Plebiscite (South East Council amalgamation) Bill

Wednesday September 07, 2022

Mr BELL (Mount Gambier): I rise to make a brief contribution to the bill. I will only be five minutes and then cede to the newest member of this house. I want to put on record a few points. First of all, my position is firmly against forced amalgamations. Therefore, in terms of moving forward with this bill, it has long been a topic of conversation in our community around the idea of amalgamations. I am sure that processes will be examined throughout the parliamentary process, as they should be, and that learnings will develop and come out of this process going forward with either this piece of legislation or others.

I want to come back to the essence of this bill. It is a very simple question, and it is part of the plebiscite: 'Do you support the examination of an amalgamation between the District Council of Grant and the City of Mount Gambier to form a single council?' The point, 'Do you support the examination of' is a really important one. For years, when people talked about benefits or disadvantages of a hypothetical amalgamation of these two councils, it was really based on somebody's opinion. It was based on what they think may be the benefits of that amalgamation.

We have never got into the point of having the books opened, having community consultation and what that might look like, and one of the reasons is that it comes at a huge expense. This process is tipped to cost about $400,000. In my mind, it makes sense to ask the community whether or not they even want to examine this. If they do not want to examine it, I can tell you right here, right now, I will not support any amalgamation of the two councils. It is a very first step. If people do not want to examine it, why would you spend any money going into the deeper understandings of cost-benefit analysis, community consultations, what the opportunities may or may not be? It is a very important step to ask the people whether or not they even want to consider this examination in the first place.

If it comes back no, I think it is pretty obvious. If it comes back, 'Yes, we want to examine the possibility or the options for an amalgamation of these two councils,' then that enacts a whole series of work that needs to be done in terms of the Productivity Commission looking at both councils: where the savings may be made, what the benefits are, what the negatives would be, community consultation, bringing the community together so that these things can be put forward, but, more importantly, the community's voice can be heard.

Even if it is, 'Yes, we want to examine this,' it is not a fait accompli that it is going to happen. If the Productivity Commission comes back and says, 'Well, listen, the benefits are marginal; both operate quite efficiently, quite separately. There's little duplication because they are dealing with different types of roads: one is more looking at gravel and grading and others are looking at bitumen. So there are limited benefits,' in my mind, we would not go any further. Even if it is a yes and the Productivity Commission comes back and says it has limited benefits, it would still be a no as far as I am concerned.

We could also have situation where it is a yes, and the Productivity Commission comes back and says, 'Yes, there are savings, and here they are detailed and outlined in a thoughtful and well-presented way, but the community consultation is overwhelmingly negative.' In my mind, we would not progress past that position either. In terms of debating this bill, if the community wants to examine what the options could be, all that is is the enacting of a spend of money to find out the facts and for the community to then decide whether or not they want to continue down that path.

I thought it was really important to put on the record that this is not voting for an amalgamation of two councils: all this is saying is, 'Do you want to examine it?' Quite often, and this is true of many situations, the loudest voice always seems to be the one that sits in your ear. The thing I like about this process is it is going to all ratepayers who get a vote and have their chance to vote. Do I know what the numbers are going to be? No, I do not. However, in terms of a democratic process, what is wrong with just asking the question and then having the community feed back what their desires are?

It might be that it does not go any further than asking the question. I think I have spelt out that this is not a fait accompli. There is no predetermined outcome for this, certainly not as far as I am concerned. I am quite supportive of asking the question to see if the community supports the examination of an amalgamation of the two councils.

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