19 March 2025
The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (17:32): I rise to speak on the bill on behalf of the Greens and indicate that the Greens will be supporting this bill's passage through the upper house, albeit with a few reservations, and I will talk a little bit about those. The Hon. Jing Lee has articulated very clearly, I think, the two main elements of this bill. The first relates to a tightening of eligibility requirements for voting in council elections. Currently, residents are given the opportunity to vote. What the Hon. Frank Pangallo is proposing is that that franchise be restricted to citizens, in line with the voting that we see in state and federal elections. Additionally, the honourable member through this bill is supporting compulsory voting, again bringing council elections in line with state and federal elections.
On the issue of the voter roll and restricting the franchise to citizens, I do have some concerns with what the honourable member is proposing. Those concerns mirror those expressed by the Hon. Jing Lee; that is, we do not want to disenfranchise long-term members of the community, people who are part of our council communities who may not necessarily be formal citizens but who want a stake in the future of their local government. Indeed, many state jurisdictions in Australia extend the opportunity to vote to permanent residents.
I guess where South Australia is a little bit different, though, is that we do not have the same requirements in terms of permanent residency status for voting in council elections, so people can be living in a particular council precinct for a very short time and then get themselves on the roll and exercise a vote.
I can see the potential under that system for things to go awry, and so it is on that basis that the Greens will support this, recognising that of course if it passes this house there will be an opportunity to work with the government and the Hon. Frank Pangallo to address some of the implementation issues. Indeed, it would be our hope that the government, in contemplating this, will look very closely at what happens in other jurisdictions.
I want to also talk a little bit about the Greens' position on compulsory voting in council elections. I must say I am a late convert to this debate, having been elected as a city councillor more than 10 years ago now. One of the things I thought was attractive about local government was the fact that you had Independents, community-minded people who could be elected outside of the political party banner. I think that is a good feature of our democratic system.
What we know, however, is that people can still be members of political parties, and that may not necessarily be known to the voter when they cast their vote. This became a real issue in the Adelaide City Council elections in 2018, when you saw a group of Liberals under the Team Adelaide banner, who stood under the leadership of failed preselection candidate Houssam Abiad and failed Liberal Party candidate Alex Hyde, now party director, members of the Liberal Party who put themselves forward as just a group that were working closely together but were actually operating as a factional group, a secret faction.
They were elected to city council and then denied that they were members of a faction but voted as a factional group on most issues. This has been well documented in the media. That does concern me. I think voters have a right to know what political parties these candidates are connected to. That is one of the reasons why the Greens advocated strongly during the last local government elections to tighten the disclosure regime around political party membership so that voters got that information before they exercised their vote, rather than after the vote.
The problem is, though, of course that because of the optional voting system these loose factional groups are able to be formed, and the connection may not be transparent to voters. One of the benefits of compulsory voting is that people may well run under a political party banner and therefore that connection is going to be more transparent to voters.
We also know, of course, that we suffer from a very low turnout in council elections. In the last local government elections held in South Australia, in November 2022, approximately 400,000 people participated. That is a turnout of around 32 per cent of the eligible voting population. There is a bit of a difference between metro and country turnout, but it is not huge. In metropolitan areas, the turnout is generally higher compared to country areas. For example, in the City of Adelaide the turnout was around 40 per cent. Some country areas have lower participation rates, such as the District Council of Ceduna, which saw turnout of about 25 per cent.
I guess the risk when you have such low turnout is that some of these loose factional groups can wield disproportionate influence over a particular council, as we saw with the failed Team Adelaide faction led by councillors Abiad and Hyde of the Liberal Party. It is my hope that if we see this reform we might be able to safeguard councils against those sorts of antics in the future. I am open to this on that basis.
I also want to touch on one of the issues that the Hon. Jing Lee mentioned, which is the ongoing legal matter that is unfolding in Adelaide City Council. I saw that the Lord Mayor shared a statement on her social media account from the CEO of the City of Adelaide, and I thought it might be useful to just read that statement into Hansard because I suspect some other members may reflect on what's going on with the city council, and I think it is useful to get this information on the public record. The CEO advised the Adelaide City Council—I have a transcript of his remarks on 11 March. He said:
…on Friday the seventh of March, the Court of Disputed Returns delivered judgment in the matter of Hyde, ECSA and Li.
That matter concerned a petition filed in the court by Mr Alexander Hyde contesting the validity of the 2022 periodic election, which resulted in the election of four councillors to represent council's central ward.
In upholding the petition in part, the court found that the election was affected by illegal practices and that those illegal practices affected the outcome of the election.
At the request of counsel for Mr Hyde, the court has adjourned the matter to 4 April 2025 to allow time for the parties to make submissions regarding what orders the courts should make as a result of its judgment.
As the court has not yet made any orders, each of the central ward councillors continue to hold office as members of council in accordance with the terms of the Local Government Act.
Those councillors are entitled to attend council meetings, committee meetings and information and briefing sessions in the ordinary way unless and until the court orders otherwise.
Importantly, section 40 of the Local Government Act makes it clear that there is no risk to the validity or lawfulness of any of the decisions of council since the 2022 periodic elections arising from the findings of the court, including at tonight's council meeting. Any council decision made prior to the court's orders taking effect will remain valid even after the court makes orders finalising the proceedings.
I do think that's an important statement to put on the public record because I know there is a significant concern around the legitimacy of the council. The CEO makes clear the implications of the court's findings thus far. In closing, the Greens are supportive of this bill moving through to the next stage. We do have some reservations. It is our hope that those can be teased out through collaboration with the Hon. Frank Pangallo and the government. With that, I conclude my remarks.