Eligible voting Tasmanians will be required to cast postal ballots in this October's council elections or risk a fine after the Legislative Council approved compulsory voting legislation on Wednesday.
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Under the legislation, voters will be required to not only vote in local government elections, but will also need to number candidates from one to five in order of preferences.
As was the case in the lower house, the government was criticised during debate on Wednesday for attempting to rush the compulsory voting bill through Parliament.
Mersey independent MLC Mike Gaffney said the government should wait for the results of its review into the local government sector before it dealt with the bill.
"I believe we need to consider putting this bill aside until the far more substantive future local government review has submitted its recommendations to which compulsory voting, and how it might best work in practic, might be part of a broader and more substantive series of reforms," he said.
He said while there was the aim to encourage increased participation in Tasmanian council elections, New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland had voter turnouts of close to 80 per cent, despite having a compulsory voting requirement.
The turnout in the 2018 local government elections in Tasmania was 58 per cent, up from 55 per cent in 2014.
Hobart independent MLC Rob Valentine said he was inclined to support compulsory voting because it would benefit the profile of local government.
"I think it would bring local government up to an even playing field with the other two spheres of government," he said.
Nelson independent MLC Meg Webb questioned whether compulsory voting might benefit party-aligned candidates.
"I think we would have an assumption that having a label of a party above you will become more beneficial potentially under compulsory voting in a local government context as it tends to be in the other contexts that we have compulsory voting," she said.
In regards to the cost of compulsory voting in council elections, Leader of Government Business in the Legislative Council, Leonie Hiscutt, said it would be cost-neutral due to fine revenue.
A fine is $34.60 on payment of the first notice.
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Political reporter for Australian Community Media, based in Hobart.
Political reporter for Australian Community Media, based in Hobart.
