Kerry Bartlett (Macquarie, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am astonished at some of the speeches by members of the opposition. It is incredible that they would oppose measures that seek to improve the integrity of our electoral system. As parliamentarians, as believers in the democratic process that put us here and as participants in our nation’s democratic institutions, I would have thought that we would all equally and unequivocally be committed to do all we can to improve the integrity of the electoral roll and the validity of our electoral results. I am staggered that, for some members of the opposition and, indeed, some of the Independents, this is highly qualified.

There are two fundamental questions here. First, under the current system, is abuse, infringement or, indeed, rorting possible? All but the most naive would admit yes, it is. Some might question its prevalence and some might question its scale, but no-one would seriously deny the possibility of irregularities and fraud in the current system. Dr Murray Goot, Associate Professor of Politics at Macquarie University, quoted in the book Frauding of Elections? by Dr Amy McGrath, says:

There is absolutely no reason why it [rorting the system] could not be done. The only question is how often.

So the first question is: is it possible that the current system can be abused? The answer unequivocally is: yes, it is. The second question is whether the proposed reforms would reduce that possibility. Again, clearly the answer is yes. Few have argued that they would not. The opposition’s arguments have been about rhetoric, civil liberties, disenfranchisement and concerns of people being frozen out of the process, but no-one would seriously admit that the reforms at least will not tighten up that process. Surely we need to do all we can to protect the integrity of the electoral roll, electoral processes and electoral outcomes.

Let me go into the background here. In this country there has been a long history of allegations, anecdotal evidence and, in some cases, hard evidence of irregularities, infringements and deliberate fraud. There have been accounts of whistleblowers, reports of investigative journalists, occasional confessions of participants and even convictions—yes, convictions—and the work of academics such as Dr Amy McGrath in the Frauding of Elections? and The Stolen Election. These cases enumerate a number of elections and electorates where allegations of fraud have been made.

Just some examples of allegations of fraud are: a number of marginal seats in the 1987 federal election, especially the seats of Fisher, Eden-Monaro and Parramatta; the 1988 Victorian election in Ballarat South; the 1988 Western Australian election, where six seats were challenged due to voting irregularities; in the New South Wales 1988 election, multiple voting occurrences in 11 electorates; in the 1990 federal election in the seat of Richmond; The Entrance in 1991 in the New South Wales election; in the 1993 federal election in the seats of Dickson and Macquarie, very close to home for me, where the incumbent, Alasdair Webster, was defeated by a mere 164 votes with some very serious allegations of irregularities; the infamous Mundingburra electorate in the 1995 Queensland election and also in Redlands; and numerous—too numerous to count—cases of concern about union ballots.

These irregularities include a whole range of activities, such as fictitious enrolments. For example, in the seat of Macquarie following that result in 1993 the defeated member, Alasdair Webster, did a fairly extensive phone and visitation audit and found a number of irregularities, such as people registered on the roll from garages, from hotels and from vacant blocks, and even a cat registered to vote on the electoral roll in the seat of Macquarie. It is outrageous that this could happen. Other examples include: names assigned to the wrong electorates, usually, conveniently, to neighbouring electorates; cases of cemetery voting—that is, voting in the names of deceased persons; cases of multiple voting, not just on the day but also pre-polling and postal voting; people being given the wrong ballot papers—again in Macquarie in 1993 there were 415 cases of voters turning up to vote and being given ballot papers for electorates other than Macquarie; cases of large numbers of 17-year-old provisional voters being left on the roll and therefore being able to cast votes; enrolments in multiple electorates; nonresidents on the roll; the use of safe houses; and many others—we can go on.

There is no doubt that these things can happen and do happen. They are too serious and too many to be ignored. The question, of course, is not whether these things can happen and not whether they do happen but whether they happen enough to alter the results in any particular seat or in any particular election. When seats are won or lost on the narrowest of margins, it is most likely that this does happen and can happen. If this does happen, it presents a powerful argument for supporting these reforms put forward by the government in this piece of legislation. Australians’ sense of fair play and Australians’ sense of decency demands that we ensure our electoral system works fairly. We must have confidence that it works fairly. It must be fair and it must be seen to be fair. If we are to increase confidence in our system, even the perception of the possibility or the likelihood of fraud must be eliminated.

The reforms proposed in this legislation are fair. They are reasonable. They are sensible. The whole purpose is to bring about improvement. Yet we have had criticisms from the other side about so-called efforts to enhance our own electoral position. We had the member for Banks here earlier this morning talking about the motivation being harvesting political advantage for the coalition. I cannot believe the hypocrisy of the other side on this particular piece of legislation. Remember the reforms introduced by the Labor Party in 1984 and remember the book by the former Labor powerbroker and frontbencher Graham Richardson, quite appropriately called Whatever it Takes. In his book he admitted about the electoral reforms in 1984:

... Labor could embrace power as a right and make the task of anyone taking it from us as difficult as we could.

What a travesty. The motivation, according to Graham Richardson, of those 1984 reforms was to make it difficult for Labor to lose office. Who was the Special Minister of State when those reforms were introduced? None other than the current Leader of the Opposition, the member for Brand. The purpose then was to make it harder for Labor to lose office, to entrench Labor’s position, whereas the reforms currently proposed and currently in front of the House are reforms recommended by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters as a result of investigations into our electoral system. They are aimed simply at reducing fraud and improving the integrity of our electoral processes.

There are a number of main provisions in this legislation. The first involves, clearly, those measures aimed at improving the integrity of the roll—making sure we know that the people whose names are on the roll to vote are qualified to vote. This is fundamental to the way our system works. I refer to a report by the Australian National Audit Office in 2001-02 entitled Integrity of the electoral roll. This report by the National Audit Office—not by the Liberal Party, not by the coalition, not even by a parliamentary committee, but by the National Audit Office—said that the electoral roll was 96 per cent accurate—that is, four per cent of the electoral roll was inaccurate. Four per cent of 12.6 million voters on the electoral roll means that roughly half a million voters are on the roll who perhaps should not be. When four per cent is inaccurate, you have problems, particularly given that there are 29 marginal seats with margins of less than four per cent and 17 seats with margins of less than two per cent. You do not need many irregularities in enrolments to change those outcomes. The conclusion of the National Audit Office was:

At the same time there are areas of AEC—

Australian Electoral Commission—

management of the roll that can be improved ...

‘Better identification and management of risks to the integrity of the roll’ were listed by the National Audit Office. They went on to say:

... the ANAO considers that the AEC should give priority to finalising and implementing a fraud control plan specific to enrolment activities.

That is from the report of the National Audit Office on the Integrity of the electoral roll, and that is what this legislation is trying to address. What does this legislation include? First and foremost, it includes proof of identity to enrol to vote. It is just commonsense. If you go in to put your name on the electoral roll, you ought to be required to produce some evidence to say who you are, rather than be able to just walk in and say: ‘I’m Joe Bloggs. I live at a particular location or I have a particular postbox and therefore I have a right to vote.’ The ludicrous situation currently exists that anyone can put their name on the roll. They can use a post office address, enrol multiple times under multiple names and thereby cast multiple votes in an election. When we have seats won or lost by a handful of votes, this can make a difference. Only the most naive or the most ignorant would refuse to acknowledge that this can happen. It is a fundamental right in this country that one person has one vote. The possibility that one person could have two, five, 10, 20 or 50 votes is outrageous and a subversion of our fundamental democratic rights and our democratic system. I am staggered that the opposition and the Independent member for Calare, whom we just heard, are opposed to measures to improve the integrity of the roll.

The second provision is the earlier closing of the roll. It is worth remembering that from Federation—that is, from 1901—until 1984, coincidentally, the roll was closed on the day the writs were issued. It was only under the reforms introduced by the Labor Party in 1984 that that changed. The difficulty with the current system is that allowing a massive number of enrolments in the week after the writs are issued makes it impossible for the Australian Electoral Commission to verify the validity of those enrolments. In the week after the writs were issued for the 2004 election, for instance, there were 2,976,181 transactions with the Electoral Commission. It was an absolute impossibility for the Electoral Commission to even begin to check the validity of those enrolments, again casting serious doubts on the integrity and the accuracy of the roll. Our provision in this legislation that for new enrolments the roll closes on the day the writs are issued and for re-enrolments and change of address three days after will mean that to check the validity of new enrolments the Electoral Commission will get an extra seven days and to check change in address an extra four days. This will go significantly to reducing the potential for fraud in those late enrolments.

The third provision related to this is the provision for the Australian Electoral Commission to have access to databases of state and territory governments and authorities such as the RTA so they can check enrolments against drivers licence details et cetera. Again, that is a commonsense provision which allows a greater chance of checking the accuracy of the roll.

The first main provision is improving the integrity of our electoral roll, which is fundamental to our democratic processes. These are commonsense, reasonable changes that for some reason the Labor Party are opposed to. I do not understand why they are opposed to improving the integrity of our electoral roll. The second main provision is better identifying voters. There will be a requirement to provide proof of identity to cast a provisional vote. If you turn up to cast a provisional vote because your name is not on the roll, there will be a requirement that you provide some proof of who you are. There will no longer be the possibility of just turning up on election day and saying, ‘Oh, my name’s not there; I’m Tom Smith and therefore I want to vote,’ and then casting a provisional vote that is not checked afterwards. That is more than reasonable. It is recommended in the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters reports of 2001 and 2004 that to have the right to vote some proof of identity—that is, a drivers licence, a passport or a Medicare card—should be shown to the polling officers instead of it simply being taken on trust, as has been the case in the past. Again, there is no sustainable argument against this provision.

The third main area of change I want to focus on is the naming provision for political parties, which is aimed simply at removing the deception, or the confusion even, of voters as to the real allegiances of minor parties. The requirement in this legislation is that all non-parliamentary parties—that is, parties not represented in this parliament—will have to re-register to be recognised as official parties. The reason for this is that it is too easy to confuse voters on voting day as to the allegiance of minority parties and where their preferences will go. There was a classic case in the last federal election in the seat of Richmond, which was lost by just 300 votes. The party liberals for forests ran in the seat of Richmond. They wore blue T-shirts with ‘Liberals’ in large letters on the front. Their how-to-vote cards had ‘Liberals’ in large letters and the Australian flag highlighted. To all intents and purposes, they were passing themselves off as the Liberal Party. Liberal voters then would have expected that, if they voted for liberals for forests, their preferences would flow to the Liberal Party. But liberals for forests directed their preferences away from the Liberal Party.

It was a deliberate fraud that confused voters and resulted in—I suspect, and we will never know—a number of people who had intended their preferences to go to the Liberal Party having them directed away from the Liberal Party to the Greens and the Labor Party. Interestingly, in that electorate the incumbent, Larry Anthony, lost by 301 votes. Yet there were 1,417 primary votes cast for liberals for forests. The bottom line is this: people should be left in no doubt as to who they are voting for. This initiative in the legislation will remove that possibility. I am amazed that the Labor Party dismissed this as ‘a political stunt’. How can they dismiss so lightly a piece of legislation that will attempt to remove the confusion that voters face and remove or reduce the chances of them being deceived in the way they vote?

I could go on. There is a lot more to say, but time is running out. I will quote briefly from a book entitled The Frauding of Votes by Dr Amy McGrath, which most people in this place would be familiar with. Dr McGrath has done an immense amount of research into Australia’s electoral system, including another book, The Stolen Election, which talks about the 1987 federal election. She makes this point about our electoral system:

I no longer have illusions about Australia as a great democracy. Our electoral system is a dangerous farce, obscured by jargon and whitewashing practice. No democratic country can afford the luxury of an electoral system based wholly on honour and trust. History is replete with lessons of warning.

The fact is that it has been far too easy to date to get your name on the electoral roll; it has been far too easy to vote multiple times; and it has been far too easy to vote in the name of other people. For the first time there is legislation with a chance of being passed that introduces changes which will tighten the accuracy of our electoral roll and which will improve the integrity of our electoral system and the validity of our electoral outcomes. We can no longer leave this to chance. We can no longer leave it to trust. There is far too much at stake here.

I am astonished and disappointed that the Labor Party and the Independents are opposed to these changes, which will make our system more transparent and more difficult for irregularities and fraud to occur and which will make it much more likely that our electoral roll will reflect the list of names of people who have a right to vote, thereby improving the integrity of our system. This is good, sensible, reasonable and balanced legislation. I strongly support the bill before the House.

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