Southern Metropolitan Region
David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (14:08): (967) My urgent request to the Minister for Local Government is that the Minister for Local Government ensures that the Victorian Electoral Commission informs the business community and nonresident voters in the upcoming council elections of the need to register. This is an unfortunate change that was made in the legislation, but the fact is that the law now says that nonresident voters – owners of businesses and the like or rental properties – need to register to vote and they need to do it by 4 pm on 7 August. The state government has run no campaign to get that message out, and the VEC has been tardy in getting this message out. Yes, there has been a news release and there has been some mail, but there has been no publicity in terms of television ads, radio ads and the like and we are at a point now where I am aware of one municipality my area that has just seen 6 per cent of these people registered as of last week. I do not want to see a situation where taxation without representation occurs.