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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-03-07 Daily Xml
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ELECTORAL (MISCELLANEOUS) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 21 February 2013.)

The Hon. S.G. WADE (16:34): I rise on behalf of the Liberal opposition to indicate our in-principle support for the Electoral (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill. We will be tabling amendments, nonetheless. From the early days of South Australian history, democracy has been a central part of the life and aspirations of the colony, the province and now the state. In 1851 South Australia was granted a partially elected Legislative Council to represent the interests of South Australians. It was a progressive reform that laid the foundations of the democratic state we now enjoy. In 1856, South Australia was the first Australian colony to introduce full voting rights to males over the age of 21. It was also in that year that South Australia introduced the secret ballot. The following year, in 1857, South Australia achieved self-government, and from that self-government the state flourished as a world leader in democratic reform.

Australians often forget that Aboriginal men also received the vote at the same time as other citizens in South Australia in 1857. In 1894, South Australia was the second place in the world, after New Zealand, to give women the right to vote, and it was the first in the world to allow women to stand for parliament. With the abolition of the requirement to own land and the enfranchisement of younger and broader cross-sections of the community, our democracy has strengthened. Our electoral fairness clause is a contemporary example of that reformist tradition continuing.

However, Labor's abuse of the electoral system has cast a shadow over our democracy. Its acts have undermined the confidence of South Australians not only in their government but also in their laws. When a governing party can get away with deception, win an election on a minority of votes, and then have the contempt to claim a mandate, South Australians have the right to feel not only let down but angry.

Ironically, in deceiving voters in four electorates with fake how-to-vote cards, the Labor Party showed its true colours. This followed on the coat-tails of attempts to stifle internet comment, forcing voters to disclose their address on the internet if they wanted to participate in democratic debate online. It followed a multitude of dodgy election promises. Time and time again we see the Labor Party gagging party officials, lashing out when these officials give honest, frank opinion. The Labor Party continually runs roughshod over community views.

In this place, perhaps the most classic example of the contempt of the Labor Party for democracy is its attempts to abolish the Legislative Council. This chamber serves as a vibrant, defiant declaration of pluralism in this state. Since Labor tried to abolish the council in 2009, for the first time in a century crossbenchers have become a larger group in this council than either the Labor Party or Liberal Party contingents. This council continues to prove itself to be an innovative chamber where a variety of views are heard, considered and, at times, adopted.

Labor struggles with the idea of pluralism. It arrogantly asserts its intellectual and moral superiority and denies the legitimacy of dissenting views. These are the seeds of a one-party state, where all dissenting views are hidden. We have all been victims of Labor's dirty tricks—from the impersonation of Family First to the disenfranchisement of voters with a disability and the stifling of dissent, we have all witnessed Labor's underhand election tactics. We come to consider this bill in this context.

The bill proposes a number of changes, including the requirement to include political party affiliation in the authorisation line of election material, the prohibition of the issuing of postal votes by political parties, synergising commonwealth and state electoral rolls, and the removal of the 2009 internet censorship provisions that require a person to disclose their name and address in online comment. Some of the reforms have their origins in the select committee established on 26 May 2010 by this council to inquire into matters related to the general election of 20 March 2010.

As I alluded to before, one of the key issues that led to the establishment of the select committee was the Labor Party's use of bogus how-to-vote cards, and one of the key tasks of the select committee was to identify measures that may be necessary to ensure that electors are not misled in the future. I remind the house again of the deplorable behaviour of the Australian Labor Party that led to the committee being established.

In four electorates at the March 2010 election, the Australian Labor Party distributed bogus how-to-vote cards. It used Family First's light blue colours and included on the how-to-vote card the statement, 'Put your Family First'. The cards named the individual House of Assembly electorate and identified the respective Family First candidate as first preference, with an arrow and the words, 'Start voting here', which suggested a preference vote flowed, placing the ALP candidate above the Liberal candidate. In all four seats, the Family First-authorised how-to-vote card recommended that its supporters place the Family First candidate first with preferences to the Liberal candidate before the Labor candidate.

Formal complaints were laid by the Liberal Party and Family First in response. The Electoral Commissioner advised that in her view there had been no breach of the act. In any event, the cards were broadly condemned as misleading by academics, journalists and the wider community. In The Independent Weekly of 26 March, Flinders University political scientist Professor Dean Jaensch described the cards as:

...the worst example of its kind I have seen in a 40 year career. It is deceitful, deliberately designed to mislead voters, no doubt at that.

The Sunday Mail of 28 March published an editorial which read in part, 'Vote cards a betrayal of trust.' It read:

The appalling behaviour of the Australian Labor Party in the state election has damaged the relationship between citizens and the government far more than it appears to realise or care.

Let us be clear about what Labor did in their dodgy how-to-vote card scandal. They had their own followers disguise themselves as rival party supporters in what appeared to be a cynical, cold-blooded and calculated attempt to trick voters into believing that they were from Family First and then duped them to steal the preference votes that Family First had every right to allocate. Labor's candidates who participated in this grab for power by allowing voters to be deliberately tricked, should be aware that their victories will be forever tarnished, if not illegitimate. While they enjoy the fruits of office, the damage they have wrought on our political system is significant. The public's faith in those who seek office has been significantly eroded and the price on that trust is beyond measure.

I am surprised none of the Labor Party failed to appear before the select committee to justify its behaviour. The majority of the select committee found:

The distribution of bogus how-to-vote cards by the Australian Labor Party in selected marginal seats of the 2010 general election fell short of community expectations of the standards of a political party and undermined public trust in the democratic processes of the state.

The fact that the dissenting report demurs from that finding raises questions as to whether the Labor Party has listened to the people. The Labor Party was embarrassed, not because they were sorry but because they were caught out. The community backlash that followed made it perfectly clear that this behaviour falls short of community expectations. The public has made it clear the incident has undermined its trust in the democratic processes of the state.

The select committee found that whilst the use of bogus how-to-vote cards in the 2010 election did not change the result in any seat at the election, there is a real risk that bogus how-to-vote cards could determine a seat in the future or even a government, but it does not stop at how-to-vote cards. Almost all the reforms in this bill are proposed as a direct result of bad behaviour by the Labor Party. The how-to-vote card provisions are clearly to be a direct response to their bad behaviour. I am told the Liberal Party has never been cautioned about its conduct in helping voters cast a postal vote where they need to, yet this bill proposes to ban parties from doing so. I can only assume that the supposed evil that is being addressed is evil being perpetrated by the Labor Party.

The reversion of the disclosure requirements for online comment are a direct response to the Labor Party's attempt to force every person to publish their address online. In an ideal world where everyone behaves as they should, there would be no need to introduce laws to cover every possible misdemeanour that could occur, yet that is exactly what we find ourselves having to do as a result of the poisonous political culture that pervades the Labor Party. Dodgy how-to-vote cards in South Australia, Obeid in New South Wales, Thomson in Canberra. Even Labor's supposed attempts to address this culture continue to fail public expectations.

At the time of the interim report of the select committee on matters relating to the general election of March 2010, the government had tabled a bill which it claimed would address the problem. That bill sought to enact a provision rejected by the council in its consideration of the Electoral (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2009, which included provisions relating to how-to-vote cards. This council supported two sections of the Electoral Act, sections 112A and 112B, which the government said would deal with bogus how-to-vote cards. Section 351 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act was enacted in 1940 following concern that the Communist Party had issued material that suggested electors should vote for a particular Labor candidate with their own candidate as number two.

Section 351 has been in the commonwealth act for 71 years, yet there has never been a successful prosecution under it. In fact, the Australian Electoral Commission has recommended that section 351 be considered for repeal as it does not apply to the second preference how-to-vote cards increasingly being distributed at federal elections and does not appear to have any relevant contemporary application. Further, the AEC states:

In the light of the unusual historical origins of section 351, its lack of application to contemporary circumstances and the current difficulties about its interpretation for those who are endeavouring to understand and apply the law, the AEC restates its view that section 351 should be considered for repeal.

The select committee recommended that the government's 2010 Electoral Amendment Act should not proceed. Yet, it took this government another two years to bring legislation back to this parliament and again, as in 2009, we find ourselves determining the rules for the next election a year out from the election itself.

While we support the bill in principle, the bill has a number of elements we have significant concerns about and we will be tabling amendments to highlight those concerns. In our view, a number of the measures are designed to both advantage the Labor Party and let them continue with business as usual. We are keen to see reform in this area. South Australians have been demanding it and are expecting it, but we also need to ensure that the bill reflects democratic fairness. We need to ensure that it maximises the opportunity to participate. We need to make sure that electoral laws reflect the democratic spirit of the state, not the self-serving interests of a party.

It is very important for the future of this state that we reassert our determination to maintain a fair playing ground so that the people of this state can elect members to this parliament to represent their interests in a fair and open manner.

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (16:47): Certain parts of the Electoral (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill are the result of the events in March 2010 on the day of the last state election, as the Hon. Mr Wade has just outlined in some detail. As was well reported at the time, the Labor campaign workers attending some polling booths were wearing blue T-shirts which read on the front of them 'Put your family first' using the words of our very first campaign slogan from just over a decade ago. The words 'family first' were in large capital letters that you really could not miss.

This was intended to (and did, of course) give the appearance that they were representatives of the Family First Party. They stood at the polling booths in the electorates of Mawson, Morialta, Light and Hartley and handed out how-to-vote cards indicating a primary vote for Family First and then a preference for Labor. Of course, it is nothing new to this chamber that these were not how-to-vote cards issued by the Family First Party but were cards prepared on behalf of the Labor Party or at least certain senior members of it.

It is clear that their intention was to mislead voters into thinking that those wearing the T-shirts were from the Family First Party and that Family First had intended its preferences to go to Labor when, as the Hon. Mr Wade has just outlined and many other speakers have and will no doubt, the intended preference in each of those four seats was actually to a Liberal candidate.

I do not think I have said this in this chamber before as I am somewhat reserved with my language, that is my nature and I think it is the appropriate way to conduct ourselves, but it was disgusting behaviour. It really was. It was a slight on our democracy. The premier at the time, the Hon. Mike Rann, acknowledged that and in his words it was 'disgusting' and 'untrue' behaviour.

The Hon. T.J. Stephens interjecting:

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD: Well, that's right, after the event it does not mean much, but those are his words not my words, although I join him in using those words. As we all know, free and fair elections are the cornerstone of democracy and any actions that mislead voters in an election place democracy itself in jeopardy.

Soon after the election in 2010, as I have just suggested, the premier at the time (Hon. Mike Rann) acknowledged that these tactics should not have been used and undertook to have the legislation passed before the next election to prevent a recurrence. Given the public reaction, he had little choice but to do that. This bill incorporates the changes to the law for that purpose as well as other changes, and obviously Family First will be supporting this bill and welcomes it. I was a member of the committee that the Hon. Stephen Wade chaired which looked at this very issue.

The changes concerning how-to-vote cards regulate and formalise the process of the use of these cards which will make this sort of thing impossible in the future. It is something that we should never see again in this state. It was deceptive—plainly deceptive—and the premier at the time acknowledged that.

The bill provides for the harmonisation of state and commonwealth electoral rolls. In particular, the state electoral roll will be updated automatically in line with changes to the commonwealth electoral roll, which is appropriate. This makes the enrolling procedure simpler for voters and is therefore beneficial. The process for updating changes of address for itinerant workers will be simplified. There are changes to advertising rules, of course, including a requirement that political advertisements disclose the party that authorises them. I agree that this will assist voters in making an informed decision, and Family First supports it.

The postal vote procedure has also changed. No longer will political parties have an official role to play in distributing postal vote applications, but parties will have access to relevant information as to applicants so that they can distribute election material to them. This is an appropriate change, and Family First supports it. The bill also changes the tenure of future deputy commissioners to a five-year term rather than an appointment until the age of 65, as is currently the case. One reappointment is possible. This is in line with modern expectations and consistent with other statutory appointments.

It would be remiss of me to conclude my speech on this bill without mentioning some of the media reports at the time; they are absolutely damning. One of them, entitled 'Family First slams Labor's dirty tricks', published in The Australian on 22 March 2010, just a few days after the election, names the individuals that were involved and specifically names candidates Grace Portolesi and Leon Bignell, who said they did not know the tactic was used in their electorates. I understand that they have since changed their position on that. In fact, that article directly quotes the Hon. Ms Portolesi, as she is now known, as follows:

'The Liberal Party is certainly not beyond its own dirty tricks...so my conscience is very clear,' said Ms Portolesi, favourite to retain Hartley.

That would suggest that she was indeed aware of it. We know the seats that this occurred in—they have been outlined—the four seats that the Hon. Stephen Wade mentioned and that I mentioned in my speech a moment ago. I would like to end on a positive note, if I may. I think so terrible was this action that I would be shocked if we ever saw it again. In fact, this bill will essentially stop it from occurring again. However, I would like to mention two candidates on the Labor side who did the right thing.

The Hon. Tom Kenyon, the member for Newland, is in a very tight seat. He has said publicly that he was contacted by his head office at the time explaining their tactics for the upcoming election and asked if he wanted to be a part of that particular deception. He declined, and that is a credit to him. He is in a marginal seat. You can understand the temptation, if you like, although it is certainly not something I would do. I want to pay credit to the member for Newland for that. The temptation would have been to involve himself in the deception. He did not, and that is a credit to him. I also understand that is true of the member for Bright, the Hon. Chloe Fox. She is in a very, very marginal seat. I understand she won the seat by 100 votes in the end—or less, perhaps. She also is credited for having turned down participation in this deception, and that is a credit to her.

The Hon. R.P. Wortley: They'll be worthy of your preferences at the next election.

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD: Well, that's a matter for later, Hon. Mr Wortley. I am not one to make histrionics in this chamber, I am not one to sing and dance about things, but clearly this was wrong. Clearly this was wrong. I think it was despicable and I hold it in contempt. I think this bill will fix it once and for all, and it is entirely appropriate.

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (16:54): I rise to express my support for the Electoral (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill. I will keep my remarks brief, especially in light of the fact that there is broad support for elements of the bill. The bill has led me to consider our extraordinary good fortune in being born in, growing up in and, indeed, having a very particular role in a very robust democracy here in South Australia. I have been reflecting on the nature of democracy and on the electoral system that underpins the system we are privileged to enjoy. As Aung San Suu Kyi once said:

I've always tried to explain that democracy is not perfect. But it gives you a chance to shape your own destiny.

I will return to that theme shortly, but in the meantime I want to commend the bill under discussion.

Electoral reform is an ongoing process, and it is one that we on this side of the chamber hold particularly dear. Electoral reform has a fairly chequered history in South Australia, to say the least, and it is true to say that those opposite know a little bit more about electoral reform and its avoidance. Let's just consider those interminable 27 years of the Playmander.

For the benefit of people in the chamber, I will explain the basic premise of the Playmander. The beginning of responsible government in South Australia meant that for every city and suburban electorate there were two country electorates. When the Liberal Federation and the Country Party joined forces in 1932, forming the Liberal and Country League (LCL), this imbalance was preserved and, in addition, multimember assembly districts were abolished.

As a result, there were 26 rural electorates and 13 metropolitan electorates, and we all know what the consequence of that was. Tom Playford spent 27 stultifying years as premier right here in what was colloquially known as Uncle Tom's Cabin. As historian Dr Jenny Tilby Stock's excellent 1996 paper on the Playmander points out:

Since Labor could not possibly win, the triennial elections became something of a formality. An obvious casualty of this predictability was the electorate itself, large numbers of whom came to have little say in the electoral process...

Vast sections of the state were virtually out of bounds to the other party...While this made good sense to party officials, it meant that many voters never got a chance to either endorse or reject Playford's government.

Eventually, in 1968, premier Steele Hall courageously initiated the measure of electoral reform. A man of integrity, to whom the malapportionment that delivered his party victory was in fact an acute embarrassment, Steele Hall wanted fairer and more equitable representation. To the disadvantage of his own party, he achieved this, and we in South Australia owe him a true debt of gratitude.

During my research for this speech, I found an article written by Mr Andrew Gleeson from The Age. It showed that Steele Hall was well and truly not only an electoral reformer but a social reformer who was responsible for the decriminalisation of abortion. He also had Mr Hall's opinion of what he calls the extreme right:

'The extreme right are among the dirtiest fighters in the business,' he says, 'even worse than the left of the ALP.'

I must say that I did not realise he was actually a fan of the left of the ALP, but it obviously shows this man was a great thinker.

Subsequently, premier Don Dunstan entrenched the principle of one vote, one value. A later referendum saw electoral redistribution following every election become law. Back in the late sixties and seventies, we obviously had some very true reformers in this state and people we can look up to as true electoral reformers. The ALP went on to produce many more leaders like that; unfortunately, for the Liberals that was the end of their true reformers in this parliament.

The proposed amendments we consider today will ensure that the how-to-vote cards on which many electors rely at polling booths will not differ substantially in colour, language or format from the version lodged with the Electoral Commissioner before the election within a prescribed period. Obviously, there are certain changes—for example, the reordering of preferences will be permitted; authorisation details will appear in bigger type; all authorised election advertisements will include the subject's political affiliation; and the Electoral Commissioner will become the one and only distributor of postal vote applications, though details of applicants for postal votes will be made available for parties and candidates.

If a ballot is marked and may identify a voter but is in all other respects formal, it will not automatically be considered an informal vote. Federal and state electoral rolls will be harmonised, and the term of the Electoral Commissioner will henceforth be one of five years, with the potential for renewal. These are sensible and useful reforms, and they are driven by the need for integrity and transparency in our electoral system, because democracy may not be perfect, as the very eminent leader to whom I referred earlier said, but people are dying it for it all over the world. While that may sound a bit florid, it is nonetheless true, and for that reason we are very fortunate to be in a position to vote in favour of this bill and I commend it to the chamber.

The Hon. M. PARNELL (17:00): The Greens, too, will be supporting this bill. We appreciate the origins of the bill, in the mischief, as it has been described, that was perpetrated by the Labor Party in the 2010 election, but we are also pleased that the government has taken the opportunity to fix up some other aspects of our electoral laws whilst it is in the process of fixing up the how-to-vote card provisions.

I note a submission I received from the Electoral Reform Society of South Australia, and it states that it supports most of the proposed changes. It is particularly supportive of clause 17, dealing with the distribution of postal vote applications, and clause 18, dealing with the informal ballot papers, but they raise some interesting questions, which I think we will need to explore in committee on this bill in relation to the detailed application of the new regime that is being created.

The mischief complained of in the 2010 state election has been well described by other members, and I do not need to go into it in detail again. I note that the normally restrained Hon. Dennis Hood used what is for him strong language—disgusting, deception, contemptuous, despicable were just some of the ones I wrote down—and it is pretty hard to disagree with him. What happened in 2010 was nothing short of passing off. If you have ever studied law you would appreciate that passing off is frowned on by the law, pretending that you are someone else to get a personal advantage for yourself. That is what passing off is, and that was what happened on polling day in 2010.

In relation to the how-to-vote cards, there is always pressure on all political parties from members of the public, who hate running the gauntlet on election day, to perhaps ban how-to-vote cards. Certainly the Greens receive a fair bit of this correspondence, given that people know that we are the strongest party in this country environmentally. If I had a dollar for every time someone commented on how many trees must have been felled to produce all the how-to-vote cards, then I would be wealthy—except I would not be because I would not be taking outside employment but relying on my parliamentary salary. Anyway, I digress!

The Electoral Reform Society, in relation to the how-to-vote cards, said that they were not sure if it will achieve what it is attempting. To quote from the submission:

If there must be how-to-vote cards and to counteract the mischief complained of in the 2010 election, it may be easier to legislate that how-to-vote cards can only be submitted to the Electoral Commission for display in polling booths, as allowed under section 66, and not handed out on election day.

That is certainly an interesting position to take, and it would certainly avoid the need for people to run the gamut of party volunteers outside the polling booth. We are not pushing that in relation to this bill, but they raise the interesting point about the posters in the polling booth, because that is the alternative source of information about what parties are suggesting if a person does not get a how-to-vote card from either all of the parties and candidates or at least the ones that they were considering supporting.

I want to talk just briefly about those posters that are in the pooling booth, because it is the subject of an amendment the Greens will be moving to this legislation, and that amendment is to provide that, if a how-to-vote card lodged by a party only advocates a No.1 vote for the candidate of first choice, and then invites electors to make up their own mind, then that should be information that is able to be displayed on the poster. Now, at present, it is not. At present, if you do not provide the Electoral Commission with a full list of preferences, putting a number in the square next to all candidates, they will not put that how-to-vote card on their poster. I think that is undemocratic. I think that it takes away from what should be public knowledge in the community, but all of us who have worked on polling booths know that it is not, and that is that voters are responsible for their own preferences. There are a number of people who come up to you at a polling booth and seem to think that unless you have followed a how-to-vote card somehow you have broken the law or you are doing the wrong thing.

I am not going to get into a diatribe about civics education, but certainly from my party's point of view in the majority of seats we have tended in recent elections to advocate what we call an open ticket. In other words, we urge people to vote for our candidate first and we remind them that they have to number all the squares, but we tell them that it is up to them how they fill them in. I think that is a respectful approach for voters and I think the electoral authorities should recognise that that is a respectful approach to voters, and they should allow a card bearing those instructions to appear on the poster in the polling booth. I think the Electoral Reform Society, by drawing our attention to section 66, make a very good point.

I will mention very briefly the seminar that was held in Parliament House today. I think representatives of all parties were at that seminar, which was convened by our own Dr Jenni Newton-Farrelly from the Parliament Research Library. It was an excellent presentation by Joo-Cheong Tham on the topic, 'Eight principles for reforming election funding and disclosure schemes in Australia'. Whilst the topic of that talk was about election funding models, he did invite us, I think quite properly, to go back to first principles and have a think about what we are talking about when we talk about democracy. It is one of those phrases that means slightly different things to different people.

Joo-Cheong Tham picked out four overriding principles and three of them I think are directly relevant to the debate on this bill: first, protecting the integrity of representative government, including prevention of corruption and undue influence; secondly, promoting fairness in politics; and thirdly, respect for political freedoms. Certainly I think the behaviour of some members of the Labor Party in the 2010 election infringed all three of those principles. We need to make sure that we always have an eye to the big picture when we are debating the minutiae of this bill.

There is one other amendment that the Greens will be pursuing in relation to this bill that I want to draw members' attention to, and that is our longstanding belief that Robson rotation, as it is known, is the fairest way of presenting a ballot paper to electors. Quite simply, all that means is that each candidate gets an equal turn on the top of the paper. That means that if you have four candidates then you would have four different ballot papers and they would each have one of the candidates on the top for a quarter of those papers.

That means that the well-known concept of the donkey vote means nothing. There is no donkey vote if everyone gets a fair share of time or space at the top of the ballot paper. Those of us in this place who live and breathe politics could debate until the Hon. Rob Brokenshire's cows come home whether the donkey vote is worth 1 per cent or 2 per cent or more. Various studies have been done. Whilst we might not agree on what the percentage is, we know it means something, and on big ballot papers with lots of candidates it means more because there is more effort involved in filling it out. So, on a big ballot paper people are more inclined to follow a donkey vote. The Greens' amendment basically says that the Robson rotation should be the new standard for House of Assembly ballot papers, with everyone getting a turn at the top of the paper.

With those brief comments, the Greens are pleased to support this bill. I will not go through all of the different elements that we support because it is basically most of the bill. I look forward to the committee stage when we get into the fine detail and I am sure there will be some robust debate when we get to that stage.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for State/Local Government Relations) (17:10): I thank honourable members for their second reading contribution to this very important bill. I also thank them for the support they have indicated during the second reading. A number of issues have been identified which, no doubt, will be dealt with in detail during the committee stage, and I look forward to engaging in that robust debate.

So that members are clear, I do not intend to progress the committee stage today. We will deal with the second reading vote, and then we will defer the committee stage until the next day of sitting. I thank members for their support.

Bill read a second time.

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