A STATE Government proposal for a referendum to change the way electoral boundaries are determined has been dismissed by Member for MacKillop Mitch Williams as “Labor Party games”.
The government introduced a Bill into parliament last week to restore the “one vote, one value” principle after a recent determination of the Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission the redraw favours the Liberal Party in several seats.
Attorney General John Rau said the commission’s redistribution, which will shift more than 400,000 South Australians into different seats and make four Labor-held seats notionally Liberal, was unfair.
“The State Government has always held the view ‘one vote, one value’ is a fundamental principle of democracy,” he said.
“Every voter’s opinion should hold the same value.”
Currently, the commission has determined the number of eligible voters may vary as much as 20pc from seat to seat, with the State Government labelling the decision as “fundamentally undemocratic”.
Mr Williams rejected the Attorney General’s comments, citing the 2010 and 2014 State Election results as undemocratic.
“If they want to talk about democracy and the democratic value of votes, they should look at the results of the 2010 State Election,” he said.
“For each member the Labor Party had elected, they only had three quarters of the votes Liberal Party members had who were elected.
“We had 53pc of the vote in the 2014 election, but we still weren’t able to form government.
“If they want to talk about one vote, one value, they need to look at that.”
Following the close result of the 1975 State Election when Labor formed minority government, former Premier Don Dunstan sought to expand on the Hall Government’s electoral-boundaries reform to bring it close to “one vote, one value”.
An independent electoral districts boundaries commission was created to ensure the party that obtains 50pc of the overall vote at a general election is able to form government.
“This is a Labor Party system, it is the system they put in place in 1975,” Mr Williams said.
“I can understand the Labor Party being nervous about an election with fair boundaries.
“I would like to think they won’t get the legislation through parliament and the people of South Australia won’t be subject to the Labor Party’s games.”
Despite the Liberals’ popular vote victory in 2014, the party only won 12 of the 36 metropolitan seats, while only four of their 14 safe two-party seats were urban.
“The electoral commission’s boundaries for the 2018 election are fair boundaries, which will mean the parliament will represent the will of the people,” Mr Williams said.
“If those boundaries had been used at the last election, the Liberal Party would have won government.
“I believe for the first time since 1975 the Liberal Party will contest the election on fair boundaries.”
A Labor Party challenge over the state’s electoral boundaries was dismissed by the Supreme Court earlier this year.
