John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Australian Electoral Commission report for 2012-13 covers the financial year immediately before the federal election in September 2013. The result of that election is well known, but this report covers the work done by the AEC in the lead-up to and preparation for the election. As we all know, it is no small task running an election across a continent as large as Australia, with polling places in remote locations domestically as well as across the globe.

Australia, of course, has a very stable democracy where everyone over the age of 18 can have a say in who their government will be. In any election the AEC's task is to ensure the completeness and accuracy of the electoral roll, to maximise voter turnout and to ensure the actual voting processes and counting are as efficient, secure, uncomplicated and untarnished as possible. These three tasks, if done well, really are the bedrock of democracy in Australia.

To administer the 2013 federal election, in practical terms, the AEC had to organise over 7,700 polling places on election day plus over 500 early voting centres and pre-poll centres; voting in over 2,400 special hospitals; and overseas voting at more than 100 embassies and diplomatic missions. The commission also organised voting in almost 400 remote properties, towns, resorts and mine sites across Australia. To do this, 38 mobile polling teams cover about 3.4 million square kilometres by road, air and sea to ensure distance does not impede the opportunity for any Australian to cast their vote.

I am very pleased to see in this report that reforms to voting procedures brought in during the life of the previous government have improved both access to the franchise and the ease of voting. Those sorts of reforms allowed for online postal voting applications, ensured easier access to a secret vote for blind and low-vision voters, improved voter education and used new technology to securely update the roll. These reforms improved access to voting for citizens who might otherwise be frustrated by distance, work commitments, language or other personal circumstances.

In the past, the AEC has highlighted pockets of high unintentional informal voting in multicultural communities. So I commend particularly the case study in chapter 2 of the report about 12 new community engagement officers, who are working directly with communities in their own language to educate and inform them about voting. But of concern in the report is the estimation that as many as 1½ million Australians were not on the electoral roll in 2012. More positively, the electoral reforms and programs introduced recently are making it easier for people to update their enrolment and easier for the commission to directly enrol people.

It is a shame that much of the good work covered in the AEC's report for 2012-13 will be tarnished by the lost ballot paper debacle in Western Australia. I think all senators would know that the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters is conducting its inquiry into the conduct of the 2013 election. It is currently holding hearings in relation to that issue and the events in Western Australia, as well as a full range of other 2013 related election issues. I would say that, while the AEC has for many years done a difficult job and done it well, it is obvious that its reputation has been damaged by the events in Western Australia. Facing this chamber in the months ahead will be an obligation to ensure we never see a repeat of that. (Time expired)