The Planning Matters Alliance Tasmania (PMAT) thanks you for the opportunity to provide feedback on the 2022 Local Government elections. Feedback has been sought via a survey that closes on the 30 January 2023, at midnight.

Our feedback includes three sections, which are outlined below: ‘What is PMAT’; PMAT’s work during the 2018 and 2022 Local Government Elections’; and ‘Local Government Election Feedback –
Key Recommendations’.

PMAT’s main feedback is that all Local Government candidate contact details must be publicly and easily available in a timely fashion. This recommendation has been informed by our previous work. During the last two Tasmanian Local Government elections PMAT endeavoured to survey all candidates, via email, to ask their position on key planning issues. Obtaining candidate email addresses was difficult, time consuming and took many volunteer hours and in many instances was
impossible within the election timeframes.

Democracy cannot function without communication. In order for voters to make informed choices among candidates, voters must learn about candidates’ policy positions on issues such as planning.

This is especially important now that voting is compulsory for Local Government elections. Voting is compulsory, thus it follows that it must also be compulsory for candidates to provide their contact details – phone and email details at minimum.

PMAT will also write to the Tasmanian Electoral Commission and the Australian Electoral Commission to ensure contacting candidates during elections is as easy as possible.