Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Faulkner. I know you will listen with great interest to what I am about to say. I sat on both the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters and the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration inquiries which looked at the changes made by the Howard government on electoral laws—some of the most disgraceful changes ever implemented, disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of Australian voters, because they closed the rolls the day the election was called. Previously, of course, people could have up to a week to regularise their enrolment. The previous government—