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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2017-02-14 Daily Xml
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Bills

Electoral (Legislative Council Voting) (Voter Choice) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 6 December 2016.)

The Hon. J.A. DARLEY (16:20): The government's bill will change the manner in which above the line voting is conducted for the Legislative Council. At the moment, voters have the choice of either voting '1' above the line or numbering all below the line. Preferences from above the line votes are allocated according to a voting ticket submitted by a party, group or Independent. This has led to skewed results, whereby candidates who have received a very small number of primary votes have been elected off the back of preference deals.

The government's bill aims to eliminate these backroom deals by having preferences extinguished after all the candidates from the particular party or group have been exhausted rather than flowing on to another party, group or Independent. The Nick Xenophon Team is supportive of having a more transparent system. In fact, I introduced a bill for optional preferential voting in 2013. However, we believe that the government's proposal is skewed to favour the major parties and make it more difficult for smaller parties or Independents to become elected. Voters should have the ability to choose where their preferences go if they want to see preferences flow to other parties, groups or Independents without filling in all the boxes below the line.

As such, I have filed amendments which will allow for voters to put their own preferences above the line. Voters will have the choice of numbering up to six boxes above the line. Preferences will extinguish after all the candidates of all the boxes they have completed have exhausted. That is, if they choose to only fill in one box, the preferences will extinguish after all the candidates from the group or party have been exhausted. It will be the same as what the government is proposing. If, however, the voter chooses to fill in three boxes above the line, the preferences will flow from all the candidates from group or party one on through all the candidates from group or party two and then through party three. At this stage, the preferences expire, as there are no more candidates.

The aim of this bill is to give voters more choice. I believe my amendments will give voters more choice than what the government is proposing, rather than limiting them to only one party, group or Independent, or making them face the alternative of filling out all the boxes below the line.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL (16:22): The Greens believe this bill is incorrectly named. The title refers to voter choice, yet what this bill does is actually remove one of the most important elements of voter choice, and that is the ability to allocate preferences. The government can say that if someone is so keen to allocate preferences they can number all the squares below the line, but we know that 95 per cent of voters do not do that. It is an onerous task, there is a risk of making a mistake, and they should not have to do it when it comes to allocating preferences.

The Greens' position has always been that we want to see electoral reform in the form of optional preferential voting. There are variations on that theme, and I look forward to discussing with the Hon. John Darley, with my other colleagues on the crossbench and with the opposition—and hopefully with the government as well—how we can genuinely get a system of optional preferential voting so that in an ideal world voters could number as many or as few squares as they wished. They could favour as many or as few candidates as they wished. When they have stopped allocating preferences, their vote then exhausts.

One of the myths, I think, with much of this debate about electoral reform has been that the exhausted vote, regardless of when it exhausts, is some sort of democratic tragedy. It is not; it is an expression of the voter's will. If the voter only wants to preference one, two, three or six parties or candidates then that should be their right. The big problem with this bill is that you only get one vote above the line and you do not get any ability to allocate preferences. That said, the bill does overcome the great evil that I think all of us are keen to see overcome, and that is the backroom preference deals. It does that, but it does not do it in a way that provides for genuine voter choice.

The Greens have an optional preferential voting bill before parliament and the Hon. John Darley has had a bill as well, and he has now put forward some amendments which effectively turn this bill into an optional preferential voting bill. Whilst we are yet to go through all of the fine detail, the Greens are very attracted to what the Hon. John Darley is doing. Like I said, there are variations on a theme. Do you make people number at least six boxes above the line? Do you allow them to number up to six boxes above the line? Why six? Why not four or why not three? There are variations on a theme, but all of them have an advantage over this bill, which is that they do give voters some element of choice. I think we need to have that discussion.

I know the Hon. John Darley is interested in having a look below the line. How can we allow voters to exercise a preference for various candidates without having to go through the onerous task of numbering every single square? Whilst I have not actually seen the ballot papers, I understand that in the Western Australian parliament nominations closed today, and I think there is a record number of candidates. If we get a record number of upper house candidates it makes for a very onerous task. Is it 80, 90 or 100?

Will we get the famous New South Wales tablecloth ballot paper? If you force people to number every single square on a piece of paper that size they will inevitably make mistakes. The informal rate of voting for those who go below the line is much, much higher than above the line. The Greens will be opposing the bill as it is drafted. We will have a very close look at the Hon. John Darley's amendments, but we are very attracted to them. We are also attracted to seeing whether we could further amend the bill for allocating preferences below the line and I look forward to those discussions.

One of the reasons I have put myself down to speak on this bill at a very early stage is that we need to let the government know at a very early stage that this bill, in its current form, is going nowhere. What we do not want is the situation we had four years ago when it was the very final week of sitting before we got to seriously debate upper house voting reform. My sincere hope is that we knock this bill off in its current form or we amend it to provide for more voter choice, for an optional preferential system, and I look forward to discussing with my colleagues in all parties how we can make the voting system fairer.

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (16:27): I rise to speak also on the Electoral (Legislative Council Voting) (Voter Choice) Amendment Bill. As the Hon. Mr Parnell has pointed out, I am not comfortable with the title of this bill. I do not think the bill is correctly titled when it uses the term 'voter choice' because it actually seeks to limit choice, which is a problem. We know that record numbers of voters are voting for other than the two major parties these days and that is something that needs to be acknowledged and recognised.

I say at the outset that I associate myself with the comments of the two previous speakers, but not completely. After listening to their contributions today, there are a few minor points of difference, but Family First's position would be largely in agreement with the comments that the Hon. John Darley and the Hon. Mark Parnell just made. We also will be opposing this bill in its current form.

I have had a very brief look at the amendments that have been tabled by the Hon. Mr Darley. I think they were only tabled today, if I am not mistaken, so I have only had an opportunity to literally glance at them and not look at them in any detail at all. I think I understand at least the gist of what he is trying to do without necessarily being across the detail, and that is to introduce a system very similar to the model used in the Senate at the last federal election. That is a model that Family First would, basically, look upon favourably.

As the Hon. Mark Parnell rightly pointed out, there are some considerations. Sometimes the detail can get in the way of achieving what I think would be in the best interest of all South Australians, and that is the introduction of a system along those lines but, of course, the detail can get in the way, as I said. Those questions come down to things like: should it be six above the line, for example, as it is in the Senate? Of course, in the Senate, six makes a great deal of sense because the state of South Australia elects six senators at each half Senate election, so six is probably the most obvious number.

Should it be 11 above the line in the Legislative Council, for example, given that 11 legislative councillors are elected at each normal election held every four years in South Australia? My initial response is that 11 sounds too many, but other members may, no doubt, have different opinions. Then, of course, you turn your thinking to below the line. At the moment, voters are required to number every box below the line in their order of preference. I may be mistaken, but I think we had 76 at the last election or something very close to that. That is an onerous task for many people. As the Hon. Mark Parnell indicated, only about 5 per cent of people avail themselves of that opportunity—not surprisingly, because it is quite an onerous task.

That is one aspect of the government's bill that I agree with. Essentially, they are trying to do away with group voting tickets. Our position is that that is not an unreasonable objective. I think group voting tickets have been overly demonised, frankly, but I can see their limitations and, as a result of that, our party would be willing to assist in formulating a solution that other members of this place agreed on, so that we could get some agreement.

To go back to the very first point I made, we will not support this bill in its current form and the reason, as I mentioned in my comments about the title including the term 'voter choice', is that the bill does not actually improve the choice available to individuals because it compels them simply to number one box. That is not a choice; that is a compulsion. Then, people do not have the opportunity to number subsequent boxes above the line if they choose. In my mind, they should have that opportunity. Certainly, that is our party position.

So many possibilities have arisen in this place over the last several years and various models have been presented. The Hon. Mr Parnell made mention of the fact that both he and the Hon. Mr Darley currently have before this place, and have had in various forms over the years, what are termed optional preferential voting bills. I myself introduced a bill which introduced what I called a threshold. It was agreed in the end amongst other members that 2.5 per cent of the vote would be the appropriate threshold, and that was included in my bill. That would mean that any party or individual who achieved less than 2.5 per cent of the primary vote for the Legislative Council at an election would be excluded from being elected.

That was my bill. I thought 2.5 was a reasonable number; it is not particularly high. Certainly, my sense in moving around the state of South Australia was that people want the opportunity for minor parties and Independents to be elected, but they are somewhat sceptical of members being elected on very low percentages. I was happy with a number in the order of two, three or four or whatever it may be, but I think there was general agreement that somewhere around 2.5 per cent was about right.

One of the reasons for that, I might say, is that now Senator Xenophon was originally elected on 2.8 or 2.9 per cent or something of that nature, and he has obviously gone on to have quite an impact on the Australian political scene. I do not think any of us would advocate excluding those sorts of individuals from the political environment. As I said, he was able to achieve 2.9 or 2.8 per cent or something in that order, so my proposal of 2.5 per cent would not have excluded him either.

To bring discussion back to this bill that the government has put forward, another thing the Hon. Mark Parnell said that I agree with is that this bill in its current form is not going anywhere. I cannot speak for the Liberal Party, but I understand that they will not support it in its current form either. If that is the case, simple mathematics suggests that this is not going to pass in its current form and, therefore, we need to get on with the task of getting something that will pass.

The election next March is coming up very quickly, obviously. I really do not want to be in the situation, and I think other members would support me in this, that we were in prior to the last election, where literally on the last sitting day we were negotiating in this chamber, in the corridors, over the phone, etc., to try to get an outcome that all members and parties could agree on. We failed to do that and I am not surprised, given the rushed circumstances under which we were trying to operate.

I think we should aim to have this passed in the first half of the year. It needs to be fair for all. It needs to be fair for even micro parties, and it also needs to be fair—and I think I will get some loud 'hear hears' for this—for the major parties. It needs to be fair across the board and accurately represent the result of the election; that is, who is ultimately elected to the Legislative Council needs to, as best they can, represent the will of the South Australian public in terms of who they want to put there and how many of each group they want there. So, we need consensus soon, or at least a majority, but ideally consensus soon. I think this is something that cannot wait for very much longer.

Regarding the issue of votes exhausting, I am a bit uncomfortable with that. Other members will have different views on that, but I do not like the idea of a very large number of voters having their votes essentially wasted. I think the Hon. Mark Parnell made a solid point that some people who might like to vote for party XYZ and who do not deem any other party, group or individual worthy of their preferences, would simply exclude them. There would be some, I believe, who would consciously do that, but I also believe that there would be a substantially larger number of individuals who had their vote exhausted and either might simply not be aware that that is happening, or where that was not their intention. Those things need to be thrashed out.

With those comments, we are favourably inclined, at this very early stage, to a model of this general type, although obviously not specifically what has been put here. The amendments that the Hon. Mr Darley has tabled—I have only briefly looked at them—may provide an opportunity to work our way through this. We enter this debate with a spirit of cooperation. We want to do what is in the interests of South Australians. I think everyone has agreed that some change is needed, the question is what that will be.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. T.T. Ngo.


At 16:37 the council adjourned until Wednesday 15 February 2017 at 11:00.

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