State Election

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (16:13): I move:

1. That a select committee of the Legislative Council be established to inquire into and report on the following matters related to the general election of 15 March 2014—

(a) the workings of Part 5 of the Constitution regarding electoral redistribution and the Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission, including but not limited to the interpretation and application of the considerations in section 83 for electoral fairness and other criteria;

(b) other aspects of the electoral system relating to marginal seats, the electoral pendulum and electoral fairness;

(c) the laws and rules relevant to electoral advertising and taxpayer-funded advertising in an election period, including but not limited to questions of truth in political advertising;

(d) the handling of complaints about conduct that may affect the result of an election, and sanctions available and applied thereto; and

(e) any other relevant matters.

2. That standing order 389 be so far suspended as to enable the chairperson of the committee to have a deliberative vote only.

3. That this council permits the select committee to authorise the disclosure or publication, as it sees fit, of any evidence or documents presented to the committee prior to such evidence being presented to the council.

4. That standing order 396 be suspended to enable strangers to be admitted when the select committee is examining witnesses unless the committee otherwise resolves, but they shall be excluded when the committee is deliberating.

At this point in time, I will be reasonably brief with my remarks. I place on the record first and foremost that Family First would be prepared to work with the mover of a similar motion, namely the Hon. Mr Stephen Wade, to see whether or not there can be integration between the two proposals.

You might say that, on the surface of it, Family First parliamentarians in the Legislative Council may not have as much interest in the House of Assembly as the Labor Party and the Liberal Party, but that is not true for a number of reasons. We always work very hard and put up good quality candidates in the House of Assembly to give people options.

I have received an enormous amount of feedback from right across the state, asking what happened to the electoral redistribution act when in came to a range of matters, not the least being the fairness test. What they meant by that is that they thought that, when a party has 50 plus 1 per cent of the two-party preferred vote, you could form government with that result. In fact, when you have a look at federal politics and what occurs in most other states, the fact is that, if a party received 53 per cent two-party preferred, it would almost be a landslide.

So, in the interests of democracy, I think it is time to look at this issue. From time to time, people talk about gerrymanders and dictatorships. If you look at what has happened since the 1960s, and certainly in the last 25 to 30 years, you would have to say that there has been almost a gerrymander situation when it comes to who forms government in this state, in spite of the fact that more than 50 plus 1 per cent of the South Australian community chose another government.

I put on the public record that I think that it is always healthy for a state that governments are not in power for long periods because governments do run out of puff, energy and direction—and the way this government is going, they will also run out of money, and we need to intervene before that happens. Sure, everybody wants to be a minister or a parliamentary secretary, everybody wants the power and the glory and to get the white car—and they are privileges. But it is more than that, it is about good governance, good direction for the state, and that involves dedicated commitment and an absolute focus and energy, and you do lose that after a period of time.

But to come back to the key point, I have had a very detailed look at the issues around the redistribution of the seats and the fact that under 5 per cent on the pendulum, if there is a mood for change, then a swing is on and arguably you would get, with 53 per cent two-party preferred, a change of government. However, I suggest to the house that there are issues in relation to the way in which these boundaries are being drawn, particularly the last time this occurred—and I will not go into the detail now; I will wait until, hopefully, a committee is formed. However, I would say that, if any member of this house wants to look at Dr Jenni Newton-Farrelly's report and then look at it booth by booth, the way the process has occurred, you will see that the process is structurally flawed.

People can run around saying that incumbency is everything. The Hon. Gordon Bilney, the former member for Kingston, now sadly deceased, said that at best, if you are working very hard as a local member, incumbency is worth 2 or 3 per cent to you. It is interesting that in the recent election, where there were seats with less than 1 per cent, that you could not move them.

I suggest that members have a look at how the booths in those areas within those electorates were set up and formed. I looked at one seat in particular as an example, and the fact is that, while there were some swings to Liberal areas in that marginal seat, particularly with scare campaigns and what I believe to be blatant lies, in some cases, in respect of material distributed around some of the seats, the way the Labor areas are drawn in those seats, they are rock solid; you cannot shift them. Unless there are monumental changes to the structure, I suggest that there may not be a change of government for a very long time. I encourage members to have a look at that.

If there are structural problems in the way it is being done, it is up to the parliament, not the Electoral Commission or the Redistribution Commission. I very much look forward to having evidence and questioning opportunities with, for example, Ms Mousley, the Electoral Commissioner, to learn more about how they set up the last redistribution.

I say again, it was structurally flawed. I could not see it at the time but when you have a look now you can see that structural flaw, and that was never the intent of the legislation. The fact is that the parliament should look at that, not an electoral boundaries redistribution commission, because the parliament makes the laws on behalf of the people, and 53 per cent, an absolute resounding majority, wanted a change and it did not occur.

I also want once and for all to fix up what happened with Labor in 2010 with the dodgy Family First impersonators. One minister's partner (who I have a photograph of) was dressed up in a Family First T-shirt—an absolute impersonation of our people in that seat—and this sort of nonsense has to stop. Also, there are issues around third-party situations. Whether you are Liberal, Labor, Family First or whatever, you give credit where it is due, and I give credit to the Labor government on many occasions when I believe they deserve it. I give credit to the former Liberal government, namely, the Sir Thomas Playford government, when it came to them setting up a state-of-the-art public housing concept for South Australia that led Australia.

What happened is that a third party—arguably a third party representing an association but I would like to find out whether that party did in fact represent that association—received material in breach of the confidentiality act and broke the law. Who gave that material to that person? We need to know these things because this sort of stuff cannot happen. Somebody broke the law and that must never happen again. It scared people. People who might have voted for Family First, the Greens or Liberal, were scared back into voting for the Labor Party because a law was broken, a database was given to a person and/or an association and that went out around marginal seats. Those people received a letter saying that they would lose their home if there was a change of government and it was not a Labor government.

That is not acceptable in a democracy. They are just some of the things that we need to have a look at. We need truth in advertising, and we need to have a look at how we can do that because there is no truth in some of the advertising that went out during the last election. I would suggest that if some of the material that went out in this last election was from the business sector, they would be before the ACCC, they would be taken to court by opposition businesses, and there would be huge ramifications. This has to stop.

The Hon. B.V. Finnigan interjecting:

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: We can get interjections from Labor. Maybe they do not like it, but let's have a warts and all look at this in the interests of fairness for South Australian voters who we represent, and that fairness is in a democracy in which 50 plus 1 per cent two-party preferred wins the election. What we have seen in the last two redistributions is an impossible drawing of the boundaries for that to change, and that is not the intent of the act, and that is why we need to have a select committee into this important matter for the future of South Australia.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. S.G. Wade.