New South Wales Legislative Council

from the government.

Sarah is a state MP here in Sydney, a member for the New South Wales Legislative Council.

And she's, well, she's a passionate advocate for workers' rights.

Broadly, her background's in academia, but also in unions.

Yeah, I know, and I love that.

You're my AOC.

I will just say formally, you are a Labour state MP here in Sydney, a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council and chair of the Standing Committee on Social Issues.

We know each other because

The Greens had supported reform for a long time.

The NSW branch of the party had supported reform of a similar system for the NSW Legislative Council following the 1999 election.

But there was a dilemma.

Ballot papers had continued to grow since the early 1980s.

In a legislative council.

As a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council and a senior member of the Nationals.

She previously served as the New South Wales Minister for Education and Learning from 2019 to 2023 and has also held responsibilities in regional health.

Raised and based in regional New South Wales, she's a strong advocate for improving health services and outcomes for regional and rural communities.

New South Wales had used compulsory preferential voting since 1930.

The Wran government had taken power in 1976 and had reformed the Legislative Council in 1978 to be directly elected using proportional representation.

Labor won the subsequent 1978 state election in a landslide and also won control of the Legislative Council, now with a third of its members directly elected.

In 1979, Wran turned his attention to the Legislative Assembly electoral system with a bill that proposed to introduce OPV and to constitutionally entrench the bill.

A referendum would be needed to switch the electoral system in the future, but no referendum was needed to make the change in the first place.

So we see the discussions taking place quite in depth, but it's not just happening at a state-based level as well.

The Commonwealth has published national expectations for data-centred development and both the New South Wales Legislative Council and the Senate have run those inquiries.

The New South Wales inquiry terms of reference included whether proponents should actually contribute financially to the infrastructure cost as well.

So what we're seeing nationally and on a state basis, it's a heavy part of what we're discussing, but globally as well, back to the insurance space, we're seeing one insurer in particular estimating that these data centres are actually going to reach up to around $7 billion by the time of 2030.

In the meantime, what have we got lined up today? Guests on the show today at 9:35, it's John Ruddick.

We'll talk to John, Libertarian member for the New South Wales Legis-Legislative Council.

Uh, we're talking to him about the Greens' pitch for a supermarket.

I mean, honestly, the Greens are pitching for a government supermarket.

He is resigned as directorship and company the following year to join the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association, known as SDA, as a union organization, union organizer.

He left SDA in 2003 to run for the New South Wales Legislative Council, and then he went on from there.

Now I'm gonna play you some of the clips.

It's about an hour and 12 minutes and 59 seconds on, on the clip of the, uh, the address to the National Press Club, who's...

And our parliament must stop weaponising so-called hate speech laws against ordinary Australians who raise legitimate concerns about children.

Now, I'm standing for the New South Wales Legislative Council at the March 2027 election because this two-tier system has to end.

Freedom of speech is not a privilege granted to some identities and denied to other Australians.

This week we're going to a speech from Family First 2026 Mobilised National Conference held recently here in Sydney.

A month later, the bill was passed and received royal assent.

New South Wales would have a legislature, its own little parliament, and it would be called the New South Wales Legislative Council.

The Crown, i.e. the Governor, would appoint between five and seven residents as the councillors.

Only the Governor could initiate bills, not the Council.

Nine months after the passage of the New South Wales Act and Justice Francis Forbes arrives in Sydney.

It was March 1824.

Forbes arrived with the paperwork confirming he was the Chief Justice of the newly created New South Wales Supreme Court, plus Forbes also formally announced the other measures of the New South Wales Act and most importantly the mandate to create the New South Wales Legislative Council.

On the 11th of August 1824, the Sydney Gazette proclaimed the New South Wales Legislative Council.

And we're seeing that over and over again.

The other one that didn't get up, it was defeated in the New South Wales Legislative Council.

And it was sort of getting close when 21-16 is not, you know, like you can see there's light at the end of the tunnel for that.

But that was the whole John Ruddick's bill to ban the killing of unborn girls because they are girls.