James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Can I start by pointing out for the benefit of the House that 'Ricciardo Marles' would be above 'Richard Marles' on the electoral roll, not below him, just to be clear. As proudly representing the largest Italian electorate in the country, I think it's important to correct that mistake. Can I equally say as a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters that I have been part of the inquiry that has led to recommending this measure. So I speak in support of it, and having come from the position of having participated in a process of reviewing the 2019 election. But this is not a new proposition from the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters; it's of course been a recommendation from a number of recent elections. I support it because fundamentally of course it is a matter of the integrity of our elections—ensuring that the way in which we conduct our elections is not open to or at risk of any unnecessary fraud or incorrect voting that could lead to incorrect outcomes. And how anyone could not support those fundamental principles is difficult for me to comprehend, but the Labor Party are breaking new ground on some of these principles every day of the week right now, so there it is—not the surprise that it might have been in the past.

Anyone that comes to this House has a lot of experience and understanding of the way in which we conduct elections in this country. It's pretty difficult to be elected to the House of Representatives and not be an expert on the rules and practices and experiences of our campaigns. It's also pretty rare, frankly, for someone's first election campaign experience to be their own. I'm someone that's been proudly involved, as a member of the Liberal Party, in federal elections dating back to 2001. My good friend the member for Leichhardt, of course, has been involved in federal elections since even before then. It's important that we're always defending and enhancing our robust democracy. That's why we have the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters and why, after every election, we conduct an inquiry into those elections and we determine whether there are ways that we can improve our democracy.

I think we have the greatest democracy on the planet. I start by saying that I think the Australian Electoral Commission is excellent, at least the equal best electoral commission in the world. In all of my experience with them, they do an excellent job in operating our elections. I actually concur with the Leader of the Opposition: I don't reflect on or think of any example in my own experience and in the public domain where people have criticised the AEC for the way in which they conduct elections from an impartiality point of view. So we have an excellent system, but we need to keep improving it. Making sure that we have the highest confidence possible that, when people are voting in elections, the conduct around that is completely legitimate, is very important.

To break down some of the bogus claims that are being put forward by the other side in this debate, we should clarify exactly what this proposes. We are requiring people, when they vote, to identify themselves when they mark themselves off on the roll. This is not dissimilar to back in the days when—some people here might remember—if you joined the local video club you had to show your drivers licence and some identification before you could rent a video. When you go to the post office to collect a parcel, you show some identification to do that. In our society, where the right to vote and the responsibility to vote are so spectacularly significant, the fact that people would have a problem with not having to meet the same standard as hiring a video or collecting a parcel from Australia Post surprises me.

More importantly, that's not even the standard we are requiring in this bill—far from it. What we are saying is that we want people to identify themselves when they vote. That doesn't have to be photographic identification. The bill makes very clear all the different ways in which you can identify yourself to mark yourself off the roll. If you're not in a position to do that when you attend the polling booth, that in no way means you don't vote—far from it. The next option you've got is that someone that has identified themself can vouch for you. They can say, 'This is my spouse,' or, 'This is my friend,' or, 'I know this person to be James Stevens.' That's all that's required if you're not in a position to provide the relevant identification to be issued with a ballot paper.

Most importantly, even if that's not possible, all this bill requires in the circumstance where a person can't produce identification to validate that they are the person that has attended that polling booth to vote is that they undertake a declaration vote. Anyone who undertakes a postal vote or votes at a booth not in their electorate on polling day already undertakes a declaration vote. That merely means that, if I attend a polling booth and say that I'm James Stevens but I can't identify myself, they mark me off the roll as having attempted to vote there. I'm given a declaration ballot, which is the ballot paper for my division, and the envelope that it goes into, where I sign declaring that I am James Stevens and that I am voting there for the first and only time. When those declaration votes are counted, provided that I didn't attempt to vote multiple times or someone else didn't attempt to vote as me in multiple ways across the electorate that day, the vote is counted like already happens under the system.

The only thing that occurs through this measure is that, if someone attempts to vote on multiple occasions, which can conceivably happen and does happen—people have been dismissive of the concept of 2,000 multiple votes occurring. It is hardly acceptable to say that we're very happy and encouraging of potentially 2,000 different cases of breaching the Electoral Act. That's not acceptable. It's not acceptable at all. We're trying to make sure that there is a higher standard that, where that is happening maliciously, can prevent that from occurring. Through this measure, we're adding another step in the process, which I am very confident will deter anyone seeking to abuse our voting system and our election system by voting many times in the one electorate from identifying themselves as someone in multiple booths and thus being able to vote many times and defraud the process.

Having this higher standard in place means two things. Firstly, if the person were pretending to be someone else, going into polling booths and trying to vote on multiple occasions, they wouldn't be able to satisfy the identification requirement and they'd have to fill out and forge a declaration ballot. I think it's much more significant for someone to do that than what the current standard is. Secondly, if they are doing it and identifying themself but they go and proceed to vote in multiple booths, they are committing an offence. We shouldn't accept that, and we shouldn't say that the standard we have around the integrity of voting in our elections in no way seeks to stamp that out if it's possible to do so. The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters recommended to do just that.

The suggestion that we're doing this to benefit our side of politics is complete rubbish. We've won seven of the last nine elections under the current system, and the eighth was a draw. We would hardly be seeking to change a system that has seen us win seven of nine elections. Of the last nine elections, without this measure in place, the Labor Party has won one. This measure would in no way benefit the Liberal party, because all it's doing is adding another layer of integrity to the system of voting.

If the Labor Party believes that having a stronger system of integrity for voting benefits the Liberal Party then they're just conceding that, for whatever reason—they can explain because they are advancing the argument—having loopholes that can be exploited is good for Labor. That concept needs to sink in in this chamber: why would Labor think that making it easier, or not supporting measures that make it more robust, to stamp out multiple voting is bad for the Labor Party. That kind of says it all. This is a provision that is in existence most broadly in Western Europe, particularly across jurisdictions that have compulsory voting as we obviously do in this country. Allegations that this is some kind of American concept are rubbish. This is something that is regularly required in some of the most robust and highly regarded democracies across the world—whether that is Belgium or Sweden, which are hardly renowned for being jurisdictions that have low standards when it comes to the integrity of their voting systems. So we're merely seeking to bring in the sorts of standards that are in place in other democracies like ours that are so highly regarded.

The most important thing is that not a single person, under this measure, would be turned away from voting. That is not what we are doing in any way, shape or form. What we are doing is seeking to have a robust standard around identifying your right to vote—and only vote the one time. As I have outlined, when we are in a circumstance at the booths when someone can't meet the broad standard of identifying themselves—you need a driver's licence or some kind of utility statement. You don't require photo ID. It can be someone that you know vouching for you. If you're not in a position to satisfy any of those requirements, you merely lodge a declaration ballot. And, as long as you haven't attempted to vote multiple times, that ballot will be counted. So in no way could anyone who is doing the right thing but is not in a position to identify themselves in all the various ways we are offering through this bill—they will all still be voting. So it is completely ludicrous to suggest that this would disenfranchise anyone who is seeking to cast a valid vote and seeking to vote only the one time.

This standard is already in place for postal voting. This is what we require for postal voting. No-one has ever suggested that the standard is too high when you cast a postal vote. When you put the ballot paper inside the envelope that then goes in as a postal vote, you are declaring that you are who you say you are, and that you haven't voted before. To have a problem with that, to suggest that there are people out there that this is going to disadvantage, only means that we are disadvantaging people who aren't prepared to agree that they are who they say they are on the electoral roll and that they haven't voted before in this election. So you're quite right: those people won't be allowed to vote again because they are not entitled to. By definition they don't meet the requirement of voting, which is being the person on the electoral roll and only voting the one time. So to advance an argument against putting that standard in place, essentially says, 'We don't have a problem with people voting multiple times and we don't have a problem with someone pretending to be someone else and going in to cast a ballot,' and that means that you are in support of fraudulent voting.

If we're going to be the proud democracy that we already are into the future, we have to constantly evolve our electoral system to make sure that we continue to safeguard the integrity of it. We have to always stand up for, and look for ways to reform and advance, the way in which we conduct elections so that no-one can ever—as I agree has not happened in the history of our democracy—claim that any of our elections have resulted in outcomes that weren't what the people voted for. People might not like the results of elections at times, but no-one in this country that I can recall has ever claimed with any credibility—in particular, no-one who's ever made it into this chamber—that the way in which we conduct our elections, and the results of those elections, have been inaccurate and have seen a result returned that wasn't what the people voted for. That hasn't happened, and I hope that in my lifetime, however long that is, it never happens in the future. To achieve that, we've got to constantly fight for and advance the robustness of our democracy, and we have to always look for ways to make it better and stronger so that the way in which the people of Australia vote is always the result that they get in our elections.

That's what this measure is about. It is about reform and progress to ensure that the people of Australia have the highest confidence—such as they currently have and need to have in the future—that the way in which we conduct our elections is fair and the governments that the people of this country choose are the ones that they get. That will happen if we continue to ensure that we have the highest standards of integrity, and this bill delivers that. I commend it to the House.

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