Zero pay and zero training as state’s upper house in limbo
“Deeply worrying”: Winners of the state election have not been officially announced for the upper house despite parliament slated to open next week.
Newly elected upper house politicians have not been paid, received training or given a parliament email address despite parliament starting next Tuesday.
Premier Peter Malinauskas today revealed inductions for new members were held up because the upper house had not been officially declared by the state’s Electoral Commission, saying it was “deeply worrying”.
“Put yourself in the shoes of a new MP with a very steep learning curve,” Malinauskas said.
“They are entitled to get the basic training that is required before the first day of parliament, that’s very difficult for the parliament to facilitate when they don’t know who the elected MPs are in the upper house,” he said.
“Now, if it happened today, that would be okay, but if we’re waiting until you know, the beginning of next week, or even the end of this week. It’s cutting it fine.”
“Parliament can’t stop. We’ve got a state to run, but they need to get their skates on and sort this out.”
The Electoral Commission said it anticipated the upper house results would be declared on Friday, May 1 but did not respond to further questions from InDaily.
You might like
The Premier’s comments came alongside the announcement that former federal electoral commissioner Tom Rodgers would be leading a review into the state’s electoral commission after numerous bungles during election voting.
Greens MLC Melanie Selwood has been provisionally declared to the upper house, but said she had not been paid yet because her win had not been declared.
“It’s not easy to be without an income for this period of time,” Selwood said.
“I’m in a very privileged position that I am about to be paid a very good wage, but in the meantime, we’ve totally drained all our savings,” she said.
“We want ordinary people elected to parliament and if this is the case, that people are going to have to save up two months without work before they come into parliament, that is a barrier for a lot of people to not be elected to parliament, and people won’t be able to put their hand up if they can’t afford to do this.”
Selwood said she has not been able to set up an office, hire staff, access email addresses or phones until after the poll is declared.
The incoming parliament will see four new members in the upper house: Selwood for the Greens and three One Nation members, Cory Bernardi, Carlos Quaremba and Rebecca Hewett.
Stay informed, daily
According to the electoral commission’s results, Labor has won a quota of 4.4 seats, and it is expected Labor will secure the last upper house seat for Clare Scriven.
Scriven, who has been in parliament since 2018, was appointed Primary Industries and Regional Development minister in March, despite still waiting for the upper house result.
When asked about the delay, Scriven said she was “squarely” focused on her work as minister.
“The counting of election results for the Legislative Council always takes more time than the House of Assembly as it is a much more complex process,” she said.
“I appreciate that ECSA would want to ensure the results are accurate and final, so if it takes a few extra days to make a declaration, so be it.”
Newly announced independent reviewer Tom Rodgers said he would not be a part of the declaration of the upper house.
Rogers has a decade of experience as the former Australian Electoral Commissioner, where he oversaw a 2016 Senate voting overhaul.
He will lead a review of how ECSA prepares for, plans and staffs elections, adequacy of payroll process and tech systems and will include consultation with Aboriginal voters about their experiences voting in the Voice elections.
Rogers said he will give interim advice to ECSA to action throughout the review, including anything that can make improvements to the system ahead of local government elections in November.
Acting Electoral Commission Leah McLay welcomed Roger’s appointment, saying in a statement that ECSA would “support Mr Rogers to ensure that he can shine a light on the issues that occurred at the election so that we can prevent them from happening again”.
The Premier said the review will be handed down by the end of the year, and tabled in both houses of parliament.
Want to see more stories from InDaily SA in your Google search results?
- Click here to set InDaily SA as a preferred source.
- Tick the box next to "InDaily SA". That's it.
