Electoral and Constitution Amendment Bill 2011 - resumed

Extract from Hansard

Committee

Resumed from an earlier stage of the sitting. The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Hon Brian Ellis) in the chair;

Hon Norman Moore (Minister for Electoral Affairs) in charge of the bill.

Clause 5: Section 64 replaced —

Committee was interrupted after the clause had been amended.

Hon ALISON XAMON: I was struggling with the microphone before question time. My question pertains to proposed section 64(1). I suspect that the microphone being switched back on has made the situation worse; I am sorry about that.

Hon Norman Moore: I think it was better without it.

Hon ALISON XAMON: I think it was too.

Hon Norman Moore: The problem is that it might not have been recorded. Although that might be better too!

Hon ALISON XAMON: I will struggle on. I refer to situations when the Assembly may be dissolved before 1 November. I understand that it would be politically undesirable for the government of the day to prematurely dissolve the government because of the two elections that would need to be held and that it is considered that that will be enough of an incentive for a government to not call a premature election. Putting that aside, I want the minister to clarify the circumstances under which that will ordinarily occur. I recognise that, by necessity, an early election will be triggered if there is a successful vote of no confidence in the government or if the government fails to pass a supply bill, but my question is about the other circumstances that may trigger an early election. I want to get a handle on how narrow those circumstances may be, in order to ensure that we will have genuine fixed-term elections.

Hon NORMAN MOORE: Someone has fixed the member’s microphone because I could hear her very clearly, which is good. The purpose of the bill is to have a fixed date for Legislative Council elections. That is being done because under the Constitution we cannot have a fixed election date for the Assembly, and that is why we have gone down this path. However, the bill also provides that the Assembly can hold an early election under certain circumstances before 1 November. The member has identified, for example, a successful vote of no confidence in the government and supply being rejected, which I would have thought would be very unlikely because it has not happened yet. Any Premier of the day can call an election before 1 November for whatever reason he or she chooses. A decision to do that invokes the rationale behind this bill, which is to try to discourage Premiers from doing that without prohibiting them from doing it, which would require a change to the Constitution. The two or three circumstances that the member raised could cause an early election, but a Premier could simply call one before 1 November. The Assembly would dissolve and from then on there would be a disconnect between the two houses. The next Assembly election would be four years after the date on which it sat and the Legislative Council election would be held on the second Saturday in March. That is a significant disincentive for a Premier to call an early election. Other circumstances, such as a vote of no confidence or supply being denied, occur so rarely that I do not know whether it is something we have to worry about too much in the future. This is the only way we could construct this legislation to get as close as we could to achieving fixed terms for both houses.

Clause, as amended, put and passed.

Clauses 6 to 12 put and passed.

Title put and passed.

Bill reported, with amendments.