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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-02-04 Daily Xml
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ELECTORAL (COST OF BY-ELECTIONS) AMENDMENT BILL

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. M. PARNELL (16:01): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Electoral Act 1985. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. M. PARNELL (16:02): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

In the lower house of this parliament and in most other parliaments, if a local member retires or resigns a by-election is held to fill that casual vacancy. My bill aims to sheet home the cost of unnecessary by-elections to the political party to which the retiring member belongs. If passed, the bill would provide that, in the event of early retirement, in the absence of a good reason (I will come back to what that means in a moment) the political party to which the member belongs will have two choices: either it can pay the cost of the by-election from its own party's resources, or it does not field a candidate in the subsequent by-election.

We recently had a by-election for the House of Assembly seat of Frome. I take this opportunity to congratulate the newly elected member for Frome, Geoff Brock, whom I met for the first time in the corridors yesterday, very much finding his way around the building, which is how he ended up near my office. The reason for this by-election was that the sitting member, former premier Rob Kerin, chose to retire. On 11 November last year The Plains Producer (the newspaper in the area) quoted Mr Kerin as saying:

'For a long time I have been holding on simply to save a by-election,' he said. 'However, the time has come where I feel burnt out with politics, and it would be disingenuous to continue. I feel I am no longer able to give the electorate what they deserve, and should therefore stand aside.'

I put on the record that I wish Mr Kerin all the best in his retirement. If he feels unable to contribute at an appropriate level then he probably made the right decision to go. Those of us outside the Liberal Party will probably never know all of the various considerations, both personal and political, that led to that and similar decisions. We know that many parties use by-elections as a method of succession planning so they can usher out the old and introduce the new.

Unfortunately for the Liberal Party, it did not go quite as it had hoped, and now we have a new Independent member for Frome. However, there is nothing in my bill that would prevent any member of the House of Assembly from resigning or retiring at any time they chose.

Any member can resign for any reason. What my bill does is sheet home the cost of unnecessary by-elections to the political party responsible. Whether it is Alexander Downer in the federal seat of Mayo or Rob Kerin in the seat of Frome, if somebody has stood for parliament, promising to stay for a full term and they decide to retire early, then taxpayers should not have to pick up the tab to find their replacement.

That may sound a fairly harsh position, until we have a look at the exemptions to this rule that my bill seeks to create. To give an example, when Tim Fischer, the then deputy prime minister and leader of the National Party, resigned in 1999 he cited family reasons as the motivation, in particular his desire to spend more time caring for his young son Harrison, who suffers from autism. No-one, to my knowledge, criticised him for that move.

However, Tim Fischer did not resign his seat and force a by-election: he only retired from his position of deputy prime minister and leader of his party. He, in fact, stayed on in his electorate with a lower workload and retired at the next general election. Let us say that Tim Fischer had retired from politics completely and resigned his seat at the time that he resigned as deputy prime minister, and let us say that he had forced a by-election. Under my bill, he and his party would have had a very good case to argue that the cost of the by-election should be borne by the taxpayer in the usual way because of the circumstances of his retirement.

We know that members of parliament get sick, some even die in office, and other members of parliament have carer responsibilities which they were not aware of when they were elected or which become more demanding after their election, and for those reasons they choose to retire early. I want to protect those people and their party from having to pay the cost of a by-election. I think they are reasonable reasons for someone to retire early. Simply being tired or having had enough, I do not think is a reason for the taxpayer to foot the bill for a by-election.

Let us look at what it costs to hold a by-election. I have looked at the cost of various by-elections around Australia, and they generally range between $250,000 and $300,000. I understand that the State Electoral Office will eventually produce a report and we will have, hopefully, some accurate figures then. However, my estimate, based on comparable by-elections interstate and the fact that this electorate has a largely rural component, is that the sum is probably close to $250,000 (so, a quarter of a million dollars).

As for the mechanics of the bill, and I offer this in lieu of a formal explanation of clauses, because it is a very simple bill, this is how it would work in practice: if a member of a registered political party retires early then the Electoral Commissioner would ask the party to pay the estimated cost of the by-election, unless the Electoral Commissioner was satisfied that there was some good reason why the party should not pay. The actual words in the bill are:

If the Electoral Commissioner is satisfied that the resignation was reasonably necessary due to circumstances beyond the member's control, for example, if the retirement was due to a medical condition of the member or of a person who relies on the member for care, the Electoral Commissioner may determine that this section does not apply.

My bill is not aimed at trying to force the unwell to stay in parliament; it is not designed to force people to choose between parliament and caring responsibilities. If people have a good reason to retire then the normal course of events (the taxpayer footing the bill) should apply. But if the party does not want to pay for the cost of the by-election and there is no good reason, then under my bill that party forfeits the right to run a candidate in the forthcoming by-election.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. M. PARNELL: Various soft interjections say this is 'undemocratic and harsh'. It seems to me that, when there is a quarter of a million dollars of taxpayers' funds being effectively wasted because someone does not last their full term and has no good reason for retiring, it is neither harsh nor undemocratic. Of course, if the party wants to run a candidate, it can, and it will pay the cost of the by-election. The point is that unnecessary by-elections are expensive and inconvenient, and the least we can do as a parliament is to reduce the burden on the public purse by requiring political parties to pick up the tab in those circumstances. I commend the bill to the council.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.M. Gazzola.

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