Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010 implements two key election promises made by the government prior to the last election. Firstly, it restores the close of rolls period to seven days after the issue of the writs for the election and repeals the requirement for provisional voters to provide evidence of identity. The bill also implements three efficiency measures that were recommended by the Australian Electoral Commission to help them administer the act. One modernises the enrolment process to enable electors to update their enrolment details electronically. The second allows flexibility in how and where enrolment transactions are processed. The third enables the counting of prepolls cast in an elector’s home division as ordinary votes, which will allow them to be counted on the night of the election.

I think that whenever we consider legislation such as this we need to look at what the purpose of an election is. When I think of an election I see it as the opportunity for people to exercise their democratic right to cast a vote. It is about allowing people to determine who should govern them. It is about people having a say. Unfortunately, under the Howard government this was made more and more difficult for people, particularly young people. I remember how disgusted I was when I saw the legislation that changed the time that people could enrol and made it so much harder for people to cast their votes. I have listened to members of the opposition speak on this legislation, and they do not want to see change. They are all about winning an election at any cost, not about ensuring that Australian people have the right to cast their votes. They are also making a judgment that those people who are not enrolled are people who will not vote for them. I think it is an absolute disgrace. It is all about manipulating the outcome of elections rather than ensuring that every Australian has every possible opportunity to cast their vote.

I will talk a little about the restoration of the closing of the roll period to seven days after the issue of the writs for an election. During the last election there were a number of young people in my electorate who came to my office and expressed their desire to vote in the election. I had to say to them: ‘We can give you a form to enrol. Even though in previous elections you would have had up to seven days to register to vote, unfortunately, because of the action of the Howard government, you will be unable to cast your vote. You will be unable to have a say about who will represent you in the federal parliament.’ They were quite disgusted. I do not know how those young people would have voted. They may have voted for the Howard government. But the anger they expressed about not being able to enrol—the anger they expressed about being denied the right to cast their vote—will, I think, be imprinted on them for eternity. They will probably think very carefully before they cast a vote for the coalition, because they saw that their right to vote was taken from them at the last election. That is a very important issue, because in a democracy like Australia we have an overriding principle that people should be able to cast their vote and have a say about who should represent them. I need to very strongly put on the record my absolute disgust and the disgust of a number of young people in my electorate at the previous government.

The second issue that I want to spend a little bit of time on is the second part of the major change, which is allowing the repeal of the requirement for provisional voters to provide evidence when they cast their vote. Point 1: every other voter does not have to provide evidence when they cast their vote. Could you imagine the length of the lines if every person that went to cast a vote had to pull out their ID? Once again, I think this is based on the premise that the previous government had that people who cast provisional votes were less likely to vote for them and, maybe because they tended to move around a bit or for whatever reason, were less likely to have that ID with them. I think that was borne out in the last election, because at the last election approximately 25 per cent of provisional voters were unable to produce evidence of identity on polling day. That is one-quarter of the people.

I do not believe—and I do not think any reasonable person could believe—that 25 per cent of provisional voters were people there to rort the system. They were not; they were just ordinary Australians who did not have identification with them. They probably were not as organised as other Australians. They had their democratic right to cast a vote taken from them simply because they did not have ID. I think it is worth putting on the record that only 20 per cent of electors produced evidence after the elections. There were 27,000 voters rejected at preliminary scrutiny.

There is another way of doing it. If the divisional returning officer doubts the signature on the envelope, he can check that. That is a way that is much more encouraging to people and allows more people to cast their vote. I believe that legislation that deals with providing people with the right to vote should be about that. It should ensure that people do have the right to vote. It should not be about putting in place barriers for people voting. Under the Howard government, there were certain groups for whom barriers were placed in front of voting. I may be doing a disservice to the Howard government—I may be doing a disservice to the opposition parties—when I say that I believe that that tended to be skewed towards groups that the then government believed would not support them. I think they stand condemned for that. Elections are about ensuring that people have the right to say who should be in power in the federal parliament and who should represent them. They are not about manipulation and ensuring that a particular party is re-elected. I strongly support those two amendments in this legislation.

I would also like to say that I support the efficiency measures. I think it is important that we listen to the AEC and put in place the recommendations that they made about modernising the enrolment process. That enables electors to update their enrolment details electronically. We are in an electronic age, so that should be adopted. Allowing flexibility in how and where enrolment transactions are processed should also be accepted. Enabling the counting of prepoll votes cast in an elector’s home division as ordinary votes where possible on election night will be of great benefit both to the AEC and, I think, to the whole of Australia. It will give us a better understanding of the outcomes of elections on the night of the election and should be supported.

I need to finish by saying that as members of parliament we have a responsibility to ensure that all Australians have their right to vote. We should do everything that we can to facilitate that right, and we should not be putting barriers in front of people, trying to prevent them from casting their vote. The role of government is about empowering; it is not about manipulating election results. I strongly support the legislation that we have before us today.

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