Bill: Electoral Amendment Bill 2025 - Council Amendments

BILL:

‘ELECTORAL AMENDMENT BILL 2025 COUNCIL AMENDMENTS’.

Tuesday, 31 March 2026.

James NEWBURY (Brighton) (12:22):

I rise to speak on behalf of the Coalition on the Amendments before the House as they have returned from the Council: one in relation to the political expenditure definitional change and one relating to two-candidate preferred distribution.

The Leader of the House did raise a number of other matters, but those matters were discussed in debate in the Council, so I will leave those discussions there. A number of those issues were also raised in this Chamber when the Bill was originally here.

I note the Leader of the House’s background to the political expenditure definitional change that she referred to but also that of the Treasurer in the other place, and if I may, I will put into Hansard her comments there.

I do want to put on record that in seeking a copy of Hansard from the Council I learned that the Council Hansard is not printed, which I hope is an issue that never occurs in this place, because some of us refer to physical copies of Hansard quite regularly. So, I will, in an uncouth way, be forced to read from my computer the comments of the Treasurer in the other place. The comments of the Treasurer in the other place in relation to the amendment were:

It is a technical amendment only and is necessary because of house amendments that were made to the bill when it passed the Assembly on 5 March. The definition was intended to operate in conjunction with a clause which has been removed from the bill following those house amendments, which means that the definition in the bill currently is unworkable and a new definition is necessary.

I take both at face value but also in detail the fact that that is what it is – a noncontroversial technical amendment. So, the Coalition does not have an issue with it.

In relation to the two-candidate preferred distribution of preferences, we very much thank the Government for working with the coalition on the Amendment that we proposed. We felt that it was more than passing strange the volume of electorates that did not have full two-party preference counts done. And when the Amendment was considered, when debate occurred both in this place and the other place, I know that the Electoral Commission was consulted and – I do not want to put words in their mouth and suggest that they did not support it, because that would not be fair – I do think that they had some concerns as to the full need to do a two-preference count. The Electoral Commission on their website suggests that now some 20 electorates did not reach a full two-party preference count, which I think is wrong. I am not aware of any other State where those counts are not fully completed. I think it is only reasonable in a preference system – setting aside whether a preference system is good, bad or otherwise – that the community knows how their preferences were distributed. I mean, if we have a preference system, it is only reasonable that that occurs. And to see that at the last election that did not occur – I felt very strongly about this, because this occurred in Brighton, my electorate, and it has been a bugbear of mine ever since. So, I thank the Government and the Premier’s office specifically for working with me, on behalf of the Coalition, on this Amendment. We will certainly be supporting an Amendment which we proposed, and as I said earlier, in relation to the other Amendment, we have no issue with that either.

Motion agreed to.