Push for Poll Probe

Rob Inglis | Mercury | June 24, 2021    

INDEPENDENT Nelson MLC Meg Webb is attempting to set up a parliamentary inquiry into the 2021 state election – a move she says would provide answers to “swirling” questions around the May 1 poll.  

Ms Webb tabled a motion in the upper house on Tuesday night, seeking to establish a joint select committee to inquire into both the House of Assembly and Legislative Council elections, held concurrently last month.

Six independent MLCs – including Ms Webb – wrote to Premier Peter Gutwein on March 31 to complain holding the elections on the same day would provide an “undoubted advantage” to party candidates over independents running for the upper house.

On Wednesday, Ms Webb noted that a range of other concerns had also been aired in relation to the election, including Mr Gutwein citing former speaker Sue Hickey’s decision to quit the Liberal Party as a trigger for going to the polls and the preselection and eventual resignation of Braddon Liberal candidate Adam Brooks.

“Given those questions swirling around this election, it’s just the right thing that we should be, as a parliament, doing an inquiry; undertaking a good, solid review to deliver answers to the Tasmanian people,” she said.

Ms Webb said she hoped such election inquiries became routine in Tasmania, as they were at the federal level.

“I hope that the upper house will debate my motion next week,” she said.

“And, hopefully, I’ll have the support to see it passed. It will then go to the lower house.”

Opposition Leader David O’Byrne said Labor wasn’t against the idea of an inquiry but the party would need to “work through” the issue in its caucus.

Meanwhile, a state government spokesman said the Tasmanian Electoral Commission had statutory responsibility for the independent and impartial conduct of elections and referendums under the Electoral Act and the inquiry would be “a waste of public resources”.

Read Meg’s Media Release and Motion calling for a JSC