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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
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ELECTORAL (OPTIONAL PREFERENTIAL VOTING) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 16 October 2013.)

The Hon. S.G. WADE (20:00): I rise to speak on the Electoral (Optional Preferential Voting) Amendment Bill 2013. On 16 October, the bill was introduced into this council by the Hon. Mark Parnell. I stress to the members of this house that that is less than a month ago. What consideration has been given to the bill? We have had talkback discussions; we have had a CEDA workshop. In fact, come to think of it, I think this CEDA workshop might have actually been before the tabling of this bill.

I am not aware of any committee consideration. There have been no briefings or discussions about what seems to be a scepticism expressed by the Hon. Mark Parnell and the Hon. John Darley in relation to the practical logistics of its implementation. I just stress at the very start of my contribution that we are talking about significant reform with less than a month's consideration in this council.

Even the most basic bill in this place usually sits for months. Some of the legislation that the Hon. Mark Parnell is asking us to debate tonight has been on the Notice Paper for the best part of a year, and yet, here we are, entrusted not only with the laws of this state but also to be custodians of the democratic processes of this state. We are rushing through this bill with half-baked consideration.

The bill proposes a form of optional preferential voting in the Legislative Council and the Legislative Council only. I know there are members of the Labor Party who are keen to introduce optional preferential voting to the House of Assembly and we as the Liberal Party would be happy to have those discussions with them. In fact, I think it is audacious that John Rau says, 'It's good enough for you; it's not good enough for us.'

The point is that this bill only applies to the Legislative Council. It would only apply above the line and would still require full preferential voting below the line. Again, surely if we had had proper consideration, we would be saying, 'Well, why should you be able to have a choice above the line and not below the line? If choice is valuable, then it should be in both places.'

The bill would make it optional for a group or party that nominates groups together under section 58 of the act to have an above the line group voting square. In other words, rather than this occurring by default, it would be on request. I have never heard it suggested that it should be on request. Where did that come from? What is the justification for that? Again, we have not had a proper consideration. The bill has not even been with us for a month, and yet the honourable member suggests that he wants it to go through all stages tonight.

The Legislative Council groups would no longer be able to lodge a voting ticket under section 63, meaning that voters who only nominated a 1 above the line would only be expressing a preference for the groups they nominate, firstly, in order of the candidates listed for that group and then for subsequent groups in order of the candidate listing.

I know the Hon. Mark Parnell and the Attorney-General have tried to calm nervous folk by suggesting that this is nothing novel, that this is what happens in New South Wales. Well, it does not. In New South Wales, you cannot do intergroup transfers. What is the impact of intergroup transfers? We cannot have the New South Wales software off-the-shelf, as the Hon. Mark Parnell has been known to say publicly, because New South Wales does not have intergroup transfers.

Moving on, by removing the option for candidates to submit voting tickets, it also means that candidates are not able to lodge split tickets directing their preferences between two different candidates or groups, such as the Xenophon group and the Democrats have done previously for the major parties, and I seem to remember the Hon. Mark Parnell advocating split tickets in an earlier bill this year. Again there has been no discussion as to the pros and cons—the cost, really—of removing the opportunity for split tickets.

I stress again: this bill has only been in this place for less than a month, and yet we are going to ditch well-entrenched reforms, a well-accepted voting system, the voting system that is the most similar to the Australian Senate of any state in Australia. I for one, as a democrat, do not believe that we should minimise the chance for formality. The worst thing that we can do for a voter is to make the electoral system a trap, to lead them into the ballot box and think they are casting a valid vote and they do not.

Informality has been a constant problem in this country and in this state, and yet here we are next March, with next to no time for the Electoral Commissioner to implement the system, let alone to educate the electors about this change in the system. This bill, proposed by a party that suggests that it is a democratic bill, could actually disenfranchise thousands of South Australian voters, people who just do not get it. What they will get is a very different voting process from what they have got now.

It is not as though we are saying to them, 'Above and below the line you have got choice, go as far or as little as you like.' What we are going to tell them is, 'You can have your choice up above, but make sure you fill in every square below the line.' It is not even a fair dinkum reform: it is half baked. Again, it goes back to the point: why the inconsistency? If optional preferential voting is such a virtue then have it above and below the line.

Let's move to electoral administration. A fully preferential ballot with ticket voting has resulted in about 96.8 per cent of voters voting above the line for a registered group. At the 2010 election, with 23 groups with registered tickets, the Electoral Commission could fully distribute 96.8 per cent of the votes by following preregistered voting tickets; that is 926,287 votes. With this simple change—so-called simple—proposed by the Hon. Mark Parnell tonight, he will turn that simple task of sticking those numbers into the computer to a manual count for every single vote, because every voter will have the option of going optional. For the 96.8 per cent who go above the line, even if they still place a 1 in the box, the Electoral Commission will have to manually enter each one—926,287 votes. A much smaller number—3.2 per cent—voted below the line and, of course, each of these had to be individually scanned and entered.

The Hon. Mark Parnell is not going to save us any time there; that will be full preferential. Again, it is a big informality risk. I will probably get the figure wrong, but my understanding is that one out of four people who try to vote below the line fail. What the Hon. Mark Parnell's bill proposes to do is to add to those thousands of votes, which would probably be, if that figure is correct, about 8,000 people who are informal below the line. He wants to add tens of thousands above the line, because in a half-baked, rushed reform he wants the people of South Australia to have to face the March election with a voting reform which the commission itself does not believe it will be able to achieve, let alone properly educate the electorate. If an optional preferential voting system was used, all of the ballots, as I said, would have to be individually entered.

So that I cannot be accused of misrepresenting the Electoral Commissioner or scaremongering, I am going to read on to the record a letter that I have received from the Electoral Commissioner in relation to this bill. Let me remind honourable members before I do that that, a matter of two months ago, I was suggesting a fairly simple reform; that is, if the government wanted to do what it wanted to do, which was to ban political parties distributing postal vote applications, and if that was going to happen, the Electoral Commissioner should be required to distribute postal vote applications. And what did we have from the government members? We had outrage. 'How can the parliament dare to direct the Electoral Commissioner? It is outrageous; never been done before.' I did refer to the Electoral Act and I mentioned numerous places in it where the Electoral Commissioner had been directed; but what hypocrisy. The government expresses an interest in this bill and in the face of very clear advice from the Electoral Commissioner which I am about to read.

As is my practice, I send bills to relevant stakeholders at the earliest opportunity. The Hon. Mark Parnell's bill was tabled on 16 October. I wrote to the Electoral Commissioner on 22 October and asked for her views on this bill. Her letter back to me, dated 5 November, reads:

Dear Mr Wade

Thank you for your correspondence on 22 October 2013 seeking my views on the Electoral (Optional Preferential Voting) Amendment Bill 2013 introduced by the Hon. Mark Parnell, MLC. I provide the following comments from an operational perspective and begin by saying that I have significant concerns with substantial legislative change this late in the election cycle.

Method of Voting

The Bill provides for a mixture of Optional Preferential Voting (OPV) with multiple preferences possible above the line and proportional representation below the line. I am concerned that with limited time for debate, this Bill will fail to make all the necessary changes to the provisions of Part 10 of the Electoral Act (the Act) which refer to the scrutiny. The legislation must be clear on how to treat ballot papers in all situations that may arise.

Formality

I have concerns that there are no formality provisions included in the Bill. All robust electoral systems incorporate rules of formality to conform with best practice to provide electoral officials, scrutineers and the Courts with clear guidelines when considering ballot papers. Having read the Bill, I presume that repeated numbers (eg 1, 2, 2) would be considered formal for the first preference and would then exhaust. Similarly, where there are non-consecutive numbers used (eg 1, 3, 4) the first preference will be formal and then the ballot paper would exhaust. This must be expressed in the legislation to provide clear guidance.

The Bill proposes to delete section 92 of the Act and substitutes provisions relating to OPV. There is no reference as to how to determine ballot papers which are marked both above and below the line. I am of the view that the formality and scrutiny provisions need more attention to ensure the system is robust and incorporates all the relevant aspects.

Computer Counting

The count software we use for the Legislative Council ballot papers is owned by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC). ECSA has a license agreement to use the software but changes would need to be effected by the AEC as they own the intellectual property. The current version of the count software has been accredited by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO). This satisfies the requirements of section 96B(3) of the Act and I have therefore approved the use of software in previous elections.

A key element of electoral administration is that any computer count programs used are fully audited and tested to ensure that it would produce the same results as it would if the count was conducted manually.

The timing of this proposed legislative change (November 2013) would not allow a proper audit of any changes to the count software to happen prior to the State Election in March 2014. The AEC have confirmed that there would be considerable changes to coding required and it would take some months for the ANAO to certify the system.

As Electoral Commissioner, I would not be comfortable using a system that did not comply with best practice. If a full audit and testing regime is not conducted on any count software, I would not approve it for use. In the absence of an approved program, the Act requires a reversion to a manual count. Any manual count would significantly delay the results for the Legislative Council and may be subject to a recount; unlike the use of an approved count program.

Whilst electoral legislation is often very similar across Australia, each jurisdiction has unique provisions. For this reason there is no 'off the shelf' model available and all systems must be programmed according to the specific provisions of the relevant legislation.

Community Awareness & Education

Proportional representation was introduced as the voting system for the Legislative Council in 1973 and first used at the 1975 election. Electors in South Australia have used this method for voting for 10 elections and this system is aligned with the method used for the Australian Senate. Given the changes proposed in the Bill, a substantial education campaign will be required to make electors aware of the changes and to provide information on making a formal vote.

I would need to realign the advertising campaign and strengthen the focus to account for the new voting provisions as there is a risk that with a reform of this nature close to the election, electors may be confused and the risk of disenfranchising electors is of grave concern to me.

Variation of the voting system would impact all permanent and election staff with the development, production and delivery of appropriate training systems and materials. This will come at a significant cost.

Furthermore, all those involved in the election process including party officials, candidates, and scrutineers will need to become familiar with the new requirements. From an operational perspective, ECSA can publish materials about the new provisions, however it would be up to the parties and candidates to ensure their scrutineers etc fully comprehend the changes. There is a risk of delayed results if the Returning Officer has to explain processes or if there are excessive challenges to ballot papers.

All ECSA advertising, information brochures, manuals for Returning Officers and polling officials have been developed ahead of the 15 March 2014 State election based on current requirements. Many of these have already been printed.

In addition, there are currently 17 translated versions of the Legislative Council count process underway for CALD electors.

I pause to indicate that CALD electors are culturally and linguistically diverse electors. The letter continues:

Translating materials takes considerable time to ensure that the translations are accurate.

Increased resources would be required to achieve these educational and community awareness activities.

Other matters

The Bill proposes to display how to vote cards by poster only which creates operational difficulties as there is limited capacity to display such a large poster in many of our polling places. The booklet for how to vote cards was introduced for operational reasons.

I have not had the opportunity to consult further with experienced electoral officials and there may be other operational impacts which I have not fully considered. As Electoral Commissioner, I have grave concerns for any significant change to our voting system when debate is frustrated by tight parliamentary sitting schedules.

ECSA is a small office and to incorporate such a significant change to operational proceedings will be in my view an unreasonable burden on staff, regardless of how many additional resources are provided.

The current experience in the federal arena is severely impacting on the professionalism of the electoral industry and hastily formed amendments are likely to create more risks of error which opens up the process to challenge in the Court of Disputed Returns.

Yours sincerely

K Mousley

Electoral Commissioner

The commissioner took the opportunity to provide a copy of that letter to the Hon. John Rau, Attorney-General, and the Hon. Mark Parnell. On the following day, I had the opportunity to be briefed by the Electoral Commissioner, and I took the opportunity to be clear on what she was saying. For example, her comments in relation to her need to approve a computer program raised issues for me in relation to what her intention was.

Let me remind members of the relevant provisions of the Electoral Act, namely, division 3, section 96B—Approval of computer program, subsection (1):

The Electoral Commissioner may approve a computer program to carry out steps involved in the scrutiny of votes in an election.

That is step 1, completely at the discretion of the Electoral Commissioner. No Attorney-General and no Greens member of the Legislative Council can force the commissioner to grant that approval. Section 96D(1) states:

An approved computer program may, if the Electoral Commissioner so determines, be used in the scrutiny of votes in an election.

'May'—completely at the discretion of an independent statutory officer who cannot be bullied by the Attorney-General, cannot be bullied by a Greens member of the Legislative Council.

So, faced with those statutory provisions, I asked the Electoral Commissioner what was her intention. The commissioner advised me that she does not consider that she has the time to develop, to test and to accredit any new computer program before the 2014 election and indicates that she would not approve a program or its use in the scrutiny of the 2014 election. Is that surprising? It is not. First, she does not even own the program. The program in a proprietary sense is owned by the Australian Electoral Commission.

The AEC has confirmed, according to the commissioner's letter, that considerable changes to the coding would be required and that it would take some months to certify. What is not explicit there, and was not clarified in the briefing, was whether AEC would even approve its software being recoded. I was advised by electoral officials at the briefing that the coding itself was a big task. To make a concession to the rabid reformers, there was advice that the issue was not the software, nor was the issue the hardware. If you like, the relevant software was as transportable as an Excel spreadsheet (that was not the word used, but that is the way I understand these things), but the issue was the coding.

Every system is different; there is not an identical OPV system around Australia to what is being proposed, so we have to code, and I am advised that that is what takes time. It takes time to code and it takes time to test. If we were changing the coding, changing our computer system from one system to another, we would actually be able to test it relatively easily because we would have the data from the last election, the primary votes, we could feed it into the system and, if it spurts out the other side and gives us the same answer as the last election result, we can be pretty confident it is working.

But what the Electoral Commissioner highlighted to me was that, with this, where is your benchmark? You have all this data: how do you test your codes? You put in all this data, and we have these vague counting rules but we do not even know where the double counted second preferences go. So, you have all these vague counting rules. If it passes in its it current state, goodness knows how they would code it.

Even if we did manage to have a properly considered bill, even if we did manage to give it more consideration than less than a month—let's say we actually gave them a bill that could actually work—they have to code it. We are told that that would take months, and then the testing would take months. According to the Electoral Commission. the accreditation by the ANAO would also take months.

Those who are urging that we adopt the OPV, half-baked or not, might be willing to run the risk of a dodgy election result: the Liberal Party is not. We have made it clear—and I reiterate tonight—that we are open to OPV. We are open to look at any credible reform opportunity to strengthen our democracy. But can you imagine the damage we would do to our electoral system and our democracy if we went into an inconclusive result, if we forced the Electoral Commissioner to use computer software with which she did not feel comfortable? We could have humiliation akin to the pregnant chad affair in the United States. We could have the embarrassment of the events in Western Australia for the electoral administrators there.

So, I urge members, no matter how keen you are on OPV as a concept—and I assure you there are people in the Liberal Party party room who are rabid for OPV, but our party room is united in that what is more important is a system that does not fall over. What credibility would we have as a parliament if we rushed through this bill with less than a month's consideration?

The Electoral Commissioner has shown numerous concerns about the legislation and has said very clearly that she does not even believe she has been able to do due diligence on it. She specifically says that she has not had the opportunity to talk to other electoral officials about operational issues that they have experienced in relation to their systems. That is the sort of due diligence that you would expect a commissioner to do in terms of supporting a parliament in orderly reform. So, we are not sure about how it is going to work on the ground.

It is very clear that we would have real risks in introducing it in terms of a computer-based scrutiny. The advice from the Electoral Commissioner to me was that any optional preferential voting system or other scheme that would usually require computer counting could only be used at the 2014 election with a manual count. The reformers say, 'Great, we will go for a manual count.' Think again. We have 928,000 ballot papers to input—goodness knows how long that takes—and then we have to count them. The advice that I have from the Electoral Commissioner is that it would take four to eight weeks to count.

The practice of this parliament is that we usually convene within around a month of the election occurring—but that is not the end of it. With a manual count, unlike the computer system, you have an increased risk of error. With a computer-based count, my understanding is that every ballot paper is inputted twice. I will not test my maths by saying if you input 928,000 twice, how many is that; I imagine it is around 1.8 million—that is an awful lot, putting them in twice.

Let us remember, 96.8 per cent of them at this stage are one above the line. The Hon. Mark Parnell wants us to input all of them, and we would input them twice. But, in a manual count, you have got the same number of ballot papers that would need to be processed, and in a manual count, the advice of the Electoral Commissioner is that it significantly increases the risk of the need for a recount.

With a computer, you have inputted it twice, and if there is a discrepancy the computer itself alerts you to the problem. However, with a manual count, there is no computer screen flashing; you significantly increase the risk of a recount. It would take four to eight weeks for the count, and four to eight weeks for the recount. Are we serious? Are we thinking that the next parliament and the government that it chooses should be delayed by up to four months because this council wants to play with a toy?

We have had less than a month to consider one of the most dramatic reforms—sorry, one of the most significant: I will save 'dramatic' for the Saint-Laguë method; 'dramatic' is Saint-Laguë and this one is just—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I have the call, thanks; you can have your turn in due time—I am certainly modest in calling it significant. Even the honourable member would surely call it significant. But in less than a month we are, allegedly, going to put through legislation that would introduce this reform half-baked. I must confess that I have suggested amendments to this council that would ask the Electoral Commissioner to do something: to send out an application for a postal vote to electors—shock of horrors.

What we have got is a government and honourable members who want to push this legislation through, and what they are basically saying is that the Electoral Commissioner is not—well, I will choose my words carefully, even though I am in the safety of parliament—that the Electoral Commissioner is not giving us facts that we can rely on; let me be as gentle as that. I do not believe that. I believe the Electoral Commissioner. With the benefit of a letter, and with the benefit of a conversation with both the Electoral Commissioner and her most senior officer, Mr Gully, I found them incredibly convincing.

Those members who want to rush this half-baked reform through the parliament, having been on the table for less than a month—if they want to say, 'No, no, no, no, I am sure that she was just gilding the lily,' I would ask them: on what basis? I have confidence because I have received a letter, I have analysed and I have sat down with the relevant officers and discussed it with them.

I personally am not willing to take the risk of a manual count. I am not willing to take the risk that the next parliament and the next government would have the first four months of its time taken away from it. After all, we only get four years. The Legislative Council might be happy for the House of Assembly to convene because they know their writs will be able to be returned. They will be able to convene and do a pile of bills for us. But what mockery of the parliamentary process if this bill was to be passed and we were willing to run the risk of a manual count and recount and a delay of up to four months.

Let's remember, we are not just accusing the Electoral Commissioner of gilding the lily if we pass this bill tonight. We are also accusing the Australian Electoral Commission of gilding the lily when it told us of the difficulties in terms of coding and certification and so forth. I certainly believe that one should test the advice—one should not take it blindly—but it is my considered view and that of my party that, on the best available advice, the only responsible approach is to save this reform, to talk about it in the next term of parliament and, if it stacks up, to do it.

One of the key benefits, in my view, of pausing and allowing time is to maintain harmony. In the Electoral (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill that the government put to us earlier this year, one of the key elements was to increase harmonisation. On behalf of the President, it would be disorderly for me to recognise the Chief Magistrate in the gallery; I am trying to avoid being disorderly. Where was I?

The Hon. T.A. Franks: The Chief Magistrate.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: All due respect to the Chief Magistrate—

The PRESIDENT: You were about to wind up, I think.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: No, I can assure you I was not about to wind up. I might be about to wind up in terms of reiterating the points ever more strongly. The key point I am trying to make is that a manual count in 2014, with a significantly increased risk of a recount, is a risk that we cannot afford to take, not only for our electoral system, but also for our parliament and for our government.

In terms of community awareness, I would like to remind honourable members of that task. Honourable members might be willing to waste tens of thousands of votes by the clearly increased risk of informality, but let's remember what task they are putting on our most vulnerable members in the community. There has been a lot of work done to try to improve community awareness and education, and yet the advice that we have from the Electoral Commissioner is that, if we pass this bill, she has—and I will quote the whole paragraph:

I would need to realign the advertising campaign and strengthen the focus to account for new voting provisions as there is a risk that, with a reform of this nature close to the election, electors may be confused and the risk of disenfranchising electors is of grave concern to me.

So, the Electoral Commissioner has grave concerns about disenfranchising electors. What she said to us is that she has already translated 17 versions of the Legislative Council process for culturally and linguistically diverse electors. Now, this can't be tweaked. This is not material where you can stick a label and change a spelling error. This is a significant change in the way the electoral system would run.

In an orderly preparation for a state election, it is not surprising that in the November/December before the election—we only have 120 or 130 days before the election—the Electoral Commissioner has already translated this material and she has already got it printed. So, what the honourable member and the government are proposing is that, not tomorrow but once the house has considered it in two or three weeks; time, with even less time available before the election, the Electoral Commissioner will have to set about translating 17 versions for culturally and linguistically diverse electors.

For those who are concerned that the Electoral Commissioner is gilding the lily, it is not just a matter of Google translating and popping it up on a photocopier; these documents need to be checked and double-checked. The fact of the matter is that with important government documents we need to have clear information readily accessible to all electors. For those of us who are as young as the Hon. Rob Lucas and I, we remember the by-election of Norwood—I think it was in 1981—when a Liberal candidate used language to a culturally and linguistically diverse community which threw into question the whole election.

Considering that we have thousands of electors in South Australia, this bill proposes that with less than a month for consideration of the process, with at least two or three weeks yet before the parliament can finalise its considerations, we would then ask the commissioner to set about translating material for thousands of voters. This is not 17 voters who need this material: this is 17 translated versions for thousands of voters. The risk of a disputed election—let us remember that in the recent Western Australian Senate contest, one of the election steps on my understanding—it was only 14 voters separating it. So, without a properly considered set of materials, without a properly considered process, I think we significantly increase the risk of a Court of Disputed Returns in relation to an election for this house.

That is the aspect in relation to the culturally and linguistically diverse communities, but let us think about the electoral staff themselves. All ECSA advertising, information brochures, manuals for returning officers and polling officers have already been developed for the next election—again, not surprising: the Electoral Commissioner has had four years to prepare. You do not pass a bill in the dying days of a parliament. We have, what, four sitting days left? You do not pass a bill of significant electoral reform with four days left in the sitting period and expect the Electoral Commissioner to introduce it at the next election. You would have thought that a parliament might have actually put electoral legislation early in the process. If you cannot do it properly, do not rush. My view and the view of my party is that if we hastily put through reforms such as this, we will repent at our leisure.

The Electoral Commissioner has highlighted in that aspect merely the material needs; in other words, the stationery, the information brochures, the advertising, the manuals, if you like the support material, but let us consider the people. The Electoral Commissioner states:

ECSA is a small office and to incorporate such a significant change to operational procedures will be in my view an unreasonable burden on staff, regardless of how many additional resources are provided.

As far as I know nobody has ever suggested that the Electoral Commission is over resourced. They are facing a general election for all 47 House of Assembly seats and for half of this house. They already have a big task in front of them, and we have people seriously suggesting that the Electoral Commissioner is gilding the lily and suggesting that she cannot get her staff to get heads down and significantly change the electoral system with slightly over 100 days to achieve it.

The Electoral Commissioner, if you like, takes a wider view. She does not just look at the material that she needs to produce for electors, the material she needs to produce for her officials: she also looks at the challenge for party officials. She states:

...all those involved in the election process including party officials, candidates and scrutineers will need to become familiar with the new requirements. From an operational perspective, ECSA can publish materials about the new provisions, however it would be up to the parties and candidates to ensure their scrutineers etc fully comprehend the changes.

With all due respect to those who believe that we can pass a bill which has been on the table for less than a month and implement it with just over 100 days, our party has thousands of volunteers who are actively involved in the campaign and we would rather have them out there engaging with constituents and persuading them of the benefits of voting for a Liberal government. However, what this bill would have us do is to take it to a volunteer-based organisation that would have to rapidly develop briefing materials and add to what is already a challenging task.

The Hon. John Darley has suggested that there are improvements that could be made to this bill. We have a series of amendments from the Hon. John Darley to the Hon. Mark Parnell's bill. It would not surprise me if, when we come to the committee stage of this bill—if the house is willing to take it to that stage—that we would be asked to consider not just a bill that has been sitting on this table for less than a month, but we are going to be asked to consider amendments that we have had for less than four hours.

With all due respect, I have not read a word of them. I have just read 'The Hon. John Darley MLC' and the date, which is yesterday's. My understanding is that they were not filed until a little while ago. I would like that clarified by the Clerk. I am not sure what status they have. I am not sure if they have been filed or not. I can assure the council that I have not seen them and certainly my party room has not considered them.

We are being asked to consider a bill that has been on the table for less than a month and three pages of amendments—goodness knows how significant they are. We already have significant concerns with the Hon. Mark Parnell's bill—goodness knows what concerns we have about the Hon. John Darley's amendments. Yet I have indications that this council is interested in rushing this bill through tonight. I humbly suggest to this council that if we take our role seriously there is hardly a privilege that we hold more precious than the democratic rights of our electors. If we are serious about legislation of this significance—okay, it is not dramatic; it is certainly significant and offers significant risks to the next election—I would be very disappointed and I believe that this council would deserve significant criticism.

Optional preferential voting is an idea that is worth considering. It is not an idea that is worth sullying by rushing it through and giving it a bad name by an election that goes wrong. The Liberal Party has made it clear, and I state it again tonight: we are committed to positively engaging consideration of optional preferential voting for the Legislative Council in the next election. If the Labor Party is so keen about it we are happy to consider it for the House of Assembly as well. However, neither for that house nor this, do we believe it is appropriate to rush this legislation through tonight.

The Hon. G.A. KANDELAARS (20:43): I rise to speak on the Hon. Mark Parnell's Electoral (Optional Preferential Voting) Amendment Bill 2013 and put the government's view. The government, like many others, has the view that there is a need for some reform in this area. The Attorney-General introduced two bills this week in the House of Assembly that address this issue. The Hon. Mark Parnell's bill is another way to address this issue.

We acknowledge that there are real concerns expressed by the Electoral Commission about the ability to have in place prior to the election computer software needed to count the vote in the system suggested by the Hon. Mark Parnell. Today the government will be voting to allow discussion to continue. The government reserves its ultimate position on this bill today to keep the options alive and allow for further consideration and discussion between the houses. The government will not oppose this bill.

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT (20:45): I will speak this evening very briefly on behalf of Dignity for Disability to support the second reading of this bill. I will not rehash the issues that have led to the Hon. Mr Parnell moving this bill, for they are well known, nor some of the matters that have resulted in a flurry of activity from the Attorney-General in this space, and also the Hon. Mr Darley. We are certainly considering those members' suggestions very seriously as well.

Suffice to say, there has been a lot of discussion from major and micro political parties, media commentators, psephologists, political junkies, and academics since the 7 September general election. In fact, I was on the radio about this very issue just this morning. I think that even some of the general electorate have twigged that their own votes are ending up in bizarre locations as a result of preference deals done through clever wheeling and dealing by some new and not-so-new players on the political block.

I appreciate that the Hon. Mr Mark Parnell has been consistent in his attempts to reform voting systems in this place, but I would like to note at this point that I have received the Electoral Reform Society of South Australia's discussion paper of November this year and they feel that Mr Parnell's bill goes not nearly far enough and amounts to tinkering around the edges. I would also note that it is my understanding that the Hon. Mr Parnell himself would prefer a more comprehensive reform, but is aware that a state election is upon us and we have only a few sitting days left.

One question that I would like to ask of the mover of this bill at this point, similar to an issue that the Hon. Mr Wade just raised, is how will this work if it is implemented for the 2014 state election? I understand that the Electoral Commission of South Australia uses a particular type of licensed software based upon our current electoral set-up. How would the provisions in the bill be implemented in terms of the computer systems that we need to count votes?

I add that I have also received that correspondence from the commissioner and I thank the Hon. Mr Wade for forwarding that to my office. It certainly has provided food for thought. I would like to restart the debate by putting that question to the Hon. Mr Parnell to answer at a later time. With those comments, and broadly speaking, I commend the bill to the chamber.

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (20:48): I was not prepared for this level of debate. I had anticipated from the advice I got from the government that they would not be supporting this bill tonight, so I had not expected that we would be in the position that we are in. Nonetheless, I think it is appropriate that Family First have the opportunity to put a few thoughts on the record about this particular bill.

I state at the outset that Family First does not oppose the concept of optional preferential voting. Indeed, it is something that we would look at closely, and I must commend the Hon. Mr Wade on his impassioned speech. Essentially all the issues that I would raise in any retort of this bill I believe he has raised with the exception of one, and that is that not only does the Electoral Commissioner herself and her department find this impossible—I believe it would not be inappropriate to use that word—to implement in the time that we have remaining between now and the next state election, but no less an authority than Antony Green also agrees with her.

A number of members in this chamber were present at the CEDA luncheon a few weeks ago when he made quite a definite and impassioned position clear that he did not believe that it was possible for such a substantial change in the electoral system to be in place properly, appropriately and, might I say, prudently in time for the 2014 state election. When I consider people of the ilk of Antony Green, somebody who I think everybody in this chamber would respect, and somebody who I think everybody would regard as completely impartial—I think none of us would have a clue who he votes for and that is probably entirely appropriate—he made a clear case that day that, in his (I would say) learned opinion, it is not possible to appropriately implement the changes that have been proposed tonight in the time frame before us.

I say to my colleagues in the chamber—and I know that members move bills such as this with the right intentions, and I am not critical of the Hon. Mark Parnell for his intention—that I do believe that it is foolhardy of this chamber to support a bill which the Electoral Commissioner herself, Antony Green and, indeed, others—I heard Clem Macintyre on radio today—view as being impossible to be implemented in the time frame available to us. In fact, I am yet to hear of anyone, other than a politician with self-interest, claim that it is possible to implement what is being proposed tonight in an appropriate, methodical and careful way.

I would say to the chamber tonight that caution is appropriate when it comes to very substantial changes in the Electoral Act. I know the Hon. Mr Parnell has presented similar bills in the past and it is something that he has pursued for some time but, for whatever reasons, and I have discussed this with the Hon. Mark Parnell, either those bills have not come to a vote or, if they have, they have been defeated, but the truth is we are now facing a situation where this bill is likely to pass.

The government has changed its position in a very short time frame. I spoke to the Attorney-General on Monday night and I asked him a direct question: 'Will the government support the Hon. Mark Parnell's bill?' His answer to me was no. That was Monday night. Here we are Wednesday night—and it is roughly about the same time of the evening that I spoke to him, so roughly 48 hours—and we have seen a very substantial change in the government's position, despite the advice of the Electoral Commissioner, people like Antony Green and Clem Macintyre—if I am not misquoting (I do not believe I am, I heard him say it on the radio today). I do not think it is in the interests of this chamber to place at risk an election, where results were not clear, for example, or where they were disputed, or where there was a situation that created further undermining of trust in our current electoral system.

If that is a situation that members feel they can support, I am afraid I simply do not agree with them. I think it is a difficult situation that we would place the public in. There will be a lot of debate about this particular issue in the ensuing months and there will be a real situation where we face a level of confidence in the electoral system that just will not be present. People will wonder if what they are actually voting for is what they are going to see because there will be no confidence in the Electoral Commission's capacity to be able to produce, audit, monitor and declare the results as confidently as they would if there were either no change to the current system or very minor change.

There are many ways to skin a cat, if I can put it that way. The Hon. Mark Parnell has put forward one model tonight and I would say that this is not an unworthy model. This is a model that probably does deserve genuine debate but, frankly, two sitting weeks is not enough time for genuine debate on such a substantial issue. We are talking about the democracy of the great state of South Australia. I genuinely believe that this is something we should take slowly, carefully and methodically. As I said, there are many ways to skin a cat.

What gave impetus to this sort of rush to the line, if you like, about changing the electoral system was the federal election where we saw—and it has been mentioned in comments tonight—the Motoring Enthusiast Party in Victoria and the Sports Party in Western Australia (and the Western Australian result is not yet determined) appearing to get senators elected on very low votes. From Family First's perspective, that is not a good outcome. It is not the outcome that people would expect, and for that reason it should be reviewed and, of course, that is exactly what the Senate is doing.

The Senate will have a proper review of the current voting system for the Senate, and they will make some recommendations in good time. I think that this parliament, this chamber in particular, should then have a very close look at the recommendations from the Senate and, frankly, probably adopt them if they are reasonable, and I am sure they will be. We cannot commit to adopting them because we have not seen them at this stage, but I think that would be a methodical process which would produce some recommendations which are likely to be appropriate, well thought out and able to be implemented in time for the next election.

However, there is one way to fix this in the very short term, and that is one small amendment to the Electoral Act to put in place a minimum threshold, if you like, whereby any party, group or individual, or whatever it may be, that records under a certain level—let's say it is 1 per cent, 2 per cent, 3 per cent or 4 per cent, whatever the number is—by law simply would not be able to form a quota. That would prevent the so-called harvesting of preferences of the very small groups, parties or individuals that at some time have misused the system and, as a result, we have seen some strange results. As I have said, in the case of a couple of parties elected, most people would regard it as an unusual result.

One very simple and clear way of dealing with that is to say, 'If a particular individual, party or group achieves a primary vote of less than 2 per cent in the Legislative Council at that election, they simply can't be elected.' Simple as that. It is one small change to the Electoral Act. My understanding of the Electoral Commission's position on that particular change is that that is something they can handle comfortably within the time frame we have available. It is clear to everyone; everyone in the electorate would understand what has happened there.

Furthermore, I think that there would be very strong general support for that position because people understand what happened in the Senate election that has just passed and there is a little bit of discomfort in the community about what has happened. It varies, of course, amongst individuals, but I think that it is fair to say that there is some discomfort about it.

The simplicity of the change, I think, is what is appealing. If there is a threshold put in place, whether it be 1 per cent, 2 per cent or 3 per cent, whatever the chamber decides, that creates a situation that is absolutely crystal clear to all—and the voting public can understand it. They do not need to be re-educated; they just need that explained to them. It is not particularly hard to understand: if you achieve less than X per cent, you cannot be elected. Furthermore, I think that it would have very strong, widespread support throughout the electorate.

What we are doing here tonight is we are rushing to a different form of electoral system and, as the Hon. Mr Wade explained well, it is an electoral system that has not genuinely been thoroughly scrutinised. Furthermore, we have our own Electoral Commissioner saying that, in her view—and she is the expert—she does not believe that this can be implemented appropriately in time.

It is an extraordinary situation, I think, for this chamber to decide to disregard the Electoral Commissioner's opinion completely when her opinion is supported by the likes of Antony Green, Clem Macintyre, from what I heard on radio, and no doubt others I have not heard about—people I have always regarded as absolute experts in this field. What we are doing, if this chamber passes this bill tonight, is saying that out opinion is more valid than theirs. Whilst they are so-called experts in the field, we know better. I do not accept that.

In the circumstances, my understanding of optional preferential voting as proposed by the Hon. Mark Parnell's bill is that our party is likely to be elected under this system anyway. It does not make a great deal of difference to Family First, frankly. That may change on the day, but equally it could change under any other system; nothing is certain in this business, we all accept that. Our modelling of the system that is being proposed here is that Family First would secure a seat in the Legislative Council after the election.

This is not self-interest talking; this is a genuine attempt at ensuring that we do not create chaos or, at the very least, a situation that can be disputed or challenged at the next election. Does anyone in this chamber really believe that politicians are so well respected—that we have created a situation where we have so much trust in the public arena—that we can create a mess at the next election and the people will not think even less of us and this great institution of the Parliament of South Australia? I do not think that any of us believe that—and unfortunately, I believe that is what we are creating tonight.

I know that is not the Hon. Mr Mark Parnell's intention, and I am not saying it is. I believe that his intention is to fix what he sees as a problem; I respect that, but there are other ways to fix this. That is my point: there are simpler ways to fix this. There are ways to fix this that are supported by the Electoral Commission and by the other so-called expert commentators. I appeal to members tonight: please, consider what you are doing.

I understand that we have only a few weeks. The next election will come. I think it is likely that we will not see one of those very minor parties elected. If we really are absolutely concerned about that, we can create a minimum threshold of 1, 2, 3 or 4 per cent or whatever the number is. I will commit tonight, subject to the detail, that Family First would be prepared to support something along those lines, given that the Electoral Commission has said it is comfortable with that sort of approach. If we had to do something, that is the obvious path to head down, but I urge caution to members tonight. It is a very substantial change to a system that has served the public of South Australia very well.

If you think about it, sir, we have had some very good members elected to this chamber I do not believe would necessarily be elected under what is being proposed tonight. I think of Senator Nick Xenophon, for whom I have a good deal of respect. Whatever people may say about Senator Xenophon, he has created a situation where one in four people in South Australia voted for him, and that in itself is commendable. Indeed, what we saw at the last federal election was historic, and I communicated that to him shortly afterwards.

Under the electoral system being proposed tonight, I do not believe we would see the likes of Senator Xenophon, who would have been the Hon. Nick Xenophon at the time, elected to this chamber at all. I do not believe we would see the Hon. Kelly Vincent elected under this particular system. I could be wrong, and I do not mean any disrespect to the honourable member, but that is our running of the numbers. If this bill should pass, certainly from what Dignity for Disability polled at the last poll they would not be elected under what is being proposed tonight, and I think that would be a shame, frankly.

Those are my thoughts. I urge members' caution. I think that this is a very substantial change and that wise heads should prevail. We need to pump the brake a few times, if I can put it that way, and think clearly about what is really happening here. I think whoever forms government after the next election, whether the current government hangs on or we see a new government from the other side, should commit to having a good hard look at this. Assuming Family First have two members in this chamber, we will do the same, I would presume the Greens would do the same, and we could have a genuine look at this issue, fix it once and for all, do it properly and do it with the endorsement of the Electoral Commission and people like Antony Green, etc. That is the choice we have tonight, and I urge members to think carefully.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (21:02): I agree with much of what the Hon. Mr Hood and the Hon. Mr Wade have said. I have had longer in this chamber debating electoral issues than anybody else, and I say at the outset that I cannot recall any debate on our electoral system potentially being rammed through in an equivalently short period of time as is being contemplated by this chamber and this parliament this evening. If that is what occurs, I think it will be a disgrace and a shame on our parliamentary system.

The electoral system, as other members have said, is one of the foundation stones of our democracy and the way our bicameral system operates here. We have had over the years long and intensive debates in the parliament. There were debates before any of us were in the parliament in relation to the franchise for the Legislative Council and the changes from the regional systems to the whole-of-state system for the Legislative Council.

We have seen monumental changes over the years, and on every occasion every member, every party and every interest have been given ample opportunity, knowing full well what was up for grabs, to have that particular debate, to have that particular discussion, to argue their case out and, inevitably, a decision was taken.

We have heard already of the duplicity of the Attorney-General in relation to this issue. Clearly, he has been telling different people in different parties different things, as would suit his purpose. As has been indicated as little as 48 hours ago when asked the explicit question by the Hon. Mr Hood as to whether he was supporting this bill, he indicated he was not. Then, suddenly, over the dinner break, some deal has been done somewhere and he is now indicating (to use the words of his spokesperson), 'We are going to keep open the option and will not be opposing it.' In other words, they are going to support the bill this evening.

I think that is a word of warning to everybody who has been doing the deals or having the discussions with the Attorney-General and the government on this issue. The Attorney-General and the government have been running around to anyone prepared to listen, offering all sorts of propositions, not just support for this particular bill. They were very keen to make some administrative changes to ensure that groups such as the Nick Xenophon Group could not be listed in a voting square or a ticket above the line and trying to garner support for that sort of change. That could easily have been done in a deal between the government and the opposition if the opposition had chosen to go down that path.

The Attorney-General, the Premier and the government's representatives have been running around saying various things to various people and doing deals—attempting to do deals—in relation to this and, clearly, have been saying different things to different people and changing their position as it suits them. I think if you smell a rat, then trust your instincts and trust your smells. When I listen to the language of the representative of the government in this place tonight, I smell a rat. The government is seeking to establish a position for itself in relation to all these bills, and I do not think members who might be attracted to supporting the government's position perhaps realise what the government is up to.

Note the words of the Hon. Mr Kandelaars on behalf of the Attorney tonight: 'We are not going to oppose this bill this evening. We are going to keep this option alive.' The intention would appear to be to ram this bill through with the support, potentially, if they can get it, of enough members this evening (and I want to discuss that later as well) and then, of course, they have their alternative bill, or bills, up their sleeve where they will be able to seek to negotiate however one pronounces the Sainte-Laguë (S-L) bill—not S&M but S&L bill.

I have followed electoral issues as closely as any member of parliament over the years, and I had never heard of S-L until last Thursday, when I think the Hon. Mr Wade told me the government's approach with this proposition. I said, 'What are you talking about?' I think this was Friday of last week. With six sitting days to go, we heard of this bizarre new option that exists in outer Afghanistan, Mongolia, Iceland, New Zealand, or some equivalent country, because the Attorney-General and some other bright spark have decided there is some marginal advantage in it for them to have a look at that particular proposition.

The intention, clearly, is to try to get this through and then start to negotiate and say, 'Okay, if you don't take our preferred position, which is the S-L bill, we are going to have this particular bill. You have a choice: you negotiate on this or that.' Let the buyer beware in relation to all this. If members are going to choose tonight, contrary to all the conventions of this place, to jam this thing through in one form or another, all bets are off because the government is going to be coming around and trying to do deals with everybody they can on their preferred course of action—S-L or maybe a deal to keep Xenophon above the line, or whatever it might happen to be. If the two big parties want to get together to jam it through, then the two big parties have the numbers to jam it through both houses, if that is what they want to do.

So, if that is the sort of ball game that we are going to open up, I am just saying that we have had the evidence tonight. Do not trust what the Attorney-General is saying to each and every one of you because he is saying different things to different people in relation to this particular issue. They are not locked into this particular version. Note their words. All they are doing is improving their negotiating position. They will have this one in their back pocket in some form or another and then they will come around looking to see whether they can improve their position. A little bit of S-L, if they can get it, maybe banning Xenophon from being above the line or any non-party from being above the line, whatever it is that they can do, if they can get the numbers for it, if it can improve their position, if it can improve the prospects of getting the Hon. Mr Maher across the line at No. 4 on the ticket, then that is what they will be seeking to negotiate.

I think, in relation to this, and the Hon. Mr Hood put it very politely, have a look where people are coming from in relation to this. People have said to us, 'What is the driving influence in relation to the debate from the Senate and what's now occurring in the Legislative Council?' The driving influence is essentially a position which says, 'We want to keep microparties, or very small groups, out of the upper house.' That is essentially the position.

A number of people (and some of those are the Attorney-General) have come to us in the Liberal Party, because we are one of the two big parties, and said, 'It's in the interests of the two big parties to keep the microparties out. You will get more people elected under this particular model.' So too will the government under this particular model. This is the option that we can have a look at. That is what is driving this whole debate.

So, if the Liberal Party is looking at this from the point of self-interest, if you believe what people say, and it has not just been the government, there have been others who have said to us, 'Why don't you, the Libs, support this because we think you will actually get an extra person elected?' That might be true. I have no idea. I know the Hon. Mr Hood says that his people have done the modelling and the Labor Party people say they have done the modelling, everyone has done the modelling, but to do the modelling you have to make some huge assumptions.

Under this particular proposal of the Hon. Mr Parnell's, or the S-L proposal, or whatever it happens to be, you have to make huge assumptions. I had no idea that this had any chance of getting up tonight so I had not studied this bill that closely, other than having listened to it tonight and having had a quick look at it. Essentially, as I understand it, you can put a 1 in the square above the line and then that is it.

The Hon. M. Parnell interjecting:

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: Yes, but you can just put 1 in one square if you want to. If you want to choose the option of putting 1 in a square above the line then that is what you can do. Of course, in the Senate and the Legislative Council, for a long period of time now, people have been educated and encouraged to do that. It is normal for them to put a 1 above the line. As I understand it, if people follow that particular process, even if the party ticket, for example, says, 'Put a 1 in the box for the Greens, and 2 for the Labor Party, and 3 for the Socialist Party,' or whatever it happens to be, a lot of people have been educated over a long period of time to just put a 1 in a box.

As I understand the Hon. Mr Parnell's system, it will be 1 in the box for the Greens, if that is all they do, and that will exhaust after you have voted 1 to (whatever it is) 4 Greens candidates, or whatever it might happen to be. There will be no preference allocated at all. I would love to know, in all this modelling that everyone is doing, what is their assumption in relation to what percentage of votes exhaust just with the particular party ticket? I would love to know what their assumptions are in relation to what the Liberal Party and the Labor Party would do; tell me because we have not made a decision. We have no bally idea what we would do because it is not an issue that we have addressed.

Would we, as a big party, in essence, put out a ticket which has, '1, Liberal Party; 2, Family First; 3 National Party; 4,' whatever it is, and go right through to 15 or 16, or just go through to 5 or 6? Would we see it as a competitive disadvantage for us if every other party, including the Labor Party, just has a simple 1 in the box above the line and theirs looks a much simpler ticket, so that when the punters come to the voting booth at the polling place, everybody else has just got a 1 in a box and the Liberal Party has 1 through to 14 or something in the box? Trust me: there are a lot of people who do not think too seriously about how they vote on the election day, and people make judgements about the attractiveness of the ticket or the simplicity of the ticket or whatever it might happen to be.

Will all of us be encouraged, ultimately—because of the process—just to put a 1 in the box? That is, every one of our votes is going to exhaust after they have just voted for our candidates. I love hearing everybody tell me and my party that we have done the modelling and we will do well out of this and why do we not vote for it? And, look, they might be right. I have no idea, but I challenge anybody, and I have spent more time on electoral issues, I can say, than anybody in this chamber over my period of political life.

I spent 10 years prior to coming to parliament working for a party organisation where my job essentially was to do all these sorts of things on behalf of my party, so I have had 40 years playing around with electoral systems and numbers. I would at least pride myself on knowing a little bit about the voting and electoral systems, etc., so I love it when people tell me that, under this particular model, it is going to favour the Libs or the Labor Party or such and such a party or whatever it happens to be.

But I know what is driving the process: the process is being driven by the fact that the big parties and others are saying—and there are some people who, I accept, on the basis of democracy, think—that having too many small parties or microparties represented in the upper house is anti-democratic. Government should have the numbers to govern and it is therefore anathema to them to have too many minor parties. They would have said that about Mr Xenophon when he first came in or the Greens or Family First, the Hon. Mr Darley or others, and I can understand their view, but essentially what is driving this is the big parties seeing the microparties and the smaller parties taking seats away from them.

I do not claim to be as pure as the driven snow. In previous electoral systems, trust me, I am in there batting for my party as best I can in terms of what I see as being advantageous, but in relation to this particular debate, what I am genuinely saying is, I have no idea whether this is going to advantage us or not. In general terms, in theoretical terms, I can accept the argument that it is more likely to advantage the Liberal and the Labor Party than the minor parties and the microparties, but in the end it is going to depend on some huge assumptions about how people are going to act and how people are going to vote, ultimately, under this particular system.

We do not come to this debate, as I said, arguing one thing or another, so that is why I am amazed at the attitude of some of the smaller parties potentially in relation to this particular issue. If, in the end, this gets jammed through—and it is an option on the table for the government—as I said, let the buyer beware, because I know the government is going to be seeking to do other deals in relation to the SL bill, potentially getting rid of Xenophon above the line, a threshold issue that they have already talked to the Hon. Mr Hood and us about in terms of whether it should be 4 per cent or 2 per cent. It is not just 2 per cent they have talked about. They have talked about numbers as high as 4 per cent in relation to those sorts of issues.

This is all going to come to a conclusion in the last couple of days, even if we jam this through tonight. If everyone decides they are going to jam this through, it will not be with our support, I can tell you. I am not going to be supporting jamming this thing through tonight, but if it gets jammed through tonight, in the last couple of days of the last sitting week, the government is going to be running around with its alternative bill, seeking to get the numbers. If it can get a better deal for itself out of us or some group of minor parties or Independents, it will take the better deal that it can get, but if you agree with it, the government will have this in its back pocket to say, 'Okay, we'll settle for this particular version of the bill.'

From our viewpoint, as the Hon. Mr Wade has said, we are genuinely open to having a serious discussion about this in relation to whether it is thresholds or whether it is SL or whether it is optional preferential or whatever it might happen to be, but in a proper and considered way as has occurred in the past with every other electoral bill that I have ever been involved with.

If something is going to be jammed through in the next week—and I do not speak on behalf of the party—potentially all bets are off. If people are going to jam this one through and say, 'Take it or leave it, this is where it is', and the government is going to come around doing the deal, then we are going to have to look at what we might do in those particular circumstances. Who knows where it all ends up? Who knows who gets disadvantaged in that particular process?

All I am going to say is that if people are going to jam it through tonight, then do not come squealing in here in the last couple of days of the session saying we have not had long enough to consider this particular variation on the theme. As the Hon. Mr Wade said, none of us came here tonight thinking that this was going to get through, because the Attorney-General was telling everyone he was not voting for it and neither were we; so when you add up Liberal and Labor it was not getting through, so we were not going to do that.

Being tabled tonight are the amendments of the Hon. Mr Darley, which we have not seen and which we have not debated. As I understand it, they are probably the same as the bill that the Hon. Mr Darley has introduced, although I have obviously not had a chance to check. However, if that is the case, that bill was introduced and spoken to only tonight. So the Hon. Mr Darley would understand with his bill, as with ours, that having only introduced his bill and his ideas tonight, he has never in the past insisted on that particular thing being jammed through on that particular night without giving all other parties an opportunity to consider those ideas. It is certainly my very strong view that if he is going to be moving his amendments, which were exactly the same as this bill, to this Hon. Mark Parnell bill, again, we are in the same position: we have not had an opportunity to debate that issue at all.

If the numbers are there tonight for the government and other Independents and minor parties to jam something through all stages tonight, then it will be over my dead body, and I am assuming it will be the same thing in relation to our party. At the very least, what I would be asking those minor parties and Independent members is that, if the bill goes to the committee stage and we are going to be debating the amendments of the Hon. Mr Darley, which are completely new in relation to this, those members should at least have the good grace to support reporting progress at that stage.

You can report progress and continue to the next day of sitting if you so choose, if the numbers are there and if you do not want to delay it until the next Wednesday of sitting. That at least keeps your bill and your idea alive without finally signing off, whether it is the Hon. Mr Darley's amendments to the Hon. Mr Parnell's bill, whether it is the Hon. Mr Parnell's bill, or whether there are some other amendments that the government might have up its sleeve that it seeks to jam through tonight without giving anyone else a chance to see them either.

My fervent plea to the Hon. Mr Darley, the Hon. Ms Vincent, the Greens and Family First is that, at the very least, if the bill goes into committee, they accept at least a modicum of the conventions that we have abided by here, that something as significant as this does not get jammed through all stages and that you report progress. You can do that if you so wish, either to the next Wednesday, which is normal, or you can report progress to the next day of sitting as long as there is a majority in the chamber. The final point that I make in relation to tonight's debate is that there is at least one member who is missing, sick, who obviously has no idea that this is all going on.

The Hon. M. Parnell: I gave notice; I gave notice ages ago that this was coming to a vote tonight.

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: But there was no notice that the Hon. Mr Darley will move a whole package of amendments. The notice that you have given, that you are going to vote on it, we accept.

However, given the government was telling everyone they were not voting for it, except maybe for Mr Parnell—maybe they were telling Mr Parnell one thing and the Hon. Mr Hood and the rest of us something different—no-one was assuming this was going through. No-one has seen the Hon. Mr Darley's amendments until tonight. Whichever way you want to spin it, Mr Parnell, all of the conventions we normally abide by in relation to something as significant as this in terms of the Hon. Mr Darley's amendments are that people are given an opportunity. I am only adding to the point that there is a member missing who does not even know the Hon. Mr Darley is moving a package of amendments because they were not tabled until tonight.

The Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins: There's actually two missing. Finnigan's missing too.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: So the Hon. Mr Finnigan is missing too in relation to the issue, so he has not seen the amendments either. In terms of the conventions of this house, as I said, if the bill gets through the second reading and into the committee stage, then I would hope that there would be enough members from the minor parties and the Independents prepared to at least support the notion of reporting progress in the committee stage, and that may be tested in the committee stage to see whether you are prepared to do that and that can then be adjourned on a day-by-day basis until eventually enough of you have the numbers to jam it through in whatever form you wish.

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS (21:26): I will be brief. I support the comments of the Hons Mr Wade, Mr Hood and Mr Lucas who I think have covered enormous amount of territory in relation to this matter, but there was one issue that I do not think has been covered and I want to do that briefly.

I am generally concerned about the process here. I have kept an eye on the possibilities of optional preferential voting for some time and have been keen to explore those matters, but to explore them in a timely fashion. I am concerned about what we are contemplating doing here because I can see, and noting the comments of the Electoral Commissioner, that there is a real prospect of a long delay in counting and of court challenges.

We all know what has happened in Western Australia. We know also that the Legislative Council is not blessed with what the Senate has, so there is a 10-month window from the Senate election in Western Australia until those people actually take their seats. We do not have that 10-month window here; sometimes it is not 10 months but on this occasion it was 10 months. We do not have that 10-month window.

I am concerned that this could lead to a long delay in the formation of the new Legislative Council next year, and indeed the new parliament. We could be in a situation where for some months we are not able to form a government, whether it be a re-elected Labor government or a Liberal government, and that really concerns me. As I said earlier, I have always been pleased to look more at the potential for optional preferential voting and the majority of my colleagues strongly share that view, but we believe it should be done after the 2014 election.

The Hon. J.A. DARLEY (21:28): I would like to make some comments about the whole thing. I think we all agree that the process is flawed and needs to be fixed. I have to say that my amendments were filed yesterday. It has taken us a while because we consulted with the experts and we were not in a position to file them until yesterday.

The Hon. S.G. Wade: They didn't arrive until today. They didn't arrive until this evening.

The Hon. J.A. DARLEY: No, well, I understand there was an administrative problem there but they were filed yesterday.

The Hon. S.G. Wade: It doesn't help us.

The Hon. J.A. DARLEY: No. I respect the view of the Hon. Rob Lucas and if you recall I think it was the last time we met I supported the opposition in their concern about having to vote on amendments when they had only seen them for about a week. I supported that view and I still support that view. I certainly cannot support the Hon. Mark Parnell's bill in its current form but I will say that I will not be moving my amendments tonight, but I can foreshadow that I could call my bill to a vote on 27 November.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (21:29): I certainly will not repeat the comments that some of my colleagues have made. In relation to the Hon. Mark Parnell's bill, I have some questions I would like him to address in his summing up, and other questions that were raised by the comments by the Hon. Mr Wade, the Hon. Mr Hood and the Hon. Mr Lucas.

I am sure the Hon. Mark Parnell has had discussions with the Electoral Commissioner. I am sure he has met with the Electoral Commissioner and discussed things such as the cost of the changeover, the cost of the education program, the cost of the translation—and given that it has already been done, the cost of repeating that. There is the education program for the community the Hon. Mr Lucas spoke about, where the vast majority of people have been used to putting one in the box. Let's face it, a large number of people do not take much notice of what is going on until they walk into the polling booth.

There are issues such as the licensing of the software. Has the Hon. Mark Parnell spoken to the Australian Electoral Commission to see whether that change of the software could be accommodated? The staff training: what is the cost for all the electoral commission staff to be retrained? There is the manual count that the Hon. Stephen Wade spoke about. The Electoral Commissioner has advised him in writing, or maybe in the meeting that he had with her, that it could be between four and eight weeks. What is the additional cost to the Electoral Commission in relation to that particular exercise? If it is as much as eight weeks and we need to have a recount, then we are talking 16 weeks of presumably a large number of people who are on the payroll, not just casuals who are there for a couple weeks after the election.

I am pleased that the Hon. Mr Darley has made his comments, because I was going to ask the Hon. Mark Parnell whether he would ignore the long-held convention. I accept they were probably filed yesterday, but we have only seen the amendments today and this chamber knows the long-held process of the Liberal Party. We have a meeting on a Monday (in fact, some years ago it was a Tuesday). We have a meeting, we discuss the legislation, and we form a party position. These amendments, even if they had arrived yesterday, would have arrived too late for us to go to that process.

I remind members, if they wish to keep the option alive and continue the debate we could easily report progress and adjourn this. We do have an optional sitting week. The government has put it in the system to have an optional week. If this chamber is so inclined—aside from the government, the crossbenches and the opposition have the control and the numbers here—we could sit for another week. We could actually give ourselves an extra three days to discuss this. If the government of the day is genuinely serious about keeping its options open, Premier Weatherill will concede that we should have the optional sitting week in the House of Assembly.

I would like the Hon. Mark Parnell to answer those questions, if he is able to, as to what discussions he has had with the Electoral Commissioner in relation to the costs and all the issues that have been raised in the letter that the Hon. Stephen Wade read onto the record, about the mechanics of it. If he is not able to answer it, does he simply not believe the Electoral Commissioner? With those few words—although I have presently got four conversations going and nobody is listening to me, which is not unusual, I know—I will indicate that I will be joining with my colleagues in voting against the bill.

The Hon. M. PARNELL (21:33): Let me start by thanking the Hon. Stephen Wade, the Hon. Gerry Kandelaars, the Hon. Kelly Vincent, the Hon. Dennis Hood, the Hon. Rob Lucas, the Hon. John Dawkins and last, but by no means least, the Hon. David Ridgway for their contributions. There were more contributions than I had anticipated on this bill—I think one had been notified on the whipping sheet—which is a really interesting observation. When people think that a Greens initiative is about to go down in a screaming heap, no-one bothers to talk about it, but all of a sudden now it is alive.

I will start with an observation that a number of the opposition members made, that the driving force behind this move must be self interest. That has effectively been alluded to. I am just making the point that the bill I have introduced is the longstanding policy of my party. I have introduced it before, and I am going to talk about that shortly. Bob Brown introduced it into the Senate, and its something we have been trying the achieve for a long time.

The best way for me to summarise the contributions of the Liberal members is that they doth protest far too much. I will say at the outset that, whilst I could have leapt to my feet on a point of order during the Hon. Stephen Wade's contribution, I decided to let him go, but I reject absolutely any suggestion that I am bullying the Electoral Commissioner. He mentioned that he does not want to see the Attorney-General and the Greens bullying the Electoral Commissioner. I reject any bullying of the Electoral Commissioner. If the Electoral Commissioner has any complaint in relation to my very few number of contacts with her, then I expect that she would contact the President, but I absolutely reject any suggestion that we are bullying the Electoral Commissioner.

The Hon. S.G. Wade: Show me where I used the word once—I didn't use the word once.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: The Hon. Stephen Wade interjects that he did not use the word 'bullying' once. When we see the Hansard tomorrow morning, we will have a look and see whether that is in fact the case. It is certainly not the notes I took as he was speaking.

The other thing I would say is that, if we had a dollar for every time one of the Liberal members talked about jamming this bill through and not having a chance to think about it, we would all be very wealthy. I remind honourable members that this provision in this bill was introduced into the Legislative Council in May 2010, and it was on the table for a year and a month. Then in June 2011, if I have my dates right here, the opposition responded to it. I will make sure I have the dates right here. My second reading speech was on 26 May 2010, and the Liberal Party, one year and one month later, responded with five lines in Hansard to say that they were not supporting the bill. Because it is only five lines, it is very easy to refer to it.

The Hon. Stephen Wade said that he would speak very briefly—he did that. He said that 'it is a bill put forward by the Hon. Mark Parnell with a range of, shall we say, stimulating suggestions'. He then goes on, in a matter of a handful of sentences, to say that this needs to be considered when the report from the Electoral Commissioner on the 2010 election has been handed down, and there was a committee looking at the dodgy how-to-vote cards. Ultimately he said, 'We do not believe that this bill should be supported, but rather these matters should be considered when the Electoral Act is open at an appropriate time.'

Well, guess what: we have opened it up at an appropriate time. No-one in the Liberal Party can say they are taken by surprise by an optional preferential voting bill introduced by the Greens. It has been our longstanding policy, you had it for a year and a month, you chose not to think about it or engage in it, you now have it before you and you think your throats are cut because you are being asked to consider it. All I have done is apply the protocols of the house, I have introduced the bill, I have given people notice, so that is why we will proceed. We will see how we go tonight.

I want to address the things the Hon. Stephen Wade talked about. He mentioned the rush, and I have dealt with that. One of the questions would be that, whilst this has been longstanding policy, one of the things we find in debates here is that, unless people have concrete examples, reform is difficult. We now have classic, concrete examples. We have a person elected to the Senate, using the same vote-counting system as us, on 0.2 per cent of the vote. We have someone elected on 0.5 per cent of the vote, and the opposition did not really refer to any of that. The Hon. Dennis Hood mentioned it: he talked about people getting a tiny proportion of the vote being elected, but the opposition does not seem to get that those people were not elected because of the democratic will of the people; they were elected because people in back rooms did deals and the votes of ordinary voters ended up in places they never expected. My driving ambition in this is to get rid of party and group voting tickets; that is what I am trying to achieve. Get rid of those tickets, get rid of the deals, and put all the preferences back into the hands of the voters.

The Hon. Stephen Wade gave the statistics, rounded up, that 97 per cent of people vote above the line (96.8 to be exact) and 3 per cent below the line. My expectation is, on the basis of optional preferential voting systems used interstate, that the figures are pretty much the same: most people still vote above the line. The Hon. Stephen Wade lamented that we will not be able to lodge split tickets. Well, guess what? We are not lodging any tickets, split or otherwise. That is the purpose of the bill: to get rid of voting tickets. He railed against the spectre of massive informality—

The Hon. S.G. Wade: Yes.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: —in the vote, but the point is—and he clearly has not been paying attention—that there will be no higher level of informality under this system than under the present system. That is because even if a person does not realise that the voting system has changed—even if they do exactly what they have done for years and years and years; that is, vote one number only above the line or every square below the line—that is a valid vote under this system. It is not going to lead to some tsunami of informality; that is just rubbish. Therefore, it is not going to disenfranchise thousands of voters.

The argument seems to be that people will be so confused that they will get it wrong. The Liberals have said people do not pay attention anyway, but clearly enough of them are going to pay attention to get it wrong. Most people will probably behave the same way; the parties will probably advise their supporters to behave the same way. The Hon. Rob Lucas asked the question, 'Well, what will this mean?' It will mean exactly what it means in New South Wales; that is, that most people (I think it is over 90 per cent) will still just vote 1 above the line.

In relation to questions that have been put on notice, I will have to consider some of them, but I have some of the answers now. How will they count the votes? They will put the bits of paper into piles like they do at the moment. They will be stacked into piles in order of who the No. 1 is; it is not that hard.

Mention was made by a number of members about the letter from the Electoral Commissioner. I presented that letter to parliamentary counsel and said, 'There are some technical issues here.' Parliamentary counsel said, 'Fair enough,' they drafted some amendments, and they have been tabled. I drew them to the Hon. Stephen Wade's attention in an email saying, 'These are the amendments that parliamentary counsel have drafted to deal with the Electoral Commissioner's technical concerns,' so I think that has been fixed up.

Questions were asked in relation to computer counting and the difficulty of it. Certainly, I accept that the commentary has been how hard it is. I am not a computer programmer, but I know enough about computers and I know enough about electoral systems to know that the task of modifying a voting system is not impossible. No-one has actually suggested it is impossible. The Hon. Stephen Wade said it is all about getting it properly accredited, tested and audited to make sure that it all works okay. The point is: for the vast bulk of votes, the vast majority of the 1.1 million votes will be single figures above the line, they will be pieces of paper put into a pile and they will be counted by hand as they are at present. There is no difference in relation to that.

Questions were asked in relation to whether I have talked to the Australian Electoral Commission about whether they are prepared to licence or modify their software. No, I have not, but I have to say: what state is our country in if the federal Electoral Commissioner, like some kid protecting their homework from the child sitting next to them, says, 'You can't use our software; that is our intellectual property.' What rubbish! Similarly, the cooperation—

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: You wouldn't know, you haven't spoken to him; how would you know?

The Hon. M. PARNELL: If the Hon. David Ridgway seriously suggests that the Australian Electoral Commission—

The PRESIDENT: He's out of order, as well.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: —would deliberately frustrate the wishes of the South Australian parliament if this were to go through, and the Electoral Commissioner who is tasked with implementing the will of parliament, I just find that an outrageous suggestion. The Hon. Stephen Wade also asked, 'How long would it take to certify and how long would it take to code?' and—

The Hon. S.G. Wade: It's what the commissioner told us.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: The Hon. Stephen Wade refers to the commissioner—

The Hon. S.G. Wade: Just read the letter!

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. S.G. Wade: Read the letter!

The Hon. M. PARNELL: I am going to go back to one sentence here—

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Wade, you were heard in silence, so allow the same courtesy to the mover of the bill.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: I am not here to bag the Electoral Commissioner. I think she has chosen her words, and here are her words—and the Hon. Stephen Wade read this out:

ECSA is a small office and to incorporate such a significant change to operational proceedings will be in my view an unreasonable burden on staff—

this is a sentence that I have to say I struggle with—

regardless of how many additional resources are provided.

In other words, is the Electoral Commissioner saying that it does not matter how many extra staff, how much money, how much computer programming—

An honourable member: She said it.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: I know she said it. I am inviting the council to reflect on her words. If what she is saying is that it is impossible under any circumstances, regardless of the amount of resources put to this issue, to actually come up with a computer voting system or a manual voting system, or whatever it might be, I personally struggle with that. Members will make up their own mind. 'Regardless of how many additional resources are provided' I find a remarkable statement, but the commissioner has made it and she is entitled to her view.

The point is, of course, that the job of the Electoral Commissioner is to implement the will of the parliament. People are getting very excited about computer programs. We managed to have elections before computers, but I do not think that this is such an onerous task because there will not be many preferences at all to have to enter manually. There just will not be. That is the experience everywhere else where these types of voting systems have been brought into place.

Questions were asked about translations, that they cannot be tweaked. Part of the reason for me introducing the bill as I have, which is no change below the line and a simple change above the line but not influencing anything else in the electoral system, is that it is not actually that difficult to move from the system we have to the one we want. If they are saying that they cannot possibly find someone who can come up with some Thai or Vietnamese sentences which now say, 'Number as many or as few squares as you want above the line,' I find that difficult. Yes, there are resources involved and, yes, there is a task involved, but I do not accept the suggestion that that somehow makes democratic reform impossible.

All the contributions from the Liberal members did not refer to the evil we are trying to overcome, which is that people get elected to our parliament without any popular support on the basis of people gaming the system and doing backroom deals. Not one member of the Liberal Party has said, 'It's actually fair enough that someone gets one-fifth of 1 per cent of the vote and gets elected to a parliament.' They have not said that that is a good outcome, and yet they resisted it back in 2011—Stephen Wade, five lines in Hansard saying, 'We reject this'—and they are rejecting it again now. So, I am struggling with how they are going with this and the idea that they somehow need a bit more time not to accept the Hon. John Darley's amendments, which they are not going to support anyway because they are not supporting the bill.

I will make an observation on the Hon. John Darley's bill. I have had a number of conversations with John and his staff and, as the honourable member said, his bill and mine are pretty close. The only difference is that he has optional preferential below the line as well as above the line. I think that is an acceptable outcome, as well. It is not as simple as my bill. It involves more changes than mine, which is why I have gone for a more simplistic model. I have certainly heard what people have said and, whilst it was my intention to, as I notified all members in good time, take this to its final conclusion tonight, I will now ask the house for leave to conclude my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

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