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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-02-23 Daily Xml
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Local Government Elections

Mr TELFER (Flinders) (14:43): My question is for the Minister for Local Government. What involvement, if any, did the minister, his office or the Office of Local Government have in the development of the Electoral Commission online processes?

The Hon. G.G. BROCK (Stuart—Minister for Local Government, Minister for Regional Roads, Minister for Veterans Affairs) (14:43): I just want to reinforce that the Electoral Commission's act, the way it was inherited by this parliament, was passed in 2021. The Electoral Commissioner is abiding by the legislation at that particular period of time, and the Electoral Commissioner was abiding by the legislation that was passed by this house in the previous parliament, which legislation was very clear. So, the previous parliament agreed to have the Electoral Commissioner as an independent person or an organisation away from the political stage. Therefore, the Electoral Commissioner would have had the legislation going through, which was passed, I think, in 2021. I'm not too sure what month it was. He did everything as per the legislation at the time.

Just going back to the member who asked me a question a couple of minutes ago, 'Did the Electoral Commissioner write to me?' No. Just to clarify, he contacted the Office of Local Government on that Wednesday I mentioned in the previous answer, and then after we found out the situation we are currently in, I requested a meeting with the Electoral Commissioner, which was after all the elections had been held and after the Electoral Commissioner had identified that there were 45 at that stage, or 46 candidates who didn't meet the legislative requirements of the second disclosure for transparency.

To answer the member's question, very clearly, the Electoral Commissioner followed everything as per the legislation at the time. We passed legislation in this house yesterday, and I consider it bipartisan in this chamber here, to overcome the situation we have inherited at the particular moment leading up to yesterday. I congratulate everybody and I want a speedy passage of that bill through the upper house.

Going forward from there, I cannot say anymore, except that the Electoral Commissioner under the previous parliament—the legislation is very clear that the Electoral Commissioner was independent of this house, as is the Ombudsman, SACAT and also the ICAC commissioner. I am not too sure where the member's question is going because he knows very well that he can't interfere because we have no involvement with the Electoral Commission.

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