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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2022-02-09 Daily Xml
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COVID-Ready Committee

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (15:06): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Treasurer as a member of the Premier's COVID-Ready powwow group on its deliberations.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.G. Wade: That's not the right title.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: Neither is 'committee', minister. According to The Advertiser, the COVID powwow group—I won't call it a committee because committees are meant to be reporting and investigating—

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Order! The Hon. Mr Pangallo, that's a bit of opinion there. Take it out, please.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: Okay. Well, the minister popped up. He provoked me. According to The Advertiser, the COVID powwow group is considering a range of options to allow isolating South Australians to vote. My question to the Treasurer, who told us he is a member of the committee, or group, is how does this group make a decision when we have been told it doesn't make any decisions and doesn't keep records of its deliberations, who makes the decisions the Premier announces, and has the COVID powwow discussed the alcohol ban in Port Augusta?

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: The honourable Treasurer, I am not sure about the powwow thing, but I think you know what the Hon. Mr Pangallo is alluding to.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (15:07): Mr Deputy President, I have been called lots of things in my time, and so be it. Bodies that I work on have been called lots of things, so it is up to the honourable member what he calls it.

The issue in relation to the election was canvassed at considerable length yesterday. I am happy to repeat what I said on the public record yesterday, and that is that it is not the COVID-Ready Committee that will be making decisions in relation to election voting issues. Thankfully, in South Australia under our system, it's not politicians—whether it be the Premier, the Treasurer, the Minister for Health or the COVID-Ready Committee—that dictates to the independent Electoral Commission how the Electoral Commission conducts the election process. It is a decision for the independent Electoral Commissioner in terms of how he and his team will conduct the election process.

As I understand it—I haven't seen the detail of it—the Electoral Commissioner might have issued some sort of statement today in relation to anticipation that in the not too distant future he will make some announcements in relation to the conduct of the election, with the objective that we all share, and that is to try to ensure that all those people who want to vote are given the maximum possible opportunity to vote, either before election day or on election day.

So the honourable member, although for different reasons, is quite right. The COVID-Ready Committee is not going to be making decisions in relation to the way the election is going to be conducted, and I hope he would be supportive of that. The notion that someone other than the independent Electoral Commissioner would make those decisions would be abhorrent to me and, I suspect, abhorrent to the majority of South Australians.

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