Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2005 bolsters the very foundations of our democracy. We might well reflect on the words of Thomas Jefferson:

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government …

Safeguarding the will of the people can only happen if we eliminate fraudulent activities from our voting system. At the very heart of our system of government, and the maintenance of its integrity, is the voting process and the various elements related to that process. To this end, the bill contains reform measures stemming from a number of government-supported recommendations in the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters report on the 2004 federal election, along with some additional reform measures considered a priority by the government. This bill will go a long way towards remedying some of the flaws and loopholes which currently exist in our electoral process, a number of which have concerned me greatly throughout my time as the member for Hinkler.

One point I must make is the astounding hypocrisy of Labor on this matter of electoral reform. When questioned on the issue last October, the Leader of the Opposition made the outrageous statement that ‘when it comes to rort merchants, nobody beats The Nationals’—a terrible slur not supported by any sort of evidence. A little further in my speech I will use previous polling results in my electorate of Hinkler to demonstrate what a duplicitous statement that really is.

When it comes to proof of identity, I wholeheartedly endorse the introduction of the need for an individual to provide proof of identity when enrolling or needing to change their enrolment details. I found the contribution by the member for Hindmarsh, who spoke just before me, somewhat bewildering. He spoke against that, saying that narrowed the opportunity for people to be enrolled, but at the same time he said that he would like to see identification at the ballot box when people came in to vote. It seems to me that the very starting point of this is getting the right person on the roll: that someone who is on the roll happens to be who they say they are. If you do not get that process right, a falsely enrolled person can come in and vote, because all they have to do is produce some false identity that coalesces with the false name. The starting point is to make sure that the people on the roll are genuine people. The member for Hindmarsh went on to say that there had been very few instances of electoral fraud. That is broadly true, but enrolment is the area in which there has been electoral fraud, and we have had a number of cases in that area in Queensland in recent years. Mr Deputy Speaker Lindsay, as you are from Townsville, you would know only too well that is where the system has fallen down.

Some say this arrangement is too onerous for those at risk of disenfranchisement and that young people will not be able to follow it. But I am yet to meet a person who cannot provide some form of identification. When I go to pick my ticket up at an airport, I have to show proof of identification, as does everyone else who travels. The opposition’s member for Bruce is on the record as saying that a more rigorous identification system for voters would ‘make it harder to get enrolled and therefore be part of the democratic process’. That is absolute rubbish. People receiving Centrelink pensions, benefits, allowances and services have to provide identification, almost every single 18-year-old can provide ID to get into licensed premises—all the young people I know do not seem to have any trouble doing that—and elderly Australians whip out their seniors card to get discounts on buses and trains and in shops. For heaven’s sake, as even the member for Hindmarsh said, you have to have ID to hire a video or a DVD. Given that, I cannot see why it is so onerous for anyone to provide proof of identity when they want to enrol.

But all that aside, the government has put in place a number of alternatives for individuals who cannot provide a drivers licence when enrolling to vote or changing their address. People have the option of providing alternative identification—such things as a birth certificate or a Medicare card. Failing that, there are even more measures so that someone seeking to enrol can change their address provided that any such documentation as to their enrolment claim can be countersigned by two voters who are not relatives, have known the individual for at least a month and can provide their drivers licence for verification. So there is ample opportunity for people to be able to identify themselves.

My support for these measures stems from my own experience in fighting an election where questionable voters could have skewed the final result. When it comes to proof of ID for provisional voting, I take a much stronger view. I endorse the requirement that individuals must provide proof of identity, such as a drivers licence or other valid identification, when they come in to register a provisional vote. As all honourable members know, a provisional vote is when you claim a vote on the basis that you believe you have been wrongly excluded from the electoral roll. I have previously told the House about highly suspicious trends related to provisional votes which emerged in my seat of Hinkler after elections and referendums stretching back to 1990. Between the 1990 and 2001 federal elections there was an 80 per cent increase in the number of provisional vote applications made but only a 63 per cent increase in the valid provisional votes cast. That 17 per cent variation must lead one to conclude that there is a fair degree of dodginess in those figures. More to the point, the gap between valid provisional votes and applications made doubled from 0.17 per cent to 0.35 per cent over the same time frame. In the 1990 election, 123 provisional applications were disallowed. In 1993, that figure had grown to 190. In 1996, 288 were disallowed; 0.36 per cent of provisional vote applications were disallowed. This was the largest single discrepancy, and it just happened to follow Hinkler’s move to coalition representation.

I understand there will be some degree of discrepancy between valid and invalid provisional votes, but there is absolutely no logical reason for this aberration. Clearly, it would have been easier if voters had been required to provide identification on election day. In other words, if the measures contained in this bill had been enacted we would not have encountered the problem at all. Under these measures, no valid voter turning up on election day without an ID will be disenfranchised. If someone on their way to fishing walks in in stubbies and a T-shirt and has not got all his identification on him, he will have seven days to validate his vote. In other words, the vote goes into an envelope that is sealed and he will have seven days to come in and verify the details on the front of his provisional vote application. So no-one who may be without identification on the day itself will be treated badly.

The bill also provides for the close of the roll at 8 pm on the day the writ is issued—that is, the day the Prime Minister informs the Governor-General that he intends to hold an election and the Governor-General approves it. The bill further allows for people who will turn 18 during a campaign or who are due to be granted citizenship during a campaign to have until 8 pm three days after the issue of the writ to update their enrolment. Apart from a handful of exceptional circumstances, I do not believe this is an unreasonable or unfair measure. Election date speculation starts months out from an election: ‘I think it might be on this month. No, it might be that month. Will the Prime Minister go early or will he go late? How late can he go? How early can he go? Will we have a double dissolution? Would we split the Senate vote off from the House of Reps vote if he went at this time?’ This goes on endlessly over the last six to nine months of any electoral cycle.

It is hard to believe that people could be so dumb and not know that an election is pending some time over the next few months. Election date speculation could start, as I said, from six to nine months out. Commentary, analysis, letters to the editor and news stories clog up the media: ‘Will Howard go early? Will Howard go late?’ And so it goes on. So people cannot say they were not aware that an election was in the air. What this speculation does is put people on notice that they need to enrol when the idea of an election is starting to take place. It could also be argued that today, as never before, people have greater access to an array of news and media sources. Given that this is the case, it is quite realistic to expect individuals to take responsibility for their timely enrolment and change of details.

I previously mentioned the member for Bruce, who said that the ‘requirement for enrolling voters to show proof of identification would add to the administrative burden of the AEC’. The member for Bruce must not be aware of the huge administrative burden the AEC already has because of existing regulations for the closing of the roll. Some interesting statistics came to light in 2004. The Australian Electoral Commission processed almost 424,000 enrolment transactions in the seven days after the writ was issued. Of these transactions, 78,000 were first-time enrolments, 78,000 were re-enrolment applications and 225,000 were applications to change address details. These things could have been done months ahead of that time. I would have thought that more timely enrolment by voters would make life easier for the AEC, not more difficult. Avoiding the administrative rush and, therefore, reducing the risk of human error throughout the process must surely be a good case for closing the roll at 8 pm on the day the writ is issued, and allowing three working days for those people turning 18 or being made citizens to rectify their enrolment details will help.

I also have a view on the location of divisional offices. I am not against the idea of having co-located divisional officers where, for example, you have two electorates joining on a major street or where they are close to a major shopping centre and you can co-locate two offices. There is no zealotry in what I say, but I think it is important to have divisional returning offices scattered throughout Australia so that there is access to information and services in the main provincial cities. The idea of having to bring in a team of vote counters and others, especially in my seat, where the count is generally very close, is perhaps not the best. On one occasion the count in my electorate went to 3½ weeks. Imagine what it would have been like if there had been no AEC office in Bundaberg and the AEC had to bring all those staff from, say, the Sunshine Coast, Rockhampton or Brisbane and have them located in Bundaberg for that length of time. It would have been a massive expense. I cannot see why, if this is part of the democratic process, the core provincial city in each electorate should not have a divisional returning office.

Two key points were raised in the submission to the joint standing committee by the Hinkler Divisional Council of the National Party which are entirely relevant to voters in regional Australia. One related to the centralised system of postal vote distribution and the other to the lack of divisional returning offices, which I have just dealt with. The essential point of both is that the electoral system needs to be more responsive to the needs of the wider community, and most particularly to the needs of voters living, visiting or travelling through regional Australia. I believe the Australian Electoral Commission needs to have a greater on-the-ground presence in regional areas—a case in point being a move away from the centralised agency system of administering postal votes. I am quite ambivalent about that. I suppose if you introduce it and it goes on and on, over time you will eventually get it right.

But we had some very unusual circumstances, as you would be aware, Mr Deputy Speaker. I think in the electorate of Maranoa people received ballot papers for a different electorate. Some people got Senate papers for another state. No-one condemns people for making an honest mistake or for the malfunction of a machine but, when you talk about country voters who get the mail, say, only once or twice a week, having to report getting the wrong ballot papers and then getting the new ballot papers sent out and then having some declaration that has to go back to the electorate office and then come back to you will quite often disenfranchise people, through no fault of their own. That happened quite a bit in the last election, when centralised postal voting was undertaken.

Another thing is that we have a lot of tourism, especially on the New South Wales and Queensland coasts. Although there are divisional returning offices at Brisbane, Nambour, Maryborough, Bundaberg, Rockhampton, Mackay, Townsville and Cairns, there are still major centres between those places where there are resorts. In your area, for example, Mr Deputy Speaker Lindsay, you have places like Bowen, Ayr, Ingham and Tully, and you could talk about places like Mount Isa, Roma and Longreach—key places where a lot of tourists and visitors congregate.

I give the AEC credit. In my own electorate, for a fortnight before the election they run an office in Gladstone, which is a major centre of nearly 30,000 people. I think that could perhaps come down to strategically placed centres, say of about 10,000 people or more, that would give tourists and travellers a better opportunity. This, of course, applies only to interstate travellers. You can vote at any booth anywhere in your home state, but if you come from interstate you can vote only at a divisional returning office. To have some temporary divisional returning offices, as is the case in Gladstone, would make access a lot easier for tourists and it would cut down the complexity of postal voting that we have at present.

There are some other interesting features of this bill that I applaud. I think the clarification or the validity of the naming of parties is very important. These sorts of names like ‘liberals for forests’ are deliberately used to deceive. There is a fair body of evidence—or a fair body of opinion, if not evidence—that says the result in the seat of Richmond was skewed by that sort of practice: people pretending to be Liberals, having their how-to-vote cards in similar colours and formatting. That sort of thing is quite wrong and the use of names in that way is also wrong and needs to be stamped out.

Another thing that I applaud is that after 20 years we have at last raised the disclosure thresholds from $1,500 to $10,000 and, from here on in, locked them in with CPI. That means that we will not have that problem in the future. Some people say that is too high. I am not sure that it is. It is roughly consistent with the UK’s threshold, which is about $A12,000, and New Zealand’s, which is about $NZ10,000. So at $10,000 we are much in line with other English-speaking countries.

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