5 May, 2026
The Hon. R.A. SIMMS: Since the election was held on 21 March, a number of significant issues relating to the administration of the election have come to light. These include no polling booths in Coober Pedy on election day, technical glitches resulting in voters being unable to cast their votes, lengthy delays in paying staff, missing ballots across multiple electorates, reports of a One Nation volunteer counting votes in the seat of Narungga, and substantial delays in counting votes to declare the results of this chamber, with a declaration of the poll happening only yesterday, just hours before parliament was due to meet. My questions to the Deputy Premier and Attorney-General are:
1. When did the minister first become aware of significant failures within ECSA?
2. Is he aware that the Electoral Commissioner has also seen a significant increase in his pay of 11.3 per cent over this year, and his salary now sits at $325,000?
3. What action has the minister taken to ensure that these significant failures don't occur again?
4. Does the minister think it is acceptable that half of this chamber was only declared yesterday and that five of our members were without email addresses and staff entitlements for the five weeks since the election?
The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Deputy Premier, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Arts, Special Minister of State) (16:54): I thank the honourable member for his question. I might start by answering in reverse order to his last question. Do I think it is acceptable? Absolutely not! I think it is deeply unacceptable. I do not think it is at all acceptable that we had the declaration of the polls after 11 o'clock yesterday for a chamber to sit today: I think that is completely and utterly unacceptable, and I will come to addressing that further when I talk about the review that has been announced into the election.
In relation to, I think, the very first question the honourable member asked: when did I as Attorney-General, Special Minister of State, under whose portfolio—although independent—the Electoral Commission sits. Certainly as pre-poll week started, I had members, not just of the Labor Party but members from other parties and members of the public that I knew, sending me messages and giving me calls about some of the things that they were encountering at polling booths. I made sure my office passed them on to the Electoral Commission and encouraged people to do that directly themselves.
For all of the concerns, the problems that the honourable member has raised, and the many, many dozens and dozens of people who have written directly to me about the concerns they have raised, I agree, as I have said, that those things are not acceptable either, for all the problems that have been faced. That is exactly why we think it was appropriate—and I think members of other political parties as well with whom we have consulted over the last couple of weeks also agree that it is appropriate that the running of this election is not reviewed as it usually is, and that is a review by the Electoral Commission of South Australia itself, but is reviewed independently.
Mr Tom Rogers AO has been appointed to conduct that independent review. Mr Rogers was the Australian Electoral Commissioner for a decade, which I think might be the longest serving electoral commissioner that Australia has had, and he has previously been involved in reviews in other jurisdictions in other states. I have had the opportunity to meet Mr Rogers, and I am confident he will conduct a very thorough review and make recommendations.
What is also important about this independent review is that this is not a report to me as Special Minister of State, it is not a report to the government: the report will be made directly to both houses of parliament. It will then be appropriate for us to look as a parliament at what ways we can act on those recommendations. I am confident there will be things legislatively that we ought and should do in terms of improving how elections work.
Having said that, I will say that running elections is a huge undertaking. I think in television interviews Mr Rogers—and before becoming the Australian Electoral Commissioner he had a distinguished career in the military—talked about the fact that, for most western societies, elections are the biggest peacetime operation most jurisdictions engage in, with 1.3-plus million voters and something like 8,000 people employed. It is a massive undertaking. We are the envy of most of the rest of the world in the way that elections are run—run fairly, run independently. I don't think there is any suggestion that the integrity and the results of the election are in doubt, but for all the things the honourable member has mentioned, yes, they should not have happened and that is exactly why we need this independent review.
The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (16:57): Supplementary: when the minister became aware of reports of things going wrong during the pre-poll period, did he raise these matters directly with the commissioner? Did he seek a meeting with the commissioner? What action did he take?
The Hon. K.J. MAHER (16:58): I thank the honourable member for his question. As I said in my answer, I asked my office to pass them on. I am always hesitant as, once an election starts, I am not just the Attorney-General, I am also a member of one of the parties contesting the election. From memory, my office passed nearly all of them on. I think there might have been two occasions towards the end of pre-poll where I directly contacted the Electoral Commissioner and passed on feedback that I had received then. I didn't ask for anything about what was being done, and I think that speaks to the independence that ought to be afforded the Electoral Commissioner.
The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (16:58): Supplementary arising from the original answer: as part of the issues that were raised during the pre-poll period, did the Deputy Premier become aware of any resourcing issues with respect to the work of the commission?
The Hon. K.J. MAHER (16:58): Not from the commission, but certainly feedback was being received loud and clear, particularly from people who were working on pre-polls, those people who had been employed, that they were concerned. This was passed on to other members of parliament who were handing out how-to-vote cards. They passed it on, obviously, to me or to my office.
People who had worked on a number of elections seemed to have more pressure and demands on them than there had been in the past. I think the Premier has made it clear, as I have, that in the lead-up to the election it was made very clear to the Electoral Commission that democracy is exceptionally important and that any resources that needed to be provided would be provided. I think from memory it is about $30 million that it costs to run an election. For this election, when resources were asked for, something like $7 million or $8 million more than the last election was provided. We made it clear that if more was needed, that is what we would do.