Page 665 - Week 02 - Thursday, 20 March 2014
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The government will propose formal amendments to the Electoral Act in due course for this change. In particular, I can foreshadow that at this point in time it is anticipated that amendments to the Electoral Act to provide for an enlarged Assembly will be presented to the Assembly during the June budget sitting week. That would allow debate on those matters to take place at the following sitting, which is scheduled for August.
The purpose of this referral today is to establish a select committee that will look at what provisions of the Electoral Act potentially require amendment to facilitate change. Whilst a number of these are straightforward, there may be other elements that are worthy of further consideration by a committee inquiry.
There are also related matters. For example, the recent High Court decision in Unions NSW and others v New South Wales has concluded that certain parts of the New South Wales campaign finance laws are unconstitutional. Similar provisions exist in elements of the ACT’s Electoral Act when it comes to the regulation of campaign finance. For that reason I have included in this proposed referral a provision that provides for the select committee to look into these matters.
The government, of course, anticipates making a submission to this inquiry. As the responsible minister, I anticipate that the government will be able to provide information in relation to the potential implications of Unions NSW and others v New South Wales as part of the select committee’s inquiry.
It is also the case that the report from the ACT Electoral Commission on the conduct of the 2012 ACT election has been tabled in this place, but there has not, as of yet, been a referral to committee to consider that report. Therefore, I think it is timely that we take this opportunity to consider not just the matters arising from the potential expansion of the Assembly but also the issues raised in the Electoral Commissioner’s report on the conduct of the 2012 election.
The overwhelming majority of the commissioner’s recommendations in that report relate to a range of technical aspects of the operations of the new campaign finance laws. Therefore, it is again timely to look at those matters concurrently with the implications of the recent High Court decision, the operation of campaign finance and a potentially expanded Assembly.
The motion proposes that the committee will be comprised of one government member, one opposition member, and one member representing the ACT Greens. The proposed reporting date is the last day of June. This would provide sufficient time for the inquiry to conduct what will be a fairly prompt inquiry process but nevertheless one that can be completed and a report presented at the same time as the government’s proposed amendments to the Electoral Act are already on the table, and before the Assembly considers the bill to expand the size of the Assembly in August.
So the expectation is that in August there will be a bill for debate on a possible expansion of the Assembly. There will be a committee report from the select committee on the matters outlined in this proposed referral and there will be a government response to the committee report.
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