Council polls need review
ONCE these local government elections are done and dusted, the responsible minister — Peter Gutwein — should commit to review two of the more bizarre provisions in the existing rules.
The first is the unique situation in Tasmania where there is no caretaker period in the time between nominations being announced for the council elections and the results being declared. This means there is nothing stopping an outgoing council from making spending and policy decisions on the eve of an election — not a great scenario to ensure good governance.
The second rule that should be reviewed is whether councils are the best to administer their own general manager’s rolls — where people are given a vote in a council area because they run a business or own property but do not necessarily live there. The intent is to allow those with an interest in a council area to have a say in who is voted on to that council. Fair enough.
But the fact the councils administer these rolls themselves also raises some serious questions about governance. The equivalence at a state and federal level would be the Parliament administering its own electoral rolls. In both cases, that job is rightly left to the independent electoral commission. The same state electoral commission also administers the general voter rolls for local government elections. Surely it would be logical for it to also be tasked with taking over the administration of the general manager’s rolls for all the state’s 29 councils. We should at least take a look.
And while we are at it, it’s probably time we also look at the fact that — also rather uniquely — noncitizens are allowed to vote in council elections in Tasmania through putting their name on the general
Once these elections are done and dusted, the responsible minister should commit to review the existing rules.
manager’s roll (all they need to be is an “occupier of a property” that is in the council area).
Denison independent MHA Andrew Wilkie recently wrote to federal Attorney-General Christian Porter to raise concerns that as many as 600 of those listed on the Hobart GM’s roll were in fact not citizens of Australia. His concern is that the roll opens a loophole where a foreign government could exercise political influence in an Australia election.
His point is that voting in Australia should only be a privilege for Australian citizens. And as we have said before here, he is correct. Democracy is a hard-fought system and should be protected. Those who live in Australia for a short time and remain citizens of another country should not have the right to vote. This is not an issue about race. Whether a potential voter is a citizen of Sweden, China, England or Timbuktu, they should not have the right to vote in an Australian election — just as Aussies shouldn’t expect to vote in a poll in any country they are not a citizen of.
It is vital that we have confidence in all our levels of government, and particularly the rules around the way we elect our representatives.
The State Government is ultimately responsible for the administration of our councils. We have seen this in recent times through the unfortunately necessary sackings of the previous Huon and Glenorchy administrations by the Local Government Minister. The Mercury calls on the Minister to show he is just as concerned with the hiring as he is with the firing.