Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, you are quite right—it is a bill concerning provisional voting. And amongst the policy matters to consider as we assess whether the change which is proposed in this bill is good policy are the implications it will have for the integrity of our voting system, and that necessarily asks us to consider what might be the possible motives of the political party that has brought forward this amendment.

In the state of New South Wales we have also seen the Labor government, after spending years enthusiastically hoovering up donations from certain categories of donors, now banning those donations from tobacco companies, from alcohol companies and from gaming and gambling companies. This is a remarkably late conversion to this new-found standard of virtue, and it could cause any objective observer to ask, ‘How could they be so shameless and transparent?’ Yet this is the party which is putting forward the set of amendments in this bill.

Our voting system is of the highest importance to the integrity of our democracy. The measures which this bill puts forward are not in the public interest. They undermine a well-established and important safeguard, and on this side of the House we say they should be rejected.

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