Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to rise to speak on this matter, having myself served in local government for nine years. During that time, I was the mayor of Port Hedland for three years and the chairman of the Pilbara ward of the Western Australian Local Government Association, so I am quite interested in this referendum.

The Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Amendment Bill 2013 that we have before us today proposes that a yes/no pamphlet be delivered to every household—that is, every home—rather than to individual electors. That is recommendation 3, and the coalition opposes that recommendation. Then there is recommendation 11, which is under discussion at the moment in this matter today, which is that increased money be allocated for referendum education and information in equal proportions for the yes and no cases, and of course the coalition supports this proposal. That is because, obviously, every elector should be well informed about the yes and no cases for this proposed referendum and should thereby be able to make a better decision about which way they will vote.

I must say that the first proposition—under recommendation 3, to send material to every household rather than every elector at their registered address—is, in my view, a very strange one. It will mean that many electors will not receive material relevant to the referendum at all. For example, these days many people, as we know, move about the country with their work. In Western Australia, where I come from, there are a great number of fly-in, fly-out workers. They come into Perth airport, then fly to mines all over the north of the state and the east of the state. They come from all over Australia. They come from Queensland, New South Wales, Tasmania and even from other countries. These people, nevertheless, do have a registered home address somewhere in Australia, if they are Australian citizens. To merely send material relevant to the referendum to households—which might mean mining camps, where people come and go, and do not stay for long—will mean that many people do not actually receive information about these referendum proposals.

In a general way, all over this country, people shift around a lot. Nevertheless, everybody has a permanent, official address. It is to that address that important mail is sent to them. Such important mail would obviously possibly include bank statements, credit card statements, notices about local government and other matters. I think the idea of just sending the mail to a house—rather than to an elector's official address—is very, very bizarre and very hard to understand. In my view, all referendums are important matters.

It has been said today in the course of this debate that, of the 44 referendums put to the Australian people, very few have passed, because the Australian people generally are very wary about changing the Constitution. I think that this referendum on constitutional recognition of local government is a very important matter indeed. It is my belief that material relating to this matter should be sent to the designated home address of each elector so that they can be informed. It is surely the responsibility of government to communicate with each elector and it is patently obvious, in my view, that the most efficient manner of communicating with each elector is to send material to their registered address. In my view, to not send mail to each elector but to the householder is disrespectful of the rights of each elector as an Australian citizen. The reality is that there may be several people living at a street address and, in truth, material that is put in the letterbox may not be handed around to the other members of a particular household.

The reality is that quite often the amount of junk mail that accumulates in people's letterboxes addressed to the householder is very large. In my case, when I come home and find a letterbox full of 'to the householder' junk mail, I simply pick it up, walk in, put it in the bin and forget about it. That might be the fate of any letter addressed to the householder in many homes around Australia. In this case, it would have the unfortunate consequence that electors, who are supposed to be informed about these referendums, would not get the information that the Commonwealth government is sending out so that they can learn the purposes and objectives of these referendums.

It is totally unacceptable that the Commonwealth government would not be ensuring that each Australian citizen as an individual is informed and provided with an explanation personally of a proposed change to the Constitution of the Australian federation. One might even say that it amounts to sheer insolence by the Commonwealth government and an insensitivity to the rights of our citizens that this approach is being considered. Quite frankly, I can only presume from this that the present Commonwealth government regards electors with some disdain and amazing disrespect. This approach of proposing to send referendum material to the household rather than to the official address of an elector is quite dumbfounding. As my colleagues Senator Bernardi and Senator Birmingham have said during the course of this debate, most householders regard material addressed to the householder as junk mail. As I have said, junk mail ends up in the rubbish bin.

The other curious thing about this is that these provisions are to be in place only until the end of polling day 2013. That is very curious, as I am sure you would agree. One must wonder if the government is seeking to minimise the level of understanding of the yes and no cases and hopes that citizens will vote in an uninformed manner, presumably, in the government's view, so that they might vote yes just as a reflex because it seems on the face of it to be a reasonable proposition—the donkey vote, in effect. This amounts to profound contempt for the interests of the people of Australia by this government. It is beyond comprehension that the current government should be so disrespectful of the citizens of Australia that it is not prepared to mail information to every elector at their home address. That is why the coalition is opposing these provisions.

We do, however, support the distribution of equal promotional material for the yes and no arguments to every elector. That is the right and proper thing to do. However, I again must ask you all to consider why the government is conducting this referendum in such haste. Why is it being presented as an unimportant matter when in reality this referendum on constitutional recognition of local government is actually one of the most important that has been presented to the people of Australia, because bringing local government into the Constitution and into the sphere of the federal government will profoundly change the mechanics of government in Australia?

As you would know as a member of the ALP, Madam Acting Deputy President Moore, it has long been ALP policy—from the 1920s—to set up a series of regional councils, which would be directly funded from Canberra, to provide a means of progressively undermining and sidelining the state governments. This is long-term ALP policy, most recently restated by Bob Hawke, who said, 'Let's get rid of the states.'

Some of us believe that the states play a very important role as the protectors of regional interests in this country. We believe in the concept of federalism and the distribution of power around the country so that the different interests of different parts of Australia can be catered for. We believe there should not be one single central source of power and provider of government. In my view, were this referendum carried and local government were to be included in the Constitution, this would be a step down the road to undermining the federalist nature of our Constitution. Those of us who are federalists believe that state governments are the protectors of regional interests. This referendum, far from being an unimportant matter, is actually one of the most profoundly significant matters that has ever been put to the Australian people. It has been put twice before, of course, and twice the Australian people have rejected the proposition that local government should be included in the federal Constitution, which would mean it would be funded directly by the federal government. I hope and trust that the commonsense of the Australian people will prevail yet again in this case and that the referendum result will be a resounding 'no'.

All Australians should be very wary of changes to the Australian Constitution, however simple those changes may seem, if for nothing else than the fact that the High Court has a habit of reading implied intentions into constitutional provisions and these implied intentions may be open to all sorts of unexpected outcomes. High Court interpretations of the external affairs provisions of the Constitution are the most significant examples of this. The High Court has read all sorts of things into the external affairs provisions of the Constitution and they have had significant impacts on the way we are governed and on the operation of the federal government. Accordingly, I think it is both naive and, perhaps, dangerous to believe that these constitutional changes would have minimal impact, as is claimed by the Local Government Association.

In conclusion, I would say that if these provisions were to be adopted the ALGA may find the outcome very different to their expectations. But there will be time to debate the actual referendum provisions at a future time. At this point, where we are simply deciding whether or not to accept recommendations 3 and 11. I think recommendation 3 should be opposed and recommendation 11 should be enthusiastically supported by the Senate.