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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-11-26 Daily Xml
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First Nations Voice to Parliament

The Hon. S.L. GAME (15:37): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before directing a question to the Attorney-General regarding South Australia's First Nations Voice to Parliament.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.L. GAME: It was recently reported by ABC Adelaide that four elected members of the South Australian First Nations Voice to Parliament had resigned since the first meetings were held in June. In the report, inaugural presiding member of the Voice who is among the resignations, Tahlia Wanganeen, described the current model as 'unsustainable'. The report said supplementary elections will be held to replace those who have stepped down. My questions to the Attorney-General are:

1. Does the government agree with Tahlia Wanganeen that the current model of the South Australian First Nations Voice to Parliament is unsustainable, and can the government explain why Ms Wanganeen has made this statement?

2. How much will these supplementary Voice elections, plus the recruitment process to replace the outgoing director of the Voice secretariat, cost South Australian taxpayers?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (15:38): I thank the honourable member for her question. I won't go into the individual personal circumstances of individual people and members of the Voice. I know that a number have had changes in circumstances that make it not sustainable to keep on the Voice, given new working conditions and new opportunities that they have undertaken.

I think, as the Hon. Sarah Game pointed out, there were four members since the Voice elections in March of this year who have indicated they were intending to resign. One of those members gave that indication as they were moving interstate. That hasn't happened so, as I understand it, there are now three resignations from the Voice body.

There is a combination of replacements through supplementary elections and also, as the legislation provides, from the person who was next highest elected, if they are willing to serve, so some of those will be replaced where it is in compliance with the legislation from the next one on the list, others will require a supplementary election.

In relation to resignations, do I think this shows any sort of failure or problem with the Voice? No, I don't. Not at all, actually. This is the first time we have had a body like this anywhere in Australia. The people who bravely put their hands up to be elected to represent their communities are doing something that no-one has ever done before around Australia. I make no criticism of someone who, in whatever circumstances, has elected to resign from the Voice.

If you look at the numbers who have resigned from the Voice, with three out of 46, that is somewhere between 6 per cent and 7 per cent of the 46 people who were elected. If you compare that to the whole Liberal contingent elected in the House of Assembly, 16 members elected and three have resigned. That is close to 20 per cent. Liberal members of the House of Assembly have resigned at nearly triple the rate of the Voice members who have resigned.

Not just when you look at the cost of the by-election but when you look at what they knew they were getting in for, all of those members of the lower house of the Liberal Party knew they were being elected to a job that pays $200,000 a year. Members of the Voice were elected knowing that their yearly pay was $3,000 a year. No-one is doing this for the money. They are doing it because they believe in their communities.

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