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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-09-18 Daily Xml
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South Australian Parliament

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. J.M.A. Lensink:

That this council—

1. Calls on the Leader of the Government in the Legislative Council to adopt similar rules to those in the House of Assembly regarding earlier commencement times for sittings; and

2. Calls on the government to adopt the recommendations of the Select Committee on Effectiveness of the System of Committees of the South Australian parliament to rationalise and streamline the current committee structure.

(Continued from 4 June 2025.)

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (16:44): I rise very briefly to support the motion of the Hon. Michelle Lensink. Here we are again discussing something that the Labor Party supported much more when they were in opposition than they have in government. The idea of family-friendly work hours is an important one. Starting earlier in this place seems to me to be a no-brainer if we are to support people—for example, single parents and the like—and actually reflect the diversity of our community in this place.

Quite simply, our committee system was identified as pretty much broken, very archaic and not fit for purpose. The committee system should reflect portfolios, it should have ongoing expertise of a researcher in those portfolios and it should have the ability to have the flexibility that members can sub in and out, as we have seen with the Senate inquiry into the algal bloom most recently where I saw that all South Australian senators in fact were—I was going to say 'in tandem' but it was beyond tandem—in concert with their cross-party support and active involvement in that committee.

We know that our committee system lags and sometimes we have committees that we say have 'gone doggo'. We also know that the government does not necessarily respond to committees either, and there should be some requirements around that. To name one committee, the Joint Committee on the Legalisation of Medicinal Cannabis has made a series of recommendations around transport, around industrial relations and around health and has for over a year now been met with deafening silence by this government.

I could go on and on. I do not intend to go on, but I could continue to talk about all of the committee system failings. With that, I commend the motion. Let's get on with proper reform of our democratic institution where, as a house of review, we should be ensuring that that review is to the highest standard and in the most effective way possible.

The Hon. J.S. LEE (16:47): I rise today to speak on the Hon. Michelle Lensink's motion and indicate my very strong support to reform the commencement time for sittings in the Legislative Council and to rationalise the current system of parliamentary committees. I acknowledge the Hon. Michelle Lensink's reflections about the difficulties of juggling family commitments with the highly unusual and outdated sitting times we have in the Legislative Council.

We often speak about how we can encourage more young people and more women to get into politics, but the nature of late sitting is just one more potential barrier that may prevent or discourage their participation. It is important for both men and women to be able to balance their work commitments with quality time with their families, especially during the formative years with young children.

I recently spoke at a university panel with other female parliamentary colleagues at an event for the Pathways to Politics for Women program at the University of Adelaide. I may have shocked many participants and other panellists when I said that I do not have a work-life balance regime and that I work seven days a week, attending multiple community events every weekend and most evenings. I knew when I came into this place that it would be a demanding job, but I guess it is how I have personally chosen to structure my weeks and prioritise my community engagement.

I find juggling community functions with parliamentary sitting evenings a constant frustration and frequently find myself having to turn down invitations to important community events due to the unpredictable nature of sitting times. Changing the Legislative Council sitting times to align with the House of Assembly is a sensible move that is long overdue. While exceptionally late sittings are thankfully infrequent, they still happen, often during debate on particularly contentious or divisive bills. Frankly, no-one makes good decisions at 1 o'clock or 6 o'clock in the morning.

It is not just elected members who have to endure this as well. Hansard staff and Parliament House staff are also impacted by late sittings, as they are required to be at the beck and call of the council. This is a work health and safety issue. Fatigue impacts physical and mental health, with symptoms such as slower reaction times, poor mood, inattention and trouble focusing.

The Sleep Health Foundation states that 17 hours without sleep impairs driving performance in the same way as having a blood alcohol level of 0.05 per cent and 24 hours without sleep is as dangerous as driving at 0.08 per cent. It is entirely plausible that members of staff may wake up at 6am for work and then drive home following a late sitting night, say at 2am. That is 20 hours after they woke up. This could easily be avoided by simply commencing sittings earlier in the day. Beginning our parliamentary day at 2.15pm is outdated and out of touch with community expectations.

I would now like to turn to the second part of the honourable member's motion. I strongly support the call for the government to adopt and implement recommendations made by the Select Committee on Effectiveness of the System of Committees of the South Australian Parliament in 2021. The government has had ample time to consider these sensible recommendations and devise a suitable solution to the overwhelming number of select committees established by the Legislative Council.

Both staff and members are stretched and under considerable pressure to work across an overabundance of select committees. The committee received input from other parliaments and consulted with jurisdictions such as New South Wales and Queensland that formally reviewed their committee systems in recent years and made changes that created more efficient and effective mechanisms for parliamentary scrutiny and accountability.

Significant work went into this report and it is not good enough that the government has simply placed this issue in the too-hard basket. The current system is out of touch and ineffective, and it is time for reform to ensure that we as parliamentarians serve the community effectively and to the highest standard of accountability. With those remarks, I commend the motion.

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (16:52): While we acknowledge the sentiments behind paragraph 1 of the motion, the government cannot support paragraph 2 and therefore will oppose the motion. The Legislative Council already demonstrates a good track record of commencing early when required and typically aims to avoid sitting beyond dinner. When late sittings do occur, they are often on Wednesdays, the day allocated for private members' business. This is largely due to matters of interest and extended speeches on notices of motion.

Sitting times data supports this. In 2025, the council sat beyond dinner on three occasions, two of which were Wednesdays. Similarly, in 2024, of the 10 late night sittings, seven fell on Wednesdays. There has been previous interest in reviewing how new business is prioritised on Wednesdays, with some suggestions to give precedence to items expected to go to a vote, similar to arrangements in the Senate. This is something the government will continue to consider.

The second paragraph of the motion proposes a major overhaul to the current parliamentary committee system by introducing portfolio-based standing committees in the Legislative Council. The recommendation is to have three separate Legislative Council standing committees, several joint house standing committees and a separate range of House of Assembly standing committees.

Streamlining committees in this way presents several concerns and would ultimately reduce the opportunity for both House of Assembly and Legislative Council members to contribute meaningfully to committee work. While the government acknowledges the work of the former select committee, we do not consider this the best approach to reform the parliamentary committee system.

The Hon. C. BONAROS (16:54): It should come as no surprise that I, too, support this motion and, once again, rise to indicate my disappointment with the government, not with the opposition. In relation to this, first I will deal with the committee on committees, which I feel like I have all but given up on, and not because we do not need that. I said that on the record in this place. I know we do not like to hear it, but when it comes to our committee on committee structures we are very much behind the times and archaic compared to every other jurisdiction, state and federal, across Australia.

It is disappointing because, when this government was in opposition, they very reasonably and rationally sat down with the opposition and came up with a set of recommendations. I did not feel like I needed to do anything, in fact. It was a set of recommendations that everybody agreed to and was very much necessary. The opposition has, since that time, signalled to me its ongoing support for this. The Leader of the Opposition, who is reminded at pretty much every Legislative Review Committee that if we adopted the recommendations of the committee on committees we would not have to deal with these issues, has continued to signal the support of the opposition on this front.

So we have an opposition and an entire crossbench who have all said that this is something we need to revisit and look at and bring us into line with what other jurisdictions are doing, to modernise and make more efficient and effective not just the way we run our committee processes, which results in more effective use of everybody's time, but actually serves democracy and serves the public, who give up their time and effort to come and appear before those committees and provide vital evidence. Sometimes, we know that evidence is ignored.

I am not going to go into it anymore other than to say the case for the committee on committees is made out. I have to put on record that I am extremely disappointed that when the government came into power I think it suited them extremely well for all of us to be distracted with way too much committee work and to keep our eyes on everything else we have to do as members of this place, rather than focusing on scrutinising what they are doing. All distraction is welcomed by the government. Committees, I think, is at the top of the list in terms of things they would like to see us continuing to be caught up in in terms of our time.

I note also the comments of the Hon. Jing Lee and other members in relation to the time. I have been a bit split on the issue of time, I will admit. Because we are so caught up in committees and our off weeks are spent working on committees, we constantly seem to be chasing our tails and catching up, bearing in mind that we deal with all of the workload of this chamber, not just a handful of portfolios.

I often use the morning to prepare for the afternoon, so sometimes it works in my favour in terms of having the morning to prepare for the afternoon sitting. That is not to say, though, that we do not need more family-friendly hours in this place, and that is certainly something that I support. I would have thought, given the government's talk particularly on issues of gender equality, that is something they would support also.

I note that there has been an effort to finish early when we can to make sure that we can all get home to our families—those of us who have kids at home. I note that I have always had a very sympathetic ear when I am in here trying to organise after-school care, pick-up arrangements and whatnot, just like every other parent or carer is trying to do with their kids to manage their time load in here.

I note also that most of our evenings and weekends are caught up in attending many events. That is what we signed up for and that is what we do willingly and gladly, but that does not mean we cannot make our workload in here more efficient in our use of time in here. So I do support the proposal that has been put by the honourable member both when it comes to the hours and, of course, when it comes to the committee on committees.

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (16:58): I also support the motion being advanced by the Hon. Michelle Lensink. I think this really reflects modern workplaces. I understand the origins of the Legislative Council's later sitting days go back to the days when members of this place would go and have lunch at the Adelaide Club and then wander over. So they would have their lunch at 1 o'clock in the afternoon, they would go for an hour, and then they would take about 15 minutes to wander over from around the corner. That is the story that I had understood to be the case.

Times have changed since then. Most members of this place do not have membership of the Adelaide Club and are not spending their lunchtimes over there, but also we have a much more diverse parliament in terms of people who have family and other responsibilities. Why we would not simply align our start time with the House of Assembly is beyond me. I do take the point that the Hon. Connie Bonaros has made around the fact that we may have committee meetings and other constituent responsibilities at the front end of the day, but I think that can be managed, particularly if it is paired with reform of our committee system.

Might I say that during my brief time in the federal parliament I observed the way in which that system works. Having standing committees that are appropriately resourced by the parliament and that members can sub in and out of strikes me as a very effective system. It means that you have researchers who are able to hone their skills and focus and interest on particular areas, and you have members of a committee who have a particular interest in an area as well, notwithstanding the fact that other members can be subbed in from time to time.

This all seems like a sensible approach forward, and I am frustrated that the government is not taking this seriously. I have had discussions with, I think, all political parties around the idea of us maybe streamlining our Notice Paper, on Wednesdays in particular, to prioritise matters that are going to a division, so that members are able to plan better for events. Maybe that is something that we can advance after the election, given we are running out of time. Ideally, I would like to see the government have a serious conversation around what we can do to modernise our approach to this after the next election.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (17:01): I thank all honourable speakers for their contributions to this motion, namely, the Hon. Tammy Franks, the Hon. Jing Lee, the Hon. Russell Wortley, the Hon. Rob Simms and the Hon. Connie Bonaros. I think I got everyone. Indeed, as has been reflected in many of the comments this afternoon, I think a number of us have frustrations. I think this place does stand still in time in terms of its own practices, which are anachronisms, quite frankly.

I have been very keen that some sort of framework or structure be placed around the committees so that we can streamline their operations. There are some weeks, quite frankly, in the last month or two when it has been 'death by committee'. It has swallowed up my entire working week on matters that I have not necessarily raised. I think we are all reluctant to vote down any member who wants to establish a committee for a purpose, because they are worthwhile, but there has to be a better way to do it. We have that framework already through what we call the 'committee on committees', but it has that formal title in paragraph 2 of the motion.

That is a particular issue. I think efficiency is something that this chamber could do much better, particularly when it comes to the committee structures, because there is a whole lot of other work and, quite frankly, I have a lot of individual constituents who need my time. I look after a lot of vulnerable people. That is not to say that they deserve my time more than anybody else, but I do feel a sense of urgency that somebody who is experiencing homelessness or needs some advice on how to access domestic family violence services is more important than being on a committee for six hours over two days. Those things are important.

I thank the Hon. Russell Wortley for drawing the short straw and for speaking on behalf of the government. Yes, it is true that we have not been sitting into the evening that much, but regarding a 6pm or 6.30pm end time, particularly for parents who have small children, that is a fairly critical time for those kids, particularly if they are preschoolers. Parents might want to actually help them with their meals or baths or those sorts of things. Sitting in the morning, if we can substitute moving towards the morning, I think is going to make it much more family friendly.

Frankly, I think I have had similar experiences to the Hon. Jing Lee. When you tell people what our sitting hours are like, they just scratch their heads and they think, 'You what? Is that the way this chamber operates?' It is anachronistic and it needs to change. I will be here in the next term and I will continue to pursue this issue. I thank all honourable members for their comments in contribution, and I indicate that I will be calling divide if I am not successful.

Motion carried.

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