Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] I rise to speak on not one, not two but three electoral bills that are being rammed through this parliament through a cosy relationship between the two big parties. The provisions of those bills will benefit and help shore up the flailing support for those two big parties.

I'm going to make some detailed comments on each of the bills, but I first want to start with the disgusting process that these bills have followed. They only just passed the House yesterday, and here they are. They were exempted from the cut-off, which normally would give private members' bills, or any bill, the appropriate time for scrutiny, deliberation, consideration, amendment and discussion. They were exempted from the cut-off order yesterday, such that in less than 24 hours these bills will now be rammed through both houses of parliament. That's not democracy and it's certainly not integrity or transparency. One has to think that an election is in the offing when the two big parties are ganging up to try to make sure that voters have fewer choices on who to vote for. They're ramming through these three bills in order to achieve that. The process of these bills passing the parliament is an example of how not to do democracy and really proves the point of why we need to break the back of the two-party system, so that we have a democracy that's functioning in the interests of the public rather than just a little power play thing for the two big parties.

I want to start by talking briefly about the first bill, the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Counting, Scrutiny and Operational Efficiencies) Bill 2021. This bill essentially limits prepoll to approximately 12 days prior to election day and makes some other administrative changes. We won't be opposing this bill. We think these administrative changes are all fairly straightforward and sensible. I note that the vast majority of the prepoll votes in the 2019 election were cast in the final two weeks. I want to note that having a longer prepoll period does present some challenges: the compressed timetable for organising, printing and distributing how-to-vote cards, particularly in regional electorates; and the strain on volunteer resources, which of course advantages parties with larger supporter bases or parties that pay for people to hand out how-to-vote cards—this party shall remain nameless, but we all know which party I'm talking about. That longer prepoll period can have significant disadvantages.

We think the balance has been struck correctly with a two-week or, more precisely, 12-day prepoll period, although I do note that in legislation that has been foreshadowed by the government for elections in emergencies—perhaps such as the pandemic that we're currently in—there will be some discretion granted to the AEC as to the prepoll period. We will look forward to considering that bill once its provisions come forward to the house. That is the first bill.

I want to say that this first bill is an opportunity to address a concern that was raised before JSCEM, the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, after both the 2019 and 2016 elections, so it's a longstanding issue about the transparency of the ballot count. Whilst there's no suggestion that there are inaccuracies in the current count, we have seen international examples of a lack of transparency and doubt being weaponised to undermine confidence in election outcomes. We don't want that to happen here. Australia has an electoral system to be proud of, so greater transparency would protect our system against that criticism.

The time frames for these amendments were very condensed, so I believe I need leave to move what I hope will be a committee stage amendment which requires a routine statistical audit at the conclusion of each election undertaken by an independent reviewer into the process of scrutineers. It's essentially just to check that the electronic scanned versions of the ballot papers are appropriately reflective of their original paper versions. This was raised by numerous experts and people in the field as something that would help continue people's confidence in the accuracy of our voting systems. With leave, I will be moving that as a committee stage amendment. I note that the recent review of the ACT election recommended a similar audit to bolster confidence in the electoral process, and we agree. We think that adding this degree of transparency will provide assurances that our electoral processes are robust and best practice.

I want to move now to the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Offences and Preventing Multiple Voting) Bill 2021. There is no evidence to suggest that voter fraud is an issue in Australia, but I am pleased to see that some of the more outlandish suggestions in the chair's JSCEM report have not been taken up and have not made their way into this bill. We are very pleased that things like voter ID and stronger offences haven't seen the light of day. We don't oppose the proposal to allow the AEC to declare a voter who is suspected of multiple voting to be a 'designated elector'. There are provisions allowing a declaration to be challenged and for designated electors to continue to vote in subsequent elections, provided that the vote is cast by declaration. We think that's a fair enough approach and we are happy to support that.

On the proposed increase in the electoral interference offence, the Greens condemn any violence, destruction of political signs or abusive or intimidating behaviour towards candidates, volunteers and electoral staff. There's no evidence to suggest that the current offence provision in the act or the various offences under state laws are failing to deter or penalise bad behaviour, so we query the need for the offence penalty to be increased, but we will not be opposing the bill.

I want to move to the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Party Registration Integrity) Bill 2021, which has been made cognate with the other two bills. This is a real doozy. This bill makes it much harder for new political parties to put themselves forward to the voting public to be voted for at election times. It increases the number of members that a party needs in order to even be able to federally register as a party. The two big parties, which see their vote at record low levels, with a very large crossbench, want to deter competition for votes, so it's very convenient for them to bring forward a bill such as this. This is exactly why the bills have been made cognate and rammed through the parliament—these guys don't like a challenge. Well, I would suggest that, if you want to win more votes from the public, then you should earn them by listening to the public and by fixing your policy offerings so that you start delivering for the public rather than just delivering for your vested interests and big party donors. They're the ones who seem to be running the show, no matter which party we're talking about, whether it's the government or the so-called opposition. Rather than trying to shut out competition from smaller parties and from new parties in particular, why don't you provide a decent offering so that people want to vote for you? That's why they're not voting for you. They see that you're putting the interests of your donors ahead of the interest of the voting public—and nature, for that matter. Rather than trying to fix the system to boost your flailing stock, do better. Earn those votes.

I want to raise the point that this could have been a perfect opportunity to fix some of the real flaws in the system, rather than just fixing the system to help the two big parties in this duopoly of mediocrity that we have on show every day in the parliament. There are so many other issues that could have been addressed that would have improved the integrity of the electoral system and improved our democracy. We should have had rules coming in about donations and electoral spending caps, as the Greens have long proposed. We have private members' bills for these issues, and we routinely move amendments about them.

I flag that I will be moving a second reading amendment, on sheet 1416, to the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Party Registration Integrity) Bill 2021. That talks about the need to get big money out of politics. It talks about the need to cap private donations to political parties, because they have not only a corrupting influence on election outcomes but also an unseemly and inappropriate influence on policy positions and on decisions that actually influence people's daily lives. That second reading amendment calls for a cap on donations. It calls for a cap on electoral spending, because we've seen many millions spent by the likes of Mr Clive Palmer to influence election outcomes and to send text messages to every person and their dog. Big money is wrecking our democracy. It has no role in our democracy and shouldn't be allowed to continue to play a role. But, rather than actually addressing that problem, the government has turned its targets on the smaller and newer political parties, which is very telling. So that second reading amendment goes to donations and spending caps and tries to remove the influence of big money on our democracy.

Instead, we see the absence of that. There are no moves to have stronger rules to prevent Liberal Party campaigning being disguised as government advertising. Of course, there are no rules for truth in political advertising in any of these electoral reform bills. There are no rules about stopping grants from being used as election slush funds, as we've seen with sports rorts, 'pork and ride' and now the Beetaloo, which unfortunately failed to be disallowed yesterday, because once again the opposition forgot that they were the opposition and waved through the government's nefarious spending. Incumbents already have huge advantages in elections. They get to call when the election is. They have the brand recognition, the staff and the fundraising capacity. This government seems to think that they can also use public money for their own private party purposes, to spread around in marginal electorates to prop up their electoral fortunes.

Bills that make it even harder for other voices to be heard and that stop other parties from even having the chance to run weaken our democracy. I might point out that these bills won't affect the Greens. We have more than enough members to meet these criteria, and we have sitting members. It is not because of self-interest that we are making these comments. We are here to defend the democratic system, which should allow anyone who wants to run to put their hand up to run. The real test of whether there is support for a political party should be in how many votes they get at the ballot box, not in artificial limits that are set by the Liberal and Labor parties to try and lock out competitors. It's just a really embarrassing display of your own sense of inadequacy, frankly. If, because you don't think you can win those votes, you'd rather stop your competitors from even being in the race, it says an awful lot about what you really think about how much support you deserve to receive from voters.

I want to quote from one of the experts in this field, Professor Graeme Orr, who's made some specific comments about this third-party registration bill, particularly in relation to the restriction of the use of words like 'liberal' in the names of new rival parties. There are no prizes for guessing which new party this bill is aimed at. Professor Orr says:

What is going on? Is this about democratic values, or is it a power play?

People may differ about the bill's justification. But one thing is clear to a lawyer: as drafted, the bill is cooked. It overreaches and is not well drafted.

Well, this bill is cooked and it is designed to prop up and to entrench the cosy duopoly of the two-party system: the duopoly of mediocrity. As I said before and will say again, as much as it breaks my heart, this is not a system that is delivering for the voters. It's certainly not a system that's delivering for nature or our climate. At the minute, the two-party system is delivering for the big donors to those two parties, which is exactly why we're moving that amendment to cap political donations and which is why for many years the Greens have opposed the influence of big money on politics. I know our amendment will fail, because you're hooked on the big money from your donors, but let the ballot box reflect the wishes of the Australian voters and bring on the election.