Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The context in which we are looking at this legislation, the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010, is that, according to the latest facts reported to us by the Australian Electoral Commissioner and the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there are 13-plus million people in Australia who are eligible to vote but 1.39 million who are not on the electoral roll. I have full confidence in the Electoral Commission’s ability, with this legislation and other measures recommended by the Joint Committee on Electoral Matters and the minister, to turn that tide around over time. That should be our top democratic priority. We have a compulsory voting system and it is outrageous that almost 1.4 million Australians, out of a population of eligible voters of over 13 million, are off the electoral roll.

The proportion of Australians voting at successive elections has been dropping over the years because of a very simple fact. As members of parliament, we know that it is legislated that the Electoral Commission must advise people when it becomes aware of a change in their address through the process known as continuous roll update and it is then incumbent on the voter to advise the AEC that they are at the new address. This is very problematic, because increasingly these days, with younger people travelling, snail mail is not returned and, if the process is left over time, more and more people are taking themselves, completely inadvertently, off the electoral roll. The measures in this bill help that by giving people extra time after the election is called to enrol. This particularly affects young people, who do not have politics at the forefront of their mind. The statistics for 18- to 25-year-olds not on the electoral roll are quite frightening for the democratic process in Australia. It is something we need to work hard to reverse.

I might remind you, Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, that the previous government, the Howard government, was elected in 1996, 1998, 2001 and 2004 exactly on the kinds of laws that we are proposing to put back on the statute book. There was nothing dodgy about the election of the previous government at those elections and therefore the changes that it made at the 2007 election can only be deciphered as being for the reason of gaining for itself narrow, partisan political advantage. We are simply reverting to an electoral system that existed at those previous elections. Of course, those elections were won by the previous conservative government, making a slightly more level playing field. These changes are long overdue in this parliament. I hope they pass the Senate and are not blocked by people seeking to perpetuate a narrow, partisan political advantage against the democratic interests of the vast majority of the Australian people.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to address the parliament on the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010 this morning because I represent an electorate which basically was electoral fraud central in days gone by. I challenge what the member for Melbourne Ports said in his contribution, which was that no election in the history of Australia has been overturned by electoral fraud. I would remind—

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That’s what the AEC said.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What was your comment?

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Herbert should not conduct a discussion across the chamber. Will the member for Herbert, who has the call, not respond to interjections from the member for Melbourne Ports.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to remind the member for Melbourne Ports—and you, Mr Deputy Speaker, will well know—that the government of Queensland was changed because of electoral fraud. You will remember the member for Mundingburra, Frank Tanti, who stood against the former Mayor of Townsville, Tony Mooney at the time of the—

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What about the next election?

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

at the time of the Goss government, Member for Moreton, and electoral fraud occurred in that election. It went to the courts and the courts determined that that fraud, among other things, could have changed the result of the election. A new election was ordered in Mundingburra. The Liberal Party’s Frank Tanti won that election. The Goss government lost its majority and the Borbidge government was elected. So, Member for Melbourne Ports, small numbers of fraudulent voters can, in fact, change the result of an election process. You cannot come in here and argue, as you did, that only one in a million voters commits fraud, when you can change the government of a state of Australia because of small numbers of voters committing electoral fraud.

I am reminded that this was not the only evidence of electoral fraud in my electorate. I well remember the investigations that I was involved in, looking at who voted where and why. I found electors enrolled at the local council drain. There was no house there—it was a drain. There were six electors enrolled in the drain. That is really concerning. These anomalies went on for some time because the integrity of the electoral roll was not there.

I am also reminded that former Townsville city councillor—a Labor city councillor—Karen Ehrmann was sent to jail because of electoral fraud. I am further reminded that a Labor state minister had to resign in Queensland—didn’t he? Mike Kaiser was forced by Premier Beattie to resign because of his involvement in apparent electoral fraud. In his case, it was all about branch-stacking, numbers and getting people elected. He was allegedly enrolling himself in an electorate where he did not live. He committed a fraud in signing a paper which he was not entitled to sign. So he lost his job as the member for Woodridge, I think it was, in Queensland. But isn’t it interesting that he came back as the Premier’s chief of staff? Isn’t it interesting that, without any formal process, he was appointed to a $450,000 job on NBN Co.? It is quite extraordinary. Everything I am saying is on the public record, and isn’t it interesting that the people who have been committing this fraud are all Labor Party people? Isn’t it interesting that this bill before the parliament today, put up by the Labor Party, is basically to enhance their electoral prospects and harvest more votes?

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Danby interjecting

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are not supporting Schedules 1 and 2, Member for Melbourne Ports. You know we will vote against that. It is very interesting that the member for Melbourne Ports said that the previous amendments to the Electoral Act were made by the Howard government in the interests of enhancing the coalition’s position and that he then went on to tell the parliament that those enhancements took away the votes of the Labor Party—in other words, this bill is before the parliament to restore the votes of the Labor Party. The member for Melbourne Ports admitted to the parliament that the reason this bill is before the parliament is to restore the votes of the Labor Party. That is not a reason to put a bill to the parliament of Australia. We are about good public policy and, in this instance, that should be about the integrity of the electoral roll. That is what it is about. The integrity of the roll should be paramount in our democratic system. There is a small amount of dual voting that goes on in Australia and we should try to make sure, wherever we can, that we minimise that. Schedules 1 and 2 militate against that principal and that is wrong. I am sad to see the Labor Party using their numbers to put something through the House that affects the integrity of the roll.

On the issue of restoring the close of rolls to a period of seven days after the issue of the write of election, I remind the Labor Party that (1) it is still the law of this land that you should enrol on the electoral roll and (2) nobody is stopping you from enrolling on the roll. By putting this provision in to give you seven days to enrol after the writs are issued, what you are really saying to Australians is, ‘Well, if you don’t enrol, you have actually then got seven days to enrol.’ You are not encouraging people to get on the roll when they should get on the roll, which is before an election. No-one is stopping them getting on the roll. There is no attack on their democratic rights. They can get on the roll as soon as they are 18—in fact, they can get on the roll provisionally before they are 18, but they can vote when they are 18. They do not have to wait until an election is called. So, by leaving the current act the way it is, nobody’s democratic rights are impinged upon. Why does the Labor Party want to change it? The answer is: because it benefits them.

On repealing the provision for provisional voters to provide evidence of identity before their votes are admitted, how could the Labor Party logically argue that that should be the principle? Surely you have to identify yourself. We have to identify ourselves in everything else that we do. I am reminded of a funny incident that happened to me last week. I had to get a new ordinary passport, so I went to the post office and took along my official passport and they said, ‘That is not sufficient identification.’ I had to produce my Medicare card, would you believe? It is just extraordinary. Anyway, that is beside the point. I think that it is absolutely mandatory to preserve the integrity of the roll by making people identify themselves. After all, anyone could go up and say, ‘I’m so and so and I want to vote,’ and they will be given a vote under this proposed legislation.

I would also like to draw to the attention of the House the situation in Indigenous Australia. Pro rata, probably more fraudulent voting goes on in Indigenous Australia than in the rest of the country. That is sad. It goes on because it can, and that is why measures that are in this bill should not be in the bill to help get the Indigenous integrity on the electoral roll sorted out. I have seen many instances of this occurring in Indigenous communities. There are associated issues where people actually go and vote for others because they can. I know that the Australian Electoral Commission is concerned about this and I know that they would like to see that addressed.

I support the coalition’s intention to vote against the first two schedules of this bill. The schedules are wrong because they will further destroy the integrity of the roll, and I would like to see the recommendation on those two schedules overturned. I am happy to support the remaining three schedules; they are sensible and practical measures. I thank the House.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to voice my strong support for theElectoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010. Leaving aside Indigenous battles and the Eureka Stockade incident of 1854, internally here in Australia we enjoy a very healthy democracy. It has endured. It has been stable and strong since Federation without civil war or major crisis. There was only one big hiccup on 11 November 1975, which I will not dwell on. In fact, Australia is one of the longest standing continuous democracies in the world. It is certainly in the top five. When citizens head to the polls in Australia, governments come and go without a shot being fired. Tears are shed—there may have been a few on the other side on election night 2007—but lives are not lost. To paraphrase Malcolm X in one of his speeches, ‘When it comes to the bullet or the ballot box, we wholeheartedly chose the ballot box.’

We should be proud of our great democracy and we should strive to protect and uphold it. As Joni Mitchell said, ‘You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.’ Here we have people who whinge about having to vote. Some of the 10 million or so people who voted on 24 November 2007 whinged about having to do so. You should have some of my constituents, particularly some of the Hazari people from Afghanistan, talk about their involvement with democracy, especially about some of the journeys they had to undertake to get to a polling booth, especially when they were being discriminated against. Since the fall of the Taliban in 2002, Afghanistan has been in transition to democracy and is still developing accountable public institutions and electoral processes.

I want to particularly focus on Afghanistan. Last year the presidential election in Afghanistan was an admirable achievement for a country going through some tough times, but there was a very low voter turnout and those who did vote risked their lives to participate. They travelled through valleys and experienced incredible circumstances to get to a polling booth. Unfortunately, the results were marred by allegations of intimidation and fraud. Yesterday, I heard on The World Today on the ABC that the position of the Canadian head of the international election watchdog commission had been terminated by the president for doing his job. Apparently, now the president will be choosing a new watchdog.

Afghanistan’s transition to democracy continues and hopefully the forces of good will ensure a more robust and transparent election next time around. You will recall the 2000 Al Gore defeat in the United States and the problems with hanging chads and the like in the Florida electoral process. So when we look at places like Afghanistan, the United States or Iran and many other countries around the world, we should be especially thankful for our democracy and, as members of this parliament, we must do whatever we can to protect the democracy that we have inherited. That is why, through this bill, we are undoing some of the previous government’s work which I firmly believe had a negative impact on our democracy as a whole.

It is no secret that former Prime Minister John Howard enjoyed being the Prime Minister, so much so that when his mates started tapping him on the shoulder he refused to budge. Worse than that, he also started to make some subtle changes to the very electoral processes that had put him in power to further enhance his re-election chances in 2007. In my opinion, this is unforgivable. The coalition were prepared to put bad power before good government. These changes were bad for democracy overall, because they were about intentionally excluding certain people from voting. We heard from the member for Melbourne Ports, and it was stated in one of the submissions to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, that analysis of the empirical data showed that the people most likely to be excluded were those who would vote Labor or Green.

If you are John Howard and you are reaching for a fourth term, what do you do if you are on the nose with young people—that particular cohort? Perhaps young people particularly care about climate change, so what do you do if power is more important than principle? You amend the Commonwealth Electoral Act before the 2007 election to close the electoral roll to new enrolments on the very same day that the writ is issued. It was the best way to keep pesky young people off the electoral roll and out of the electoral process and hopefully keep John Howard’s shaky grip on power.

As you know from your own circumstances or from your own electorates, young people are actually much more likely to change address. They tend to rent, rather than to own homes, and they go where the wind takes them, or where friendships take them. You see them on the weekend, lined up and knocking on the doors of their friends with utes, asking to move from one place to another. You see them on Saturdays, moving from place to place. So this was quite a strategic and tricky manoeuvre by the current opposition. It was subtle, but it was mean and tricky, and responsible governments should flee from any similar attempt to manipulate electoral processes or to water down our democracy. This House, and all that it represents, is bigger than all of us. It was not the finest moment for those opposite; that is for sure.

The Rudd government believes that a healthy democracy relies on giving all eligible adults the opportunity to vote. The fact that at December last year almost 1.4 million eligible voters were not on the electoral roll tells us that too many people are fed up with the political process and they do not want to jump through the hoops to get on the electoral roll. 1.4 million people—that is about 15 members of parliament. Look around the chamber and think of how many MPs that is and the voices that would not get a chance to speak in this parliament. A third of these unenrolled eligible voters were aged between 18 and 25. That is about five MPs—for example, the members for Bowman, Dickson, McEwen, Swan and Mayo—who would not have had a chance to speak because of those young people who did not have a voice in this chamber.

What motivated this incredible change to the process that got the Howard government elected in 1996, 1998, 2001 and 2004? What incredible things forced the removal of 1.4 million people? Look at the report from the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters entitled Report on the conduct of the 2007 federal election and matters related thereto. On the day about 10 million people voted in that election and the total number of votes, when you count them all up, was 12,987,814 votes. How many multiple-voting occasions were there, if this is about cleaning up the roll? Let us look at it: the hot number of actual multiple-voting occasions referred to the Australian Federal Police out of that 12,987,814 was 10, which was 0.0001 per cent. Ten occasions were actually referred to the Australian Federal Police, and of those how many that resulted in prosecutions? Zero!

It is disgraceful to think that for those sorts of results you could wipe 1.4 million people’s votes out. It is shameful. The Rudd government wants to ensure that all people who want to be enrolled to vote have a reasonable opportunity to get on the roll, and we want to remove any unnecessary roadblocks. The suggestion from those opposite is that people who turned up without ID can go down to the electoral office and show the returning officer their ID. How many did it? How many actually turned up to their electoral offices in the next couple of days? It was something like four per cent. So, even though they had turned up to vote and to participate in the democratic process, how many then actually got in their cars—and if you are outside of a city you might have 100, 200 or 500 kilometres to go—to drive to that office within five days of the vote? You are just not going to do it. That is just a reality of the political process. Most Australians are not that passionate about elections or politicians or the like. That is the reality

The Rudd government wants to ensure that people do have a reasonable opportunity to vote. It is why we made an election commitment to restore the close of rolls to seven days after the issue of the writ for an election. This is a much more appropriate time, a reasonable time, a common-sense time. This bill delivers on our commitment that we took to the Australian people in 2007.

As I said, the Howard government introduced changes to close the electoral roll to new enrolments at 8 pm on the day of the issue of the writ. As it turned out, it was eight o’clock on a Sunday night when you would have had to sort out your details. It meant that people who move around a lot, young people and potential first time voters who are not aware of the process and who do not just turn up to the same polling booth every year, were excluded. They were not able to get on the roll and, consequently, they were not able to take part in the election in 2007.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You just write to them all!

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I understand the member for Mayo will seek the call, so I suggest if he wishes to be heard in silence that he observes the same courtesies.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will ensure that he is not heard in silence! This bill restores the seven-day enrolment period after the issuing of election writs. This bill also repeals the onerous proof of identity requirements that Howard introduced for provisional voters. As I said, if these voters could not produce a driver’s licence or some photo ID or other evidence on polling day, the elector had five business days to return to the AEC office with proof of identity. It is no wonder that 25 per cent of voters were unable to produce evidence of identity on polling day, and subsequently 27,000 votes were rejected. They were the people who turned up but who had not actually been following the machinations in Parliament House and did not realise that they needed photo ID.

This bill removes the identity provision, but to ensure the integrity of the system it requires the division returning officer to check a voter’s signature against the most recent record whenever there is any doubt about its validity. Australians just want to take part in the democratic process and do not want to have to jump through the hoops to do so.

This bill also brings the enrolment process into the 21st century. While most public institutions are riding the digital wave of the modern era, the electoral roll is back in the horse-and-buggy era. Paper enrolment forms are still required to be signed and sent to the AEC. This bill amends the process, enabling enrolled voters to update their enrolment details electronically. It streamlines the process and, obviously, lowers costs as well. It allows flexibility in how and where enrolments are processed, and where possible enables the counting of prepoll votes cast in an elector’s home division as ordinary votes on election night. That is obviously good news for the psephologists out there, like Antony Green or Malcolm Mackerras, and the election night junkies—many of us are those, and actually like watching results. So it would be good to have that spread of results around the country on election night.

Finally, this bill restricts the number of candidates that can be endorsed by a political party in each division. This amendment is in response to the Bradfield by-election where 22 candidates ran including nine candidates nominated by the Christian Democratic Party. It is ironic that their title should result in this amendment. This is obviously a very confusing situation for electors to face on their ballot paper. This bill closes the loophole and ensures political parties can endorse only one candidate in each electorate.

All these measures are about simplifying the enrolment and voting processes and ensuring that as many Australians as possible are eligible to vote. The quick passage of this bill will ensure that these reforms are in place before a 2010 or 2011—whatever the Prime Minister decides—federal election. I have always been keen for a Kevin 11 campaign, but I am not getting a lot of support. The bill restores democracy to the House and I commend it.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am concerned that the member for Moreton is so eager to put off the election for so long; I am sure he will not do as badly as he thinks he is going to. Obviously, we hope the election is soon so that we can have the election of an Abbott government, as the Speaker pre-empted so helpfully yesterday. The member for Moreton made the point and I also think that this amendment that stops political parties running nine candidates in a by-election is a good amendment. I note in Bradfield that was the case, but in Bradfield as in my by-election it was very unfortunate that the Labor Party could not find one person to nominate. It would have been nice if the Labor Party had one person to nominate, fight and represent those Labor voters who still to this day express their great disappointment and anger at the Labor Party for not having the guts and the ability to front up to the Mayo by-election or to the Bradfield and Higgins by-elections. It was very disappointing. Hopefully, the electors in those three seats at the next federal election will send a very clear message to the hollowmen in the Labor Party that it was not a tactic that was received well. But that is an amendment in the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010 that we do support.

There are five general areas in this bill that we are discussing. The opposition has indicated through the shadow special minister of state, Senator Ronaldson, that we will support three of them. These are the schedule 3 amendments relating to the prepoll vote, the schedule 4 amendments relating to the processing of enrolments and the schedule 5 amendments relating to the nomination of candidates, again making the point that the Labor Party chose not to run candidates in by-elections in my seat, Higgins or Bradfield at the recent by-elections.

The electoral roll is one of the great things that we have in our democracy in this country. We should always ensure to the best of our ability that it is protected, that it is correct and that the data is as up to date as it possibly can be. Any bill that we debate in this place which changes the way the electoral roll works needs to be looked at and considered very carefully. We are very fortunate in this country that we have had very few examples of fraud relating to elections. There are always suggestions and views put that there has been some misuse of the roll or election procedures but we have not had a crisis as some other countries have had. We have a reliable system. The AEC needs to be commended as do the state electorate offices, in that they ensure that we do have election results which are not questionable given the large number of people who vote.

Following the last federal election I spoke with a representative of the US embassy who commented on how impressed he was with the ease of the transition from one government to another, how it happened without question and very effectively. Even though we did not like the result, it was never questioned because we have great faith in the roll and in the system that governs election campaigns. It is with that in mind that we do look very carefully at how the roll operates. As the member for Moreton identified, in the last parliament the former government amended the Commonwealth Electoral Act to ensure that that roll was given even greater protection than it had previously. This was to address what were not only perceived issues but in some cases real issues relating to potential fraud in relation to the electoral roll.

The first of those issues was the amendment relating to the close of roll. The government argues that this measure was designed to ensure that young people in particular did not have an opportunity to vote. By closing the roll on the day the election was called, it allegedly removed—as the member for Moreton said—magically all of these people’s right to vote. That argument is completely misleading. The amendment ensured that the AEC could not be flooded the week after the election was announced, making it impossible to verify and keep a check on new enrolments where there could have been questions about the legitimacy of those enrolments. The amendments very much were about ensuring that we had a very strong roll and very strong protections about who could and could not be enrolled.

It is a weak argument to say that people in the three years leading to a federal election, four to a state election, do not think about and contemplate changing their address or enrolling. One of the great things that the AEC does is to consistently roll cleanse. It ensures that it keeps the role up to date and reminds people to enrol. We should make it easier to ensure that people can change their address. I think the use of electronic enrolment and so forth are a good idea remembering that there needs to be protection of the privacy elements of that.

But to say that you need a seven-day period at the start of an election campaign is weakening the protections around the electoral act and that is why we do not support these provisions. It does increase the opportunities for fraud and there have been circumstances in Australia where the electoral roll has been subject to fraud. We have had some very high profile cases where members of parliament have resigned because of it. The most recent was in Queensland when, in early 2000, that government was struck by allegations that people had been caught up in fake enrolments and so forth which related to Labor Party preselections involving fake enrolments using the electoral roll. It is very important that we ensure the electoral roll is protected. I noted with interest recently that the former MP who was caught up in that scandal and had to resign from parliament has been employed by the Rudd government on a $450,000-a-year salary.

The second amendment relates to the evidence of identity for provisional voters. The member for Moreton talked about the electoral roll in Afghanistan. The truth is that in Afghanistan you have to show ID when you vote. It is interesting that the member for Moreton, on one hand, argued that it is onerous for provisional voters to be required to show proof of identity after five days notice while, on the other hand, he also argued how great the electoral roll is in Afghanistan where they are required to show ID. It appears to be a conflicted statement for him to argue on one hand ID is good and on the other hand ID is bad. Truth be told, to give increased comfort about these provisional votes the last government moved the identification requirement, a reasonable requirement and hardly onerous when provisional voters have five days to make that decision. It is something that we still support and this is an area where we will not support the government’s moves. It will weaken the rules relating to proof of identity for provisional voters and it should be opposed. It makes it easier to enrol fraudulently and cast a fraudulent vote. We should prevent anything that does that, not encourage it. The member for Morton argues that it is not widespread. Sure, it might not be widespread in Australia, but we should not have loopholes which allow it to be used. We should never weaken the electoral roll to the point where people have the ability to question the veracity of the information or the veracity of votes. That is something we will argue very strongly against in this parliament.

We are arguing strongly against those two schedules of amendments relating to the close of the roll and identification of provisional voters. We do not trust this government to get it right—for so many of these policy issues we have seen them getting it wrong, such as for the insulation program. We think if they cannot manage an insulation program, how can they possibly manage to change the electoral roll and still ensure that it is being used in a fashion which is not fraudulent? Therefore, on those two areas in particular, as the shadow special minister for state articulated so very well, we will be opposing those moves. We think it weakens the roll which is a big mistake. As I said earlier, the roll is one of the things that we should be very proud of in our democracy. It is largely beyond dispute and that is a credit to the AEC and the system we operate. However, any changes which weaken that should be opposed. That is why we are opposing them. We do not trust this government to get it right. In too many areas we have seen them get it wrong—in the NBN they are getting it wrong; they want to censor the internet and they will get that wrong; they want to change the electoral roll and they will get that wrong. We do not believe that they will get this right, and therefore on those two issues we will be opposing.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In this debate we have had a great deal of discussion from speakers opposite about electoral fraud. This is a debate about the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010. The only fraud that is really relevant to the debate on this bill is not the imagined fraud—the myth of electoral fraud—that the opposition continue to speak about, not the fig leaf of electoral fraud that the opposition relied on to introduce the measures that we are now removing as we are in office—the measures that they introduced when they amended the electoral act to reduce the right to vote, to reduce the enfranchisement of Australians, in particular to reduce the ability of young people to get on the roll and to stay on the roll—it is the fraud that is being perpetrated on the Australian people by those opposite. It was perpetrated by them while they were in government and it is the fraud of telling the Australian people that there is a massive amount of multiple voting, trickery or false enrolment going on with the Australian electoral roll.

There is a very good report by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters on the conduct of the 2007 federal election and it pricks the balloon of this allegation of fraud. It absolutely dispels the myth of multiple voting. In fact, there is a section in the report entitled ‘The myth of multiple voting’. It is a report from which the opposition members of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters dissented, but the committee report picks up and examines in excellent detail the various allegations of multiple voting that arose in the last election, in particular in the seat of McEwen because its election result went to the Court of Disputed Returns. There was a minute examination of the voting and any possible irregularities that might have occurred in that election. What the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters was able to show was that the allegations of multiple voting in that election were entirely without substance.

To return to this theme of fraud, the fraud which is relevant to this legislation is the fraud perpetrated by the Liberal Party in defrauding about 100,000 Australians by closing the roll early, which is what occurred at the 2007 election as a result of the amendments to the Electoral Act which were imposed on the Australian people by the former government. The fraud which is relevant is the defrauding of thousands more provisional voters whose votes were taken away as a result of the provisions of the Electoral Act inserted by the former government, which required people who voted provisionally to produce identification within five days. Because of an inability to do that, thousands and thousands of people who had validly cast provisional votes had their votes taken away.

As other speakers, notably the member for Melbourne Ports, have explained to the House, there is ample evidence to suggest that the disenfranchisement which occurred as a result of the former government’s changes to the Electoral Act is entirely likely to have been responsible for the result in some four federal seats. It is possible, in other words, that in four federal seats the result would have been different if there had not been the extent of disenfranchisement that occurred at the last election. So the real fraud—the fraud relevant to this legislation—is the perpetuation of the straw man of electoral fraud, the myth of multiple voting. Speaker after speaker on the other side of the House has attempted to perpetuate that myth and that fraud.

We see it in the dissenting report that accompanies the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. In the dissenting report, the opposition members of the committee—and they need to be named, because they really should hang their heads in shame for the propositions that they have put forward here: the member for Cook, the member for Goldstein as deputy chair, Senator Ronaldson, Senator Birmingham and the member for Maranoa—have put forward specious arguments as to the recommendation of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters that the early roll-closing provision should be repealed and replaced with a new section that provides that the date fixed for the close of rolls shall be seven days after the date of the writ. What the opposition members dissenting from this report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters assert is that this proposes ‘a significant threat to the integrity of the electoral roll’.

We then have in the opposition’s dissenting report a page of nonsensical propositions to the effect that, if the roll is allowed to remain open for seven days after the election is called—enabling all those people, who are validly entitled to vote and who for one reason or another have had their names removed from the electoral roll and might not have got around to putting their name back on, to rush to the electoral office and make sure that they will be able to cast the vote which is their right as Australians—in some mysterious way it is a threat to the integrity of the electoral system. We on this side of the House, the government, know that that is a false proposition and that the intent of the Electoral Act should be, as it has been since Federation, to make sure that the right to vote, which is a valuable right, can be exercised by all Australians who are eligible to vote. Any suggestion that a perfectly practical provision such as this—that is, allowing a period of seven days for people to get on the roll after the election is called—is a threat to the integrity of the electoral system is a nonsense.

So it is with the other provision which this legislation introduces, which is a repeal of the requirement for provisional voters to provide evidence of identity. Again, what occurred as a result of the provision introduced by the former government was that thousands of voters who had cast provisional votes had their votes taken away because of this unnecessary requirement that they produce proof of identity. We need to make it clear that the number of instances in the whole of Australian political history of what could be called electoral fraud—namely, someone enrolling using a false identity or the other possible example of electoral fraud, a deliberate case of voting more than once—which have actually been identified following investigation and have resulted in a matter being sent to the Australian Federal Police or even have resulted in a letter of warning being sent to a voter is a mere handful. It is a minuscule number of cases that have been discovered, and I am talking across the entire stretch of Australian political history. When this is set in the context of the millions upon millions of votes that are cast at every Australian national election and the millions of votes that are cast in most state elections, one can see in its true context the supposed problem that these harsh and disenfranchising measures introduced by the former government were said to be introduced to meet. The true fraud—that is, the fraud of the Liberal Party, those opposite—can indeed be seen.

It was known before the last election, very clearly, what the effect of these provisions was going to be. It was known before the last election, for example, that some 140,000 voters had had their names removed by the Australian Electoral Commission in the six months leading up to the November 2007 election because they had failed to notify the Australian Electoral Commission of a change of address or because they had used the wrong form when they notified a change of address. It was absolutely clear before the last election, which is why we went to the election with a commitment to restore integrity and improve the enfranchisement of voters. It was absolutely clear that the real reason was not some supposed attempt to eliminate this imaginary fraud or imaginary multiple voting but rather to erode the inclusiveness of the electoral roll.

The removal of the grace period, which is what it is correctly known as, and the introduction of tougher evidentiary requirements for enrolment are both directly designed to ensure that people who should be able to vote are not able to vote. We now find ourselves in the position that some 1.4 million eligible voters as at December 2009—this is an estimate that the Australian Electoral Commission provided in December last year—are not on the electoral roll. About one-third of those voters are aged 18 to 25. People aged 18 to 25 either have never got on the roll in the first place or, because they have moved address—as we know, young people tend to move more often than any other part of the community—they, having been on the roll, have slipped off the roll. Labor wants all eligible Australians to vote. Unlike those opposite, we treasure the right to vote, and we will ensure that provisions are introduced in the Electoral Act. It will be not just these provisions but also other measures which are yet to come which will ensure that there is true enfranchisement and an extension of the right to vote to all of those who are eligible.

I know that in my electorate there was great concern expressed to me by young people, particularly those who are coming up to their first election, about how they might have in some way missed out. It was possible to say, somewhat perversely, that the increased harshness that the former government introduced in relation to the keeping of the roll was an excellent incentive providing a spur for people to make absolutely sure they were on the roll, because the instant the election was called that was going to be the end of the matter. It was still the case that in my electorate very many young people, as well as others who were eligible but on election day found to their horror that they had slipped off the roll, were unable to cast the vote that they wished to cast. We are intent on ensuring that the kind of outcome where people who should be on the roll are unable to vote is avoided at all times in the future.

There are three useful administrative efficiency measures which are contained in this bill in addition to the primary changes of restoring the close of rolls period to seven days and repealing the requirement of provisional voters to provide evidence of identity. Those efficiency measures are all acting on other recommendations in the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters into the conduct of the 2007 federal election. They include: modernising enrolment processes to enable electors to update their enrolment details electronically, which is from recommendation 9 of the committee’s report; allowing flexibility in how and where enrolment transactions are processed, which is recommendation 42 of the committee’s report; and, where possible, enabling the counting of prepoll votes cast in the elector’s home division as ordinary votes on election night, which is recommendations 22 to 24. It is very much to be hoped that those opposite will support these measures when this bill goes to the Senate, that those opposite will stop with their charade of bleating about supposed—and actually imaginary—electoral fraud and that those opposite will see that their duty as members of this parliament is to put in place measures which extend the right to vote, which show that they value the right to vote, which ensure that every single Australian who is eligible to vote is able to do so.

I see that the member for Indi is in the House and, no doubt, about to continue with the perpetuation of the various myths that the former Special Minister of State, Mr Nairn, propagated before the last election. I think the Special Minister of State before him, Senator Abetz, also propagated them before the last election. They were to pretend, while actually intending to remove people’s right to vote and restrict the number of people on the electoral roll, that these measures might be warranted by some imagined multiple voting. We have heard over and over again a repetition that suggests falsely and fraudulently that there is some real problem. We see it, indeed, when the dissenting report addresses recommendation 2 of the joint standing committee, which states that there should be a repeal of the requirement for provisional voters to provide proof of identity. There is the repetition of the myth is that it is a removal of an important deterrent that acts to prevent citizens from failing to maintain their enrolment and to deter those who may seek to engage in multiple voting.

I repeat—and I hope the member for Indi is listening and will not be repeating the nonsense that other speakers on the other side have attempted—that the committee explained in great detail under the heading ‘The multiple voting myth’ why it was that allegations such as, for example, that made by the member for McEwen, in which there were eight cases of apparent multiple voting, were false. The Australian Electoral Commission investigated the allegations of the eight cases of apparent multiple voting, and the end result was that, as the AEC had already said by October 2008, the eight cases of apparent multiple voting in the division of McEwen were almost all the result of confusion on the part of electors. The AEC told a Senate estimates committee this:

In relation to McEwen, in the court case eight dual voters were mentioned.

The court case they are referring to involved the Court of Disputed Returns. The AEC continued:

Those eight were referred to the Australian electoral officer. I have reviewed them, and we have one of those where there is some evidence to support a matter, but it is likely that it will not be sent to the AFP and the person will be issued with a warning letter. The other matters were either people who were confused or people who were aged and their families et cetera had assisted them in voting.

There was then a direct investigation by the AEC into the case of a particular constituent, the Reverend Ivor Jones, who had been part of the claims made by the member for McEwen, and the AEC said:

AEC records indicate that no electors in the division of McEwen voted more than twice. The AEC can confirm that a letter was sent to Reverend Jones indicating that according to AEC records, it appeared he may have voted twice, and seeking his clarification on the matter. Reverend Jones’ response made it clear that he had voted only once, through an early declaration vote.

They go on to explain that the apparent case of multiple voting concerning the Reverend Ivor Jones was in fact the result of an error by a polling official who had ruled out the wrong name when he was marking the roll to record a vote. I repeat that, as is demonstrated in ample and lengthy terms in the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters—and there are some excellent tables looking at the 1998, 2001, 2004 and 2007 elections—the cases of multiple voting in recent Australian political history show that the apparent multiple voting, admissions of multiple voting and referrals to the AFP are extremely small, and that there has been no clear trend in any way. The only thing that has occurred has been a continuing increase in problems due to confusion, poor comprehension and age. So I commend this legislation to the House and trust that, in the spirit of improving the enfranchisement—(Time expired)

Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010. It is a bill that raises issues that are at the core of our political system and our democracy. Australia is one of the greatest democracies in the world. While just a fledgling nation, we led the world in giving women the right to vote and be represented in parliament. Our democracy and our system of government on the whole works extremely well; although, those viewing proceedings over the last few weeks may wonder what has happened to the concept of ministerial responsibility under the Westminster system. I can understand why they would be wondering what has happened to that wonderful principle.

Fundamentally, we are one of the six longest serving democracies in the world. I, and many other Australians right across this nation, fought, just over 10 years ago, to retain the wonderful system of government that we have: constitutional monarchy. We fought well, and the Australian people unanimously supported the current constitutional arrangements that we have. That does not mean that politicians cannot muck up the system we have. It does not mean that political parties cannot have corrupt officials that try and interfere with voting and ballot papers. You cannot quarantine our political system from those very severe human failings. The foundation of our democracy rests on the operation of an electoral system that is fair, transparent and administered with a high level of integrity. The bill before the House today makes a number of administrative changes that affect the operation of the electoral system. Some of the changes proposed are fine and arguably will improve the system; however, some of the changes that the Labor government is hoping to make with this bill are, in my view, severely retrograde steps that will undermine the integrity of the electoral system.

At the outset, I want to say that it is right and fitting that any government remains vigilant and makes changes that are necessary to improve the integrity of the system. But, as we know from much government legislation, change is not necessarily always change for the better or change to improve a particular scheme or legislation. The Howard government was very vigilant about trying to improve the electoral system. We passed a number of bills to strengthen and protect it. At the core of the electoral system is the joint Commonwealth-state electoral roll, which is used for the conduct of all elections at local, state and federal levels. For as long as there have been political systems, there have been jokes and stories and legends about dead people voting—about cats voting?

Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Health Services, Health and Wellbeing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

‘Curacao Fischer Catt’.

Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

‘Curacao Fischer Catt’—and other dodgy practices. The fact is that, until very recently, the integrity of the roll has been based largely on trust, and it still is to a certain degree. It was only under the Howard government in 1997 that the AEC commenced a process of continuous roll update, which includes mailing and doorknocking campaigns to help ensure that the roll is as accurate as possible.

Schedule 1 of this bill seeks to change the deadline for the closure of rolls for an election, once writs are issued. The Howard government, in the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2005, quite rightly reduced the period from seven days to 8 pm on the third working day after the writs are issued. The fact is that the seven-day period created an absolute influx of new enrolments and changes to enrolments, the sheer number of which made it near impossible for any verification to occur. The report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters in 2002 stated:

Whilst acknowledging the efforts made by the AEC in attempting to ensure that the electoral roll is updated with integrity during the close of rolls period, the Committee considers that the volume of transactions which takes place during that period limits the AEC’s ability to conduct the thorough and appropriate checks required to ensure that integrity.

While there is no doubt that the calling of an election is often a catalyst for people to enrol or update their enrolment details, we have to weigh this against the possibility of a proportion of the enrolments that come in during this period being either fraudulent or invalid.

There is a significant problem with the Labor Party’s bleating about potential voters being disenfranchised. In 2004, under Labor’s seven-day grace period, there were 169,000 people who missed out on the enrolment deadline. In 2007, under the coalition’s three-day grace period, 100,000 people missed out—that is, 40 per cent fewer people missed out. And they are not the estimates from the coalition; these are estimates of the AEC. So the whole argument about voters being disenfranchised is false and factually incorrect.

Those of us who have been involved in politics for some time know that individual seats—and, indeed, even governments—can be decided by the narrowest of margins. The 1996 Mundingburra by-election in the state of Queensland is a case in point. The 1995 state election had seen the Goss government returned with a majority of just one seat. The result of the 1995 state election in the seat of Mundingburra, where the incumbent Labor member had been declared the victor with just 16 votes, was disputed by the Liberal Party. When the Court of Disputed Returns declared the result of the Mundingburra seat void and ordered a by-election, it was absolutely clear how critical the integrity of the rolls and the voting system were. Ultimately, the seat was won by the Liberal candidate and, as a consequence, the state Labor government lost power and the coalition took office.

So let us not be dismissive or glib about the absolute importance of ensuring the integrity of the rolls. A handful of votes do matter. They have mattered in the past and they will matter in the future. Not so long ago we saw that happen in McEwen, and I am sure my Victorian colleague, the member for McEwen, who has experienced some very close results, can attest to how crucial it is that any potential for fraud is negated and how critical it is that the potential for situations such as we have seen in the past, where we have seen fraudulent votes having a huge impact on election results, is eliminated.

The fact is that there have been documented incidents of electoral fraud in the past. To give some substance to the argument, we need to review some of these past examples, so that people out there listening to this debate and people who read the Hansard can understand what drives the passion in many of us to have integrity in the roll. Once again, Queensland is one of those states that provides us with myriad interesting political examples. This time we can turn to North Queensland where, in 2000, the state Labor candidate for Thurowinga, a former Townsville city councillor, pleaded guilty to 24 counts of forging Commonwealth electoral enrolment forms. She was sentenced to three years imprisonment.

Because ALP ballots for preselection are linked to entries on the joint state/Commonwealth electoral roll, there were all sorts implications about how the widely-known practice of ‘branch-stacking’ impinged on the integrity of the electoral roll. In fact, if I recall correctly, Labor’s golden boy, Mike Kaiser—who was recently handed the $450,000 a year plum job as head of the Rudd government’s National Broadband Network—was forced to resign as a state member of parliament over the findings of the Shepherdson inquiry, which found he had been involved in vote rigging in the 1980s. And how does the Labor Party respond to that? They say, ‘Good on ya, mate; here, have a $450,000 job.’

Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Health Services, Health and Wellbeing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He took one for the team.

Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, they said: ‘You’ve taken one for the team; here’s your reward. We won’t advertise for that particular job. You’ve served the Labor Party well; here is your reward.’ It is perhaps an indication of how seriously the Labor Party regard the offence of electoral fraud today—not in the 1980s, not in the last decade but today—that, following his resignation, Mr Kaiser—also a former state secretary—went on the become chief of staff to not one but two state Labor premiers—

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Indi will return to the provisions of the bill.

Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The provisions of the bill regard the integrity of the rolls and the sort of behaviour that—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And the member for Indi is at liberty to speak to those provisions.

Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member is speaking to those provisions and to the essential issue of integrity of the rolls. The Deputy Speaker, in his role as the member for Wills, is, I am sure, aware of the importance of retaining integrity of the rolls, particularly in his electorate, where there are some very interesting goings-on in Labor Party ethnic branches as well.

It is becoming apparent that the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy is a very generous broker of deals for his good mates.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I have asked the member for Indi to return to the provisions of the bill. If the member for Indi wishes to defy the chair, I will sit her down and call the next speaker.

Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Going back directly to the issue of integrity of the rolls—as encompassed in this bill and not as reflected in other states and past practices—it is common sense to minimise the potential for false enrolments. There is now in place an ongoing campaign to ensure the roll is updated and there are also active education campaigns to encourage people to enrol to vote as soon as they are eligible and to update their voting details when moving house. This should be an ongoing process—not one that people do just when election time comes and they have to vote. Allowing a massive influx of enrolment additions and alterations to the roll during the first week of an election campaign, severely affects the AEC’s ability to ensure the integrity of the roll. I will therefore be joining my colleagues in opposing the measure in schedule 1 of this bill.

11:29:18

For similar reasons, I also strongly oppose the measure in schedule 2 of the bill, which repeals the requirement for provisional voters to provide proof of ID. Once again, this was a strengthening provision put in place by the Howard government and I am bewildered why the Rudd Labor government would seek to wind back this integrity measure. You need to show proof of ID to join a video library, you need to show proof of ID to hire a bike to ride around Lake Burley Griffin just outside these doors and surely it is not too much to ask for proof of ID when casting a provisional vote. We are talking about a provisional vote which is cast when someone’s name cannot be found on the electoral roll or when they are already marked as having voted. Surely, it is not too much to ask in a case like this, where there is already some dispute as to eligibility to vote, that the person applying provides some basic identification. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister claimed in his second reading speech:

The AEC estimates that over 27,000 provisional votes were excluded at the 2007 federal election due to the operation of the existing evidence of identity provisions.

I say that gives cause to look more closely at the problems that have led to these people needing to declare a provisional vote. I am also somewhat surprised that in this day and age people are either unable or unwilling to provide proof of identity. I do not think the answer should be to relax integrity provisions and I therefore oppose this measure.

The other measures in this bill are worthy of support and will arguably improve the electoral system. The treatment of pre-poll votes as ordinary while not in any way diminishing the process of pre-polling—which is becoming increasingly more popular with every election—will mean that these votes can be counted on the day of the election and will allow for a more accurate assessment of voting results on polling night. The amendments relating to the processing of enrolments will not impact on the integrity of the count or the roll and I support them. The restriction on the number of candidates a party can endorse is also a commonsense provision that will arguably reduce confusion on polling day; which we have seen occur in past elections when there have been numerous candidates for certain seats.

In summary, it is unfortunate that the Labor government has coupled a few measures that may slightly improve the electoral system with two that clearly undermine and diminish the integrity of it, but it is no surprise when we see the record of so many Labor luminaries when it comes to the integrity of voting, the integrity of ballots and the integrity of the roll. For that reason, this bill must to be opposed strongly by anyone who is passionate about preserving our democratic system of government, preserving the voice of the people and preserving the integrity of an electoral system that underpins our wonderful democracy.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010. Members on both sides of the chamber have been given a fair degree of latitude in the matters that they have raised today.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I hope the honourable member for Blair is not reflecting on previous occupants of the chair?

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My observation is reflecting on what has been said this morning. I will address the bill in detail, but the previous speaker, the member for Indi, and particularly the member for North Sydney, made some terrible, irrelevant and quite scurrilous allegations concerning the Treasurer which were not really directed at this bill. I come from Queensland, as you do, Mr Deputy Speaker Slipper, and in that state you will see a long history on the conservative side of politics of the maladministration of electoral laws and the malapportionment of electoral boundaries—what became known as Joh Bjelke-Peterson’s gerrymander. There was the time when the National Party found itself in a majority position in government with about 18 per cent of the primary vote. We heard allegations during the days of the Fitzgerald inquiry of dead people voting in certain coalition held electorates in Brisbane.

No side of politics is virginal in this matter and no side of politics is unsullied. The Australian people expect better of us. To see crocodile tears from those opposite on this matter while making serious and unnecessary allegations against the probity and the integrity of the Treasurer is a disgrace. Today the member for Indi cast terrible aspersions upon the integrity of previous Labor administrations in Queensland and upon certain persons as well. This is not what the Australian public expects of the people who sit on these honoured benches. They expect us to carry out our jobs and to give the Australian Electoral Commission the necessary resources to make sure that electoral contests in this country are done with fairness, integrity and democratically.

It is simply wrong for those opposite to raise these types of allegations in a bill before this chamber. You can disagree with us, vote accordingly and say what you have to say, but do not go so far and do not make such allegations. The Australian public thinks that when we do these sorts of things in this chamber we are not doing our duty and we are failing them. That is what the member for Indi and particularly the member for North Sydney have done today. They should not have done what they did, and I believe the Australian public will judge them harshly for it.

I lived in the state of Queensland until I was 28 years of age before we saw a change of government, except for the National Party winning in their own right in 1983. Many times during that period we saw electoral contests where the boundaries were unfair and the electoral system was stacked against one side. We should never go back to those days in Queensland, regardless of which side of politics sits on the Treasury bench. Down here as well, I believe that these laws which we are seeking to enact today will assist the integrity and the operational aspects of the democratic process which we hold dear.

The Australian Electoral Commission is widely respected by both sides of the House and by the Australian public. When we see events that occur overseas in Third World countries, and even our great ally the United States, during contests like the one in Florida in the Bush-Gore years, we wonder how this could happen and we say, ‘Thank goodness it would not happen in Australia.’ The provisions in this bill will make our system better. I am pleased that those opposite will support some of them. I cannot understand why they will not support the others, except for base political motives.

Briefly, the changes deal with the recommendations in the report of the Joint Committee on Electoral Matters. The committee’s report on the 2007 federal election and other matters contained 53 recommendations, 45 of which have been unanimously supported. The recommendations go a long way towards examining what really happened in 2007 and how we can improve the electoral system in this country.

There has been a problem in this country with respect to our population and the gap with respect to electoral enrolment. In the history of this nation we have not always had a situation where everyone had a right to vote, such as 18-year-olds and women. There was a property franchise at one stage in the 19th century, and the states all in their own way passed legislation, obviously with support of the UK government, to progressively enfranchise the Australian population. Across our country today there is a strong commitment to democracy, and I think that the schedules in this legislation will improve it. But there has been a growing concern in the Australian public, and certainly the commentariat and political blogs online also refer to this, that we have a situation where about 1.4 million eligible voters are not on the electoral roll. Many of them are young people. At the many school graduations, prefect inductions and citizenship ceremonies that I go to, I am very pleased to see the Australian Electoral Commission present. I am very pleased with the attitude of school principals and school teachers with respect to citizenship encouragement and with political activism and participation also being encouraged in our schools. But sadly, some people do not take the necessary steps to enrol. Declining enrolments, particularly in areas where there have been transient populations, are a difficulty. If you also look at the populations in states like South Australia, where the population is fairly static, there is a much higher enrolment per population than in fast-growing areas like Queensland and Western Australia.

The AEC needs to be resourced better and to be given encouragement and assistance to increase and improve the enrolment situation across this country. We have got to do things and take steps to remove obstacles to enrolment, and I think the amendments in this bill go a long way towards that. Schedule 1 of the bill deals with the closing of the rolls for an election. The AEC has said on numerous occasions that about one in five Australians change their residence very electoral cycle. We are very socially mobile people. Unfortunately, there is enrolment slippage when that occurs. In areas that I have the honour and privilege of representing, there are large housing estates, and the electorate of Blair in south-east Queensland covers most of Ipswich and a lot of the West Moreton area. Where there are new housing estates, you look at the census collection districts and you wonder why there are not more people on the electoral roll. This will improve if we resource and give the AEC more assistance and if we allow people a greater period of time, a period of grace in which to enrol and to lengthen the period of time for the close of the rolls.

I think that what happens then is that the people who are representing electorates in this House, across the 150 constituencies, become better representatives and there is a more democratic outcome if people who live in an area can vote in an area. If you have moved, say, from Brisbane to Ipswich, as so many people have, or if you have moved from the southern states to the rural areas outside, there are a lot of people who actually do not take up enrolment straightaway and vote in places like New South Wales. Certainly Queensland has a large percentage of people who come from New South Wales every year.

I think that giving voters sufficient time to enrol to vote makes our system more democratic and I cannot see why we cannot resource the AEC appropriately, efficiently and effectively to process the increased number of people with a longer period of grace. As I see it, the AEC has not been complaining that it is not fully and appropriately funded to fulfil its obligations. Extending the period of enrolment means that more transient people can get on the roll, it improves the democratic process and, I think, it is a better outcome for all concerned. It also encourages people who have fallen off through electoral enrolment slippage to get back on, but it also means that people who have not enrolled in the first place can get on the roll. I think that is a good outcome and a democratic response by the Rudd Labor government.

The second issue that the opposition takes umbrage at is that of evidence of identity and provisional votes. We have heard some quite amazing statements from those opposite concerning provisional voting, as if somehow there has been a flurry of fraudulent and false attempts to vote at federal elections. The member for Isaacs outlined this in detail. He put it very well and I have no reason to repeat what he had to say, which is that it is simply not true.

There are a number of ways people vote, and we have seen an increase in other than ordinary votes in this country over the last few years. In the electorate of Blair in 2004 there were 483 provisional votes, 2,577 pre-poll votes, 5,330 absentee votes and 5,201 postal votes. In 2007 the informal vote in Blair—not too dissimilar to the average across the country—was 3.87 per cent. There were 3,053 pre-poll votes, 99 provisional votes, 5,114 postal votes and 4,248 absentee votes.

I want to focus on the provisional votes, because they are what the second schedule in the bill deals with. Provisional votes are the votes of people who go to vote in circumstances where, for example, they cannot be found on the roll and they have to prove their identity. The AEC estimates that over 27,000 provisional votes were excluded in the 2007 federal election due to the operation of existing evidence of identity provisions. The Howard government effectively, through the onerous provisions that the member for Isaacs outlined in his speech earlier, made it more difficult for people to cast their vote. Look at the electorate of Blair, for example. There were 483 provisional votes in 2004 and 99 in 2007. This is about the coalition being concerned at the high level of Labor voting by people engaged in provisional voting.

I am indebted to Peter Brent from Mumble Politics, a very well known blog that many in this House look at on a regular basis, for really nailing this in an article he wrote on 11 January 2008. This is very important for those people opposite who say they are pure and unsullied and that there were no base motives for changing the identity provisions to make it harder for people to vote on a provisional basis. They should just listen to these facts about the outcome. According to Mr Brent, the provisional vote in 2004 in this country was 81,129. It was down in 2007 to 21,909—a drop of 73 per cent. We are talking tens of thousands of people disenfranchised as a result of the changes the Howard government brought in.

Those people opposite think that people who are, say, challenged or poor, or are disadvantaged in some way, or are itinerant should be punished—well, the Howard government were all in favour of doing that. I will tell you why in 2004—remembering that the changes were brought in by John Howard before the 2007 election—this is how the voting went: absentee vote, two-party preferred Labor, 47.3 percent; pre-poll Labor, 45.3 per cent; postal Labor, 41.7 per cent; total declared vote, 45.3 per cent Labor. Interestingly enough, in 2004, prior to the Howard government’s so-called reforms, the two-party preferred provisional vote for Labor, in an election in which we got thrashed—as a candidate in Blair I got absolutely smashed—was 53.5 per cent. Making it more difficult for those people who vote provisionally has an electoral consequence for the coalition. That is why they did it.

Let’s look at the figures for 2007: absentee vote, two-party preferred Labor, 53.4 per cent; pre-poll Labor, 51.5 per cent; postal Labor, 46.8 per cent; total declared vote, 50.8 per cent Labor. Guess what the provisional vote was? With a reduction from 81,129 votes to 21,909 votes, the two-party preferred provisional vote for Labor was 60.9 per cent. The facts are very clear. The purpose of the Howard government provision to make it more difficult for people to vote provisionally is simply about disenfranchising potential voters who generally might vote Labor. That is what it is about, and that is why they did it. And that is why the Electoral Commission says so many people did not end up voting.

The other changes, I am very pleased to say, are supported by the coalition. I am happy that they are because they are really administrative efficiency measures. They are about ensuring that voters can update their enrolment electronically, which will modernise, in the 21st century, our electoral law. They bring to our electoral system a 21st-century response.

The other change solves a problem that was clear in the Bradfield by-election. At that by-election, the Christian Democratic Party should not have done what they did—putting up so many candidates, resulting in a high informal vote. If we can limit political parties to endorsing one candidate in each electorate, that will prevent a flood of candidates and will stop what was, I think, an intention to confuse the voters in that by-election.

I think the changes here fulfil what the Rudd government said it would do. They fulfil an election commitment to restore the seven-day close-of-rolls period and to repeal the provisional voting requirements. I think the changes we are making are genuine and bona fide. It is a good thing to be able to compare the signature of an elector on the envelope containing a provisional vote with the signature of the elector on previously lodged enrolment in order to check their bona fides. In the circumstances, I support the legislation. (Time expired)

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the member for Forrest, I believe that one of my very core responsibilities as a federal member of parliament is to protect the democratic rights of Australians, including those in my electorate, which is why I rise to speak on theElectoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010. This legislation, which amends the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 and the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Act 1984, contains five schedules. As we have heard, the coalition is supportive of schedules 3, 4 and 5. However, as has also been expressed, we do have very serious concerns with schedules 1 and 2—very serious problems, in fact.

Schedule 1 of this legislation provides amendments which will restore the closure of rolls period to seven days after the issue of the writ for an election. The previous government, in line with a longstanding policy, moved to protect the integrity of the roll and prevent fraudulent enrolments by reducing the time period between the calling of an election and the closure of the rolls. I would also like to note that this policy was reaffirmed in the coalition senators’ minority report in the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters June 2009 Report on the conduct of the 2007 federal election and matters related thereto. The closure of the rolls seven days after the issue of a writ is a significant threat to the integrity of the electoral roll and can have a major influence on the result of elections, particularly in marginal seats—which may be why the Labor government is proposing the legislation. However, a return to the previous system of seven days will discourage citizens from making or maintaining their enrolment during the ordinary course of the year because they will have the opportunity to wait until the election is called. I know that it is important that Australian citizens take very seriously the currency of their enrolment. Schedule 1 will also increase the opportunity for selective fraudulent enrolment.

The other schedule that my fellow colleagues and I oppose is schedule 2, which repeals the requirement for provisional voters to provide evidence of identity before their votes are admitted to scrutiny. People impersonating other voters can be a serious issue which can and will have a direct impact on the end result of an election. I should think that, in this parliament, our focus on this issue should be about a fair process which the citizens of Australia can and should rely on as an accurate representation of their voting intention. This is at the very heart of a truly democratic system and something which, in Australia, we should jealously guard. The will of the people is paramount and the will of the people must prevail in a transparent process, not that of those seeking to manipulate the results in any way.

Requiring that people who claim a provisional vote at the election to produce evidence of their true identity and their enrolled address, either on polling day or in the week following polling day, is surely a fundamental part of the integrity and transparency of our Australian democratic process, and is critical in reducing that form of fraudulent activity. The coalition opposes any proposal to weaken the rules concerning proof of identity for provisional votes. Such a weakening would certainly not encourage Australian citizens to maintain their active and accurate enrolment status, something which is such a right and a privilege in Australia—you only have to travel to know that. We cannot afford to erode that right and that privilege. Accurate enrolment status is a fundamental underpinning of the democratic process.

People who live at a location for 21 days are, by law, required to enrol at that address and, if they do not, they are literally breaking the law. Effectively, the changes proposed by the Labor government mean that there will be no consequence for breaching the Electoral Act in this way. Furthermore, there are benefits for individuals who maintain correct enrolments, and these are basically reduced to a zero value—you are not rewarded because you have taken responsibility, the responsibility of your vote as an Australian citizen. On the other side, there is no disincentive for people who fail to enrol correctly and that undermines the AEC Continuous Roll Update program.

These two schedules, if passed, would open the electoral process to potential rorting and undermine the confidence of the Australian people in the transparency and integrity of our system—that very process that we, in this House in federal parliament, are charged with protecting. The right to our democracy is our absolute fundamental right and the right of every Australian. We do not want to see anything that erodes that through election results. One of my main concerns, and that of Australians who want to see an accurate reflection of their vote and who take very seriously their rights and responsibilities to maintain their accurate presence and location on the electoral roll, is the impact these schedules could have on marginal seats where the results can come down to a mere handful of votes. Again, we want to see the will of the people reflected in the outcome.

In these cases an increase in the number of fraudulent votes, due to the closing of the roll and/or identity evidence changes, could well mean an inaccurate result, and the will—the very will—and the right of the Australian people would not be reflected as a result. It would place into serious question the Australian concept of the integrity of our democratic process. That is the last thing anyone in this place should want. This is a very serious issue that would not only deprive the rightful winner of the seat but also deprive the voters in the electorate, who would not necessarily see their voting intention reflected in the result. As I said earlier, I believe that Australia’s fundamental democratic principles have been established to ensure that the very will of the Australian people is reflected in the results, irrespective of who is elected. That is a fundamental right of the Australian people. They elect who they want to govern the country, who will govern this country and who will be the various individual representatives in their respective electorates. It needs to be delivered with integrity, with transparency, without apprehension, without intimidation and without unrest in any way shape or form following a federal election. That is what we need to guard in this country. If there is a change of government in this country, there is a smooth transition—and it happens. We need to guard and protect this in a very direct way.

The coalition is supportive of schedules 3 to 5. Schedule 3 will enable a prepoll vote to be cast in an elector’s home division and counted as an ordinary vote wherever practicable. It proposes these voters as ordinary voters. Currently, there is a significant administrative burden on the AEC for processing prepoll votes cast within the elector’s own division. The net effect of this proposal is that there will not be any consequences, either for the integrity of the roll or for polling day practices. An additional benefit is that prepoll votes will be able to be counted on the night, leading to an earlier and more accurate result of the vote. This is particularly useful given the significant percentage of the total votes made up by prepoll levels. As mentioned earlier, this is useful to the outcomes in marginal electorates.

Schedule 4 is an administrative amendment that will allow the AEC to transfer workload relating to the processing of enrolments between different divisional returning officers. This amendment will see stronger efficiencies by the divisional returning officers because they will be able to distribute the work to other officers during particularly high levels of demand or during staff sickness or leave requirement periods. It will also allow people who are already on the roll to update their details electronically. Schedule 5 aims to restrict the number of candidates that can be endorsed by a registered political party in each division. The amendments in this legislation will mean that a registered officer will only be able to nominate one candidate as an endorsed candidate for a single division in any state or territory. We can certainly see the benefits of that in this schedule.

In conclusion, as highlighted earlier, the coalition recognises the importance of protecting the integrity of the electoral system and is strongly opposed to any measures that could increase the rorting of any of these processes. The member for Goldstein highlighted the inaccuracies in specific Commonwealth data that could be replicated through the electoral roll. Given this, the coalition is supportive of schedules 3, 4 and 5. However, it opposes schedules 1 and 2 on all points, as they will not only reduce the integrity of the electoral roll but also could impact on the final results of elections and not reflect the will of the Australian people in those electorates.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me a great deal of pleasure to rise and support the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010. We have been hearing a lot lately from some quarters about the importance of governments keeping their election promises. I am pleased to say that this bill represents the fulfilment of commitments made by Labor at the 2007 election and, indeed, well before the election. We have said that these amendments actually go towards some of the most important debates that this nation can have about the quality and direction of politics. I believe the electoral roll is perhaps one of the most important books in Australia. It is an ever-changing, ever-updating embodiment of our democracy. It is the practical guarantee of a theoretical right to a free vote, the right to which there have been disputes and arguments and for which people have marched, fought and endured all sorts of struggles to achieve.

Our right to vote is one that thousands of new immigrants and refugees who have come to this country have clutched tightly, scarcely able to believe that they can cast a vote without fear of violence or reprisals, without fear of a knock on the door in the middle of the night. The right to a free vote is, in fact, one of our oldest rights in the history of our great country and it is part of the gift-wrapped bundle that today’s citizens have presented to them. I believe it sits along with habeas corpus, trial by jury, freedom of expression and the right to join a union, as part of Australia’s compact of rights with its citizens. The sanctity of the electoral roll is safeguarded by those guardians of political neutrality at the Australian Electoral Commission. I believe the importance of our electoral roll is often taken for granted by those of us who have been lucky enough to have been born in this country and to have spent our lives in a stable and functioning democracy.

In 1903, two years after Federation, the Australian Electoral Commission prepared the first nationwide electoral roll with two million people, estimated to have been at 96 per cent of the adult population of Australia at that time. It was the most comprehensive enrolment of any nation up to that time for the purposes of democracy. Along with the franchise for women and the secret ballot, it is one of the ways in which Australia has led the world in the development of democracy. It set a benchmark that has been maintained by the good work of the Australian Electoral Commission ever since. Indeed, in 2005, 96.3 per cent of people eligible to vote were enrolled and enrolled in their correct division.

I am sad to say that, despite the venerable, noble and precious history of the electoral roll, its integrity was the subject of a campaign of sniping and undermining by our predecessors, the Howard government. Vague allegations of rorts and voter fraud were used to justify measures that were supposedly aimed at tightening the roll but were really attempts to disenfranchise voters. Most notable among these decisions was to end the traditional practice of closing the rolls seven days after the calling of an election and to replace this with a roll that closed at 8 pm on the day the election is called—never mind the fact that up to 100,00 people enrol or upgrade their addresses in those seven days, never mind that the Howard government change would be enough to deprive nearly 100,000 people of their votes and never mind that the Liberal government of the day forgot that in 1983 the Liberal Party, with eminent representatives such as John Carrick, proposed that there should be this seven-day grace period after the calling of an election. The very idea that the Howard government overturned had been in part born through Liberal Party concerns in 1983 that closing the roll on the day the election was called was some sort of secret socialist plot where the Labor Party would have been campaigning to sign people up to the electoral roll and then, when it believed that it had sufficient numbers, the election would be called and the rolls would be closed.

In fact, it was the Liberal Party in 1983 who proposed and supported a seven-day extension; but, unfortunately, as we know, the later years of the Howard government included a Liberal Party which bore little resemblance to some of its more principled predecessors. It was a measure which was pushed by the Howard government as part of an ideological determination to remove from the roll all those they felt might be inclined to vote against them. This measure we are seeking to change was a form of practical discrimination against young people and against tenants who do not have the security of a mortgage but need to move from time to time. Often these people are amongst the poorest and most vulnerable in our society. They are often Indigenous Australians, people with disabilities and people suffering from mental illness.

It was a tawdry, transparent attempt to limit the participation of Australians in the national conversation which is our democracy. We thought it smelled at the time and we made an election promise to change it back. I know it smelled because here in the chamber is the member for Melbourne Ports, who was the canary in the coalmine—the smeller of Liberal trickery who made this point even then. But now I am pleased to say to him that, through this bill, we are keeping the promise.

A second change made by this bill is to remove the restrictions on casting a provisional vote, which also stripped away the right of Australians to have their vote counted. Provisional votes are cast by those who turn up to a polling place only to discover that they are not on the roll. Under the Howard government, they were required to provide identification at the polling booth or within five days of the election. It is estimated that this requirement, sprung on people who honestly believed that they had placed themselves on the roll, denied 30,000 people the chance to cast a valid vote. The opposition claims made by Senator Eric Abetz and others that the electoral roll is compromised and that it was riddled with fake enrolments or inaccuracies have never been backed up by evidence. The mythical bogeyman of electoral fraud and false enrolments on the federal roll was whispered by those opposite but, like the Loch Ness monster or the abominable snowman, it was much easier to talk about than to catch.

A review in 2002 by the Australian National Audit Office found over 96 per cent accuracy, which rose to over 99 per cent when matching the roll against Medicare data. The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters conducted a thorough investigation into the integrity of the electoral roll in 2001. It found only 71 cases of fraud between 1990 and 2001, a period which included no less than five federal elections and a referendum. The Electoral Commission noted that these false enrolments were not deliberate attempts to corrupt or unduly influence electoral results.

We have a strong and honest system in this country. We are not bedevilled by the parade of hanging chads, spoiled ballots and unreliable electronic machines that turned the 2000 US presidential election into a farce. Our simpler and modest system—of pencils and paper and curtained booths in school halls, the generally peaceful milling of candidates and supporters around parent sausage sizzles in school playgrounds and the counting by dedicated volunteers recruited by the AEC—delivers fair result after fair result. To try to pretend that electoral fraud is a persistent problem in this country is a slur on both the electorate and the Australian Electoral Commission. One tightening of the rules that will be made by this bill is an end to the practice of allowing the returning officer of a political party to nominate more than one candidate for a House of Representatives division. In the Bradfield by-election held recently, nine different candidates were nominated by the registered officer of the Christian Democratic (Fred Nile Group) out of a total of 22 candidates on the ballot paper. I believe instances like this undermine the quality of our system and provide, either deliberately or inadvertently, confusion for voters. This bill includes the common-sense provision that the registered officer of a registered political party is able to nominate only one candidate as an endorsed candidate for any single division in any state or territory.

Australia is one of the oldest members of the global family of democracies. We have a system of compulsory voting—or, to be precise, compulsory attendance at the polling booth—which does seem odd to some visitors to our country. But I suggest that it is as uniquely and importantly Australian as our coat of arms. It is a way of ensuring that every government elected can rightly claim the support of the majority of the population. This is unlike the great United States of America, where despite its many, many strengths Congress representatives or senators can be elected by less than 50 per cent of the adult population. I believe the drift away from people voting in elections can only be a negative in any democracy.

Democratic societies create responsibilities as well as rights. I believe one of those responsibilities is participation in elections. But this can only be done with that most important book that I referred to before—an accurate electoral roll—and a process that does not place needless hurdles in the way of those wishing to play their part in the democratic process. It is a government’s duty to preserve the right to vote by making the practice of voting as easy as possible. This bill aims to do that and to remove unnecessary obstacles in the way of people exercising their responsibilities to vote.

The constant evolution of our democracy in both the United Kingdom and Australia has been one of the continual widenings of the franchise. Laws which limited voting to the nobility—that is, those considered to have the right blood and background to run the country—have been gradually extended over time. Wealth or property quotas have been introduced. The reform acts of the United Kingdom have certainly widened the franchise. However, the wealth and property quotas, whilst more democratic than what they preceded, have certainly still denied the majority of citizens the right to choose their government.

At the Eureka Stockade people fought for their rights—not just those of property owners—to be extended and, eventually arising from that and the efforts of a nascent, progressive Labor movement and indeed the Deakinite Liberal tradition, franchises have been extended in the new world. The franchise was extended to women in 1903 and finally, and far too late, to Indigenous citizens of this country of the 1960s. I found it remarkable as a young man with an interest politics when my mother, who has five tertiary qualifications and has worked her whole life, informed me that in Victoria she could not vote in the Legislative Council elections because she lacked the sufficient property qualification when she was a young woman. I do find it remarkable, in any day and age, when people are excluded from the right to vote because they lack sufficient property. Unfortunately, I believe the previous government—perhaps not intentionally or perhaps so; I do not know what was in their minds—did endeavour to throw the engine of history into reverse and to wind back the franchise enjoyed by Australians. This, I suggest, was an aberration in our democratic evolution, and I believe we are right to correct that wrong.

Our country quite rightly takes the title of one of the world’s oldest continuing democracies. In fact, we were a democracy both in spirit and in practice even before we formally achieved independence in 1901. I believe that the notion of equality as typified by the spontaneous outbreak of anger at injustice and unfair taxes at the Ballarat goldfields is hardwired into our national DNA. This is translated into a democracy that is both robust and civil, where ideas are treated on their merits and where politicians are repeatedly reminded not to get ahead of themselves. Our system has survived two world wars, a depression and a dismissal and emerged stronger from each. During the First World War, the people were twice asked to decide whether conscription should be introduced in this country because politicians trusted the instinct of the people on such a grave matter. This bill, I believe, is a contribution to strengthening democracy and ensuring that all Australians retain their right to vote, not just in theory but in reality. I commend this bill to the House.

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was interesting to hear the impassioned pleas of the member for Maribyrnong to give people the right to break the law in terms of their registration to vote. Let us get these facts straight. Part VIII, section 101(6), of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 says:

A person who fails to comply with subsection(1), (4) or (5) is guilty of an offence punishable on conviction by a fine not exceeding 1 penalty unit.

And what does section 101(5A) tell us? It states:

… every person who is entitled to have his or her name placed on the Roll for any Subdivision whether by way of enrolment or transfer of enrolment, and whose name is not on the Roll upon the expiration of 21 days from the date upon which the person became so entitled, or at any subsequent date while the person continues to be so entitled, shall be guilty of an offence—

as described by me previously. So the member for Maribyrnong stands up here and says there ought to be a special deal for everybody who has failed their legal responsibility under the Electoral Act. Who are these people? They are all people who have been to school. The member made special reference to the young. The young can register for a vote any time after they turn 17—that is, one year before they are entitled to cast a vote—and the member for Maribyrnong tells us that they are all too thick, all too simple or all too corrupt to take that option.

The fact of life is that every schoolkid is told at school about their rights to vote. Unfortunately, in some schools they get told how to vote, and that is something that annoys me no end. It might not be as direct as what would come out of the mouth of the member for Maribyrnong in advising his children, but the reality is that children know and children have a responsibility. That is not a right to leave it until the last minute. There is nothing in the Electoral Act that says that. The Electoral Act says that you have a responsibility as a citizen of Australia. If, as the member for Maribyrnong tells us, all our hearts are beating for that, how can the Labor Party consistently argue that provisions must exist in the act for people who have broken the fundamental principle of the act? That principle is that enrolment is compulsory and that it is compulsory within 21 days of eligibility or of changing your address. That is the law, and yet Labor comes in here and says it is all too hard. Yes, it is all too hard for those who have rorted the system.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Rorted!

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Rorted the system. I am going to read to you evidence given by Labor members back in those Queensland days, as reported at the time in the media, where admissions of that nature were known.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What federal election did they involve themselves in?

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, do you remember a fellow called Elder, the Deputy Premier of Queensland?

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Danby interjecting

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The evidence was that Elder resigned his seat as Deputy Premier of Queensland after being caught out placing other people and himself on electoral rolls where they were not eligible.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The honourable member for Melbourne Ports ought not to interject from out of his seat. Otherwise, I will be compelled to deal with him.

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And who were some of the notables as reported at that time in an official inquiry into these matters, the Shepherdson report? We find there are other identities. One was Mr Mike Kaiser. He had to resign from his office and I think as a member of parliament, as a backbencher. There was also Mr Gary Fenlon. Mr Powell has accused Mr Fenlon of providing addresses of safe houses where voters could be illegally enrolled.

What about this one: vote early and vote often. Another answer was given by the then Special Minister of State—Chris Ellison, in this case—on 6 November 2000 in the Courier-Mail. The Special Minister of State at that time pointed out that a Labor official, a member of the 1987 federal election campaign team, revealed that he and other ALP supporters cast numerous votes for Mr Lavarch, a well-known person at that time—I think Attorney-General in the Hawke government—and other ALP candidates in state and federal elections by illegally impersonating other people. This is evidence in the Courier-Mail expose. He gives an example of how Labor went about rorting the electoral process. The article states:

On polling day in Fisher—

this Labor member recalls—

there were many female names on the rort list, but a lack of women in on the scam. “But we got one young girl of 16 from Young Labor who thought it was quite exciting. She voted 14 times.”

I want to draw this to the attention of the member for Maribyrnong because of his great enthusiasm for legislating for these rorts. In the 1996 election, polling was telling Labor that one of their senior people, no other than Kim Beazley, was at risk of being defeated in the electorate of Brand. So what happened? There was a trebling in provisional votes on election day. The primary votes were running at 51 per cent in favour of the Liberal candidate, but they opened up the provisional votes under the rules of that time, in which they were virtually accepted on the grounds of someone signing a piece of paper to the effect that, ‘I do live in the electorate, at this address,’ and nobody ever went around before they opened those votes and knocked on the door to see who did live at that address. The votes were running across the board, in Labor boxes and in Liberal boxes, at 51 per cent for the Liberal candidate. But it was tight, and when they opened the provisional votes, which were treble the average, they ran 80 per cent to 20 per cent in favour of the Labor candidate. Now how would that happen? The member for Maribyrnong is a great student, I would imagine, of voting principles. He would have had to campaign for his position in a previous life. Once the trend is established in box after box after box, it stays that way. Provisional votes were cast in all those boxes and yet they ran absolutely contrary to what happened.

The member for Maribyrnong mentioned the act as it exists and complained about it. A person who is not on the roll is asked to perform the simple act of showing some identification. If you front up at an airport and you have a previous booking, what do they say before they give you your boarding pass? They ask, ‘Have you got any identification?’ You invariably have, because in this day and age you carry your drivers licence. And why do you carry it? Because some policeman is likely to stop you and say, ‘Where’s your licence?’ It has a photo on it and it is acceptable identification. Yet all of a sudden in one of the electorates, and it was Fran Bailey’s electorate—tell me quickly, Bronnie: what is it called?

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

McEwen.

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

McEwen. In the electorate of McEwen the incumbency of the sitting member was eventually decided in the High Court, and one of the reasons that her votes were considered more valid than her opponent’s was that 200 people or thereabouts who had entered a polling booth and claimed a provisional vote were unable to present identification on the spot. But, what is more, they did not bother to take that five-day opportunity to identify themselves—and these are the people the member for Maribyrnong tells us are so anxious to participate in the political process.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So you support an ID card?

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, why didn’t they? There is a provision in the existing legislation for if you have emptied out your pockets as you run in to vote and you do not have any identification upon you. Let’s talk about young people in that category for a minute. They know they cannot get into a licensed establishment, a nightclub, without presenting some identification that proves they are of age to enter those premises, but all of a sudden they go off to vote and their pockets are empty. But okay, let’s say there is a genuine case to prove that point. The present legislation, which this government wants to roll, gives them another five days. So if they were, as described by the member for Maribyrnong, dedicated voters demanding to exert their right, why didn’t they come back?

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Because it’s 100 kilometres from where they live.

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, what a load of rubbish. They had plenty of opportunity, and of course there is a fundamental which the member might recollect: ignorance of the law is no defence. The matter was well publicised if only from the debate in this place and the squealing of the Labor Party as their options for manipulation were cut off, as described in the evidence given in those cases up in Queensland—‘Vote early and vote often.’ The reality is that all the evidence is that there has not been such a degree of provisional voting in the Brand electorate since the election. There was a trebling of the average. What does that tell you?

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You love a good conspiracy.

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is no conspiracy. A member was elected in that circumstance and he would not have got elected today, because you can bet your bottom dollar half the residents who had moved out of Brand to a more salubrious suburb but were known as dedicated Labor voters came back to claim a vote relevant to their old address. They would have felt comfortable knowing that no-one would go out and knock on the doors of those houses to discover if they still resided there.

I happened to have a few beers with a Labor senator on one occasion. We were having a lot of laughs and he described how as a young Labor person he went into Kings Cross for the local government election—he thought he was going to help out; he was pretty clean-minded at the time—when all a sudden a truck backed into the campaign office and unloaded about 50 suits. On the day of the election all these old blokes turned up, put on a suit and hat, went and voted and then came back and changed their suits, put on another hat and went and voted again. He was killing himself telling me about it. That is true.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That’s proof?

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know it was true. If I named the person who told me that story you would also know it was true. He thought it was funny. Of course, a few beers often elucidate the truth.

The fact of life is that these are the circumstances this legislation as it exists is determined to prevent. There are no grounds for its change—none whatsoever. I honestly believe without any inquiry that the people in the Senate who are not part of the Labor Party would not want to participate. I cannot imagine someone like Senator Xenophon approving and supporting a process for rorting the electoral roll or the voting processes on the day. You just have to check the record as to how many people who asked for a provisional vote in the last election did not produce identification and did not come back to authorise or justify their vote. I think the member for Maribyrnong might have told us of all the people who were denied a vote because they could not prove who they were.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So they didn’t exist?

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They might not have existed as the residents they wished to claim they were. As we know, there is a new $450,000-a-year government relations individual. I find it astounding that you can give a government relations job to someone when the government owns the business. But that person had to admit in the Shepherdson inquiry that there were nine people who used the address of his flat to be recorded on an electoral roll. That situation is all in black and white, and I think three MPs in Queensland at the time had to resign. One was the Deputy Premier, whose name I have mentioned. These are the sorts of situations that occurred under a system that did not have the appropriate checks and balances.

Who comes to this place and swears an oath wants to weaken that provision? The fact of life is that that rule is now well understood, and genuine and honest people will be able to manage it. The kids, as I said, never had an excuse to line up and seek to register in the final days before an election. They have a whole year before they turn 18—and, in fact, in many instances that would be two years before an election was called—to register to vote. And they have a legal obligation from the day they turn 18 to register under this act within 21 days.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You were elected four times under those rules.

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was certainly elected under them and I certainly never had to worry too much—

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Direct your comments through the chair, thank you.

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

about the Labor Party rorting the roll because they do not travel too well in my electorate. A lot of Labor voters vote for me. But the fact of life is that this matters in marginal seats. Probably a seat in parliament was stolen from a woman who by campaigning got 51 per cent of the regular primary vote but was defeated by the trebling of the provisional votes, which ran 80 to 20 against her. I do not know if the member for Melbourne Ports believes that you do not really have a right to be elected to parliament if you are not a member of the Labor Party. If he believes that then I will be interested to hear his speech shortly.

But the fundamental issue on this matter is that there is no reason why a person should be given special attention to get on the roll at the last minute, because that contravenes the law. And there is no reason in this day and age, when identification is asked for in so many places and people are used to it and they carry particularly their photographic drivers licence, to say that there is something unfair or improper about them having to produce identification to get a vote when they are not on the electoral roll.

There is another matter in this day of the internet and everything else—that is, if you are worried about it, check it. In the days when the only access was the printed electoral roll, we used to run a table in the shopping centre where people could come out and find out if they were on the roll. But do not give me this rubbish that all these people do not understand the rules, rules that have now been in existence for one election. The only outcome of this change can be that it opens up the possibility for improper practices. I say again and finally, as my time runs out, that it is a contradiction of the law to argue that people need time to enrol. They are obliged to do it and they are obliged to do it within 21 days of becoming eligible or relocating their premises. The member for Maribyrnong says, ‘Oh, they might live in flats.’ When they move flats they have an obligation—(Time expired)

Mike Symon (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010. This bill before the House will amend the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 and the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Act 1984. This amendment bill is based on the inquiry conducted by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters into the conduct of the 2007 federal election, as we heard previously from many members in this place. The resulting report was tabled in June 2009 and is entitled Report on the conduct of the 2007 federal election and matters related thereto. It contains 53 recommendations for electoral reform. Forty-five of these recommendations were unanimously supported. The inquiry received 198 submissions from interested parties, including the Australian Electoral Commission, state governments, disability groups and, of course, political parties. This bill will enact a number of the recommendations of the report, and the aim of the amendments in this bill is to enhance the ability of otherwise eligible Australians to participate in the electoral process by removing obstacles to their enrolment.

In December of last year there were an estimated 1.39 million eligible electors currently not on the electoral roll. A third of these missing electors were in the 18- to 25-year-old cohort. Amendments introduced in this bill are designed to address declining enrolment rates and improve electoral participation. That figure of 1.39 million, if it is extrapolated out across the country, means about 9,000 people per electorate that should be on the roll are not—that is, in my seat and everyone else’s seat.

The amendments contained in the bill implement six reforms to the Electoral Act and the referendum act. Schedule 1 of the bill is to ensure that rolls are closed seven days after the issue of the writ for an election. Schedule 2 will provide that provisional voters are not required to produce evidence of identity. Schedule 3 enables prepoll votes cast in an elector’s home division to be cast and counted as ordinary votes. Schedule 4 enables electors to update their enrolment details electronically and enables the Australian Electoral Commission to process enrolment transactions outside the division for which the person is enrolling. Schedule 5 restricts the number of candidates that can be endorsed by a political party in each division.

In 2006 the Howard government made an amendment to the Electoral Act and, as we know from the figures, subsequently disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of voters. In the 2007 federal election the electoral roll was closed three working days after the issuing of the writs, due to the changes by the previous Liberal government. This cut the time available for people to ensure they were on the divisional roll by a full four days. In the 2004 election the electoral roll closed seven days after the issue of the writs. During the period from 14 to 23 October 2007, 279,000 people enrolled or changed their enrolment in time for the election before the rolls closed. Over 423,000 enrolled or changed their enrolment details during the corresponding period at the 2004 federal election. The difference between the figures meant that more than 144,000 fewer people were able to add themselves to the electoral roll due to the Howard government changes to the Electoral Act. I am sure this is a clear and strong argument that the act should be amended to restore the full week for people to be able to add themselves to the roll or amend their details once the election writs have been issued. Three working days has been proven to be too short a period, and that is easily done by examining the substantial numbers who did not get the opportunity to add themselves to the roll. As I have already said, potentially hundreds of thousands of eligible voters missed out on being placed on the electoral roll due to this regressive change by the previous Liberal government.

In its submission to the inquiry, the AEC focused on strategies to lift enrolments. Its main concern was to increase the number of Australians directly involved in elections, which is an important and central role in any democracy, as I see it—that is, that every eligible person has a say in how their country is run and by whom. The Australian Electoral Commission in its submission to the inquiry also wanted to ensure that a requirement to provide proof of identify did not lead to disenfranchisement. Under previous legislation introduced by the Howard government, obligations were placed on voters to provide proof of identity and they were tightened. Schedule 2 to this bill repeals the requirement for provisional voters to provide evidence of identity. As we know, provisional votes are a type of declaration vote cast by an elector at a polling place on polling day. The Electoral Act and the Referendum Act currently specify that a person who needs to cast a provisional vote at a polling place on polling day must provide a polling official with evidence of identity at the time of voting or by the first Friday following polling day. Currently, if the elector does not provide such evidence of identity by the deadline, his or her provisional vote will be excluded. The AEC estimates that that happened to over 27,000 provisional voters at the 2007 federal election due to the operation of the evidence of identity provisions.

In 2007 those 27,000 voters who turned up at a polling station ended up being excluded because they did not carry proof of identity and they did not take the opportunity, which they probably did not have, to go along to an AEC office, which they might not have been able to get to, to present that proof of identity. Many people work full time and they do not get time off during the day to go and do things they like. That is a problem that many of us face. Work is busy. Sometimes we are needed by others. You may get time off on a Saturday to go and vote but try getting time off between nine and five on a weekday to go and prove that you are who you say you are and things get a whole lot harder.

This bill will ensure that where there is any doubt as to the bona fides of the elector then the signature on the envelope containing the provisional vote will be compared with the signature of the elector on previously lodged enrolment records. This method will ensure that voters are not excluded from voting because they were not carrying proof of their identity on the day, in the case of a provisional vote. The amendments will still protect the integrity of the voting roll where there may have been doubt over the entitlement to vote, as verification by comparing signatures will ensure that a person was on the electoral roll and was entitled to vote. It would seem, to any sensible person at least, that these amendments were a fair and important way to ensure that those who are eligible to vote have got the time to get on the electoral roll and will not have their vote disallowed due to the fact they were not carrying their proof of identity. I really could not see why such reasonable amendments would not be supported by all members of this House to ensure maximum participation in our federal elections. Yet, surprisingly, coalition members of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters produced a report opposing these changes, stating:

The proposed timeframe of seven days will again make it was virtually impossible to exclude fraudulent votes from the count.

So even though, under the Howard government amendments that came into effect at the last election, 144,542 fewer people enrolled in the period between the issue of the writs and the close of rolls, Liberal Party members want the three-day cut-off to continue because of their concerns over fraudulent votes.

In the 21st century we all live very busy lives. People do not always keep their details up to date on the electoral roll, even though they should. But it is not only the electoral roll. When people move, as happens quite often, there are a vast number of things that they need to update, ranging from things as simple as power bills to mobile phones to lists in some cases running into the dozens, and I am sure some people have to contact hundreds of organisations to change their address details. That is not so bad in the case of a monthly telephone bill or a quarterly electricity bill, because you do get reminded of it when you receive a bill. But elections come along only every three years or less, so it is not always at the front of everyone’s mind—even though it may be at the front of the minds of people in this place. Keeping the rolls open for a full working week would again give people who were entitled to be on the roll the time to make the changes and enact their right to choose their government. To have members of the House oppose this amendment is surprising, to say the least. And it really does just show how out of touch the Liberal Party is with the lives of average Australians.

The amendments contained in schedule 3 of the electoral and referendum amendment bill 2010 will enable prepoll votes issued in an elector’s home division to be cast and counted as ordinary votes wherever practicable. Recent elections have seen a large increase in the demand for early voting. At the 2007 federal election almost 15 per cent of the total votes cast were early votes, but that of course also included postal votes. Under the current act the results of an election are more likely to be delayed, as the counting of early votes generally does not take place on polling night as the declaration envelopes containing the votes must go through the time-consuming preliminary scrutiny processes. This bill provides for prepoll votes cast in an elector’s home division prior to polling day to be treated as ordinary votes—a very sensible amendment. The AEC estimates that if this amendment had been in place for the 2007 federal election it would have resulted in an additional 667,000 votes being counted on polling night rather than sometime in the week following that. As we know, at the last election a number of seats hung in the balance for days while these votes were counted. This reform will help the AEC make their determinations in a more rapid way, which I think is good for everyone involved.

In my electorate of Deakin the result was not declared until 14 December, which was weeks after election day, and even though the margin was not particularly close there were 6,673 prepoll votes that were counted after polling day, and there were also 5,493 absentee votes and 7,149 postal votes. These amendments would not have changed all of that but they would have sped up some of the process. These days, in the 21st century, when we have a computerised system in place, a lot could be done to speed up the results and act on the determinations of the people.

Schedule 4 of the electoral and referendum amendment bill 2010 will amend the Electoral Act to enable the AEC to manage its workload in non-election periods by allocating work, principally enrolment applications and enrolment changes, throughout the AEC divisional office network. I am fortunate in that my division of Deakin has an AEC office in it, but it actually serves another three divisions as well and sometimes they can be overloaded with work because they in effect have almost 400,000 constituents running through that office. So, as I said, such changes allow the AEC to manage its workload more efficiently by enabling work to be done outside the relevant division. These amendments will also provide the AEC with additional tools to maintain the electoral roll in a timely and efficient manner.

Schedule 4 will enable persons already on the electoral roll to update their address details by providing this information to the AEC in electronic format. Under the current act an elector cannot update their details via the web or email. Again, looking at what happens elsewhere, that type of thing is quite common. Of course, at the end of it all you still need to be able to prove who you are, but there are now many services that we use on a daily basis where we can update our address and contact details via email or via the web. That is a good thing as we continue into a digital economy. At the moment, any changes need to be provided on a hard copy electoral enrolment form, which needs to be signed and lodged with the AEC.

This amendment bill will enable people to easily change their enrolment details online. Of course, the beauty of doing such a thing online is that it does not have to be done during business hours. If someone is working during the day then getting along to an AEC office or getting hold of the forms that are needed is not always as easy as we may think it is. Speaking for myself, I do a lot of my banking and the like outside business hours. Frankly, that is the only time that most people get the opportunity to do such things.

The first four schedules on the electoral and referendum amendment bill 2010 were based on recommendations of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters inquiry into the conduct of the 2007 federal election. In addition, schedule 5 aims to restrict the number of candidates that can be endorsed by a political party in each division. The need for this amendment arose out of the by-election held last year in Bradfield in New South Wales. In that election, as we have heard, there were 22 candidates, nine of whom came from one party. The ability for a registered officer of a political party to endorse candidates for an election was introduced back in 1987 into the Electoral Act, with the intent of providing a streamlined way for political parties to nominate candidates. If not endorsed by a registered political party, a person seeking to be a candidate for an election must obtain the support of 50 electors. The intent of this amendment was to simplify the process for the political parties. It was never intended to be used for multiple candidates.

The current act does not limit the number of candidates a registered officer of a political party can endorse. At the Braddon by-election where, as I have said, there were nine candidates nominated by one party, the Christian Democrat Party, there was a great deal of confusion. According to the views I have heard, however, it was probably not illegal under the current act. I am sure, though, that it was a clear breach of the intention of the act.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was Bradfield.

Mike Symon (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Bradfield. Thank you, Parliamentary Secretary.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes. I don’t remember nine candidates in my election!

Mike Symon (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was watching the deputy speaker there, but I will actually get back on track now.

The large number of candidates in the by-election created a number of issues for voters. With such a long ballot form there were many, many boxes and some people forgot to put a number on. Other people put a number on twice, which led to an informal vote. Back in 2001 I recall there being a by-election for the seat of Aston, near my seat, which had something like 16 different candidates. The informal vote went up because there were mistakes made on ballot papers. Having said that, each of those 16 candidates represented different political parties or different independent points of view.

Under the electoral system, as we know, for a voter to register a formal vote they are required to number a ballot paper from ‘1’ and run down the number of candidates on the ballot paper in their choice without errors in the numbering sequence. At the Bradfield by-election the rate of informal votes was nine per cent. This was more than double the informality rate for the division at the 2007 federal election and it was way more than double the national average informality rate at the 2007 general election, which was 3.95 per cent. The practice of multiple candidates for a single division being endorsed by the registered officer of a political party had not emerged on this scale prior to the Bradfield by-election last year. Schedule 5 under the electoral and referendum amendment bill 2010 is required to prevent a similar rise in the informality rate in multiple divisions at the next federal election.

The Rudd government is committed to restoring the integrity of our electoral processes and systems. The first step in that process, which is still underway, was the introduction of the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Political Donations and Other Measures) Bill 2008, and the subsequent 2009 bill, which aimed to restore accountability, integrity and transparency to our system of donation disclosure. But unfortunately these provisions have been blocked by the Senate. The reforms in this bill currently before the House will take important steps to ensure that voters have the time after an election is called to get on to the electoral roll. I commend this bill to the House.

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

I rise to speak in this House for the second time, and on this occasion I am conscious that I no longer have the privilege against interjection which I enjoyed the first time I spoke. But I rise to speak as the member for Bradfield because, as a number of people have already pointed out in this debate, one of the provisions in the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010 was triggered by events which occurred in the Bradfield by-election on 5 December 2009. That is a date that will be burned into my memory for the rest of my lifetime. It was a day of great celebration for me personally and for all of the people who worked so hard to assist me in the very successful result that the Liberal Party was able to secure in the Bradfield by-election—notwithstanding the complications which arose by virtue of the fact that there were 22 candidates.

At the end of the process of contesting the Liberal Party’s preselection, which involved 17 candidates, I thought to myself that at least I would not find I was up against such a large number of candidates when I got to the by-election. But I had not counted on the ingenuity of the Christian Democrats and, particularly, their campaign manager Michael Darby, a man who I understand is no longer associated with that party. As we have heard at some length, there were nine candidates put forward by the party. He originally proposed to have 11—that being, I think he was quoted as saying, the number of disciples with the exception of Judas. That, I understand, was the logic that he offered.

In practical terms, though, the question is: what was the impact on voters in the by-election of the fact that there were 11 candidates appearing under the same party banner? There can be no doubt that voters found it confusing and annoying. I can say that on the basis of direct personal feedback which I received during the course of the Bradfield by-election. Voters were conscious of the fact that it required them to fill out a ballot paper with 22 choices to be made—22 boxes to be marked. They were conscious of the fact that it created extra opportunity to make an inadvertent error which would frustrate their intention in registering a valid vote. I also understand, from conversations with the AEC’s returning officer after 5 December, during the counting process, that it was discovered that a significant number of voters had become confused by the need to rank their vote from one to 22. A particular complication was the difficulty that all parties faced in providing how-to-votes, which made it easy for our supporters, whichever party it might be, to exercise their democratic will. So there is no doubt that it was an unfortunate outcome which frustrated the intention of a number of voters who sought to cast a valid vote but were unsuccessful in doing so, and there is no doubt that it caused significant anxiety and concern in the electorate of Bradfield. Regrettably, it was one of a number of factors which caused significant anxiety and concern.

Another factor which caused such anxiety and concern was a deeply offensive survey which was issued by the Christian Democrats during the by-election. It contained questions such as: do you agree with the statement that the federal government should have the power to deport any Muslim? Do you agree with the statement that Australia needs no more Muslim schools and no more mosques? I want to make it clear once again here in the House of Representatives that I absolutely dissociate myself from those statements in that survey issued by the Christian Democrats in the Bradfield by-election, and I condemn that approach as being offensive and wholly inappropriate.

We heard from one of the earlier speakers in this debate that the consequence of there being 22 candidates, including nine Christian Democrats, was that the informal vote was much higher in the December 2009 by-election than it had been in the 2007 general election in the division of Bradfield. It is correct that the informal vote was much higher, more than double, in 2009 than it had been in 2007. The member who made that point neglected to mention another significant causal factor, which is that the other major political party in Australia could not be bothered presenting a candidate to give the people of Bradfield who may have desired to vote for that other major party an opportunity to do so. I think it is a matter for regret that the Labor Party chose not to put forward a candidate in Bradfield. It is undoubtedly another factor which increased the informal vote, because there would have been a proportion of people who could not bring themselves to vote for me and who therefore would choose to vote informal. I respect the feelings of voters who took that position, and I do think it is a matter for regret that there was not a candidate in the by-election from the other major political party in this country.

Let me make it clear that I have absolutely no quarrel with those who voted for the Christian Democrats, because almost without exception they showed considerable wisdom in their allocation of preferences. But I do think it is a significant matter for regret that this confusing and complicated tactic was imposed on the people of Bradfield, who were already being required to come out and exercise their democratic choice in the face of difficulties such as the absence of a candidate from the other major political party. Therefore, I want to put on record my strong support for the proposed amendment, which would prevent this tactic of multiple candidates under the banner of one party being adopted in future.

Let me turn now to the other major aspect of this bill which I wish to comment on—that is, the issue of the date on which the rolls are closed. There has been a lot of rhetoric about that issue in what we have heard from the other side here today. There is clearly a balance to be struck between competing objectives. One of those objectives is maximising the capacity for as many Australians as possible to participate in the democratic process. But another very important objective is protecting the integrity of our electoral process and maximising protection against the risk of fraudulent behaviour. I think the words of a great hero of conservative political thought, Ronald Reagan, are very wise and relevant to this situation. The principle that Ronald Reagan adopted is that we should ‘trust, but verify’. That was the principle that he adopted in dealing with the Soviet Union on the issue of missile reductions, and I think it is an appropriate principle in dealing with important issues such as the integrity of the electoral roll.

On our side of the House we make no apology for the fact that we believe that citizens who come to put themselves on the electoral roll and exercise the important right and responsibility to vote in a general election or, indeed, in any election should be required to meet certain minimum obligations. It is not a difficult or an onerous job to get yourself on the electoral roll. Like others in this House, I commend the Australian Electoral Commission for the work that they do, including the work they do to make it as easy as possible for people to get on the roll.

But there is an important issue of personal responsibility here. It is not an onerous requirement to say to Australians who want to participate in an election: ‘You should get yourself on the roll and you should be on the roll within the specified time after moving to a new address. This is one of the responsibilities of citizenship and if you wish to exercise the precious privilege of being able to vote then you should get yourself on the roll.’ As we look at this issue of how we ought to properly balance up the two competing considerations—the first consideration being to maximise the number of Australians who are in a position to participate to vote, and the other consideration being protection against electoral fraud—we say the balance is properly struck in the way that the law presently stands. That is, the rolls are closed when the writs are issued.

One of the relevant questions here, obviously, is an assessment of the likelihood of electoral fraud occurring. If the risk were remote and theoretical the balance might, perhaps, be struck in a different way. But I am sorry to say that the risk is not remote and the risk is not theoretical. As a very new member in this place, I have been informing myself about a circumstance in which fraudulent behaviour, regrettably, occurred in all too tangible a fashion. I refer, of course, to the events described in the Shepherdson inquiry, an investigation into electoral fraud in which a gentleman named Mike Kaiser—

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How is it relevant to a federal election?

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

Mr Deputy Speaker, it is clearly a matter of the highest relevance that there has been substantive evidence of fraudulent behaviour. Indeed, we have seen so much concern in the community about this that there was a need for a formal inquiry.

As somebody new to the parliament, and informing myself about these issues, I was disturbed and troubled to learn of the facts which are recorded in the Shepherdson inquiry. I was disturbed and surprised to learn that a gentleman named Mike Kaiser admitted to the Shepherdson inquiry that he signed an electoral enrolment form dated 7 January 1986, enrolling him at 11 Seventh Avenue, Coorparoo, even though he never lived there. I was disturbed and surprised to find that this gentleman subsequently became a member of the Queensland parliament, and was then required to resign from the Queensland parliament when these facts became known more generally.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Which federal election did it affect? You can’t answer!

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Melbourne Ports will desist.

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

As I thought about this issue, I turned over in my mind the name ‘Mike Kaiser’. I thought to myself, ‘Where have I heard that name in another context?’ I am aware of a man named Mike Kaiser who has recently been appointed to a $450,000 role as the head of government relations for a company called NBN Co.—a 100 per cent government owned company, which apparently needs to pay somebody $450,000 to manage relations with its 100 per cent shareholder.

I thought to myself, it cannot possibly be correct that this person who has been named in the Shepherdson inquiry—an investigation into electoral fraud—could be the same Mike Kaiser whom the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy, thinks is appropriate to be appointed to this $450,000 job in the 100 per cent government owned NBN Co. But to my great surprise—and I do confess my naivety as a recently arrived member of this House—it was the very same Mike Kaiser. I do wonder what his qualifications for the job are, because they clearly must be substantial if they are to be weighed in the balance against this significant blemish.

Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I ask you to bring the speaker to order, certainly in relation to his most recent remarks.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The point of order is on relevance. The member for Bradfield will be reminded of the legislation before him and will be relevant to that legislation.

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

May I thank the member opposite for his solicitous concern for my welfare as a recently arrived member of this House who may not have fully appreciated the boundaries, which I may say appear to be extremely flexible as to those matters which can legitimately be canvassed. I would make the point that I think it is a matter of—

Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You’ve been here long enough to know—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I am in the chair and I will decide.

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

I think it is a matter of legitimate inquiry for this parliament as to the circumstances in which electoral fraud occurs when we have before us a piece of legislation about whether there ought to be changes to the procedures which today are designed to protect against electoral fraud with regard to governance in relation to the electoral roll. It is a matter of the highest relevance to that important public policy question that we ask ourselves what circumstances there might be in which electoral fraud has been committed in the past, what might be the motivations of the other side of the House in putting forward this legislation and what interest has been demonstrated by very senior members of this government—ministers in this government—in the career of individuals who may have been involved in that kind of deeply regrettable behaviour.

As I come to look at this piece of legislation, to weigh up my responsibility as a member of this House and to assess the wisdom of what has been proposed in the legislation brought forward by the government, the conclusion I reach is that it is unwise in the extreme to vary the present balance which applies between those two competing considerations: on the one hand, maximising democratic participation in the election process and giving as many Australians as possible the capacity to vote and, on the other hand, the importance of protecting the electoral roll and maximising the protection against the capacity for fraud.

What we have seen and what I was shocked to discover as I read the Shepherdson inquiry report is that there are examples on the very recent public record of fraudulent behaviour when it comes to electoral rolls and they involve a whole range of people who are cited in that report including Mr Mike Kaiser. It seems the present Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Conroy, has a solicitous interest in the furtherance of Mr Kaiser’s career. I think that the public policy questions that raises are significant and weighty indeed. What we have seen is that there is regrettably—if that inquiry is to be believed and I see no reason why it ought not be believed—a culture of cavalier disregard for the legal regime governing the application of the electoral roll. In the face of that tangible, recent and thoroughly troubling evidence of such culture, it is no surprise that, on this side of the House, we view with a considerable degree of scepticism the proposal that is being put forward for a change to the timing of the closure of the roll. (Time expired)

Maxine McKew (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am delighted to speak on the important Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010 today and indeed to follow the new member for Bradfield. I would like to commend him on some of the statements he has made, in particular wanting to support one aspect of this bill, which is the important addressing of the question of multiple nominees of a party as happened in the Bradfield by-election.

I am standing here stunned to hear that the member for Bradfield is quoting as his poster boy former American President Ronald Reagan. I am standing in the chamber thinking: what is it that President Reagan has to do with electoral politics? I am thinking back to my time in Washington, because I was there in the eighties during the second Reagan administration and I spent a lot of time involved in the Iran-Contra hearings. What does this have to do with electoral politics? It had a lot to do with the electoral politics in Central America, particularly in Nicaragua. It was an interesting tangent for the new member for Bradfield. But I will come to why I am prepared to support this bill. I think it does go a very long way to restoring our democracy to health after what I would describe as the malaise it endured under the previous government.

As other speakers on this side of the House have observed, this is a bill that restores the status quo ante on voter enrolments after the announcement of an election by pushing back the close of the electoral rolls to seven days after the issue of the writ—the period of grace, as I think member for Isaacs told us earlier in this debate. This is in line with recommendation 1 of the inquiry into the 2007 federal election by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, where the member for Banks presides with a very steady hand. It is a right and proper thing that he does so, because restoring access to the franchise is the first and foremost aim of this bill.

Again it has been interesting to be in the chamber while the other side, principally the member for Bradfield and others, have been demonising the Labor Party over matters that have nothing to do with a federal election. In fact, by contrast, the previous government did many things, I think, to outrage the decency of fair-minded Australians. The change pushed through the parliament in 2006 by Senator Eric Abetz, the then Special Minister of State, to bring forward the close of rolls is up there among the outrages, and for those on the opposite side it is a long list. There was the wrongful deportation of Australian citizens and children kept in detention under the policies of the member for Berowra. There was the wheat for weapons scandal in Iraq that happened on the watch of the former member for Mayo. Then there was the lengthy detention of Dr Mohamed Haneef presided over by the member for Menzies. Those on the opposition benches certainly set the bar very high when it comes to outrageous behaviour and the denial of fundamental democratic rights. But I think the disenfranchising of thousands of Australians is definitely up there among the great outrages perpetrated by the previous government.

I remember the 2007 campaign vividly. One of the first public events I had in Bennelong was a seminar at the Epping Club. I entitled that seminar ‘Integrity in government’. As members who are familiar with northern Sydney, and that would certainly be the member for Bradfield, the Epping Club is a long way in both distance and mindset from, say, something like the Randwick Labor Club. The Epping Club is not the red centre of Sydney. But on a cold night in July 2007 there was standing room only in the Epping Club to hear Senator John Faulkner speak with his characteristic passion about Senator Abetz’s changes and about how the Howard government had been playing fast and loose with our democratic traditions.

The former government was full of rhetoric, as we can all recall, about the benefits of freedom and democracy in other parts of the world. At the same time, it was pushing through changes that eroded the ability of Australian voters to exercise their fundamental democratic freedoms. As the Human Rights Commissioner, Graeme Innes, has noted, the changes have the potential to disenfranchise:

… many Australians—particularly those who are marginalised, such as young people, new Australian citizens, those in rural and remote areas, homeless and itinerant people, Indigenous people and people with a mental illness or an intellectual disability …

In fact, it was only the hard work of the Australian Electoral Commission, through a $24 million advertising campaign, that prevented the former government from disenfranchising even more Australian voters in 2007. The figures speak for themselves. As the joint standing committee has noted, almost 280,000 people successfully enrolled or changed their enrolment in the week before the rolls closed for existing voters on 23 October 2007. As we know, the election was called on Sunday, 14 October. The writs were not issued until the Wednesday even though the election was announced on the Sunday. If those writs had been issued the following Monday and the rolls had closed, as they could have, on Monday, 15 October, 17,000 of those 280,000 enrolment transactions would have been made. As it was, more than 100,000 people missed the close of rolls deadline in 2007, either by failing to enrol or changing their enrolment details. Admittedly that was fewer than in the 2004 election, as the member for Indi pointed out, but she failed to point out that it was because of that $24 million AEC campaign and the fortuitous timing of various public holidays after the election announcement on 14 October.

As a member of this House, I cannot say that I am proud of the fact that 100,000 Australians missed out on exercising their right to vote, and nor should any other member of the House. The overall number of voters who ended up being disenfranchised was greater than that 100,000. Again the report of the joint standing committee states that close to half a million electors were unable to exercise the franchise at the last poll. That is because they were either not on the rolls or because they were on the rolls but with incomplete or incorrect details. As the joint standing committee has pointed out, that included 31 17-year-olds who would have turned 18 on or before polling day and more than 4,000 18-year-olds who would have voted for the first time in the 2007 election. These young people were denied the opportunity to do so because of the changed arrangements.

I think these figures are the crucial context in this debate. They show up the straw man arguments of those opposite as they persist in their campaign to deny Australian voters the opportunity to vote—a denial afforded by early closure. The straw man in this case is the argument that somehow the integrity of the roll needs defending. ‘Defending from whom?’ you might ask. Perhaps from the sort of people who were distributing unauthorised materials in the seat of Lindsay during the last election campaign, and we know how that sorry episode turned out. I do not think that is the sort of mischief those opposite are worried about today. They are instead perpetuating the original flawed rationale that they used to justify these changes in the first place. They made the changes and they are sticking by them on the pretext that there are people who might mischievously cast multiple votes. I am pleased to say again that the joint standing committee’s report has well and truly torched the opposition’s straw man.

Earlier in the debate the member for Moreton made this point, but it bears reinforcing. There were 20,000 instances of apparent multiple voting in the last election. The AEC wrote to those voters. In more than 18,000 cases no further action was required. There were just over 1,000 admissions of multiple voting, but more than 80 per cent of those were due to confusion or poor comprehension. So what was the final wash-up? Ten cases were referred to the Australian Federal Police and there were no prosecutions. What does that tell us? It tells us that there was no problem, yet the opposition are prepared to disenfranchise tens of thousands—even hundreds of thousands—of voters in the name of their imagined scourge of multiple voting, a scourge for which not one person was prosecuted in the last election.

I note that the member for Cook, in his dissenting report to the joint standing committee, puts an interesting spin on early closure. He insists that bringing forward the closing of the rolls had a positive effect by actively encouraging enrolment. A positive effect? I think the member for Cook has spent enough time at polling booths to know just how positive voters feel when they turn up on election day and find themselves unable to do their civic duty. Those opposite must accept the reinstatement of the one-week closure. The report of the joint standing committee lays everything out with great clarity. There is no acceptable excuse of confusion or poor understanding available to those opposite. They must cease their reliance on disingenuous and sham arguments about protecting the so-called integrity of the roll at the expense of Australians who just want to exercise their right to vote.

What is wrong with embracing and restoring the fundamental rights of our democracy? It would seem to me that the best way to ensure the integrity of the electoral process is to ensure that we make enrolment simple and widely available to what is now a very mobile population in Australia. That is why I am glad to welcome another part of this bill that will allow the Australian Electoral Commission to modernise enrolment procedures by instituting online enrolment updating. So many of our daily transactions now happen online, such as banking, bill payments and many other things. Our electoral enrolment must be one of the last aspects of our lives where we have as yet been unable to update electronically. Everyone in this place knows how mobile we are. As the joint standing committee report observes, the last census showed that 43 per cent of people lived at a different address from where they had lived five years previously. This is very important for our democracy and I am glad to say that this part of the bill has bipartisan support, as it should.

I am glad as well that this bill will make it possible for prepoll votes to be counted on election night. There seem to be more and more close contests. The counting of prepoll votes as ordinary votes, I think, will give us more chance of knowing for certain the result in those close seats on election night. Having had to wait for 48 hours or more back in 2007, I am all for that.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How can we not agree?

Maxine McKew (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is right. Thank you very much. Coming to another aspect of this bill—and this is the one that the previous speaker talked about to a great extent—I am pleased to see that this bill also addresses a concern arising from last year’s Bradfield by-election by limiting registered political parties to a single nominee per division. Those of us from Sydney, who know this very well, know that there was, shall we say, an oversupply of candidates at the Bradfield by-election both for preselection and for the actual by-election. As a matter of fact, one of the failed Liberal contenders in Bradfield has decided to chance his arm in Bennelong. I am not quite sure when he is moving into his second choice of Bennelong, but we await that move with some interest. If he does not hurry up, he may not even be able to vote for himself. Perhaps that is some incentive, actually, for Senator Abetz and his colleagues to pass this bill and give the Liberal candidate for Bennelong an extra week to move into the seat and start explaining why he opposes more than 700 local infrastructure projects, a question we all want answered. But I know I am digressing here.

The substantive change that the government seeks to enact through this bill will close a loophole that led to what was called the ‘bedsheet ballot’ that occurred at the Bradfield by-election. Again, the previous speaker, the member for Bradfield, has gone through this at some length. The deliberate confusion was caused by one party nominating nine separate candidates. It led to the highest informal vote ever recorded in the seat. That is a clear abuse of the process, and we certainly need to stop that from happening in the future.

I want to conclude my comments by commending the government members and the staff of the joint standing committee for their excellent work—in particular, again, the member for Banks, who has been in the chamber throughout much of this debate. The nagging question for me is how this opposition of spoilers, these deniers of democracy, will respond to this bill in the Senate. I have to say that, as we all know on this side of the House, their form is far from encouraging. The coalition parties have repeatedly blocked the government’s attempts to bring greater integrity to Australia’s electoral laws, failing to reform the political donations system, and it is a continuing point of shame that they have failed to do that. The opposition continues to hide behind procedural arguments rather than engage in debate on donations reform. The opposition says publicly that it supports campaign finance reform, but it chokes at the thought of greater transparency and accountability. The only consistent policy position the coalition appears to have is to oppose greater integrity in our electoral laws.

As others have noted, the commitment to reinstate the one-week period before the closure of rolls was a commitment that the Labor Party took to the last election. It was absolutely clear, and let me state that. Labor’s position is clear, fair and simple. We stand for ensuring that no unnecessary barriers are placed in the way of citizens who just want to exercise their basic democratic right to vote. As other government members have pointed out in the debate, the number of Australians not on the roll is staggering. We must do better, and passing this bill in full will help us do that. In conclusion, I urge the opposition to show respect for our democratic process and the voters of Australia and to pass this legislation. I commend the bill to the House.

Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010. Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, on 24 March I, like you, will celebrate 20 years as a member of parliament. For more than half that time, I have been a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, so I have had an opportunity on that committee to conduct reviews of nearly all the elections that I have participated in. The bill that is before the parliament today largely arises out of a number of recommendations of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters.

It is fair to say that, of the matters before the House, three out of five are non-contentious and are supported by the opposition. They have to do with modernising the enrolment process, with allowing the Electoral Commission to manage its workload more efficiently by enabling enrolment transactions to be processed outside the division and with enabling prepoll votes cast in an elector’s home division to be cast and counted as ordinary votes. In short, that last recommendation makes the divisional returning office basically another booth that is counted on election night, to put it crudely. That will enable 667,000 votes to be counted on polling night, according to the second reading speech. So on those matters there is no contention.

The contention arises, however, in relation to the two key recommendations to restore the close of rolls period of seven days after the issue of the writ for an election and to repeal the requirement for provisional voters to provide evidence of identity. Let me say this at the outset: the paranoia of the opposition, both now and when they have been in government, has caused the disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of legitimate voters at federal election time.

In my first review—the review of the 1990 election campaign—the National Party, having lost the seat of Richmond, was complaining that dead people voted. I can recall the inquiry that we were conducting. We were in the main committee room, and the big allegation made by the National Party was that a code had revealed that all these dead people had voted and changed the result in the seat to Labor—that fraud had been perpetrated on a massive scale. When the Electoral Commission investigated the allegation and evidence was given to the committee, it was shown that the code that was being relied upon to argue there was fraud was actually the code that was used to take the people who were deceased off the electoral role. It was the exact reverse of the allegation that the National Party was making before the electoral committee at the time.

I do not have a problem if the opposition want to argue fraud that will result in massive change to our electoral requirements—if they produce the evidence. The truth is that Mr Danby, my friend and colleague, the member for Melbourne Ports, has already reported to the House that over a period of a decade there were only 71 proven cases of fraud, which is one in a million votes cast. The evidence before us as a committee regarding the instances of multiple voting—the evidence detailed in a table in our report—shows that the multiple voting that occurred was accidental and mostly related to aged-care facilities and older people where multiple applications had been made by mistake. The child thought that the parent had not voted and so assisted in filling in another form on behalf of the voter. Those figures are in our report.

The thing that I like about the report that the committee produced for the parliament this time is that it is an extensive report but all the facts are there. The myths are explored. Everyone is given an opportunity to produce evidence of fraud. We were told about McEwen and fraudulent votes. At the end of the day, the investigations of the Electoral Commission showed that there was not one instance of electoral fraud in McEwen. You will remember that McEwen was the subject of a Court of Disputed Returns hearing. I think the current member was asserting at the time that there were some multiple-voting instances. By the time the commission finished looking at it, there were none. I will quote from table 2.3 on page 18:

(a) Of the admissions/aged category 98 per cent were 70 or over. (b) Of the 64 cases referred, 25 were subsequently investigated by the AFP in a day of action approach. The AFP made referrals to the DPP, but no cases were prosecuted.

I think these cases should be taken seriously. If people break the law and commit fraud, they should be prosecuted. I am not standing here defending people who commit fraud; I am defending the innocent people who have had their votes not counted because of the red tape and the extra provisions that have been put in.

One of those was the proof of identity for provisional voters. They show up and have to produce their driver’s licences. If it is not there, they get a provisional vote and, if they do not produce their licence within so many days, their vote will not count. That provision alone resulted in a massive increase in the number of votes rejected. In 2004 it was 89,841 votes rejected; in 2007 it was 143,470 votes. That is over 40,000 more—and for what? A bit of paranoia. The suggestion that is picked up in the bill before the House is that the way you can check the veracity of the identity of the particular voter is the way that it was done for generations: you can compare signatures. The person who fronts on the day signs an electoral form that the ballot goes into. The Electoral Commission has a signature from an earlier enrolment or variation of enrolment to which it can be compared. If the scrutineers are contesting the identity of the person, you have a signature, which is a lot more secure than a driver’s licence or another form of identification, particularly with young people.

That has become our own little hanging chad. It is like Florida in America during the first Bush election, which we all laughed at. People who went to the booth and legitimately voted did not have their vote counted because the machine malfunctioned. That went all the way to the Supreme Court, with different judgments at each stage of the process. But something that is in there poisoned legitimate votes—not fraudulent votes—and any scrutineer in any tight contest like McEwen can challenge the veracity of a provisional vote by way of signature. I have scrutineered in election after election and by-election after by-election and, let me tell you, the Electoral Commission’s records are pretty good. Votes get knocked out if someone has faced for them. Facing is when someone shows up voting in someone else’s stead. If the signature is suspect then the commission knocks them out if they are challenged in the scrutineering process.

In relation to the matter of the seven-day rule, today I tabled a report in relation to automatic enrolment. It was an inquiry into the implications of the New South Wales electoral amendment act that has recently been passed and which allows automatic enrolment and the reliance of the Electoral Commission on certain documentation to put people on the roll. It even allows people to show up on the day with proper proof of identity and have a provisional vote on the day. The Liberal Party in New South Wales supported that—they were not frightened of it—and our committee has recommended that. That goes beyond the seven-day rule.

But, again, what do we see? Our report shows that 100,000 people were unable to get their change of enrolment or new enrolment in on time at the last election, where there were extra days because of public holidays. That is 100,000 votes. This issue has been around for a long time. I have the 2004 report here—the chair was Mr Tony Smith, the federal member for Casey—which recommended the change to the close of roll with the issue of the writ. There is no evidence in there. There is no substance to the recommendation. There are assertions about electoral integrity—and that this provision somehow weakens electoral integrity. Hundreds of thousands of transactions are processed by the Electoral Commission, or have been, in that window of opportunity that is all about making the electoral roll more accurate for election day. By closing the rolls at the issue of the writ, you end up disqualifying a whole lot of people.

Whether we like it or not, people do move. My electorate used to be the most stable in the country—in the ‘86 census. It now ranks about eighth. The member for North Sydney’s electorate turns over 50 per cent every six years. To allow a safety net of seven days in which people can lodge changes to their enrolments or put in a fresh enrolment does not lead to an increase in electoral fraud; indeed, there is no evidence that it does. The coalition’s change to this enrolment provision for the last election was based on an assessment they made about the types of people who engage in those transactions and the way they vote. That is no way to run an electoral system. I happen to believe in including as many people as possible so that you get an honest result.

I say to the opposition: if you want to oppose these provisions then come forward with substantive evidence, produce the multiple fraudulent votes of the past that have changed elections—because, if you can produce fraudulent votes, particular decisions can be annulled. But, if you exclude legitimate results, as these provisions do—in one instance, more than 40,000 votes, in another instance 100,000 votes—then you cannot change the result, but you are affecting the result. You are calibrating the system to exclude people. The member for Casey, in his report after the 2004 election, engaged in conduct that was about excluding people for partisan political advantage, and it did not save them at the last election.

The figures that the Australian Electoral Commission gave us and the electoral report that we produced has a litany of material that shows legitimate voter after legitimate voter—based on the rules that occurred prior to the last election—being excluded in every single electorate. There is a table at the back of this report, which I have here, which talks about provisional votes—as I said, 143,470 votes excluded. There is also a comparison with what would have happened under the old rules. Under the old rules, I had 297 excluded in my electorate of Banks in 2004. Why? Because those are votes which are put in an envelope and checked and, if the signatures do not match, they are put aside. So they are not all admitted, but I had 297 excluded. In 2007, the change to the act resulted in 729 being excluded. That is 430-odd more.

The opposition have not produced 43 fraudulent votes for the whole of Australia, let alone 430 fraudulent votes. But, in their ideological pursuit of integrity in the election, they have gone a bridge too far. They have excluded hundreds of thousands of people who otherwise would have got a legitimate vote. Frankly, I do not think laziness or being a bit slack is an excuse to knock you off the electoral roll. I have a different view to that of the opposition in relation to that. This is the party that says: ‘Too much red tape!’ You have safety net provisions. Where you exclude people is where it is a fraudulent vote—that is, if it is not the true identity of the person voting but someone on their behalf. As I said, the provisions that we seek to reinstate are not new provisions; they are provisions that have been around for a very long time. The opposition, when they were in government and changed those provisions, were not able to demonstrate one seat in the whole of Australia in the previous decade that had changed hands and would be reinstated as a result of their provisions. I can tell you about the fraud perpetrated on the Australian electorate: it was by the former government, it was about electoral fraud, trying to bring our electoral system into disrepute—one of the best electoral systems in the world. In my foreword—and it has not been disputed since this report was tabled—I said:

It is evident, however, that at least 466,794 electors were unable to exercise the franchise correctly at the 2007 election, either because they were not on the electoral roll, or they were on the roll with incomplete or incorrect details. Much of this disenfranchisement results from changes to the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 made following the 2004 election.

What an absolute indictment on the opposition. There were also 143,470 electors who cast a provisional vote but had their vote rejected at the preliminary scrutiny because of the change of rules. When you compare it, it was 40,000-odd more than the previous election.

The other thing that I think needs to be said is that we have changed the Electoral Act in my time to help people stay or get on the roll—and some of them were your constituents, the farming community. Because of the tyranny of distance, we changed the Electoral Act to allow them to be on the permanent list of postal voters—to cut the red tape from applying to those people who, by the time they received and put in an application, could miss out on a vote because of the tyranny of distance. That is the role of the electoral committee of this parliament. That is the role of this parliament: to enfranchise people, not to disenfranchise them, not to bring in pieces of legislation that are the equivalent of the hanging chads, designed to exclude people who have a legitimate right to vote.

It just irks me that we get these sanctimonious speeches from some on the other side, and I say to them: I am prepared to sit down and listen to your evidence; give me the evidence. As Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, I lay the challenge out to the opposition: bring the evidence, not the rhetoric, and we will respond. It is about letting people have a vote, not knocking them off because they are not going to vote for you. (Time expired)

Laurie Ferguson (Reid, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The starting point with respect to this debate on the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010 must be the comments of Mr Ed Killesteyn, the electoral commissioner of this country, the head of a well-respected, independent authority, when he said, as quoted on page 82 of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters report on the last federal:

It is necessary to be aware of and examine factors that create barriers to achieving greater enrolment participation at the commonwealth level and to find ways to mitigate their impact on the electors and potential electors in order to increase enrolment participation levels.

That is the starting point of what we are discussing here today.

This is an area where there is, indeed, a very genuine difference between the two sides of politics in this country. That is not to say that there has not been, in the case of compulsory voting, significant division historically in the opposition side. The government has a very firm belief that, in the interest of Australian democracy and in the interests of competitive politics, we should maximise the possibility of people being involved—that we do not try to put barriers there; that we do not try to make it difficult; and that we actually continuously seek to have as many people as possible enrolled and registered, and as many of them as possible voting. That is why in the 1920s this country became one of the few countries in the world to introduce compulsory voting. That legislation went through this parliament in a very short time, because there was agreement on both sides of politics at that stage after a very poor turnout at one of our elections. The Labor Party still subscribes to the view that we should not try to reduce participation; that we should actually try to increase it.

The background to this legislation with respect to the closure of the rolls is the fact that, compared to past elections, there was a significant number of people who did not get on the roll in the last election. It is estimated that 100,000 Australians who would otherwise have got on the roll did not because of the short time allowed by the previous government’s practices—in that crucial period before election day. With this bill, the first measure the government is introducing is to increase the time for people to have the opportunity to get on the roll after an election is called. These are not devious people; these are not criminals; these are not sneaks. These are people who, for a variety of reasons, have not got around to it.

I thought the member opposite made one of the more fanciful contributions to this debate—talking about people coming out of trucks with boatloads of suits and coats and dressing up and impersonating other people. Quite frankly, this is preposterous. It is ridiculous to think that, in this competitive democracy, political parties have got enough time on election day to have squads of people travelling around in trucks and cars impersonating other people. Quite frankly, most people aware of practical politics know that all sides of politics these days find it very difficult to get people to staff polling booths. It is a real challenge. It is like participation in other parts of our society, whether it is the local football club, the parents and citizens organisation or Rotary. People in this day and age participate less. To think that either side of politics has enough people and resources to engage in massive fraud on election day is beyond the realms of possibility.

The other element, of course, is the question of rejected provisional votes. The previous government had massive restrictions on the ability of people to have provisional votes on election day. The rejected provisionals in the last election numbered 143,000 people.

Government Member:

Quite large.

Laurie Ferguson (Reid, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, it is quite large, as the member says. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that that huge figure at the last election may have been due to some other aberration. But, if we look at the elections between 1996 and 2004, we see that that is not the case, because between 1996 and 2004 it never reached above 91,000. With this bill, the government is moving to introduce a number of measures to overcome the way in which the previous government sought to deny people participation in our political system and sought to put barriers in the way of people.

The member for Bradfield referred to comments by US President Ronald Reagan—in the way of trusting the verifiers—and the member for Bennelong queried the reason that we would refer to US parallels. Quite frankly, US parallels in this debate are quite reasonable—because what the party opposite are about is driving down participation in this country to the lowest possible levels.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 2 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 97. The debate may be resumed at a later hour and the parliamentary secretary will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.