Mark McGowan labels Upper House vote weighting a regional ‘dictatorship’

Mark McGowan has likened vote weighting in Parliament’s Upper House that gave certain regional areas a greater say to a “dictatorship”, as Labor’s country MPs fell into line with the Premier’s historic electoral reform plan. Elections Affairs Minister John Quigley today introduced the Electoral Equality Bill, which will scrap the six existing Legislative Council regions — including three in the bush — in favour of a single “whole of State” electorate. The new system means votes cast in some country electorates would no longer be worth up to six times those in the city, despite Mr McGowan before the election promising “enhanced regional representation will continue” under his Government. A survey of Labor’s regional MPs by The West Australian showed all planned to vote in support of the Bill, which also abolishes group voting tickets that enabled micro parties to be elected with a tiny proportion of primary votes thanks to preference swap deals. WA Nationals leader Mia Davies said every regional Labor MP had “turned their back on their constituency” and labelled the members for Warren-Blackwood, Collie-Preston, Murray-Wellington, Mandurah, Kimberley and Bunbury as “traitors to their communities”. “Regional members take note, your electorates will know exactly how you vote and how you betrayed them, we will make sure of that. You are about to vote to reduce regional representation and I look forward to you explaining that to your communities,” she told Parliament. Liberal leader David Honey accused the Premier of deliberately misleading the WA public after he repeatedly said before the March election that Upper House electoral reform was, “Not on our agenda”. “All of the members in this chamber, if you support this then you betray your communities. This is an absolute disgrace,” he said. Mr McGowan said the reforms — the most significant in 130 years — would “remove the corruption of the Upper House”. “The extraordinary level of vote weighting in the Upper House ... it’s basically a distortion of democracy,” he said. “It’s not actually democratic, to be frank with you, where some people’s votes are worth six times of others — it’s the stuff you would see in a dictatorship.” Kalgoorlie’s Labor MP Ali Kent said the changes would deliver “a level playing field for all”, Collie-Preston MLA Jodie Hanns said it ensured every vote was “treated equally”, while South West MLC Sally Talbot said “no modern democracy should be based on some votes being worth more than others”.