Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Western and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010. This is an important bill for a number of reasons. It will provide a significant rebalance to the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, the Electoral Act; and the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Act 1984, the referendum act. It implements recommendations of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, JSCEM, and meets a 2007 election commitment.

The bill has drawn extensive debate from both sides of parliament. However, there is a golden thread which runs through election law making in this place. Election laws should be changed only with the support of both sides of the parliament. This is to maintain the stability, trust and integrity of our system. Today’s amendments aim to rebalance the Electoral Act since changes in 2006 were made in a partisan way and for partisan advantage. They were done because they could be done, and they have done no good.

Today’s amendments will encourage all eligible voters to participate in the electoral process by removing barriers to enrolment, voting and vote counting. By simplifying and modernising the electoral process, fewer people will drop out of the system. Let us be clear: we are making these changes to rebalance the former government’s lopsided, misguided and self-interested 2006 amendments. In fact, the Australian Electoral Commission has estimated that 1.5 million eligible voters today are not currently listed on the electoral roll. That is 10 per cent of the voting population of our nation disenfranchised. Those opposite should not be surprised. It is what was intended in 2006. Clearly, today’s amendments are needed.

Schedule 1of the bill will restore the close-of-rolls period to seven days. The Howard government amended the Electoral Act to close new enrolments on the day of the issue of the writ. They argued that these changes were needed to prevent wide-scale election fraud. However, the AEC has advised that there is no evidence of wide-scale election fraud. This finding was supported by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. That committee found that there is no evidence to justify restricting access to the roll, particularly for young Australians and those who move often.

In 2006, the amendment discouraged enrolment, and that is exactly what it was meant to do. That was the catalyst for the Australian Labor Party’s commitment to restore the close-of-rolls period to seven days. This will ensure that new voters have ample time to be included on the electoral roll before a federal election. The importance of this measure was reinforced by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. In fact, it was the first recommendation of that committee.

Schedule 2 of the bill will repeal the identity requirement for provisional voters. It will, quite frankly, make it fairer and easier to participate in the electoral process. Again, the act will err on the side of inclusion in, not exclusion from, the electoral process. Currently, electors are not permitted to cast a provisional vote at a polling place without proof of identity. Currently, if you do not provide proof of identity on the date of the election or by the preceding Friday, the provisional vote—your vote—is excluded.

We all understand the difficulty of this identity requirement. In fact, it is unrealistic and runs counter to both the philosophy of inclusion and the principle that the roll of electors is just that: a roll of electors. Necessary to this is voter identity. Culture and practice have seen identity established through signature and address identification. The former government argued that the proof of identity requirement was needed to prevent widespread election fraud. However, the AEC has advised that there is no evidence of wide-scale election fraud.

The electorate I represent, Brand, has a high number of fly-in fly-out workers who were not able to meet the requirement of the 2006 amendment, so their vote was excluded from the count. Additionally, this requirement has meant that silent electors whose name is on the certified list but have a suppressed address are required to provide proof of identity. The requirement also applies to a voter who may have an unusual name and spelling. Some 27,000 votes were excluded in the last election as a result of these provisions. The new requirement will allow the signature on the provisional vote envelope to be checked against previously lodged enrolment forms so as to confirm an elector’s identity. This, quite simply, makes sense and is consistent with the practical implementation of the act and the electoral culture and practice in our nation for over a generation. We understand that electors want to vote. They want a simple, transparent and easy-to-negotiate electoral system which errs on the side of inclusion.

Then we come to the way the votes are counted. Schedule 3 of the bill will allow prepoll votes to be counted as ordinary votes. Prepoll provides the option for electors to vote early because of other commitments. Recent elections have seen an increase in the demand for prepolling. At the last 2007 federal election 15 per cent of the total votes cast were cast prior to the election date. In my electorate of Brand almost 12,000 early votes were cast. This remarkable increase in early voting was caused, on my patch, by the deployment of the navy ship HMAS Arunta from Garden Island to the Gulf on 12 November 2007, two weeks prior to the election. I mentioned earlier the fly-in fly-out workforce, which is significant in the electorate of Brand in the communities of Kwinana, Rockingham and Mandurah. The ageing population means that older people find it more convenient to turn up in the two weeks or so prior to an election to vote in more comfort. At 14 per cent, Brand has more aged people—more people over the age of 65—than the national average.

More prepoll votes—or early votes—means that the AEC has to change the protocols to count these votes. Under the current system, prepoll votes are not counted on the day and take between six and 12 days to pass through the system. This can delay the determination of the election in some seats, potentially affecting when we know who will form a government. Australians want to know on the night who won and delay can lead to distrust, speculation and uncertainty. These amendments will see the prepoll votes counted as ordinary votes when feasible. In fact, the AEC have estimated that if this amendment had been in place for the 2007 election an additional 667,000 votes would have been counted on polling night. Together, these amendments will maintain the integrity of the electoral system. Voters will be able to get on the roll, then be issued with a ballot paper, be marked off the roll and their ballot paper counted and scrutinised on election day.

Schedule 4 of the bill is administrative and does not directly influence voting patterns and elections. It will, however, increase the AEC’s efficiency, which is significant. Currently, AEC workers distribute work according to the jurisdiction of the electorate and the divisional office. The bill will allow the AEC to allocate work based on workload outside of an election period. At present this is permitted only during the election campaign. The second part of schedule 4 will allow enrolment updates to be provided to the AEC electronically. This is important. Not only will people be provided with greater control of their electoral enrolment details but also the change will simplify and modernise the electoral system. The exchange of information will be legitimised by personal details such as drivers licence number and date of birth. The bill will improve the efficiency of the electoral system.

Schedule 5 of the bill will restrict the number of candidates endorsed by a political party. In the 2009 Bradfield by-election there were 22 candidates. This in itself is not an issue—democracy does provide for choice. However, nine of these candidates were endorsed by a single registered political party. The current provisions do not prohibit political parties from endorsing more than one candidate in each division for an election. For an elector to cast a formal and valid vote they are required to number a ballot paper from 1 with no errors. In the Bradfield by-election the rate of informal votes was nine per cent. The informal vote of the 2007 election in Bradfield was only 4.12 per cent. It does, therefore, seem reasonable to conclude that the multiple endorsement may be implicated in the very high informal vote. This amendment is required to prevent a similar manipulation of the ballot paper. The integrity of the electoral process is at the heart of our political system. The amendments in this bill will make it easier to participate in elections. That is democracy. It makes sense. Electors trust us to create a process which is as easy as possible. Complexity creates confusion.

The Electoral Act, in its current form, has a number of obstacles which hinder its effective operation. I mentioned earlier that the AEC has estimated that approximately 1.5 million eligible voters are simply not enrolled; they are disenfranchised. Two-thirds of them are aged between 18 and 39 years. This bill will reform the electoral process and make it easier for young people to participate. It will provide greater flexibility in the enrolment system and will address declining enrolment rates. The bill will restore the integrity of the electoral roll and the way the electoral roll operates. This is fair and necessary. This bill has encouraged substantial debate from both sides of the House. I took the opportunity to have my staff check the impact of the changes to provisional voting and how those votes were verified in the 2004 and 2007 election. I did that for a number of the speakers who had spoken on this bill.

I noticed that one of the first speakers in the debate was the member for North Sydney. The changes made in 2006 cost the member for North Sydney 449 votes in his electorate. In Mitchell, the impact was that 305 voters did not get their vote counted. In Mayo it was 153, and in the by-election it was 186. In Indi, 334 votes were cast into the garbage bin as a consequence of the changes that were passed by the former government in 2006. In Forrest, the number was 1,072—1,072 people turned up to vote and marked their ballot paper. We do not know how they intended to vote; we just know they turned up to vote, marked their ballot paper and those ballot papers were thrown in the rubbish bin. In O’Connor, 874 ballot papers were not counted. In New England, 584 ballot papers were thrown into the bin. In Bradfield, it was 154; in Lyne, 402; in Fisher, 490; in Bowman, 296; in my electorate of Brand, 998 votes were not counted; in Fremantle, 662; in Hasluck, 530; and in Perth, 613.

The impact of the changes in 2006 has been far reaching. Not only did they disenfranchise 1.5 million Australians but also, clearly, the changes have the capacity to significantly impact election results. Changes such as this are rare, and the changes passed in 2006 should never have happened. They should not have happened because the golden thread that should balance our Electoral Act should always be that both sides of this House agree, and then changes can take place. We know that in 2006 the substantial minority report of the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Matters argued strongly against the changes. We know why the changes were made: the former government could make them, and so they were made. They did no good.

Influencing elections is something that we like to do in this place through our ability to carry arguments and our ability to stand up for what is right—not through our ability to change the act to favour one side of politics or the other. The election process is too important for that. The current system is neither as fair nor as effective as it should be. The bill will modernise, simplify and maintain the integrity of our electoral system. It will update the Commonwealth Electoral Act and deliver fairness. I commend the bill to the House.

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