No support for additional review of council elections
Matt Maloney | The Examiner | 9 November 2022
The Legislative Council has voted down a proposal for a review of the impact of compulsory voting in the recent council elections.
A motion brought by Nelson independent MLC Meg Webb called for the review to invlove public consultation, input from the local government sector, and for it to be separated from the Tasmanian Electoral Commission’s own review of the elections.
In her contribution to debate over the motion, Ms Webb said the government’s bill to introduce compulsory voting in this year’s elections was abruptedly completed in 10 calendar days earlier this year.
“This motion does not seek to revisit or review whether we should have compulsory voting in local government elections … but to evaluate how well that policy decision was implemented,” she said. “The proposed evaluation review detailed in this motion will not duplicate nor interfere in any way with the standard TEC election report.”
She said the commission and its volunteers should be commended for their efforts last month with 348,453 ballots returned for the elections, representing a statewide return rate of 84.79 per cent.
Leader of Government Business in the Legislative Council, Leonie Hiscutt, said the government would not support the motion.
She said Local Government Minister Nic Street was willing to discuss the potential for specific review elements to be included in the TEC’s elections report.
“The government will ensure that members of the community and stakeholders have an opportunity to provide feedback on their experience with compulsory voting as an input into the TEC report,” Ms Hiscutt said.
She said the government introduced compulsory voting to increase voter participation and ensure better demographic outcomes and believed this had been delivered.
Ms Hiscutt said the voter turnout in Tasmania was higher than other Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria which also had a compulsory voting requirement.
Victoria’s most recent return rate was 81.4 per cent.
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