is that they will enter that campaign with the same mindset that they were robbed, with the same mindset and the same policies as last time—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: 'We have to do nothing to win. It's our turn and we'll curl up into a small ball, make the government the issue and we'll be elected by default.' That will fail. Of course, we can lose and we may lose, but I tell you what: if we lose because we did not win a majority of votes in a majority of seats none of us will complain. All the seats are roughly the same size, all the seats have roughly the same amount of population, and the Electoral Commission has done its very best to give you every opportunity; but we cannot help your own incompetence.

With those few remarks—I think balanced remarks, unbiased in my time here—I will finish up by saying one thing. When I was first preselected, the Liberal Party held 37 seats in this chamber. I was preselected in 1994. Then the member for Torrens passed away and we won that by-election. That by-election triggered a series of events that are still having a domino effect today in the Liberal Party; they are panic and fear. What you have seen is a premier torn down, another premier torn down, a leader of the opposition and then subsequent leaders of the opposition torn down, until we have got to this point where you have gone to an election with everyone—the media, the business community, the public—all expecting you to win, and you lost.

I think eventually there will be a reckoning within the Liberal Party. I am looking forward to watching it from the sidelines and watching you actually work out what is going on, but I suspect that they will not. That is why your colleagues in Canberra and interstate think you are a joke. Again, the worst thing that has ever happened to you guys is that the one smart guy in the room is retiring. He is leaving. He is leaving because he is probably fed up and has had enough of watching all of you lose.

I am glad you have promoted Rob Lucas. I am glad there has been minimal change to the shadow cabinet. I am glad that the campaign strategists who have got you to this point are still calling the shots, and I am glad that you have not changed the Leader of the Opposition.

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (17:15): I just want to comment on this particular piece of legislation. I will comment on the Treasurer’s remarks simply in this context. Of course, the winners can always rewrite history about why they might have won or why oppositions have lost, and there will be much analysis of that from both the Labor and Liberal point of view. What the Treasurer is arguing, of course, is that they played the game better under the existing rules. There is no doubt about that, they won the game.

I want to speak today about whether the existing rules serve the South Australian voter. I am not going to comment about whether there is a gerrymander or a malapportionment, or whatever the various descriptions might be; to me, that is irrelevant. To me, there is just a very simple principle: is the voting system serving the South Australian voter? The answer to that is no. It is a very simple test. Go and ask the public. If the majority of South Australian voters vote for a particular party, do they want that party to govern?

The answer from the public is yes. So I argue that while the Labor  Party and the Liberal Party have won government under the current rules in various ways, the current rules do not serve the South Australian voter, because the current rules allow for errors of judgement to be made by people in authority, or people providing information to the people in authority, which can lead to outcomes that are more difficult for one side than the other.

I just make the very simple point that Australia has a GST and the majority of Australians voted against it. Mr Beazley got the majority of the Australian vote against Mr Howard on the GST  election. So how does the Labor Party, which opposed the introduction of the GST, reconcile its position that the majority of Australians, having voted against the GST, deserved to get it? They deserved to get it for what reason? According to the Treasurer, who just spoke, they deserved to get it because under the rules of the game, as long as you win enough of the electorates—

An honourable member: Because they formed government.

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: Then they formed government, yes. I ask the philosophical question: is that the way forward for the voter of South Australia? I say that it is not the way forward. I say that the system does not serve the voter. What the member for West Torrens has just told this house— and go and read the Attorney-General’s speech when I gave a speech on this previously— what they have said to the house is that they are never going to campaign in seats they cannot win. That is fine. I am glad that that is on the record because it strengthens my argument.

The reality is that the current system disengages the majority of South Australians from the ballot. The reality is that, if you take what are known as safe Labor seats and what are known as safe Liberal seats, they are not campaigned in to any great extent. So, people living in Port Adelaide who vote Labor or Liberal will never in their lifetime impact the outcome of government—never. Port Adelaide will be a Labor seat for as long as it exists, for the next hundred years. I think that is generally acknowledged.

The Hon. T.R. Kenyon: Except when it's won by an Independent.

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: Who is a former Labor guy—give us a break. The reality is that it would serve the voting public—and the member for Newland laughs, that's fine. If I was on the winning side, I might be as arrogant as to ignore the errors in the system as well. The reality is this: if you went to a system that said that the government will be formed by the party who wins the statewide vote, political parties would have to campaign in the seats they currently do not campaign in, because all of a sudden a Liberal vote in Port Adelaide or a Labor vote in Burnside could impact the outcome of government.

What it would do is reinvigorate the whole electoral process. Why should the public accept the Labor Party position that is now formally on the record by two of their senior ministers? They are simply not going to worry about the Flinders, the MacKillops, the Barossa Valleys, etc. Why should the voting public accept that, and why is that good for democracy? It is not good for democracy. Democracy demands that the voter is engaged in the process, that there is a battle across the state, and I accept the fact that the Labor Party have been better at running campaigns under the current system. I put that aside; I am not arguing that point. I am arguing that the current system does not serve the voter, because surely the one principle of democracy is that, if the majority of the state vote for a particular party, that party should govern.

I say to the Treasurer, he may well be lucky I am leaving, because if I was in a position of influence coming to the next year's budget, what I would do is defeat the budget unless the government agreed to a referendum on that principal question. The principal question is: if the majority of the state vote for a party, do you want that party to form government? Let me tell you, my view is that the public—both Labor and Liberal, Green, Democrat—would vote for that principle in a landslide. Because if you think of the principle of democracy, the principle of democracy has to be that the majority rules.

The quaint system we have, brought out of England under the Westminster system, when everyone was on foot, when Robin Hood was a boy, when there were no cars, no phones, no electricity—of course they had natural electorates and had their local representatives, because that was the way it had to work because of the construct of the community. These days, of course, with modern transportation, modern telecommunications and modern information systems, you have to ask the question of whether that system actually serves the voter.

I say to the government: I would tread very carefully on your arrogance on this issue, because we should not be designing the system to suit one party or the other. We should be designing the system to deliver to the voter the government they want. Go to a referendum and ask the public one very simple question: do you want the party that wins 50 per cent plus one of the vote—the majority of the vote—to form government? The answer to that question will be yes.

If the government and the opposition do not have the guts to stand up for that principle and want to try and manipulate the system to favour one party or the other, or indeed the two major parties, then I think the public will have their say at a ballot in the future. What I would do is force the parliament into having a referendum on that question before the next election, and then have the legislation drafted to take effect from the 2022 election to give everyone a chance to adjust to the new system.

The reality is: why should electorates be ignored by the party in government? 'I am going to totally ignore your electorate. You are not relevant to me because I can win these 24 here.' That is the way the system is played at the moment, and I accept that. They have outgunned us on that—I accept that—but I just make the point: how is that good for democracy?

I do not argue the point about whether there is a gerrymander or whatever. I argue that the point is the parliament sets the rules, and do the current rules serve the voter? It does not matter which way you cut and dice it, there is only one answer to that question. The voting public are not getting the government they vote for.

They did not get it when Beazley beat Howard in the GST election. Here is a party in government—the South Australian Labor Party—that have riled against the GST. They hate the GST. Former Labor governments, since the introduction, refused to change it, of course, having opposed it. They did not reintroduce a different system; they were quite happy to leave it there. The reality is, having opposed the GST, they are now going to sit back and say, even though Australia voted against the GST, they deserve to have it because that is how the game is played.

I think the question needs to be asked: do we need to change the way the game is played? I think you have to go back to fundamental principles. If the majority of South Australians vote for a particular party, that party should form government.

The Hon. J.R. Rau: That is true, but that is not what 2PP is about.

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: In reality, it is. The reality is that, whatever you have to do then to introduce that system, if it is a top-up system, which I personally favour—I spoke about it in 2010 after that election and wrote some Advertiser editorials on it—

The Hon. T.R. Kenyon interjecting:

The Hon. I.F. EVANS: Op-eds, yes. I wish I could write The Advertiser editorial; it would be very handy. I personally favour some form of top-up system, but there are other methods. Whatever the evil of those systems, it is less than the evil of having a system that allows the majority of the state to be outvoted by the minority of the state. Name me another organisation that exists where the minority can outvote the majority. The reality is, if you were setting up an organisation, you would not allow that to happen in a membership-based organisation.

I argue that what the government is doing with this is, as the member for MacKillop says, a smokescreen and a stalling position. I would encourage those who are thinking about this issue seriously to really lay down the gauntlet to the government.

This is not the Liberal Party view. As people know, I am not here for much longer, but it would not faze me if the government were forced to have a referendum on this matter in the next 12 months because I think the public will vote for a change, and then we could put the change in place and have it in place for the 2022 election, which would give everyone six years to be educated about the new system and put all the procedures in place.

I speak on this as a matter of principle. The current rules do not reward the voter. They do not reward the voter because they do not get the government they vote for. Political parties openly admit that they ignore vast slabs of the state because there is not a vote there for them. How is that good for democracy? If you translate that to the cabinet room, they would be saying, on expenditure, 'We will not spend money here, there or there because there is not a vote for us. We will spend it in the marginal seats.'

If you went to a system, as I am advocating, where the principle of the statewide vote wins, then there is no such thing as a marginal seat. All of a sudden the expenditure at the cabinet level is done on the economic and social merits not on the political merit. It is folklore that Frank Blevins as Treasurer used to take in the voting pattern for all the booths and when cabinet submissions came up from his colleagues he would say, 'What are we spending money for, they don't vote for us.'

At the end of the day I simply ask the question, 'How is that good for the voter?' So now this debate is before the house I think we have to ask the question, not who is best at playing the existing rules—that is a bit like arguing why did Norwood win the '78 grand final, you can argue that all day, that does not matter—but, more to the point, does the system serve the voter?

I stood my first polling booth when I was eight. I have been involved in every election campaign for 46 years, federal and state, and I have served in cabinet and I have seen how it works. My view is that the current system does not serve the voter. It is time for the parliament to deal with it. We can put it out one or two elections so that everyone has time to adjust, but I would love to have a public meeting and debate anyone on the other side. I will argue that the majority votes should win, and they can argue that the minority votes should win, and I think the town hall will be on the side of, if the majority votes for a particular party they should form government.

The South Australian public understands that principle, they want that principle, and I think the parliament is duty bound to put in place a process to deliver that principle. If the government does not want to do it, then I am hoping that the other parties will have the courage to do whatever is necessary to force the government into a referendum on that question, because I think the public knows there is something wrong with the system and they want a clear direction to fix it.

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (17:31): I was particularly interested in the comments from the member for Davenport who I think has been slightly more sensible in some of his remarks than some of his colleagues on the opposition side in that he is actually talking about some ideas on what he would like to do for the current system. I would bring that back to the content of this actual bill which is to establish a committee to look at the election process for South Australia.

Let's support this committee, let's set up an institution of this parliament that is a permanent body to examine the electoral process for South Australia and examine the conduct of elections and a whole range of other matters, and the Liberal Party can bring their ideas to that body to consider. The Labor Party can brings its ideas and minor parties and Independents can bring their ideas, and examine relevant witnesses from a whole range of fields including the Electoral Commissioner, and develop recommendations and reports to improve democracy in South Australia.

That is unfortunately not the position of the Liberal Party in this chamber at this time. They are not supporting this bill which would improve the accountability of our democratic system in this place. What they are actually supporting is an Upper House inquiry that is completely one sided. It does not have government appointees on it; it is a Liberal-devised and Liberal-run committee which is established basically to give them the answer that they desire and to allow them to grill on all of their pet issues.

There are not any bipartisan attempts to look at the electoral process in South Australia and seek improvement and, bizarrely, we have members of this house arguing that members of the House of Assembly should not be involved in that process, and members of this house arguing that we should be excluded from examining the conduct of our elections and our democracy in South Australia, and that we should leave it all up to the Legislative Council to look at, and no-one here has a contribution to make at all.

Whereas what I think we have in this bill is a balance of houses—four from the Legislative Council and four from the House of Assembly. We have a balance of government, opposition and minor party Independent members who will all look at this matter, and we have a similar system to what happens in the commonwealth and other states and territories around the country where you have a permanent body that has a long-term view of improving the system, not a haphazard select committee approach as has happened in recent parliaments.

I have been disappointed, I have to say, that since coming into this parliament—and I know other new members on this side have been disappointed as well—that we have heard speech after speech through Address in Reply, Appropriation and Supply bills, of complaints and whingeing from the opposition about the electoral result. They have not been producing ideas for what they want to do for the state—what challenges we face and how we should address them—but there has been a whole lot of whingeing about the result of the 2014 election.

Of course, their ideas have almost all been entirely around the premise that we have some other system in place in South Australia than the one we currently have, but there are very few policies on what system we should have. There has been this general idea that the two-party preferred vote should determine what the government of South Australia is but no actual idea or plan—apart from the member for Davenport who has apparently written lengthy articles on this process—but very few actual proposals from the opposition.

What we have in South Australia is the Westminster system. It is the same system that is in place in almost all the other states in Australia apart from Tasmania which has a Hare-Clark system, and I do not hear anybody from the opposition calling for the Hare-Clark system—that would see a huge range of minor parties enter this House of Assembly.

We have the same system of single-member electorates which can result in people winning 24 out of 47 seats without winning—as the Attorney has put it—the theoretical construct of the two-party preferred vote. And it is a theoretical construct for a number of reasons: one is that, as the Treasurer has mentioned, there is no requirement that parties need to run in every seat.

We have made a decision as the Labor Party to run in every seat and the Liberal Party has made the decision to run in every seat, but that does not need to be the case at all. We could run in 24 seats and we could win 24 seats and form government and that would give a very low two-party preferred vote. It would mean that we have campaigned in those seats and represent the majority of the seats of South Australia. That is the same system that is in place in Victoria, New South Wales, the commonwealth, or the United Kingdom.

Also, we do not necessarily always have to have a two-party system. Just look at the United Kingdom parliament which has three major parties—although one is going into huge decline after aligning with the Conservatives there, but they do have three major parties that compete to be the government there, and there is no reason why, necessarily, we would have two parties. So I do not know how you would devise a constitution around two particular parties that might not always be the case, in 20, 50 or 100 years time. But I would love to see them devise and put to this committee a proposal for how you could do that, because I do not think it is possible.

The other thing it does not take into account is Independents. We know in the result from the 2014 election that had the Liberal Party won its traditional seats of Frome and Fisher that I would not be standing here. I would probably be back where the member for Bright is right now on the opposition benches because they would be in government. They would have won 24 seats out of this parliament if they had just won the traditional seats that they have held over a long period of time. Instead, there have been Independents elected, and we welcome that. There should be the absolute right for Independents to run in our parliament, and I do not think it would be possible to devise such a system that could change that back.

I also thought it was particularly interesting to hear the member for Davenport raise the 1998 election which is, of course, when the Howard government won a majority of seats despite not winning a majority of the two-party preferred vote. Apparently, the member for Davenport did not oppose the GST and did not support the re-election of the Howard government in 1998. I have been busily searching the records of Hansard and The Advertiser to try and find the member for Davenport's complaints at the time that the Howard government was re-elected—

The Hon. T.R. Kenyon: When he was a minister.

Mr PICTON: That's right, when he was a minister. I have been struggling to find that. The fact is that he supported the Howard government at that time and he is now conveniently saying that he did not support their re-election because it suits his argument at this time.

What we have got is the Liberal Party supporting an upper house inquiry, which is a complete stunt. It is one-sided, dominated by the Liberal Party and does not involve both the houses. No member in this house gets to have a say in the conduct of that inquiry, and it is not a permanent inquiry. It is not something that is going to be able to build a collective knowledge of improvements for the electoral system, as opposed to our standing committees which work over a long period of time and develop a good body of work to base their reports on.

We have also heard a lot of discussion about the fairness clause which is in place in our constitution. Despite what the member for MacKillop was angrily saying in his remarks, the fairness clause does not say that people who win the majority of the two-party vote should form government. It says that that should be what the boundaries commission uses in its determination in making the boundaries, which is exactly what it does.

If people do not like the determination that the boundaries commission makes—independently of government, including a Supreme Court justice sitting on that panel—they have the right to appeal that, which the Liberal Party did not do prior to the last election, despite their complaints about that process now.

What we have is this fairness clause in the constitution, which is quite unique to South Australia. You see a lot of commentary (including from commentators such as Antony Green) that this is unique and an oddity for South Australia to have this clause, but we do have this clause, as opposed to other states that use community of interest to determine their boundaries. If the Liberal Party wants to get rid of the fairness clause and go back to community of interest, then I would, for my part, welcome that discussion.

I think the Labor Party would absolutely welcome that and we would see some better results for voters on the ground who have very odd boundaries set upon them such as people just outside of my electorate in Sellicks Beach who, if they want to go and visit their local MP's office, have to travel all the way to Victor Harbor, as opposed to where they used to be in the electorate of Kaurna, which was located much closer. People raise that with me all the time.

That is a decision that the boundaries commission has made to juggle the weightings and the votes in particular electorates. What we do not have is that clause in other states, in the commonwealth or in the United Kingdom. It was a clause devised by the Liberal Party, proposed by them and pushed for by them after the 1989 election.

So, what we are hearing is criticism of a system that the Liberal Party helped to devise, which I think really says it all, and without any proper proposal for how it should be fixed. If they do have a proposal, they should support this bill, support there being a proper review mechanism for this parliament to look at elections and put it to the committee to discuss and get an airing in the public. Otherwise, if they do not want to do that, they should use time in this chamber to debate the important issues of how we can improve the lives for South Australians.

The Hon. T.R. KENYON (Newland) (17:43): I will be very brief, I think, in my comments. As usual, the member for Davenport makes a decent contribution to this chamber, and I suspect he will be sadly missed, but I will make some more comments on that at the appropriate time. However, I have a problem with his concept that the 2PP vote should be the basis for the statewide vote.

The 2PP basis is set up to allow the boundaries commission to do its job, but the very much reduced participation of the Labor Party in safe Liberal seats means that it is a vote that is not an accurate reflection, necessarily, of how people would vote in the event that it was a statewide election, which is partly the point the member for Davenport was making on the effect of including all seats or campaigning broadly across all seats.

The fair way, or the way that just about everybody else uses, to calculate a statewide vote—a nationwide vote, in some cases—is, first, proportional representation, which some people may support but I certainly would not, because it is very difficult for governments to be formed, and governments that can actually do anything, and I would not support a PR vote. You either do proportional representation, which is a percentage of first preference votes, or a first past the post. That is the accurate way to determine the statewide vote.

Interestingly, the seat of Newland would have been won by the current member for Newland (myself) in either definition of first past the post or 2PP, but the 2PP vote is not the correct calculation to be using, because it is distorted. I accept his argument insofar as he is attempting to bring other seats into the equation, but he is basing the need for it on a vote that is distorted by the Labor Party particularly conforming to the current rules and the current laws. He is saying that, because the Labor Party conforms to the current laws and uses them as well as it possibly can to achieve an election result, the system is flawed because the vote does what it is intended to do.

There are some interesting points to be made. I think the committee that this bill proposes to set up is actually the place to be having those debates, because they can be drawn out over a long period of time and given greater consideration than perhaps a debate in parliament might allow us. However, there are some flaws in the member for Davenport's argument that need to be taken into account. I think both Labor and Liberal safe seats do come into the equation: you need to protect your base to secure electoral victory. To secure government you protect your base, but if you ignore your own base it becomes open to an Independent.

In fact, the member for MacKillop got into this place by running as an Independent in what has traditionally been a Liberal-held seat, then he eventually went back to the Liberal Party. People in safe seats count, but for different reasons and in different ways. I do not think there is ever a position where people do not count. I certainly find that if there are cuts proposed by the state Labor government, for instance in health care in regional areas, that is an issue that people in my electorate take to heart. I have had street corner meetings repeatedly where health care in country areas has come up as an issue of concern to my electorate. So, the concern of people in the electorate and the broader electorate is not just localised; they also have a concern for their fellow South Australians and for the state. With those words, I very strongly support this bill.

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Minister for Industrial Relations) (17:48): I thank all members for their contributions in relation to this bill. I want to make a few very quick points. First of all, like other speakers who have spoken in the last few moments, I do acknowledge the clarity with which the member for Davenport examined this question and the way in which he was able to extract fundamental principles out of it. He actually elevated the conversation, albeit, I think, with some errors in his contribution, but I will come to that in a minute.

I do make it clear that, as far as I am concerned, the government is very, very interested in electoral reform—very interested—and we are interested in reform to the Electoral Act as well. That is why we are asking to have a committee, which is a committee of both houses of parliament, so that both houses can participate in the preparation of recommendations for us all to consider.

The opposition has a position where it is asking for an independent inquiry. Some members have been here for a little while and some have been here for longer than me, but there is something I have learned about this place in the time I have been here, and that is that anybody who thinks they are going to tell members of parliament how to run parliament from outside—in other words, not a peer but some other person—has got rocks in their head. All you will be doing is wasting everybody's time. It would be the equivalent of the Catholic Church appointing an academic to report on how it should deal with difficult and complex theological issues: (a) it would never happen, and (b) whatever the report said it would be ignored and thrown straight into the bin, and quite rightly so.

This is what we are dealing with here. The absurdity of appointing someone like, with the greatest respect, Mr Mackerras or Professor Dean Jaensch—or perhaps even the compere of Hey Hey It's Saturday, who knows—someone external, to do this inquiry and make recommendations is absurd and ridiculous. It would mean that the report would be doomed to failure, because when it got here everyone would go, 'What would that clown know about it?'—and quite rightly so.

That is the dumbest idea I think I have ever heard in this place, and that is a big statement. If we are going to get any buy-in from the parliament for electoral reform, the parliament has to be involved in the evolution of those ideas. If it is not then we are wasting our time and we are just kidding ourselves.

My second point is that any reference to the select committee in the other place and anything relevant to progress in this space is purely accidental. The idea that a kangaroo court established on the basis that members of the government were actually appointed without even being asked, and were then pilloried for having resigned once they discovered they were stuck on a committee they did not want to be on, that pretty well says it all. There we have the upper house committee appointed to look into this house. Goodness me; at least we are saying a committee of both houses to look at the whole lot. We can work out our own stuff out without having people in the other place work out solutions for us.

The other point I would like to make is that I cannot let the member for MacKillop's contribution go without a couple of remarks on it. Again, particularly for the newer members, the member for MacKillop has absolutely classic comic timing. A lot of the stuff he is saying to us is tongue in cheek, you need to understand this. I think he even might be auditioning for TheX Factor or one of those programs, in the comedy skits. He is very good, he keeps a straight face. There are a couple of things—

The Hon. S.W. Key interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I am coming to that. There are a couple of things about Tovarich over there that people do not know. The first point is that he is a river to his people. In fact, 76.7 per cent two-party preferred (not first preference, but two-party preferred) actually preferred him. As best I can recall, except for the members for Stuart and Flinders, he is the most popular democratically elected person since Saddam Hussein—and that is a very big statement, because Saddam used to get in the 90s regularly.

I am not suggesting, by the way, member for MacKillop, that there is anything approaching his electioneering tactics being employed there. I know it is genuine affection, because I have been to your part of the world and enjoyed it very much, and I know that you are held in very high regard. However, what the member for MacKillop was suggesting is that there is some conspiracy going on here to lock the Liberal Party out—which, incidentally, is not what the member for Davenport was saying.

He is acknowledging that there is a set of rules, and they know what they are and we know what they are; we just happen to have been fortunate enough to have played better than them, and he was big enough to say that. What the member for MacKillop was suggesting is that there is some conspiracy out there. That is out there with Area 51 and Apollo 11 being filmed in Universal Studios. If you believe that then you believe that Harold Holt is living in Penola with Elvis and John Lennon. It is just not right.

The situation, as far as I can see it, is this: we have to accept, at a very fundamental level, that when people go to vote, are we going to say 'You cannot vote for a person; you have to vote for a party'? I tell you what: just as people in this room have been saying 'Oh, if you asked anybody they would say a majority of votes,' well yes, a majority of votes, literally, yes. Two party preferred: does that equal a majority of votes? We have already canvassed that. No; it does not.

But ask those same people, member for MacKillop, ‘Do you want to have the right to pick your own person to represent you or do you want to have a party list served up to you by a bunch of faceless men and women who reside in Leigh Street or somewhere else? Do you want this group of faceless people? You don’t even know who these characters are. You just get to tick the box—do I like the People’s Progress Party or the Democratic Party of Korea, or whatever?’ Tick, tick; is that all they get?

The list system and all of that may get you away from the possibility of the two-party preferred vote which, as I said, is of limited value as an indicator of anything. It may get you away from that, being out of sync with the electoral outcome, but I will tell you what it does not do. It does not hand over—in order to solve that perceived problem—control of who goes into the parliament to faceless people who compile lists for party-list purposes.

What about the Independents and what about the other parties that are not part of the two parties that get to be in the two-party preferred show? What about them, who speaks for them? You cannot move away from single-member electorates without confronting all of those problems, but again, thank goodness this committee will be able to deal with all those complexities. I do not know the answer to those things but I do know that this committee is the way to solve them. I thank everyone for their contribution.

Bill read a second time.

Sitting extended beyond 18:00 on motion of Hon. J.R. Rau.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clauses 1 to 3 passed.

Clause 4.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I move:

Page 3, lines 33 to 35 [clause 4, inserted section 15Q(2)]—Delete subsection (2) and substitute:

(2) A Minister of the Crown is not eligible for appointment to the Committee.

Ms CHAPMAN: I indicate that, as has been confirmed by the leader, we are not supporting this bill. One of the defects that we see in the composition of the committee is the opportunity for members of the ministry to be on it and that it be a paid committee. So, in respect of at least the former we see it as an improvement to not allow ministers of the Crown to be members of the committee, so we support the same.

Amendment carried; clause as amended passed.

Schedule and title passed.

Bill reported with amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Minister for Industrial Relations) (17:58): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.


At 17:59 the house adjourned until Thursday 7 August 2014 at 10:30.


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HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
CONTACT