Mr DEAN (Windermere) - Mr President, I rise in support of the bill but in saying that, there are one or two areas of concern that I have and I will flag some of those concerns now but during the Committee stage I will go into more depth in relation to those matters.

I must say that up until about two years ago I really had little interest in this act but all of a sudden through my position with the Police department I was forced to look at another direction and I suddenly took a real interest in the Electoral Act. I must say when I first looked at the existing act I really was quite confused when I read through it and went through a number of sections.

The first area that I was confused about was that of expenditure by candidates and I am glad to see that this bill tightens it up somewhat. I think at that time the expenditure of a person standing for the Council was $9 000 or $9 500. But I had great difficulty in getting from the Electoral Office a clear definition of what was covered in that expenditure. The position that I put up then was that the incumbent that I was standing against already had a lot of signs that were prepared and could use those old signs in the election that was coming up but I had to go out and get new signs made. That to me was a huge cost, I think it was in the region of some $1 000, whereas the incumbent already had them and therefore had little or no expense in that regard.

This act amends that somewhat. In my case, another example where I had difficulty getting clarification was over the steel star posts that are used in putting up signs. I had a lot of these posts because of my farming background and the hobby farming that I am involved in and I tried with difficulty to convince the Electoral Office that I already had them and therefore should not have to disclose them. So at the end of the day I had to put some form of costing in for those posts and so on.

I am pleased to see that a lot of that is clarified here but I will be referring to it later on because there are two or three areas I still have grave concerns about. One that I want to flag is the ability here for a candidate to set up and lease or rent an office in a high-profile area in the CBD and yet that expense is not included in the electoral expense the person is entitled to.

What I say here is that a system like this favours a person who is well-off. It favours the person who has money behind them. Many candidates would not have the ability to go out and set themselves up in the middle of the city in a very high-profile area which we know would be extremely advantageous to them if they were standing for any seat in Parliament. To me that is wrong, but at the right time I will be going into that in some more depth; it is not right. As I said, it favours a person with plenty of money who has no real work concerns in that regard because they could spend, literally, thousands of dollars setting up this office in the middle of a town, with signs all over it, and look at the publicity that they would get in that regard over and above a person who does not have that ability.

The other matter that I will be referring to is in relation to the compulsory voting aspect of this bill, and I have grave concerns about that. I have never been one to support compulsory voting and in actual fact I also see it as an oxymoron, to be quite frank with you, Mr President. There is no such thing as compulsory voting whilst it is referred to as that in the bill. All it means -

Mr Aird - How can you be opposed to it then?

Mr DEAN - If you would listen to me, Mr Leader, you would find out why I am opposed to it. All it requires of you is to attend the polling booth or a postal voting, if that is the way it is done, if you are able to do it that way. All you are required to do is get your name ticked off the roll. That is the only responsibility on you, that is the only onus on you. You can get your piece of paper, screw it up, throw it away, do whatever you want to with it, so there is no such thing as compulsory voting as such, it is simply compulsory attendance at a booth to have your name crossed off.

In that regard I will refer to a document, and a very well?known person to all of us here, I would suggest. This was a speech given, Mr President, in the 2004 National General Assembly of ALGA - the Australian Local Government Association - and there are a couple of comments here made by Mr Dean Jaensch - I think I am pronouncing that name right.

Mr Aird - Dean Jaensch.

Mr DEAN - Thank you for that, your pronunciation is probably a little bit better than mine, Mr Leader; Dean Jaensch, AO Professor, School of Political and International Studies, Flinders University. I want to quote a couple of things that this gentleman referred to during that speech.

I will start partway through the speech:

'Is your electoral basis of representation fully democratic?

This description can most accurately be applied where elections are based on voluntary voting, proportional representation in multi?member electorates, and optional preferential voting.

Some local governments apply compulsory voting. This should be abolished, and the electors given the right to vote. First, there is no such thing as compulsory voting (despite Electoral Acts using the term). There is compulsory attendance, compulsory accepting as ballot paper, [sic] and compulsory placing that paper into a ballot box. But no-one can be compelled to vote.

Why does Australia have it? Because political parties realise that there is benefit for them in it. This is nothing to do with democracy. Why do some local governments have it? Same reason.'

So they are some of the comments made by that professor in the speech given last week to the ALGA convention in Canberra, Mr President.

The other matter that I have some concern with, and I think most members would have received a paper in relation to this, is the compulsory numbering in the Assembly and Council elections. I also find that a matter of some concern and, again, during the right phase of the Committee proceedings I will be looking at that. I find it difficult to understand why in this day and age we would have a concept requiring that more than one candidate must be voted for and in the Assembly it must be more than five. You must place 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, as I understand, and over and above that is up to the voter but in a -

Mr Aird - How can you have Hare?Clark if you can only vote for one?

Mr DEAN - As I understand it in the Legislative Council, in those votings, if there are more than three candidates you must vote for three. What I am saying is that I believe that the better position would be that a voter is required to vote for one person and one person only and I cannot see why -

Mr Aird - So you support the first past the post.

Mr DEAN - In one regard.

Mr Aird - Well, that's it. Just to clarify it, you can't not indicate preferences and then not support first past the post voting.

Mr DEAN - There are many people out there without a real interest in politics and I would suggest to you that probably 60 per cent of households would not have a political discussion around their dinner table, so to many people there is no real interest in this at all. What those people want to do, Mr President, is to simply race into a polling booth, probably vote for the person - a high-profile person that they know - who they want to vote for, put 1 in the box and then run out again, but when they are forced to stay there and vote for other candidates, whom they do not even know, to me that does not fit with a system that I believe is a good system at all.

For those people who are academically qualified and intellectually bright and so on, yes, they have no difficulty with these systems and I think if we look at the recent Federal election where if you voted below the line you had to vote for about, I think, 29 candidates -

Mrs Smith - Twenty-six.

Mr DEAN - It was just an unbelievable situation, in my opinion, Mr President, and that is one of the reasons they are saying that there is a high return of informal or invalid voting in that election. I am told that half of the informal or invalid votes were in fact through incorrect numbering, mixing up numbers in that system. I see it as flawed and I would prefer to see a better system.

I will be referring to another matter later on and this one is a matter of interest. I notice that when you go to a polling booth you have to pick up the papers, have your name crossed off and then you must go to a vacant area to cast your vote. Well, I must say, Mr President, I am obviously breaching the law on just about every occasion I go because I nearly always go with my wife and we always get together in the one section and we have a good discussion about where we are going to go and what we are going to do, but very clearly I am breaching the act. I did not find any penalty for that in the act. Maybe it is in there, but perhaps I have some troubles if I am picked up on that. To me, that is a bit of a nonsense situation in any event because you do see partners getting together and sons and daughters getting together and fathers and sons and so on.

Mrs Smith - It would to cover the intimidatory sort of thing.

Mr DEAN - Of course, but this is what the bill says. I am being a little flippant when I do that but I was going to say that when you have a postal vote, if you get a postal vote then very clearly you can talk to whomever you want because there is no restriction on getting together to vote in those situations. I just mention that in passing.

Failing to vote is just another area that I will be also talking on a little later in the Committee stage. I find that a little bit difficult at times to understand as to what a good reason is for not voting. I also wonder what checks are done to determine whether a person has a reasonable explanation in that regard. I can recall a situation when I was at George Town in fact and I was working and unable to vote, which was very unusual for me because I always wanted to vote. I then wondered just how I was going to get myself out of that problem. They did write to me and asked me why I did not vote and I simply wrote on it that I was working at the time. I was a detective at George Town and was unable to get the time to go and vote. They accepted that, but just how much checking there would have been of that I do not know. I just wonder.

I notice in the act that it is up to the commissioner to determine what is a reasonable explanation and what is not and, as I understand this act, it does not identify anywhere in it what could be determined as a reasonable explanation for not voting. That leaves it quite wide open in that regard.

I just flag those matters, Mr President, and in the Committee stage I will be making further comment on some of those issues.

ELECTORAL BILL 2004 (No. 63)

In Committee

Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 -
(Interpretation)

Mr DEAN - Madam Deputy Chair, whilst there might be a lighter side to this I am pretty genuine in my position in relation to this and I specifically refer to 'Council', the definition of 'Council'. I do not know whether other members suffered the same type of questioning as I did during my campaign but there are many people out there who are extremely confused as to what is the Legislative Council and what is the local council.

Mr Parkinson - All they have to do is read this bill and they are totally informed.

Mr DEAN - You are right. Why did I not think of that? I have obviously wasted my time getting up and talking on this clause. But it is a major concern out there.

Mr Aird - You can give a copy of this bill to every elector for Christmas.

Mr DEAN - I just wonder how we can get around that because a lot of people out there have no idea of the difference and you continually get challenged about these two. May I make a suggestion. I have just had a look at a thesaurus in relation to this and there are a number of words that we could choose here. Some of those words are 'Legislative Parliament' - all starting with 'Legislative' of course - Parliament, Authority, Association, Cabinet, Chamber, Congress, Directorate, Executive, and there are a whole myriad of words that mean the same as Council so maybe we could at some stage look down that line.

Mr Fletcher - How does State Senate sound?

Mr DEAN - After having listened to what I have just listened to, perhaps there are other words that might fit in better - Legislative Gang, Legislative Brain Trust, Legislative Clan and Legislative Powwow. The Leader said this modernises this act and gets it into the twenty-first century so perhaps we ought to be looking at -

Mr Aird - I want to do an honourable member for Murchison. Are you going to move an amendment?

Mr DEAN - Whilst there is a lighter side to it, I am fairly genuine in my concerns there. I should imagine that other members during their campaigns would have suffered the same type of questioning and perhaps it is something that we can look at further down the line.

Mr Aird - Okay.

Clause 3 agreed to.

Clause 4 -
(Electoral matter)

Mr HARRISS - Madam Deputy Chair, I would just like to engage the honourable Leader if I can because I think at a later time the honourable member for Nelson has mentioned to me that he will have some questions about clause 196. I just wonder if clause 4 has any connection to 196 so I would like to raise the question now on page 21 where the definition of 'electoral matter' goes on to define a photograph of a candidate.

My question at this stage is whether there is a connection between clauses 4 and 196 because the honourable member for Pembroke in her contribution in the second reading indicated that the committee had suggested that photographic depiction on election material is prohibited without the written consent of a candidate and I note when we get to clause 196 that there is a fairly hefty penalty for that. So at this stage I just want to raise that question as to whether there is any connection between clause 4 and clause 196.

Mr AIRD - They are similar issues but they are not connected. One does not relate to the other. Clause 196 stands by itself in terms of the issue, it does not really relate back to this one.

Mr Harriss - Just before you sit down - through you, Madam Deputy Chair - 'electoral matter' is a defined term here in this clause. What impact does that particular definition have throughout the bill? This matter of requiring people's approval for the use of a photograph is an important one which I think the honourable member for Nelson may debate at a later time.

Mr AIRD - If you have a photograph on a pamphlet, just a photograph, that is electoral matter. That is as simple as that. What clause 196 does is something different again in terms of the publishing of a photograph without permission. So this allows you to legitimately use your photograph if you want to. I have known some candidates not wanting to by choice. It would be deemed to be electoral matter in terms of the purposes of this act.

Mr Harriss - Yes, because I have just looked up sections 243 and 244, I think, of the current act and it is clarified in that.

Clause 4 agreed to.

Clause 5 -
(Election expenditure)

Mr DEAN - Before I speak on these two matters, with your support, Madam Deputy Chair, I want to say that in my second reading contribution I made some comment about the Electoral Office. But what I need to say there is that the Electoral Office at Launceston during my campaign were extremely helpful and went out of their way to help me. I do need to say that.

Mr Aird - Bad recovery.

Madam DEPUTY CHAIR - Could you please relate to clause 5.

Mr Aird - You'll get on.

Mr DEAN - They are very professional people. They had some concerns with the act as it was then as well.

I want to raise this matter because I do want it recorded in Hansard. It causes me some concern, and I am looking at clause 5(1)(b)(ii) here on page 22. I want to know what is the situation there and how do we calculate the cost of material that is going to be used in an election? It is a fairly big issue because when we are looking at, take star posts, for instance, they are quite a valuable part of an election. If you purchase 100 of them, there is probably about $600 of the $9 500 that you are entitled to. I am just wondering how that is calculated, whether it is calculated on new price, or whether it is likely to be calculated on a second?hand price, particularly in relation to the signage. If somebody has signage done now and uses it in six years' time again, is it going to be the new cost to have had those signs produced in six years' time or the cost that was incurred at the time they were made six years previously? It is a matter that needs to be clarified.

The other matter I wanted to refer to is clause 5(2)(c) and I flagged this during my second reading contribution. I have some major concerns with this part. This excludes the expenditure on the renting of an office for the purposes of a campaign. I thought that this act was to modernise and the Leader used the expression to modernise it -

Mr Aird - This has always been in there.

Mr DEAN - It may well have always been in there but what I would have thought this bill would have done too was to make it a level playing field and it is far from a level playing field with that exclusion in there.

As I said during my second reading contribution, the person who has the money can well afford to rent a campaign office in the CBD in a city and the exposure that could be developed from that would be incredible and would give that person an extreme advantage over another person who does not have the ability to do that.

Mr Martin - What if they are operating a business? Then they have an advantage. If I operate a business in the CBD in my normal day-to-day business life then I can use that as an electorate office but if you take this out then you disadvantage everyone else per se.

Mr DEAN - That is a different situation and I am not referring to that. If you happen to own a business in the CBD then so be it.

Mr Martin - That's right.

Mr DEAN - What I am saying is that what this does -

Mr Martin - But if you take this out you give me a great advantage.

Mr DEAN - It may well be. If you have a business in the middle of a CBD you probably have an advantage in any event and I would suspect that your campaigning from that business is not really going to do much more than the business has already done for you. So I think really the member for Elwick has a silly argument.

What we are talking about here is the ability of a person to set up a campaign office in the middle of a CBD and that that is an expense that is not a part of the expenses of their campaign. I think it is an unfair position to have here and if there was enough support from other members, and there may well be, I would be moving an amendment in that section.

Mr AIRD - At the moment in the Legislative Council you can spend $10 000. To some people that is a lot of money. Some people do not have that money and do not have the capacity to raise that money but it is still a limit -

Mr Dean - Let's level it up.

Mr AIRD - This is levelling it up too.

You might be able to get a cheap shopfront, someone might give it to you because it might be up for lease and it has not been tenanted and so they might say -

Mr Fletcher - The value still has to be taken into account.

Mr AIRD - No, it does not.

Mr Dean - It does. Then you should have to disclose it.

Mr AIRD - The honourable member for Murchison has an electoral office.

Mr Fletcher - Yes.

Mr AIRD - Would you close it down for an election?

Mr Dean - No.

Mr Fletcher - I will close it down before the election.

Members laughing.

Mr AIRD - I will pick another example. But it is ridiculous. The honourable member for Apsley has an office.
Mrs Jamieson - So have I.

Mr AIRD - Well, there you go. We are levelling the playing field by letting someone go and rent an office to campaign from. It is levelling the playing field.

Mr Dean - You are missing the point. With the greatest respect, Mr Leader, you are missing the point.

Mr AIRD - What if they get it for nothing?

Mr Dean - Well, even then there ought to be some nominal amount required to be disclosed -

Mr AIRD - Why?

Mr Dean - as part of the campaign.

Mr Fletcher - The act provides that there should be. You just can't make a declaration and have people give you a benefit and -

Mr AIRD - It does not say that at all. It says:

'Election expenditure does not include expenditure which relates to the renting or hiring of premises for the purposes of that campaign.'

Mr Fletcher - So all my friends could do things for me during an election campaign and I would not have to account for it? They could buy my posters for me, they could provide premises for me, they could radio-advertise for me -

Mr AIRD - You are being silly. With due respect, you are being silly.

Mr Fletcher - No, no there is no difference.

Mr AIRD - You are.

Mr Fletcher - If someone gives me a vacant shop premises in the middle of town -

Mr AIRD - That is permissible. It always has been. It has always been there; this is not new.

Mr Fletcher - I think we might have to check your election campaign.

Members laughing.

Mr AIRD - That is the point also. In terms of understanding -

Mr Fletcher - You might have been here -

Mr AIRD - I do not think I have ever had an office during election campaigns. I put my resources into other things.

Mr Fletcher - I am not going to support the proposed amendment.

Mr Dean - Let's be discriminatory. Let's move on.

Mr AIRD - I am not being discriminatory, I am levelling the playing field. If you have an electoral office and the candidate wants to open one I think he should be able to.

Mr Dean - Currently the playing field is like that.

Mr AIRD - The playing field is skewed toward the sitting member. If you cannot win as a sitting member, well.

Mr Dean - I did pretty well.

Mr AIRD - That is right, so what are worried about?

Mr Dean - I am worried about other candidates.

Ms Thorp - And so you should be.

Members laughing.

Mr AIRD - We are all up for a campaign. Someone is going to have a go at us, of course they are. Except in the old days when the honourable silver fox used to get around.

Clause 5 agreed to.

Clause 155 -
(Determination of valid and sufficient reason)

Mr DEAN - Madam Deputy Chair, with your indulgence I would like to refer to the first matter, clause 5 where I noticed that the Leader did take some advice on the first part of my question but did not answer it.

Mr Aird - What was that?

Madam DEPUTY CHAIR - We are dealing with clause 155, not revisiting clause 5 at this stage.

Mr DEAN - I have given him a clue so I hope that he does answer it. I notice in clause 155 it reads that the commissioner is to determine whether in his or her opinion the elector has a valid and sufficient reason for failing to vote at the election and I notice there are nowhere any guidelines as to what might constitute a good and valid reason for not voting.

I gave an example during my second reading contribution of a position that related to myself of working and I wonder whether or not that would be conceded a good and valid reason for not voting because in this day and age many people work on a Saturday and that is when voting normally takes place. It certainly was an acceptable reason in my case.

Mr Aird - It was?
Mr DEAN - It was an accepted reason in my case. I have it in writing.

Mr Aird - You must do long shifts.

Mr DEAN - I was working at the time.

Inasmuch as there is no identification of what might constitute a good and valid reason and inasmuch as it is up to the commissioner of the day to make that decision, I wonder whether or not there ought to be an expansion here somewhere to give an indication of that because there are people out there who say they are working during that period and therefore they cannot get in to vote. I would suggest that in many instances a person working would not be accepted as a good and valid reason, and properly so. I do not argue that but I do see that as an area that needs some explanation and some clarification.

Mr AIRD - The reason we have these clauses, Madam Deputy Chair, is to allow the discretion of an independent umpire to make a judgment about these things.

If it was understood that according to your roster as a police officer you were going to be stationed at George Town on polling day and you knew that roster, then you would have plenty of opportunity to go for a pre?poll. There are a lot of different avenues now for you to anticipate that you are going to work on that Saturday. A lot more people are working Saturdays and they can allow for that.

Say if you were off duty, you were called out on an emergency, a big smash, you were there all day and you could not get back to the polling booth then that is a legitimate excuse, in my opinion. That is just off the top of my head.

The reason we do not describe these and codify them is that every situation is different. I have known one person who decided to play a second round of golf and forgot, and that is just slack, but he thought it was a good excuse. He said he just wanted to go around again but I said he ought to be pinged because the obligation to vote should be greater than the desire to go a second round of golf.

If you have a reasonable excuse - people get sick, they get involved in car accidents, all sorts of things happen. Babies are born, anything can happen. That is a reason I would think, but I do not know and that is why we have an independent person to make these judgments.

Mr WILKINSON - Just in relation to that, in most elections people do contact us and say they are unable to vote for whatever reason and ask what do they do. Normally my advice is to contact the Electoral Office and see what they say.

I just wonder in a normal Legislative Council election approximately how many people seek an ability not to vote because of one of these special circumstances because you do not see many of them ever come before the court in relation to being fined for a failure to vote.

Mr Aird - It is a question we will take on notice, if that is all right.

Mr WILKINSON - Yes, that is fine.

Mr Aird - We will get the information to you; we just do not have it here.
Mr WILKINSON - Sure.

Over the last nine or 10 years I have probably seen about three or four people taken to court for failing to vote so I just wonder what the circumstances are in relation to that.

Mr Aird - I will get the information for you.

Clause 155 agreed to.