26 November 2024
The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (16:30): I rise to speak in favour of the Electoral (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2024. I am pleased to see this bill come before us, as it contains many changes which will help update and improve the accessibility of our electoral system. Indeed, I commend the Electoral Commission of South Australia for their work in identifying areas of improvement and recognise that the government has taken up many of these as part of this bill.
At the heart of the changes to the electoral act before us is a recognition that our legislation is out of step with the current realities of the world we live in and the needs of voters. Indeed, we have seen many elections over the last few years where many people have voted early. Those votes have not been counted on election night and it can create a false impression around the views of electors and, indeed, those results whilst the vote is still being counted. I think most people in the community would welcome this as a commonsense change.
There are also some important measures within the legislation that I submit to you will help protect the integrity of our elections. These include measures such as banning robocalls and regulating the use of artificial intelligence in election advertisements. Indeed, on the issue of robocalls, the Greens have been supportive of banning that for many years.
I remember during the dying days of the Marshall government there was an electoral reform bill that came to this place. I think the then shadow attorney-general, leader of the Labor Party in this place, put forward an amendment to ban robocalls, which was inserted into the act. The Greens supported that. It passed the upper house, but then my recollection is that the bill languished in the lower house because the Liberal Party did not want to bring in that change in the lead-up to the state election. That was disappointing, because robocalls are something that I think undermine the public confidence in our elections. They are very unpopular and they are irritating for a lot of electors, so I think getting rid of robocalls is something that will be welcomed by many in the community.
A number of elements of the bill will make it easier for South Australians to vote, and I think that is a really good thing. Before I delve much further into the key elements of the bill, I will outline the basis of two of the amendments that the Greens will be moving today. We recognise that fundamental to this bill is the intention to make South Australia's electoral system more inclusive and better able to engage with the public, particularly young people. Some of the provisions of the legislation I think will make it easier for young people to vote, and that is a good thing.
However, one of the omissions, I think, is the failure to act on lowering the voting age. We are not proposing that voting be compulsory for 16 or 17 year olds. Rather, we are suggesting that voting for that cohort be optional. Sixteen and 17 year olds in our state are already able to work. They pay taxes, they can get a provisional licence and they can even join the army, but they are not able to vote and have their say on the direction of the government in our state.
I heard the Leader of the Opposition say in her remarks that young people's brains are still developing and they are not able to make decisions in that regard. Let's not forget that in South Australia the age of criminal responsibility is 10, so we are saying to these young people that they can be held criminally responsible under our laws, but they are not able to actually determine their views on politics when they are 16 or 17 years old. I find that a ridiculous proposition. Surely, people who are paying taxes, people who are out in the workforce, people who are engaging as citizens, should have a right to vote.
It is the Greens' hope that were a change like this to become law, then political parties would become much more responsive to the views of young people. If we look at issues like the housing crisis, if we look at issues like the climate crisis, these are long-term policy challenges. The impacts of the decisions that we make are intergenerational. The Labor and Liberal parties are doing a woeful job in terms of addressing those challenges in a meaningful way. Maybe one way to reorient the politics of this place is to enfranchise those young people. They deserve a voice.
I also recognise the work of the government in terms of civics education—that is great, but what better way to improve the engagement with young people in our politics than through giving them the opportunity to vote on an optional basis. I think it would be welcomed by a number of young people. Indeed, I recognise that the Commissioner for Children and Young People in our state has been doing a lot of advocacy around this.
I will briefly turn to the second amendment that the Greens are moving. This amendment delays the provisions relating to changes regarding the placement of corflutes for federal elections. When the government put forward draft legislation, it wrote to political parties asking their views. It wrote to the Greens party asking the views of the party organisation. The election campaign committee had a discussion regarding the bill and provided some feedback, which was the basis of the amendment that I am moving. Indeed, it has been the concern, through some of the feedback that I have received, that making this change so close to the federal election, given the federal election is only a few months away, could pose some challenges, so the amendment reflects that.
I now turn to some of the provisions within the bill that are informed by the recommendations of the Electoral Commission. One of the alterations to the existing act is that voters will now be able to enrol to vote on the actual day of the election. Voters will no longer be required to enrol beforehand; they can enrol up to and on the election day. I think that is a really positive advancement for democracy in our state. It will bring South Australia into line with other jurisdictions and it will help young people actually exercise their vote because we know, for a lot of reasons, young people may not always be on the roll.
We know also that young people are more likely to rent, they are more likely to be transient in terms of their address, and so giving them the flexibility to enrol right up until election day I think is a really positive advancement. After all, we should be doing what we can to encourage people to vote and exercise their democratic right.
Another alteration, in terms of change to the status quo, that I note within the bill is the change to the act allowing South Australians to vote early without needing to sign a declaration and without needing to provide a reason. I think a lot of South Australians who exercise their early vote do so without necessarily having a compelling reason.
It used to be that if you were going to cast your vote early, you needed to demonstrate that you were working or attending a wedding or had some significant event that you could not get out of. I think, in recent years, more and more South Australians have sought to avail themselves of the early voting provisions. It makes sense to relax those requirements to reflect what is actually happening.
I am also pleased to see amendments relating to itinerant electors—that is, people who are homeless or those who might be travelling within Australia. This bill exempts electors who have no fixed address from compulsory voting. It also allows them to stay enrolled, even if they are outside of South Australia for longer than a month. This is an important step as a compulsory voting requirement, which I am strongly supportive of, but this can be difficult for someone to comply with if they are itinerant, if they are someone who is homeless, or if indeed they are travelling interstate.
We support moves to encourage itinerant electors to stay enrolled and accommodations for this cohort to prevent them being punished for their lack of permanent address. Of course, my views on addressing the homelessness crisis are well known in this place and I think the government and indeed the Electoral Commission should do what they can to engage homeless voters.
We also support the changes to postal voting that come with the bill. Sadly, Australia Post is becoming increasingly unreliable. It is important for our laws to reflect that. The bill goes further to make inherently sensible changes, allowing postal vote applications to be made online or over the phone, rather than needing to be made via the post.
Also, it stops political parties from being able to control those postal mail-outs, which again is something that I think is not really in the spirit of democracy in our state. There are some important changes here, too, allowing sight-impaired and motor-impaired voters to use telephone-assisted voting. That is another really positive change that we think will help people.
Of course, there is a final change that will allow absent voting, simplifying the process for voting outside of your electorate. I have heard stories of people going into polling booths and not being able to vote because they do not live in that particular area. Again, it makes sense to streamline that, so I welcome the government taking action on that.
In closing, the Greens are supportive of the provisions within the bill, but we would like to see the government go further to give 16 year olds and 17 year olds the right to vote. Just recently, this parliament made history when we became the first place in the world to ban political donations. We could become the first state in Australia to give 16 year olds and 17 year olds the right to vote. I urge the government to consider this sensible suggestion from the Greens and to show some leadership in that regard.