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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-11-16 Daily Xml
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Electoral (Telephone Voting) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 2 November 2022.)

Mr BATTY (Bragg) (10:52): I rise to add my support to the Electoral (Telephone Voting) Amendment Bill 2022 and to commend the shadow minister, the member for Heysen, for bringing this bill before the house, and for the form in which he has brought the bill before the house as a standalone bill with a very targeted approach to a very specific issue.

While this bill might have a somewhat narrow scope, it has very broad and positive consequences of better allowing anyone in South Australia who is entitled to vote a better opportunity to do so. It does this by allowing for telephone voting in certain circumstances for certain voters, and the mechanism by which it achieves that is by inserting a new part 9, division 5B into the act, and what this does is allow for telephone voting for designated voters.

We know this is something that has been called for by the Electoral Commissioner. We know this is something that the Electoral Commissioner supports because it is going to assist a whole range of voters who might not otherwise be able to access our democracy to vote. Those voters are defined in this act and they fall into four broad categories.

The first of those is sight-impaired voters in our community. We already have division 5A in the act, which allows for some forms of electronic voting for our vision-impaired community. This bill complements division 5A and adds to it by specifically legislating to provide a more preferable form of electronic voting in the form of telephone voting for our vision-impaired community, which will broaden their access to our democratic system.

It is not just vision-impaired voters who already have the ability to vote in this way. This bill expands it to several other categories, the second of which is electors with disability. We know that there are many in our disabled community who would benefit from being able to vote by telephone. Once again, we see the policy justification here underpinning this idea of broadening our democracy, ensuring that all in our community who are entitled to vote have an opportunity to do so.

The third category of voter that this bill legislates to enable to vote by telephone is a category that I hope we have almost seen the back of and it is the COVID-19 elector. I hope that the days of needing such a category are somewhat behind us. The past few years of this pandemic have brought into focus the need for us to think about how we can better allow people to vote, whether they be the vision-impaired, the disabled or, as in this case, the housebound voters during the pandemic.

I commend the Electoral Commissioner—and the Electoral Commission—for the way he has handled an election year in COVID and the way he has allowed many electors to vote in ways that are suitable during a pandemic. Indeed, in my own by-election the Electoral Commissioner allowed Electoral Commission officials to visit COVID-19-affected voters in their homes. They went there with a ballot paper and waited while they filled it out as a declaration vote. That enabled those people, who might not otherwise be able to vote, to vote. This bill will make that process a lot more efficient and is another tool to allow such voters to vote.

The fourth and final category of voter who can vote by telephone as defined by this act is those who are overseas and specifically those who are out of Australia for the 12 days prior to election day. This is the type of voter who would not be able to avail themselves of a pre-poll opportunity at an early voting centre. These are voters who might not be able to avail themselves of the opportunity to submit or apply for a postal vote, particularly with the slow postal times that we are increasingly seeing. It will enable these people to vote.

In my own by-election, I had a number of voters come to me who were overseas on the date the by-election was called or who were leaving to go overseas on a date prior to postal vote applications opening or on a date that would not allow them to receive their papers in time. Unfortunately, the response to those electors at that time was they simply could not vote. These are people entitled to vote but who missed out on the opportunity to vote. Obviously, that is a situation that is best avoided, and that is exactly the situation this bill is seeking to avoid.

This is the next step in what has been a long range of initiatives in our system to enable people to vote in a broad way and in an accessible way, along with initiatives such as postal voting and an extended period of pre-polling. This is the next logical step to make our processes more open, accessible and inclusive to all voters who are entitled to vote.

It is not a new concept, of course. We have seen this idea work in state jurisdictions across the country. We have seen this idea work at federal elections. Indeed, just last week, we saw this idea work at a local government level right here in South Australia, and that was allowed by certain amendments to the Local Government (Elections) Act so that certain voters could vote by telephone. I am informed by the Electoral Commissioner that over 740 voters took up that opportunity to vote by telephone during the recent local government elections, so that is 740 voters who probably would not otherwise be able to vote—would be disenfranchised—without the ability to vote by telephone.

If it can work in other states, if it can work at a federal level, if it can work right here in South Australia at our local government elections just last week, I say the time is now for it to work at a state government level at elections in South Australia, and I commend this bill to the house.

Mr ODENWALDER (Elizabeth) (11:00): I move:

That the debate be adjourned.

The house divided on the motion:

Ayes 24

Noes 15

Majority 9

AYES

Andrews, S.E. Bettison, Z.L. Bignell, L.W.K.
Boyer, B.I. Brown, M.E. Champion, N.D.
Clancy, N.P. Cook, N.F. Fulbrook, J.P.
Hildyard, K.A. Hood, L.P. Hughes, E.J.
Koutsantonis, A. Malinauskas, P.B. Michaels, A.
Mullighan, S.C. Odenwalder, L.K. (teller) Pearce, R.K.
Piccolo, A. Picton, C.J. Savvas, O.M.
Stinson, J.M. Szakacs, J.K. Wortley, D.J.

NOES

Basham, D.K.B. Batty, J.A. Bell, T.S.
Cowdrey, M.J. Ellis, F.J. Gardner, J.A.W.
Hurn, A.M. Marshall, S.S. McBride, P.N.
Pederick, A.S. Pratt, P.K. Speirs, D.J.
Teague, J.B. (teller) Telfer, S.J. Whetstone, T.J.

PAIRS

Close, S.E. Pisoni, D.G. Hutchesson, C.L.
Patterson, S.J.R.

Motion thus carried; debate adjourned.

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