Mr NATHAN HAGARTY (Leppington) (19:54): I speak in strong support of the Local Government Amendment (Elections) Bill 2025. I strongly believe in the simple principle that we should not subcontract and privatise democracy. It belongs to the people, not to the highest bidder. Thankfully, the bill restores that principle. I meet regularly with delegations from different parts of the world who, it is fair to say, have their challenges with democracy. They often ask me what the secret is for why Australia's democracy is relatively healthy and strong. Usually, people comment that compulsory voting is one of those reasons, and I agree with that wholeheartedly. But just as important are our electoral commissions. They are trusted institutions. They are strong, they are adequately resourced and, most importantly, they are independent. We have all seen maps of the United States showing gerrymandered precincts, and we know that in Australia that simply does not happen because we have a strong Electoral Commission and a set of rules that stop it.

Electoral commissions conduct elections—with the exception of two councils in the State. Thankfully, should the bill pass, it will end what is, frankly, a failed experiment. It returns the responsibility of running local government elections to where it belongs, and that is with the NSW Electoral Commission. There is no clearer example of a failed experiment than what happened last year in Liverpool. At that election, Liverpool chose to engage the Australian Election Company. It was one of only two councils, along with neighbouring Fairfield, to do so. What occurred during that election was nothing short of chaos. As we heard from the member for Liverpool, residents faced long queues of sometimes over three hours just to vote, and polling information was inconsistent. The member for Liverpool gave the example of Cecil Hills High School. I, too, had a similar example in my electorate. As we know, Austral is probably one of the fastest growing suburbs in the country. It currently has one booth at the public school. In the lead-up to that election, Al-Faisal College was listed as a booth. Suddenly, on the day of the election, it was no longer a booth. Confusion reigned, and that led to some of the long queues I spoke about.

My office received multiple reports from constituents who were directly handed ballots, contrary to local government regulation that requires postal ballots to be sent through the mail. I will explain. I am aware of a couple who had to travel overseas at urgent notice to see a relative who was unwell. They called my office and said, "Nathan, what can we do?" I said, "You're not going to be here for pre-poll. You can maybe inquire about a postal ballot." They went to the office and were handed a ballot and an envelope and told to fill it in and pop it in the mail, which is extraordinary. It is egregious that staff were handing out ballots before the election had even started.

Thankfully, should the bill pass—and it sounds like it has pretty broad support—that kind of administrative error and serious breach of electoral security and political trust will never happen again. The incident was reported in The Sydney Morning Herald, and a spokesperson for the Australian Election Company confirmed that its "original applied interpretation was incorrect" and "no postal voting material is to be issued other than through the postal service". Not only did the mistake happen but the electoral company that looked after it fessed up. That statement alone highlights how poorly the process was understood by those charged with running a democratic election. This is not a tuckshop, which is no slight on people who run tuckshops. They do a fantastic job. They seem to be doing a better job than the election company at that election.

Ms Janelle Saffin: They are mainly women in those shops.

Mr NATHAN HAGARTY: That is probably why they are run to such a high standard. Back to the topic at hand, the point I was trying to make was that elections should never depend on the competence or goodwill of a private contractor. When a council already facing allegations of mismanagement decides to outsource its election and that election is then marred by breaches of the law that the company admits to, it undermines confidence in not only that council but also democracy itself. The 2011 changes that the previous Government introduced allowed councils to hire private providers. The justification for that was that it would allow councils to save money because the invisible hand of election privatisation would work its magic and there would be competition in the market.

We saw no competition at all, actually. Only one company popped up in the 13 years since. That company has been the only one that has conducted these services. In 2021, 14 councils took up that option, but by 2024 that had fallen to two. Penrith City Council, as we heard earlier, walked away from the private provider when it discovered that it was actually more costly to use it than the Electoral Commission. The invisible hand failed to work because of the false economies of privatisation. The announcement about the Northern Beaches Hospital earlier today is a perfect example of that. We should be very wary when we talk about privatisation, especially when it comes out of the mouths of members opposite.

I accept the cost of elections has been increasing, especially for local government. It is experiencing cost pressures. But what I say to that argument is that the bill also shortens the times for pre-poll, which is a significant cost. I am a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. When we probed the cost of elections, the biggest cost by far is labour—the number of people who need to be hired, not the glorious political party. Halving pre-poll will have a significant cost impact on the conduct of elections. Recently the committee met privately with the new commissioner. She has given a commitment to look at some of the cost pressures for local government to see if we cannot have further reform in this area to bring down the cost of elections for councils.

One of my bugbears—and I know it is also a bugbear for the member for Blacktown—is when electoral commissions decide to open a new booth 500 metres down the road because there was a big one of maybe 2,000 or 3,000 people. But at the next election people still go where they always go and only 200 or 300 people end up going to the new booth. Opening a new booth has significant costs and overheads. By being smarter about the conduct of elections—where booths are and how many are actually needed—we can introduce some significant reforms to not only maintain trust in democracy by having the Electoral Commission conduct all the elections but also bring down the costs for local government.

The Minns Labor Government's reforms are about more than process; they are about trust. I speak to residents in my electorate that fall within the Liverpool local government area. They can trust that the next time there is an election in Liverpool—it might be in 2028; it might not be, given the way the inquiry is going—it will be conducted by the Electoral Commission. That is a good thing. As I said at the outset, democracy should not be contracted out. It is a public good and one that depends on transparency, integrity and fairness. What we saw last year was a failure of all three of those important values. The bill restores those values. It protects the integrity of local elections, supports candidates from all backgrounds and ensures that the people's voices—not a private company's profit motive—decides who governs them. I commend the bill to the House.