Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Seniors) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you. I am making the very strong point that, under our system of compulsory voting, you are obliged to turn up, get your name marked off, get the ballot paper and mark it. Nothing compels you to vote formally if you do not wish to, and you may express your point of view as a free person in a free system.

But the Labor Party and the Greens want to see what is called automatic enrolment. That means taking names from lists compiled for reasons other than inclusion on the electoral roll and simply adding those names to the roll. The names are not checked; they are simply added. That, of course, was one of the last-ditch desperate stands introduced by the appalling Labor government in New South Wales, which of course was flogged mercilessly at the polls, to try and garner a few extra votes. They may well have done that, but it certainly was not enough to counter the anger of the people.

It is on those three issues that this whole report is really based. The coalition has put a lot of its objections in the body of the report, so that people reading the report do not think that, in any way, manner or means, this was a unanimous recommendation or conclusion of the whole committee. It divided on party political lines. The opposition members not­ed in our dissenting report that we oppose 19 of the recommendations—the ones that relate to the three issues that I have just raised—but we do not oppose 17 of them. In addit­ion, we make 10 other recommendations which we believe would be helpful for the way in which people cast their vote. The AEC was very keen to lessen the amount of time people could have to apply for postal votes—they are keen to lessen the time people have, when overseas, to get themselves a vote. We do not find that acceptable. We see no reason why voters should have their time limits shortened. Indeed, we had evidence from the CPSU, the Community and Public Sector Union, which said that in fact the Australian Electoral Commission is less efficient today than it was 21 years ago, in 1990, when it was able to process more changes to the electoral roll than it is currently.

I think there is a very big point to be made that the Electoral Commission, rather than making recommendations to lighten its workload, should in fact work more efficiently. For that reason, we have made some very specific recommendations. We have recommended that it should concentrate on continuing to check the accuracy of the roll, by canvassing and advertising to make people aware of their obligations to enrol properly initially and advise when they change address. There should not be this idea that you can not follow the law and have bureaucrats within the AEC simply allocate your vote, saying, 'This vote is going to be formal and allowed into the count. Even though you didn't comply with the law, we deem it not to be too bad, so you can have it in the count.' If we have compulsory voting and registration provisions there has to be some obligation for the voter to value that vote and comply with their obligations to register and make sure their address on the roll is correct. The Labor Party obviously thinks that people who are less likely to comply with the law are more likely to vote for them. Perhaps that is the case, I do not know, but I do not see it as a reason to change the law.

We also note that there has never been a proper follow-up of multiple voting. There were in excess of some 20,000 incidents of multiple voting. The AEC has admitted in evidence that it does not have the power to adequately investigate and prepare briefs for prosecution for the DPP. We have made a recommendation, which the AEC would seem to be inclined to accept, that we should establish a dedicated fraud unit within the AEC to investigate multiple voting. When the margins in so many seats are small, the fact that there are 20,000-plus incidents of multiple voting should raise alarm bells for anybody. The AEC says there has never been a prosecution. We are told by research from the Library that in fact only three prosecutions have taken place. That is an unsatisfactory event and one for which the AEC should have those additional powers.

We also believe very firmly that the AEC should concentrate on its core business, the integrity of the roll, which means the accuracy of the roll. Offering that lazy system of automatic enrolment, where the integrity of the roll is put at risk, is not the way for it to proceed. We are always keen to see information from the AEC, but I am very concerned when I see that the AEC's recommendations are so much in lockstep with those of the Labor Party and the Greens.

In looking at this report, know that this is a very political report. The report split on party lines—the government had a majority. But if you look at the attendance record, and I will finish on this point, you will wonder just how keen they are, particularly the Greens, to see proper assessment of an election at all. Private meetings and public hearings were held, and an analysis of the minutes that are tabled with this report will show that the coalition attended more meetings than either the government or the Greens. Senator Brown of the Greens turned up for three out of 14 private meetings and two out of nine public hearings. In other words, his attendance record was 22 per cent—a bit more than his vote, but not much. The Labor Party members attended an average of 65 per cent of meetings and the coalition members attended 79 per cent of meetings. So although we were in the minority of people who had the right to vote on this report, we attended in a better fashion than either Labor or the Greens.

This is an important report. The division between the Labor Party, the Greens and the Liberal and National parties, who form a well-known coalition, has to be read in that light. There are grave concerns about the manner in which the Labor Party want to forge these changes to the way we vote to give themselves an electoral advantage.

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