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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-03-20 Daily Xml
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First Nations Voice Elections

The Hon. L.A. HENDERSON (15:11): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Attorney-General and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs regarding the First Nations Voice elections.

Leave granted.

The Hon. L.A. HENDERSON: On the SA Voice election website, under 'Counting the votes', it says, and I quote:

Counting of the votes will commence from Monday 25 March…

And that:

Counting will continue through the week and may require further counting into early April following the Easter Break.

More information about how and when votes are counted will be provided soon.

Given the election was held on Saturday, four days ago, my questions are:

1. Why is there no updated information publicly available on the government website as to when counting will be completed?

2. Has ECSA been provided with sufficient resourcing to manage the state First Nations Voice elections?

3. Does the minister have confidence in the commissioner?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (15:12): I thank the honourable member for her questions. As I informed the chamber yesterday, it's my understanding that postal votes still have a time to be received. I think it's at least until the end of this week that postal votes can be received by the commission.

As I outlined yesterday, this is a proportional representation election, where you have to know the exact number of formal votes that are cast to work out what the quota is before you can start counting it. It differs very significantly to counts that we see starting on the night for lower house seats, where you can start an indicative count and even get on the night an indicative two-candidate preferred outcome, because you don't have to calculate a quota which can only be derived from the number of formal votes that are cast.

The method that we use in this proportional representation system is a single transferable vote system. I think in the SA Legislative Council it's the Inclusive Gregory method of single transferable vote system where the quota is derived from dividing the total number of formal votes by the number of positions available plus one to work out the quota. So there is a very logical and obvious reason why you can't start a count until you have all the votes, and with postal votes still arriving you need to be able to do that.

In terms of resources provided, yes, there were lots of discussions with the Electoral Commission about what was going to be needed. There were dozens and dozens of places where there were early voting centres and mobile voting centres. I know mobile voting centres were held in communities across South Australia, including Kalka, Pipalyatjara, I think Kanpi, Amata, Pukatja, Umuwa, Kaltjiti, Mimili, Iwantja, Nepabunna, Point Pearce, Yalata, Oak Valley—I believe there was an early voting centre—to name just a few of the very remote locations that the Electoral Commission was provided with resources to hold the elections. So certainly there were significant resources.

As I explained yesterday and as I hope I have explained so that the member has a reasonable grasp and understanding, you can't start a count of a proportional representation election until you know for sure how many formal votes are cast.

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