Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

The federal Labor Party supports the passage of the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Democratic Plebiscites) Bill 2007 because it supports the principle that the people of Queensland should be consulted before decisions are made about the amalgamation of local councils. Federal Labor believes in the importance of communities and the importance of local government in representing communities.

But let us be very clear about the government’s motivation in progressing this bill. The bill was introduced as a response to provisions in the Queensland Local Government Act 1993 that would provide for the dissolution of a council if it undertook action for the purpose of holding a poll about local government area abolition. The bill seeks to override that act by providing that any law prohibiting the holding of a plebiscite would be invalid and by offering Commonwealth assistance for plebiscites on local council amalgamations. The Prime Minister pretends to be the saviour of democracy, but the Australian Electoral Commission already has the power to conduct plebiscites on behalf of other bodies. This bill does not give the AEC power to conduct plebiscites; the AEC has been doing that for years. The Special Minister of State admitted as much in his second reading speech when he said in the other place that the AEC presently conducts plebiscites for trade unions, for employer organisations, for other organisations and, indeed, for some other countries. The Queensland government has introduced amendments in the Queensland parliament to repeal its provisions banning the holding of plebiscites. On 31 August, the Queensland government gazetted a regulation expiring regulations that imposed penalties on councils arranging plebiscites, so the conditions that the minister and those on the other side say prompted this bill no longer exist.

The minister yesterday accused Labor of a stunt for proposing that the AEC be allowed to conduct plebiscites on the location of nuclear facilities because the AEC already has the power to conduct plebiscites. The minister gave his game away. This bill is a transparent stunt by the Howard government. The conditions that gave rise to this bill no longer exist and all expert evidence supports the view that any plebiscites conducted by the AEC are not binding on the Queensland government. The AEC already has the power to conduct plebiscites on behalf of local councils, and the minister has admitted that this bill is unnecessary. But the Howard government perseveres because it wants to grandstand on an issue where it thinks it can gain some kind of short-term political advantage.

In contrast, Labor has consistently argued that local communities should be consulted. Mr Rudd and the federal Labor Party have been consistent in our support for local democracy. As early as 17 May in Townsville, Mr Rudd said:

My view ... is that local voice and local choice is critical when it comes to the future of local government across Australia, as well as here in Queensland.

My other view is this. If we’re going to come up with any amalgamation proposals, the important way forward is then to test them through the democratic process of a local referendum.

You cannot have a stronger commitment or demonstration of leadership than that, and that has been our position all along. That is why we indicated that we would be supporting this bill when it was introduced. We believe that local communities should be consulted before the whole structure of local government in Queensland is changed.

Federal Labor has a policy on local government, and this stands in contrast to the Howard government, which is stale and has run out of ideas on the issue of local government. Mr Howard’s interest in local government is belated and opportunistic. Mr Howard was not out there with statements of support for Queensland local councils back in May when Mr Rudd was arguing for plebiscites, and we do not recall Mr Howard as a member of the then opposition taking a stand against Jeff Kennett’s forced amalgamations of councils in Victoria. Mr Howard only entered the debate in Queensland when he thought he saw a political advantage in dividing communities, and Mr Howard in this sense is holding out false hopes. He knows that plebiscites are not binding on the Queensland state government and he knows that the state government has withdrawn the legislation that the government says made this bill necessary in the first place.

If Mr Howard believed in local democracy, he would support constitutional recognition for local government, but in 1998 Mr Howard, as the Leader of the Opposition, campaigned against a referendum put forward by the Australian Labor Party to recognise local government in our Constitution. In a speech to the National Press Club on 23 June 1998, Mr Howard said his opposition to constitutional recognition was based on ‘a strongly held view that it will distort the natural order and constitutional balance of our federal structure’. He still believes that local government is somehow outside the natural order and balance of our federal structure. By contrast, Labor sees local government as a true partner in providing services for the Australian people and a vital part of local communities, and one of the three spheres of government that form part of our Federation.

In debate on this bill in the other place yesterday, the Special Minister of State accused Labor of insincerity. He said that we had had 11½ years to argue for constitutional recognition for local government and had waited for this bill to introduce the idea. That shows just how much interest this government has had in local government and how little interest the minister takes in what happens in the parliament and, indeed, the portfolio of local government. In October last year, Labor moved an amendment to a motion in the parliament to recognise local government in the Constitution. Mr Howard opposed it. His Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads, Mr Jim Lloyd, opposed it. Now we hear that he has an open mind on the question, yet Mr Lloyd voted against Labor’s amendment. He might like to talk to a previous Howard government minister for local government, Mr Tuckey, who said that he thought constitutional recognition was meaningless. The Special Minister of State voted against the amendment, though he, too, now seems to forget that the question was ever put. I should add that Labor has a very long and proud history of supporting constitutional recognition. That goes back to previous referenda held in 1974 and 1988 which, not least, form a substantial and consistent part of both our national and state platforms.

Senator Joyce has said that he supports constitutional recognition for local government. He voted against it last year, but he says that he supports it now. We welcome his change of heart, and we wish that more of his colleagues would also express that view. But what really matters with this government, as we all know, is not what Senator Joyce thinks but what the Prime Minister thinks. The Prime Minister does not believe in local government. His intervention in this dispute simply reflects the advice that he has received from his pollsters, which is that his best bet for staying in power is to capitalise on voter discontent with state governments. This approach is hypocritical and lacks principle.

The Prime Minister is running a giant con job on the people of Queensland. He is not interested in the results of any polls on local council amalgamations. The AEC have already told him and the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration that they will not be able to conduct plebiscites in conjunction with the election. But he seems to have switched off. There is only one poll that counts for this Prime Minister, and that is the next opinion poll. He focuses on the next opinion polls and what he must do to get himself out of the mess that he has got himself into. He will not be listening to the people of Queensland and he will not be developing new policies or approaches toward dealing with the chronic financial situation in which local government finds itself after 11 long years of his government. No doubt the Prime Minister will be listening to his pollsters, particularly Mark Textor. We all know that it is Mark Textor who gives him his lines. An article by Sid Marris from 7 August says:

Mr Howard’s latest confrontation with the States follows the revelation this week of a warning from the Liberals’ pollster Mark Textor that the Coalition was unpopular and needed to capitalise on voter discontent with State governments.

It is plain to see that that is why he picked a fight with the Queensland government on this issue when he was so conspicuously silent when his friends in the Victorian Liberal Party restructured local government in that state in the 1990s. That is clearly why he grabbed at this bill. He was looking for an issue to distract the people of Queensland from the fact that he had run out of policy ideas and had no plan for working with local government to improve the services provided to the people of Queensland.

By contrast, Labor’s position on this issue has always been principled and clear. We have a proud history, as I mentioned, of supporting local government. It was in 1974 and 1988 that federal Labor sought formal constitutional recognition of local government at national referenda. On both occasions the coalition refused to provide bipartisan support and, not surprisingly, the referenda failed. Two weeks ago, I confirmed that an incoming Rudd Labor government would move to recognise local government in the Constitution. Constitutional recognition will redefine the relationship between Commonwealth, state and local governments and guarantee that communities have an effective local voice in decision making on the issues that affect their lives. We followed up on that announcement by indicating at the Local Government Association of Queensland annual conference that an incoming Labor government would in its first term of office establish a Council of Australian Local Governments. The Council of Australian Local Governments will provide a forum that will allow local and federal government to meet and discuss issues of national importance and will ensure that local government representatives have a more effective voice at the Council of Australian Governments, COAG.

Our support for constitutional recognition and the establishment of a Council of Australian Local Governments shows the strength of our commitment to local government and to the idea of cooperative federalism. The Howard government, by contrast, has been caught being tricky and opportunistic in seeking to exploit the difficulties that local government is facing. These difficulties have been partly created through 11 long years of neglect by the Howard government. We will be moving a second reading amendment to this bill to give effect to constitutional recognition of local government, and I call on the government to support it and, failing that, for Senator Joyce and those of his colleagues who declared their support for constitutional recognition to make good on their public statements this week by crossing the floor to support this important motion.

I also want to mention some practical issues and problems with the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Democratic Plebiscites) Bill 2007. The bill shows every sign of having been drafted in haste and without the sort of consultation that we would expect of a responsible government. This was confirmed at the hearings in Cairns when officials confirmed that the drafting instructions were given to the Department of Finance and Administration only on the Thursday before the bill was introduced to the parliament. Officials were unable to point to any consultation with state or local government bodies or, indeed, with the federal department responsible for local government. In foreshadowing this bill, the Prime Minister said:

The Australian Government’s offer to fund the conduct of the ballots remains on the table.

In hearings in Queensland two weeks ago, the committee searched in vain for details of this funding. The AEC has apparently been given a wink and nod that funding for the plebiscites will be provided by the Department of Transport and Regional Services, but the government has given the Senate no conclusive advice on this question. This is not the kind of serious and thoughtful preparation that we would expect from a government that was serious about local democracy. It is further proof that this government has no strategy and no policy; it just makes it up as it goes along. Witnesses at the committee hearings in Queensland expressed puzzlement at the mechanics of how the plebiscites will be constructed and put to the people of Queensland. For example, we have not yet heard the minister explain whether plebiscites will cover the existing local government boundaries, the proposed new boundaries or communities with an interest in the outcome of the local government changes.

Senators will be aware that, in its submission to the Queensland Local Government Grants Commission, Noosa Shire expressed a preference for remaining independent but expanding its boundaries to include adjacent communities of Eumundi, Doonan, Verrierdale, Weyba Downs and Peregian Springs. The commission recommended that Noosa Council be amalgamated with Maroochy and Caloundra councils.

We are interested to know how it is intended that plebiscites will be conducted in these circumstances. If the Noosa Council seeks a plebiscite on the question of the amalgamation, will the people of Maroochydore and Caloundra also have the opportunity to express a view on the plebiscite? These are legitimate questions. Will the people in the other areas have the opportunity to express a view about whether they would like to be part of an expanded Noosa shire? Will the people of Coolum also be involved in this process? These are two more critical questions, and there is another: will the councils be left to somehow sort out this jigsaw puzzle in conjunction with the AEC at the time? And if not, if these communities do not have the opportunity to express a view on the new council boundaries just because they happen to sit outside the boundaries of the existing council, how will decision makers be able to assess the views of the community as a whole?

And so we go on with outstanding questions such as these. Who will write the questions and decide that they have been framed clearly and in an even-handed way, and who will write up the yes and no cases for the plebiscites? Or does the Howard government propose to leave this to be decided by the AEC? In evidence to the committee in Cairns last week, witnesses from the AEC were not able to offer much clarity on these questions or to point to a process by which they would be resolved. So in addressing the question of how plebiscites would be conducted, an AEC witness said:

... there are all sorts of other issues of confusion—boundary differences, voting differences, different ballot papers, higher informality possibilities—

in holding an attendance ballot in conjunction with a federal election. He pointed out that even the simpler option of postal ballots would require perhaps 2½ million envelopes that the AEC does not currently have. The AEC was able to say, however, that with all the uncertainties still to be sorted out, the possibility of an early plebiscite was effectively out of the question.

The Howard government has attempted a gigantic trick on the people of Queensland. The Howard government does not have a clear idea about how to make this bill work because it is not serious about local democracy. This is, as I said, evidence that the Howard government has run out of steam and run out of ideas. It no longer governs but concocts stunts that divide our communities. Federal Labor has consistently called for the people to have a voice on the Queensland council amalgamations, and we support this bill because we support local democracy, notwithstanding our reservations about the lack of detail in the bill and the government’s motivation in putting it forward.

If the Howard government wants to call plebiscites, let us have a plebiscite on another issue that will shape communities and on which the Howard government has failed to provide community consultation. Federal Labor believes that communities are entitled to express a view on the location of 25 nuclear power plants and the nuclear waste facilities that the Howard government wants to impose on the Australian community. To this end I move:

At the end of the motion, add: “but the Senate:

             (a)    expresses its support for a referendum to extend constitutional recognition to local government in recognition of the essential role it plays in the governance of Australia; and

             (b)    notes that the Australian Labor Party believes communities are entitled to express a view on the location of 25 nuclear power plants and the nuclear waste facilities that the Howard government wants to impose on the Australian community”.

This presents an opportunity for senators opposite, who claim to support constitutional recognition for local government, to vote in favour of Labor’s second reading amendment.

This is an issue that goes to the character of the Howard government and the Labor opposition. Our steadfast support for constitutional recognition for local government underpins our support for their right to have a say and express a view about the proposed amalgamations in Queensland. We know the mechanics of this bill are no longer technically necessary for those plebiscites to occur with the support of the AEC, but we will support this bill on the basis that it is an expression of that principle and that right. Further, I think the ultimate test for the Howard government will be how they will respond to this second reading amendment. If they support the second reading amendment they are acknowledging indeed that constitutional recognition is not only essential but the right thing to do to formally recognise that we have three functioning spheres of government in this country—not two, with one on the side, but three fully functioning and essential spheres of government that need to work more effectively together.

The way this motion is worded allows coalition senators to support it, because the second part acknowledges the Labor Party’s view but it does not necessarily force coalition senators to subscribe to that view also. The motion notes the Labor Party’s view with respect to plebiscites for the location of 25 nuclear power plants and nuclear waste facilities that the Howard government wants to impose on the Australian community, and we think that is a profound enough issue to warrant mention in the context of this bill and in facilitating local democracy. I commend our second reading amendment to the Senate and I look forward to hearing what government senators have to say. (Quorum formed)