Local Government Amendment (Elections) Bill 2022

Ms WEBB (Nelson) – Mr President, in the debate on the move to suspend Standing Orders to debate this bill, we covered some matters relating to process.  I will read a couple of those at the beginning of this contribution to make sure it is part of the record of the debate on the bill itself.

As I said, earlier, I am concerned at what I see as a deep irony – that we are making the case to champion and to strengthen a tier of government by a process which is in fact a corruption of appropriate process here in this sphere of government and parliament, and the democratic process here to properly consider bills.  That is extremely unfortunate.

I see an associated irony, too, in much of the commentary about local government being such an important sphere of government, and that we have to make sure we elevate it by, say, the introduction of compulsory voting.

All this acknowledgement of its importance, but at the same time that sector was entirely disregarded in terms of consultation.  It is ironic to be claiming to strengthen democracy while you undermine its processes and to claim to be acknowledging the importance of a tier of government, when at the same time, you have ignored them entirely before you brought this bill to the House.  I want to have that irony noted on the record.

In my view, it is inappropriate.  And yet, here we are.  We did not win the argument in terms of suspension of Standing Orders, and we are debating this bill, unfortunate though the process has been.

As we heard in our briefings, there has been a history of discussion on some of these issues in the bill, particularly in relation to compulsory voting.  There has been a history over a couple of decades, about the introduction of compulsory voting in local government.  Some other members have canvassed this in their contributions.

There has never been a consensus achieved on the issue.  There has never even been majority support achieved on that in the times it has been put to a vote, both within that sector and within this place.  To my mind, that makes process even more important in terms of how we go about doing this, and not because we expect appropriate process to necessarily achieve consensus.

It is likely that, had there been a better process to bring this bill here, there still would have been a variety of views in the community, the local government sector, and within this place.  What we would have achieved through proper process, however, is that we do not get to the end of it and have people feel that they have been hard done by in being part of a public conversation about an issue.

That is why proper process is important.  Not because it delivers consensus, but because it means that you have credible disagreement at the end.  Everyone feels at least there is an appropriate way forward, and they have had a say in the process.  We have been deprived of that in this case, and that is unfortunate, because it means that if it is implemented, those people who do not agree with elements in this bill will always be able to point to this failed process and have a gripe about not being allowed to properly participate in the process.

We have done ourselves out of that.  What a shame.  If I was in the local government sector, I would be feeling very concerned about the readiness of this Government to put aside agreed protocols around communication and consultation – even if the bulk of that sector agrees with the content of what is going through here.  I feel very nervous that agreed protocols are disregarded so lightly to bring this through, because the next time this happens it might be something the sector does not wholly agree with.  It might be something none of us may agree with either.

It is hardly recognition of the importance of local government as an equal tier of government, if you disregard your agreements about how you will interact.

It is particularly unfortunate that we see the Government behaving this way during the period of review and reform of that very sector.  We have a framework in place around that process, and this is being done completely laterally to that.  It did not have to be the case.  No argument has been presented to us that this could not have been done within the context of the review and reform process that is already underway.

The only argument put to us is about the need to be in time for the October elections this year.  My goodness, we have known for four years those elections are coming.  If those elections were some sort of deadline for particular parts of the reform, the Government has had ample time to progress all of these matters without rushing through at the last minute.  I believe it is more about putting a stamp on things because the next elections look a little bit too far away, and gosh – we would like to make our mark. 

Mr President, having noted my views about this process, I will briefly reflect on some of the content of the bill.  

I will start with the element of the bill that relates to compulsory voting.  I put on the record that I quickly reached out to the Hobart City Council and Kingborough Council as the relevant local councils in my electorate.  The member for Hobart has already spoken about the position of the City of Hobart and already put on the record some of that.  I reiterate for completeness in my contribution that what I received back from City of Hobart was given the short time frame of the announcement, they cannot provide an update position, but their previously briefed position can be put forward.

That includes that the council supports compulsory voting and has made that clear in representations previously into the legislative review around local government.  I quote from an extract to their submission to that local government legislative review process in 2019:

The council has long held the view that compulsory voting is required in local government elections.  This not only assists in engaging the community in local issues, but also provides a wider franchise or mandate for those elected.

In a non‑compulsory voting environment, significant local issues, current at the time of an election, can skew an election outcome through the mobilisation of specific interests while there remains a large non‑voting cohort.  Compulsory voting would assist in achieving a more balanced result, representative of the community as a whole.

I note further, they also in their submission point to the greater opportunity to engage with younger residents and ratepayers in compulsory voting.

I am putting that position from Hobart City Council on the record.  I will speak more about some elements of that in a moment.

In terms of Kingborough Council, I reached out to them for their position and the reply I got back was, in part – I will quote a comment here on the compulsory voting:  

Kingborough Council has, for a number of years, being supportive of compulsory voting for the local government sector.

The last time this matter was considered at an LGAT meeting, Kingborough voted in favour of compulsory voting.

This is from an email I have from Councillor Paula Wriedt, Mayor of Kingborough Council.

They addressed this matter at a workshop on Monday night, after the announcement had been made this bill was coming and feedback was sought from the councillors about the proposal.

They note they have some new councillors since it was last discussed, and the email here says that:

Based on this discussion, I can advise you that the majority of Councillors in attendance were in favour of compulsory voting.

The email goes on to say:

A few questions and issues were raised as follows:

• The cost implications to councils. What will the cost impact of the move to compulsory voting be, given that these additional costs are currently unbudgeted for, and most councils have finalised their 2022‑23 budgets?
• The fact that this was progressed without consultation.
• There are other pressing local government reform matters that councils via LGAT, have nominated as priority issues, namely reform of the General Manager’s role by transferring responsibility of it to the Tasmania Electoral Commission. One person, one vote.  Citizenship requirements for eligibility to vote, and caretaker provisions.  Something that Kingborough Council are determined we will enact ourselves in any event.
• Flow‑on of enforcement costs for not voting.

There is a range of questions and issues raised by the Kingborough Council when they discussed the matter recently.  Some of those have already been brought up by other members and we might return to a couple of those in a moment.

I wanted to put on the record that from my electorate, the two relevant councils are in favour of compulsory voting as it stands at the moment.  They have raised a range of other issues, and I would say in a general sense, I am certainly in favour of compulsory voting.

We benefit from compulsory voting in this country, broadly, in a range of ways.  Not having to turn out a vote, in the first instance, means you do not necessarily have to be going for the fringes and the extremes.

As Hobart City Council highlighted, you do not necessarily get skewed by particular issues jumping up and people coalescing around that issue to bring a large vote just on that issue.  That it is really valuable to us.

I do wonder about the benefit it gives to party-aligned candidates.  A few other members here have discussed the issue that perhaps numbering, say one to 12 is difficult because you might not know 12 of the candidates running.

That would always be the case too, when we are numbering up to 12 for the Senate.  Often people think about the label above the candidates rather than the candidates themselves.  We could assume that having a party label above you will potentially be more beneficial under compulsory voting in a local government context, as it tends to be in other contexts.

I am not making a comment about whether that makes it more, or less, advisable.   I still think compulsory voting is extremely valuable because of the enfranchisement it gives the whole community, and the engagement it encourages from the whole community.  I suspect that if this comes to pass, we would see a change to the way our councils look in terms of elected members’ alignment with parties.

I acknowledge the point made, including from Hobart City Council, that compulsory voting will lead to more younger people voting in that sphere of government.  It would be a positive move, to have younger people involved in the selection of the people representing them in local government.

The issue of costs is interesting.  It certainly would be a larger cost to administer a compulsory election.  I spoke with the Electoral Commissioner to clarify a few matters in this bill.  I asked him if the cost of a compulsory election had been determined.  The commissioner indicated a ballpark had been provided to Government, but – appropriately – he was not able to provide that to me. 

It is up to the Government to put that out into the public domain.  It would be an interesting exercise in transparency to understand what the cost impost would be, and to understand who is going to bear that cost.  As Kingborough Council pointed out, they have not accounted for it in their 2022-23 budget.  If the state government bears the cost, have we accounted for it in the Budget that we are contemplating right now?

I also asked the Electoral Commissioner whether the commission had provided written advice to Government about this bill.  The answer to that was ‘no’.  A copy of the bill was provided to the commissioner in recent weeks.

I understand that the commission provided advice to Government on the degree to which the bill would fulfil the intent of the policy behind it.  The commission does not take a view on the matters, including whether compulsory voting is advisable, but can comment on the intent and how well the legislation delivers the intent.  The commission can also comment on whether it believes it would enhance enfranchisement in this state.

I will come back to the Electoral Commissioner’s comments when I talk about the other aspect of the bill.

Overall, I consider the compulsory voting aspects of this bill are positive.  I believe it will be relatively well supported in the larger councils where turnout is currently quite low, and where it will make the most difference.  For those councils who are not so inclined towards it, the impact would be less because their turnout is quite high anyway, so it is not a great deal of difference.

Again, we are doing this on the fly.  It would be preferable to have more time to consider this more deeply, and to have better advice about the likelihood and potential impacts of making this change.

The other aspect of the bill is about ensuring that votes can be counted wherever possible, to mitigate informal voting.  It appears that has been a trend over the past few local government elections.

The bill brings in the minimum one to five numbering, with the potential for people to keep numbering past that.  There are vote-saving measures to ensure that if you number past that, but make a mistake, your vote will be counted through to the point at which that mistake was made.  This is derived from noting the increase in informality that was occurring, particularly in larger councils that had a larger number of elected members to be elected and also a large number of candidates.  The potential for confusion and for losing your way was higher.  At page 5 of the 2018 Local Government Elections Report from the TEC, under the heading of informal voting, the commission commented that there was a higher level of informal voting in Hobart City, Launceston City, and Clarence City.  To quote from the report: 

Parliament and the local government community may wish to consider reducing the required sequence of preferences (perhaps 1 to 5, similar to the House of Assembly).

A similar comment was made on page 7 of the report from the 2014 local government elections, albeit with a little more commentary –

It seems reasonably clear that larger fields of candidates and a longer required sequence of preferences have contributed to informality rates. 

Parliament and the local government community may wish to consider reducing the required sequence of preferences (perhaps 1 to 5, as for the House of Assembly).

I note that those two comments from the TEC in the 2014 and the 2018 reports point towards this kind of change.  What disturbs me, however, is that while the TEC suggests that parliament and the local government community may wish to consider this, we have not thoroughly considered it together.  We have not had time to look at the ins and outs of this, the potential benefits or issues, or perhaps alternative options to achieve the same ends.

That is a shame.  When I made contact with the Electoral Commissioner, I asked about this suggestion of considering one to five, similar to the House of Assembly.  I asked if there was any other reason to suggest one to five.  Any other particular evidence that pointed to that being the appropriate option, as opposed to say, one to six, one to seven, et cetera.

In particular, I was interested to know whether the results documented from 2018, where we had a particularly high informal rate in those three council areas, whether the results from there indicated there was a particular problem past a certain number.  From the informal votes made then, when people messed up their numbering.  We can look at the information about informal ballots in that report from 2018, on page 18.

What is our granular understanding of the informal votes made where they had messed up the sequence of numbers?  Was it indicated that beyond five was problematic?  Was it indicated to say beyond seven was problematic?  Beyond 10?  Whatever it might be.  Did we have that information available?

That information has not been analysed and is not available readily.  It could be, but it would involve going back and looking at 4000 odd votes for each of those city council elections from the last time, which, of course, we do not want to have the TEC do for us.

Where is the evidence?  Why are we choosing this particular option?

It is concerning to have informal votes and with the balance here we are looking at in putting in measures to reduce the likelihood of informal votes, what risk are we putting in we will have votes that exhaust?  That is the balance of exhausted votes versus informal.  Minimising informal votes.

I asked the Electoral Commissioner if there is any modelling to show us what these proposed measures might mean for this upcoming election, in terms of the reduction in informal votes.  Have we modelled, have we analysed what we could expect to see in terms of a reduction in informal votes?

He explained that analysis is not possible to do because of the various factors around an election, and it would make it virtually impossible to do that at this point in time.  That is a shame we cannot do that.

I am quite concerned about exhausting votes.  Again, it becomes something that can lead to less nuance in choosing our representation, if people’s votes exhaust.

I note and I am very pleased to see the proposed format for ballot papers in the bill.  It does its best effort to direct people toward numbering higher than five.  It sets an expectation you number up to the number of candidates while indicating then the minimum is five.  That is a really important and pleasing to see that explicitly laid out in the ballot papers.

I did wonder, and it is my understanding, while I certainly was not involved when it occurred, when we moved to postal voting in the local government elections – I believe when postal voting was being introduced, there was a process where there were actually two trial elections utilising postal voting before it was actually changed in the act.  It had a bit of a suck and see before we actually changed our legislation and made it permanent.  Others might correct me if I have the wrong end of the stick on that.

In light of that, because we have not canvassed the one to five change as thoroughly as there has been a history of compulsory voting being discussed and canvassed in the community, I was wondering, if this goes through, could we look at the October elections as being a trial for these changes, and whether there would be a willingness in the Government to commit to a formal review after those elections of the impact of that change?

I do not just mean the TEC report that will be done anyway.  I mean a review that interacts with the TEC, with the local government sector and the broader community to assess the appropriateness and how the one to five change went.  Whether the Government will commit then to having that done and if there is tweaking, more nuance or a different way forward we need to think about.  We could do this in the second tranche of things that come through.  We know there are further things coming down the pipeline in the local government sector around legislative reforms.  If this passes now, then we can consider the October elections as a trial and a commitment the Government is open to a formal review of that and the idea we could potentially be faced with a situation improved further, within those other tranches.

I also asked the Electorate Commissioner about whether any modelling had been done on to what degree there would be exhausting a vote under this model, if it was brought in, in the upcoming elections.  Again, the Electorate Commissioner said it was very difficult and we cannot really model that.  Essentially, because we cannot model what would happen in terms of exhausting votes under this proposed change, we cannot model what necessarily we could expect to see in terms of decrease of informal voting other than a general expectation it will decrease.  It is very difficult for us to assess that balance in what we are seeking to achieve ‑  that balance of decreasing informality, while not risking too much in terms of exhausting votes.  It is difficult to do that without the evidence, and a good reason to potentially contemplate should this bill pass – to contemplate and consider the October elections as a trial, and there be an expressed willingness to review and be open to potential nuances or adjustments in further legislative reforms coming through if necessary.

That covers the points I wanted to make on the content of the bill and at least I made clear the representations and the views of the councils within my electorate.  I have shared my thoughts on the two main elements of the bill and some concerns I have.  Again, for the record, my absolute rejection of this as an appropriate process for this bill and the fact it really is ironic in that it undermines its intent to strengthen our democracy by the very process of being used.  I will complete my contribution.