Legislative Council, Wednesday 2 June 2022

LOCAL GOVERNMENT AMENDMENT (ELECTIONS) BILL 2022

Ms FORREST (Murchison) - Mr President, I have a few comments that are directly related to the motion before us - not to the bill.

There is a constant request, and it has been constant more recently, for this House to ignore or overlook our proper processes to deal with legislation, always on the claim that it is urgent. Recent legislation that comes to mind is when we were dealing with the Forest Practices Authority. This may seem slightly off the task but I want to tell you why I believe we need to be very cautious.

During the briefings and even during the debate, we were informed there was really only one case that was on foot regarding the delegation authorities under that act. If anyone heard any differently please correct me now, because what I am going to say next contradicts that. I am pretty sure I am on solid ground here. I now know that one of the members of the other place had a case on foot related to delegation authority and we were in this place, rushing through legislation related to that very question. I am getting a bit sick and tired of being told that things are urgent, and we are getting the full picture.

I put that out there because, by the powers, the Government needs to get their house in order. The timing is not of our doing. The Government sets the sitting schedule. They know what happens in budget session. They know that for the Budget wrap up they sit one week and we sit the next, because we cannot wrap up the Budget together in the same week. I had to explain that to the Minister for Local Government just the other day. He was saying that we should probably sit together. I said that would work well - except it doesn't.

We simply cannot, unless we are going to ignore the process around the Budget, and that would be a very sad state of affairs.

The timing is not of our doing. The Government set the schedule and they also knew the election was coming in October 2022. About four years.

We have also had, not of our doing, a revolving door of ministers. This is what I found particularly confusing in the briefing, and even listening to the Leader when she read out the minister's comments from the other place. I appreciate her doing that, because I have not had a chance to look at his comments.

The Leader noted that there was a limited opportunity for the Local Government Association of Tasmania (LGAT) to comment. He accepted that. I am quoting what the Leader said were the minister's comments.

We were informed in the briefing that on 5 May that there was a meeting with the new minister and LGAT representatives, Councillor Holmdahl, and the mayor of Break O Day, Mr Tucker. They went along on the premise that it was to meet the new minister and to talk about, as I understand it, matters that they saw as priorities for this coming election in 2022. Their priorities included the vote saving measures that are included in this bill, particularly the one to five voting, to try to address the unfortunately high rate of informal voting.

They said they were not told about this. However, when I was listening to the Leader's contribution, quoting the minister from when he was speaking in the other place, that he said:

They were provided with a working draft of the bill.

I would have thought a working draft would have included compulsory voting in elections as well as the other vote saving measures that are in the bill.

I am very confused about who has had what information and when, because that is not what we heard in the briefing.

Mrs Hiscutt - Through you, Mr President. The minister has recognised there is limited opportunity for LGAT to comment on the draft legislation.

Ms Forrest - I accept that. But he did say they were provided with a working draft of the bill. I do not believe he said when that occurred.

I would be very interested if the Leader might be able to get some advice about when they were provided with this working draft. That would have included the provisions that are quite contentious here, particularly the provisions about compulsory voting.

Mrs Hiscutt - Through you, Mr President. The draft bill was forwarded to them straight after the meeting on 5 March.

Ms Forrest - But it was confidential. They were not allowed to discuss it with their members.

Mrs Hiscutt - That is true.

Ms Forrest - Well, that makes it awkward, doesn't it?

We all understand and respect what a confidential briefing means. You do not talk to other people about it.

It was not a surprise to two people, or should not have been; but it would have been a surprise to all the others.

You can see why this is a problem for me, Mr President.

We know, from the briefing this morning, that it is a contested space. It has been debated over the last 20 years, or thereabouts. At local government there have always been differing views, and I note in the Circular Head Chronicle, on 1 June 2022, that there continue to be differing views in my electorate of Murchison, which has five councils. Naturally, you are going to have differing views.

The Circular Head mayor, Daryl Quilliam, said he would suggest that most of the Circular Head councillors - I do not know about the people of Circular Head, but he said the councillors - would not support compulsory voting. If someone is not interested in voting, there is not much point making them vote.

I respectfully disagree with the mayor on that point, because that is the whole purpose of ensuring everyone gets a voice. You make it compulsory. With all due respect to all the people who may choose to vote informal or just go to get their name ticked off, or return a blank ballot paper, or whatever they like.

However, we are disenfranchising disengaged people without compulsory voting, and there is my conundrum.

Other mayors in my community have said they support it. I did a mail-out to all of my five councils as soon as I saw this hit the deck. I did not hear from all of them, but those from whom I did were mixed but mostly in support.

In principle, I have supported the notion of compulsory voting for some time, but I do not want to go down into the detail of the bill, because that is the detail of the bill in many respects, but it is a contested space. I absolutely acknowledge the comments from the members who have already spoken about the lack of respect that has been shown to another level of government, and that the Government should have done that in a more robust way. I also accept if we do not deal with it this week - and I accept what the member for Launceston said it will just be brought on in two weeks time. That is problematic in that if the member for Launceston indicates she had some problems with the bill - I am not sure if that goes as far as suggesting amendments - if there was to be an amendment in two weeks time, then the lower House do not sit until after the winter break, and that is problematic. Again, we did not set the sitting schedule.

Here we are again being asked to make a decision about whether we pursue important legislation without proper process in this place. I did ask in the briefing if we could separate out the two key concepts; the compulsory voting and the vote saving measures. If we want to quote Kevin Bonham in his blog - that is sometimes a little hard to understand, but on this occasion was fairly clear - there are real issues with informal voting and the more clear you can make it for people who are engaging in our democratic processes, and not inadvertently voting informally, then that is a really good thing. Those are important measures as we know this is a problem.

I will, unusually, support the suspension of standing orders to enable the bill to at least be considered. There are many other points we can stop this. We could stop it during the second reading, we could stop it at the end of the second reading should the principle be agreed, we could stop at any point during the Committee stage if it becomes clear that these things need to be resolved in a different way.

I am going to give the Government a chance here to really make their case, but I am really getting sick of this. I do not know how many times you have to say it, but when we were basically told in that last urgent bill that there was only one case on foot it was an out-and-out inaccurate representation of the facts. I am horrified that we were a part of that and that is a disgraceful position to put this place in.

We are not dealing with the same sort of issue here, but it is the Government's approach in recent times to ram things down our throat when there are proper processes. If we get into the bill, the numbers are all over the place at the minute. There is a lot more than needs to be said around that, but as far as this bill goes there are certainly aspects of it that should be progressed. If we do not progress them now and if the bill does need to be amended to remove certain sections of it, we need to do that this week, not in two weeks time.

It has put me in a really difficult position and the Government should feel very grateful I am not having a bigger smack about this and saying absolutely not, go away, but it is getting close to that, regardless of the urgency.

Mrs Hiscutt - Whilst the member is on her feet, I will make a point of telling my team that procedure is important in our place, again, and make that point to them. To reiterate, Mr Street did say this is not how we would have preferred it.

Ms FORREST - Yes, and he said that directly to me and I accept that. He took over allegedly after all this body of work had been done. However, when I ask the LGAT representatives across the table this morning if all this work was done, it was then handed to the minister Mr Street when he took over - I am not sure on what day that occurred that the information was handed out - but who was that work done with?

Obviously, the department in local government had done a lot of work otherwise we would not have a bill before us. We understand how long and tortuous the process of getting something through Cabinet is, not personally, but I am told. Obviously, there was work done, so I find it staggering that the local government sector was not part of getting the work done if it was to include compulsory voting. Again, I am hearing different stories from different stakeholders and it makes me really uncomfortable about where the truth lies.