Simone Double-Masked Puterman

Please do not allow any politician or political party to gaslight you into believing that the way the public voted has somehow forced them into an impossible situation where they now have too little time to negotiate and form governments. The Local Government: Municipal Structures Amendment Bill, commonly referred to as the Coalitions Bill, has been in development since 2024 and was only formally introduced in Parliament in August 2026. Among other things, the Bill was meant to provide a proper legislative framework for coalitions, including extending the current 14-day period for convening newly elected councils to 30 days, giving parties more time to negotiate. Every single political party knew this. We have been dealing with coalition governments since 2016. We went through this again in 2021. Nobody can pretend that the possibility of hung councils in 2026 came as a surprise. I personally called at least one senior person in each of the big six political parties, in some cases more than one, to raise these very issues. So I know they knew. Yet I have already heard two politicians suggesting that voters have put them in this difficult position. No. The voters did their jobs. They voted. Political parties had years to prepare for these outcomes and to ensure that the necessary legislative reforms were in place. That this was not done cannot now become the responsibility of the electorate. The public is not responsible for political parties failing to plan for an electoral outcome they knew was entirely possible. And please, let us not start treating voters exercising their democratic rights as an inconvenience to politicians who now have to negotiate with one another. Democracy does not exist to produce results that are administratively convenient for political parties.