Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters Report on the 2007 federal election—Events in the division of Lindsay: review of penalty provisions in the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 and I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Acting Deputy President, I did not anticipate that this report would be delivered at this time; I thought it might have been delivered a little later. As many senators would be aware, I was intimately involved in the exposure of what might be one of the dirtiest political tactics that the coalition perpetrated in the last federal election. My colleagues and I were alerted by internal Liberal Party sources that the Liberal Party was going to distribute fake leaflets in the seat of Lindsay in the 2007 election and we were given the opportunity to catch the perpetrators of this action.

It was indeed very gratifying for us in the Labor Party to get a hold of the perpetrators because, as many Liberals in New South Wales would know, they used similar racist material in the 2004 election against our candidate in the seat of Greenway. The candidate in Greenway for the Liberal Party, a well-known member of the Hillsong Church, Louise Markus, was the beneficiary of a sustained and constant, anonymous, racist attack by people associated with the Liberal Party in 2004. As I recall, in 2004, the swing against the Labor Party in Greenway was somewhere in the vicinity of 11 per cent, but I think the informal vote was even higher because our candidate was of the Muslim faith.

Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I raise a point of order on relevance, Madam Acting Deputy President. I am a member of this committee and it was inquiring into the 2007 election, as the report outlines. I believe Senator Hutchins is referring to an election several years before that which was not covered by the committee.

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Ryan. The Senate would understand that wide latitude is given when debating these matters. However, I would draw Senator Hutchins’s attention to the report.

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will make the point, Madam Acting Deputy President, that I understand Senator Ryan is trying to defend his outrageous colleagues in New South Wales, which is good for a Victorian.

Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the point of order, Madam Acting Deputy President: Senator Hutchins can cast aspersions across the chamber, but I think that is a complete misrepresentation and is still irrelevant to the report.

The Acting Deputy President:

There is no point of order.

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy President. I did not realise that Senator Ryan, who I understand has quite an honourable record of being fairly enlightened and is one of the few liberals left in the Liberal Party, would get up and support his outrageous conservative, racist colleagues in New South Wales. It is interesting that he would get up and do that.

In that election in 2004 the Liberal Party and their conservative allies within the seat of Greenway used the racist material to quite good effect against the Labor Party candidate, Eddie Husic. As I said, not only did we suffer a significant swing against us but we also had a significant informal vote because people were led to believe that they were voting for some Muslim extremist to go into parliament. I want to say that Eddie Husic, who is quite an honourable man, is of Bosnian Muslim extraction. I think his family is European in ethnic origins, but the Liberal Party were targeting him. I think Scott Morrison, the spokesman for immigration in the other House, was executive director of the New South Wales Liberal Party at the time.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Acting Deputy President, I rise on a point of order. Senator Hutchins has been here long enough to know that when you are talking about people in the other place you refer to them by their proper title and this is the second time he has done it so I would ask you to draw it to his attention.

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was referring to the member for Cook and I was in the electorate of Cook for many years until I moved west. We used to hold the seat of Cook once upon a time. Of course when the member for Cook was director of the Liberal Party in New South Wales, these activities occurred. I think it might be stretching the bow to think that he may have been associated with those activities; nevertheless, they did occur on his watch.

They were successful and the cronies and the morons within the Liberal Party in New South Wales thought they could get away with it again in Lindsay. So a few nights before the election in 2007, a hand-picked group of morons in the Liberal Party in New South Wales were dispatched to go and leaflet an area in the seat of Lindsay, North St Marys, which is full of men and women from an Anglo-Celtic background, to say—I cannot recall the exact words of the leaflet—that part of our policy was to build a mosque and to allow increased Muslim immigration into Australia.

Fortunately, because there are some decent men and women in the Liberal Party in New South Wales, we were alerted to the fact that this scam was about to occur and I was one of the few people who were involved in making sure that we caught them in the act. We caught them in the act when they were leafleting with these disgraceful, racist leaflets. We caught them because I sat waiting near the home of Jackie Kelly, the then member for Lindsay. I sat there waiting for them to come out of her home and go from there to North St Marys. Jackie Kelly lives in a very salubrious part of Penrith right on the Nepean River. We waited there and Jackie Kelly’s husband, Gary Clark, and a number of other people from the Liberal Party, including a member of the Liberal Party state executive, Jeff Egan, were dispatched to North St Marys to anonymously leaflet these unauthorised documents in that area. But fortunately, because there are some good people in the Liberal Party in New South Wales, as I said, we were alerted to this and we caught them in the act.

You may well recall, Madam Acting Deputy President Cash, that not more than two days later a photograph of Jackie Kelly’s husband appeared on the front page of the Daily Telegraph in Sydney where he was covering his face with the leaflet that he was distributing. There was also a member of the executive of the state Liberal Party, Jeff Egan, who had been a councillor on Blue Mountains City Council and was a member of the right wing or the conservative part of the Liberal Party in New South Wales, and his brother. I actually saw Jeff and his brother distributing these leaflets. I pulled them up and said: ‘You should not be doing this. This is wrong. Just go home.’ After I told them to go home, they continued to leaflet the area. I do not know what was going through their bloody minds at the time, but they continued to operate. There were about a dozen of these Liberals there at the time doing this. I was amazed because I had known Egan for some time since he was on the Blue Mountains City Council. I just could not believe that a man of his standing would perpetrate the sort of racist activity that the Liberal Party involved themselves in at the time.

Madam Acting Deputy President Cash, as you would be well aware, a number of people involved in that operation were subsequently convicted and fined for their activities. I must say that I find it amazing that the magistrate convicted Gary Clark on my evidence, even though I never saw Gary Clark actually put the leaflet in a letterbox, but he dismissed the case against Jeff Egan, the state executive member of the Liberal Party, who I did see put the leaflet in a letterbox. Gary Clark is Jackie Kelly’s husband and is not a bad sort of a fellow, but he was convicted on my evidence. I find it interesting that Jeff Egan was not convicted. Subsequently, a few of us had a private prosecution for assault brought against us. I can inform the Senate that I was not convicted because they did not proceed with the assault charges.

I just want to say to the New South Wales Liberal Party—and I am glad that Senator Ryan here is one of the true liberals in this place—that their conservative, racist actions were pulled up on that day. Hopefully, we will never see that sort of action again. Hopefully, we will never again see an attempt to divide the community on racial or religious grounds like the attempt made by those silly men on that day a few days before the election. The one thing I am grateful for is that I think it contributed to the loss of the seat of the Prime Minister.

Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not know if a compliment from Senator Hutchins is something that necessarily helps a new senator on this side of the table; however, I will correct him by saying that I often get called a neoliberal rather than a liberal. Senator Hutchins has undertaken to link what was a bipartisan report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters to a slur on the Liberal Party. I assume that Senator Hutchins will also at some point get up and defend the state of the New South Wales Labor Party and the endemic corruption that seems to have existed therein over decades, but today is not the time for that discussion, just as it is not the time for the discussion of the 2004 election in the electorate of Greenway.

Going to the actual report that the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters brought down: there is no-one on this side of the chamber who does not condemn the activities that are covered by this report. That is one of the reasons that the report was bipartisan, and I will go into that in more detail shortly. It is also the reason—and I want to put this on the record—the New South Wales division of the Liberal Party acted instantly upon these events being made public. Senator Hutchins pointed out there was a political cost to the Liberal Party when these events were made public and the reality is that there was a political price. The people who undertook these activities brought shame on themselves and did not act in the interests of the thousands of Liberal Party members and volunteers who work hard in election campaigns around the country. I challenge Senator Hutchins, after all the slurs upon the New South Wales Liberal Party he just tried to get into Hansard, to find a member of this parliament, either in the Senate or the other place, who would in any way defend those activities. Because he simply will not. That is reflected in the conduct and findings of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters into this issue.

I personally condemn those activities. They have no place in Australian behaviour, or, particularly, in Australian politics. I seek to ensure that the public record reflects that the Labor Party in New South Wales took immediate action against those people when those activities became known. There is no evidence whatsoever, there was no evidence displayed in the court case, that there was any encouragement of, condoning of or even implicit permission for this sort of behaviour. Those people will be condemned because the public record reflects that.

I do not want to go into Senator Hutchins’s reflections upon the trial. I do not think that this is the place to do that. But that does lead me to the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. I was not present at the hearing but I am a member of the committee. The inquiry was conducted with a view to examining whether the current provisions in the Electoral Act are sufficient to deter and punish this kind of behaviour. Such behaviour needs to be strongly condemned and there needs to be a deterrent to prevent it from occurring again.

This report brings down some recommendations to change the Electoral Act. They change the burden for a defendant to make it an offence of strict liability. They dramatically increase the penalties but they do not provide for incarceration as a sentencing option. The reality of that—and it reflects the government’s view as well as the opposition’s—is that there is very little prospect of someone actually being sent to prison for this sort of offence. But there has been a substantial increase in the penalty provisions that apply for such an offence, and, by making it a strict liability offence, saying that one did not necessarily know what they were doing is not going to be a defence.

Australia has a very proud record. One of the reasons these events stood out was that they are so rare. As I said earlier, the Liberal Party acted immediately against the people involved in these events. The government and the opposition have issued a bipartisan report with recommendations to amend the Electoral Act to provide greater deterrents and greater penalties for such actions if they occur again. We hope—I assume on both sides—that we never see something like this again.

Going back to Senator Hutchins’s comments, I think it is particularly inappropriate to try and link in some way the actions of a few irresponsible people to a previous election. Senator Hutchins had every opportunity, if he had wished to, to bring accusations of breaches of the Electoral Act against people who he implied were involved in the 2004 election campaign. I was not involved in that campaign directly, being new to this place, but, as far as I am aware, no evidence has been brought forward to a committee. His comments were nothing but a slur against people—I will not repeat his accusation.

These events were not a proud moment in Australian electoral history. They were not in any way, however, symbolic of the thousands of volunteers—on both sides, but particularly on our side of politics in this case—that get involved in day-to-day election and political activities. The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters report recommends some changes to ensure that there are greater deterrents and there is greater punishment for people who undertake such activity.

Again, Senator Hutchins, I do not think it was appropriate to talk about other election campaigns—nor was it appropriate to reflect on the particular trial and the fact that certain people were convicted and certain people were not. This report reflects well on the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, for the very reason that it is bipartisan. I think it will be of interest to those who want a more considered view of the events of the Lindsay election in 2007.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I put forward a dissenting report to this inquiry into the events in the division of Lindsay. The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters has yet again failed to tackle the matter of truth in advertising. It is all very well to look at who authorised or did not authorise a document, but both of the big parties are locked into a campaign to prevent the administration of justice for voters in that they should not be misled on the way to the ballot box.

Just a moment ago, we saw the Liberals and Nationals vote against a motion that the government should amend the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 before the next federal election to incorporate a ‘truth in political advertising’ unit to monitor and regulate political advertising to ensure it is true and accurate. We have the big parties continuing to campaign to prevent there being an independent watchdog on lies, misrepresentation and fraudulent behaviour through electoral advertising. I call both of the big parties to account on this. It is corrupt practice that is being aided and abetted by what their political representatives do in this place, and it is time it was stopped.

Today the Labor Party are distributing leaflets in Tasmania claiming that the Greens would strip resources from Catholic and private schools. That is manifestly untrue. The Labor Party knows that the Greens support every dollar going to the Catholic and private school system but want to see the public system get better funding. This concocted misrepresentation, this lie, going to the Tasmanian voters from the Labor Party apparatchiks in Tasmania is being aided and abetted by the Liberals, who have just voted down a move to get truth in advertising. Why is that? Because in 2006 it was the Liberals, with the Exclusive Brethren, who were peddling lies and concocted misrepresentation about the Greens to deceive voters on their way to the ballot box. We also see it in South Australia, with the Labor Party’s attack on Isobel Redmond, the head of the Liberals. This is a total misrepresentation of a decent woman with the concocted advertising that we are seeing from the Labor Party in that state, misleading voters on the way to the ballot box in South Australia.

I ask you, Madam Acting Deputy President, is it not manifest that the representatives of the big parties in this parliament are aiding and abetting corruption of the political system by refusing to move to end this lying and fraudulent behaviour in electoral advertising material? Why do they do it? Because it does deceive voters and it does change votes. It is the worst of political behaviour but it is being aided and abetted by members of the big political parties in this parliament time and again, because they refuse to move to support the Greens in having this matter cleaned up. It is abhorrent behaviour and it is time it was called to book. And it is time the people of Australia got some gumption and some decency out of their politicians in moving to end this fraudulent behaviour which deprives the people of Australia of their right to be honestly dealt with in the run-up to elections. Labor does it; the Liberals do it; the Nationals do it. They fail time and time again to move for truth in advertising. I have put on the books today a move for there to be an independent commissioner for integrity in electoral matters. I have no doubt that Labor and Liberal will vote that down as well, because they want lies, because they back fraudulent behaviour and because they are in the business, manifestly, of corruptly misleading voters on the way to the ballot box.

It is time this was cleaned up. I say to the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd: you should be supporting a change to the Electoral Act to insist on truth in political advertising. I say to the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon. Tony Abbott: you should be supporting the Greens’ move to clean up the Electoral Act and to give the Electoral Commission the power to insist on truth in advertising. When you vote down motions that aim at that end, you are manifestly supporting lying, fraudulent behaviour and corruption of the political process. You cannot have it both ways. These are strong words but they need to be said and the challenge needs to be issued in this parliament. It is disgraceful behaviour by the big parties. They come in with a report like this where partisan politics takes place and they are fighting about who was the worst in a process of defrauding the people of Lindsay of their right to be properly informed. But they refuse to support moves to clean up the Electoral Act to prevent this from happening again. They are talking about who authorised or did not authorise material. That is important; the Electoral Act is strong on that. But when it comes to truth in advertising, and properly and decently dealing with your opponents in a mature and educated democracy, they will not have a bar of it. They should hang their heads in shame. It is disgraceful behaviour by both Liberal and Labor, and it is rolling itself out now with these Labor attack ads in both Tasmania and South Australia; as it did with the Liberal attack ads just at the last election. It is time it stopped.

I can tell both parties I will campaign on this all the way to the federal election. You can turn down our moves to bring decency into our electoral system, to stop the lying and the fraudulent behaviour and the misleading of voters—

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What about your lying on the Traveston Crossing dam?

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We get Senator Macdonald in here defending that lying and fraudulent behaviour and misleading of electors. And here he is in full flight in defence of that system. It is disgraceful behaviour by that senator. But it is not him that counts; it is the leader of his party, who will not stand up for truth in advertising—

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are so dishonest.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He calls me dishonest. Here we go with attack on the process, not on the issue of truth itself, because they will not face up to it.

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Bob Brown is entitled to be heard in silence.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Bernardi interjecting—

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You withdraw that comment. Madam Acting Deputy President, I ask that that comment be withdrawn.

The Acting Deputy President:

Senator Brown, it was not a comment on the record and as such I would ask you to continue.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would not expect it of that cowardly senator to withdraw that comment. I am talking about Senator Bernardi. That is behaviour that we would be expecting to get—

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

The Acting Deputy President:

Order! Senators, we will resume the debate on the motion. Senator Bob Brown, you have two minutes and 36 seconds left.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And ultimately that is it: cowardice by politicians who will not stand up for the democratic system—for the right of voters not to be lied to, which is rampant in politics at federal and state level; and it is time it was cleaned up.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What about the Traveston Crossing dam?

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Macdonald wants to defend it but he will not get away with it. We will continue to campaign for a new integrity in political matters while ever the Liberal and Labor parties in a cowardly way refuse to tackle the issue of fairly representing to the electorate truth when it comes to electoral campaigns.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State and Scrutiny of Government Waste) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to speak on this report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters and draw honourable senators’ attention to the recommendations, which were bipartisan and, in my view, subject to further inquiry in relation to some of the legal issues—a sensible move-forward proposal. I do want to make some comments this morning in relation to the comments of Senator Hutchins. Why Senator Hutchins would choose to approach this matter the way he did, given that we are talking about this report, is beyond me. But with him having done so and having opened this up, I might have some comments to make as well.

I am sure Senator Hutchins is listening, and I ask him to reflect on the TWU official who assaulted a Liberal booth worker at the St Clair High School booths before the 1996 Lindsay by-election. I agree entirely with Senator Ryan’s comments on this matter. Any behaviour of the sort that was brought forward in this report is inexcusable, and in no way would we support that. We will not sit here and cop it from people like Senator Hutchins, whose own union completely and utterly owns him, when a TWU official was out there assaulting a Liberal booth worker. What a nerve Senator Hutchins has to come in here today and talk about ills and wrongs—what an absolute nerve!

Maybe Senator Hutchins will reflect on the comments he made today, because they invite further discussion about another man who may well be here shortly, and that fills me with absolute horror. It clearly does not fill the Prime Minister with horror, because I think that today your national executive, Mr Acting Deputy President Bishop, will make a decision to bypass the views of local people in Herbert and put in place a poll-rorter by the name of Mr Tony Mooney. This rorter, who was fingered by the Shepherdson inquiry, will apparently be the next candidate for the Labor Party for the seat of Herbert. Is that the quality of people that this Prime Minister wants?

It is absolutely fascinating that the Prime Minister is prepared to let Mr Mooney go through because he is a serious Labor powerbroker, but that it is a different matter in Tasmania. I notice in this morning’s Australian that Mr Kevin Harkins has been paying for the ALP memberships of workers. That is a nice how-do-you-do, isn’t it? Is that the way the Australian Labor Party plays the game—by a third party paying for memberships? The Australian quoted one of these workers as saying:

“I didn’t actually renew the membership but the ALP sent (me a letter) saying I renewed the membership,” he said. “If they want me to stay a member, then I will stay ... but I didn’t want to pay for it.

“I don’t mind being a member but I probably wouldn’t have done it of my own accord. If they asked me to renew it, I probably wouldn’t.”

No, he would not, because someone else had paid for it. Is Senator Hutchins proud of that sort of behaviour? He has just come back into the chamber, which I am very pleased about. He should come back into the chamber, in light of the comments that he made.

But let us return to Mr Mooney. What is the impact on the locals of someone being named in the Shepherdson inquiry? What is the view of the locals of someone being imposed on them from on high? I will tell you what the outcome is: there will be a new political party formed in North Queensland, a fact that is alluded to in a letter received by one of my colleagues. Is it a conservative party? Is it a Pauline Hanson style party? Is it a new National Party or a new Liberal Party? No. Guess what it is. It is a new Labor Party. It will be known as the North Queensland Labor Party—NQLP. The letter says:

Following recent events within the ALP there is now a move on by the grassroot members of the Townsville ALP to form its own political party to be known as the North Queensland Labor Party (NQLP).

This push comes as a result of the constant bypassing of the wishes of the grassroot members of the Townsville ALP by the mandarins of the ALP in both Brisbane and Canberra.

In the last two years the mandarins of the party have bypassed the local members to appoint candidates for both the Council and the State seat of Townsville. It now seems certain that the chief mandarin himself Kevin Rudd will appoint the candidate for the seat of Herbert once again bypassing the local membership.

What is the difference, I wonder, between Mr Harkins and Mr Mooney? According to the Australian today, the Prime Minister has vowed to prevent the candidature of Kevin Harkins. According to this report, the Prime Minister alleged:

… in federal parliament that Mr Harkins is a “well known pugilist” whose chances of entering the Senate are “Buckley’s and none”.

So the Prime Minister wants to knock back a ‘well-known pugilist’, but he is happy for a rorter to be preselected. He is happy for a rorter to bypass the locals in Herbert and be appointed by the national executive, forcing the local ALP members to form their own branch. That letter further reads:

The bottom line is that the local membership have now gathered the trenchant impression that they are only in the party to hand out papers and have no say whatsoever as to what occurs within the ALP.

Therefore following these recent events in particular the assets sales by the Bligh Government the disaffected ALP members of Townsville have no other alternative but to form their own political party. A party where its members have a say, input and one that wholly represents North Queensland in Brisbane and Canberra, not to be there just to make up the numbers for the mandarins.

At this point it is expected that … 200 disaffected local ALP members will defect …

The party will campaign on a diversity of issues such as the asset sales, Kevin Rudd’s big Australia, which only serves to put more pressure on home affordability, the constant flow of boat people courtesy Kevin Rudd’s policies.

I repeat that:

… the constant flow boat people courtesy Kevin Rudd’s policies.

The letter goes on:

And above all a party that fights to return the economic wealth generated in North Queensland to North Queenslander’s, not to the hip pockets of southerner’s …

The party also plans to run a high profile candidate at the forthcoming Federal election for the seat of Herbert and other North Queensland seats. It will also target State seats and Council seats, not just in Townsville but right across North Queensland as a party that wholly represents North Queenslander’s.

The time has come and it’s long overdue for North Queensland to have a voice down south not just whimpering yes men, which is presently the case.

Here we have the local ALP branches in North Queensland so upset about the behaviour of the Prime Minister and the powerbrokers that they will now be forced to form their own political party.

Is it any wonder that the ALP members in Townsville and the community of Townsville will look at the appointment of Tony Mooney as an imposition of someone who was named in the Shepherdson inquiry for rorting? How are they going to view the Australian Labor Party in relation to this matter? My view is that they will look at the behaviour of the Prime Minister, the national executive and the Labor Party at a national level and say, ‘We are not prepared to tolerate the likes of Tony Mooney, with a nod from the Prime Minister, getting a seat in parliament.’ Tell me the difference between Kevin Harkins and his behaviour and Tony Mooney and his behaviour. I will tell you what the difference is: the factions are pulling the strings in relation to Tony Mooney and they are not going to pull the strings— (Time expired)

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will be brief. I welcome this report. I think it highlights a number of inadequacies in our current electoral laws. I do wish to comment briefly on recommendation 3:

The committee recommends that the Australian Electoral Commission should, at the next federal election, record all polling booth offences that are reported, the actions that were taken and provide an appraisal of the adequacy of the powers under the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 to deal with polling place offences.

I would have thought that the appropriate way to deal with this is to look at what we know with a view to amending the Electoral Act in order to ensure that those offences do not occur in the first place or, if they do occur, there are stronger provisions in place by way of both penalty and enforcement so that the AEC can do its job to deal with these rorts. Maybe I misunderstood the wording of the recommendation, but I would have thought that, if there is evidence of quite unacceptable behaviour in the past that compromises the integrity of our electoral process, we ought to be drafting those laws now rather than looking at amending them after the next election—I think that is pretty axiomatic.

I agree with the comments made by Senator Bob Brown: we do need truth-in-advertising legislation. There is real scope for stronger laws in relation to that. If corporations in this country engaging in trade or commerce made the sorts of representations that have been made in the course of election advertising, they would be in trouble—they would be in breach of the Trade Practices Act and could find themselves facing prosecution under the Fair Trading Act. There is real scope for some further reforms with, I hope, bipartisan support so that there is greater rigour in scrutinising the claims made in election advertising in this country.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also support the recommendations of this committee and agree with the very eloquent words of Senator Scott Ryan in relation to this. It is very important that we have truth in the political and electoral systems. That is why it always sickens me when I hear the Greens political party carry on in their holier than thou way. I indicated to Senator Bob Brown that I would be speaking about this as he was dishonestly saying that I was defending rorters. He knew that was dishonest when he said it. I could not be bothered—

Mark Bishop (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Macdonald, you cannot reflect on another senator in that way. You should withdraw those remarks.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw, Mr Acting Deputy President. Let me just state the facts. During Senator Brown’s contribution I said to him, ‘What about your action with the Traveston Crossing dam in Queensland? That was dishonest,’ to which he replied, ‘There’s Senator Macdonald defending the rorters.’ I do not know what terminology you give to that, but it certainly was not truthful—but that is the way the Greens political party carry on. I am talking about the Traveston Crossing dam; he is pointing at me and saying, ‘There’s Senator Macdonald defending the rorters.’ I was not defending the rorters; I was pointing out to the Senate and to Senator Brown, who knew it in any case, that in fact it was his political party who tried to pull the wool over the eyes of Queenslanders. I think Senator Brown canoed down the Mary River; at the least he was in the area of Traveston Crossing saying, ‘We’re going to save Queensland from this dam. We’re going to save the Mary River. We’re totally opposed to the Traveston Crossing dam.’ That was just before the Queensland state election, and then what did he do? The Greens political party in Queensland gave voting preferences to Anna Bligh’s Labor Party, who were committed to building the Traveston Crossing dam. It was a relatively close election in Queensland.

The difference, and the reason Anna Bligh won government, was that Labor received the preferences of the Greens political party in the crucial electorates in the Queensland election. Because of that, Labor won the state election and proceeded with their policy, which they had announced, to build the Traveston Crossing dam, against all ecological and environmental advice and against the petitions of environmental activists and local people. All were totally opposed to the dam—and, I might say, so were the Liberal and National parties. But the Greens, by giving their preferences to Labor, ensured that the Labor government would have its way and that dam would be constructed.

You ask me about the semantics of what you would call the Greens. You make up your own mind. But it seems to me that they are perhaps even worse than Mr Rudd and his all-spin, all-talk and no action program. The Greens simply say one thing for the hearing of voters and do the exact opposite. The sooner the Greens political party are brought to account, as soon as the hypocrisy of their policies is better known by the Australian public, the better off democracy in Australia will be.

I say this time and time again: many people support the Greens political party because they believe it stands for the environment and trees and koalas when in fact it is a very radical left-wing socialist party which some, rightly in my view, describe as being a communist party by another name. I do not associate those remarks with every single one of the Greens senators in this parliament. There are some who I think are genuine environmentalists, but there are some who I think the public of Australia should carefully watch in what they say and what they do, particularly before close elections, as I understand are occurring in South Australia and Tasmania at the present time.

I leave that there and again refer to Senator Hutchins’s quite amazing contribution to the debate on this report. What concerns me about electoral reform in this state is that it does not address the widespread rorting for which the Labor Party in my state of Queensland is well known. I refer back—admittedly it was a few years ago but it encapsulates so well the culture of the ALP in Queensland—to when Karen Ehrmann, then a Labor councillor on the Townsville City Council, was jailed for vote rigging. In her evidence, then and at subsequent inquiries, she referred to the culture of the ALP in vote rigging, mainly for internal Labor Party purposes. As we all know, Mr Mike Kaiser, formerly a Queensland Labor member of the state parliament, was forced to resign over false enrolment claims. I might add that he has just been appointed on the nod of the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Conroy, to a $450,000 job in government relations in a government company called NBN Co Ltd. That is what happened to Mr Kaiser after this vote rigging, but Mr Kaiser was only following what was the culture of the Labor Party at the time. At the time of inquiries into Ms Ehrmann’s part, back in October 2000, an article was written by David Solomon, which said:

Ehrmann said her prosecution and jailing had been due to her falling out with the faction over her refusal to support Councillor Tony Mooney in his bid for preselection for the state seat of Townsville. She said she had been warned of the consequences of supporting the Left’s Mike Reynolds. ‘We were threatened, we were bullied, we were pushed from pillar to post and warned that if we did not support Tony Mooney we would be destroyed,’ Ms Ehrmann told the inquiry. ‘I would be destroyed politically and publicly.’

The article went on:

There was a large-scale falsification of the electoral rolls—a federal criminal offence—and Ehrmann says that mail was also stolen and Electoral Commission documents improperly obtained and used by the Labor Party.

The series of articles at the time went on to talk about that culture of vote rigging and fraudulent action in the Queensland Labor Party in those years and, as Senator Ronaldson mentioned in his contribution, it seems to be all happening again.

The locals in Townsville, according to press reports, certainly do not want Mr Tony Mooney as their candidate; they want Councillor Jenny Hill, quite an effective councillor on the current Townsville City Council. They want her or the former burger king, a very prominent Townsville gentleman, who owns all the McDonald’s franchises in Townsville. The locals want one of those two. But Mr Rudd has indicated that he would prefer Mr Mooney and so, as I read press reports, the National Executive of the Labor Party has unilaterally said from Sydney, ‘That is who you will have to represent you in Townsville.’ Going a bit further south into the marginal seat of Dawson, they have also said that, against local wishes, in appointing the Mayor of Bowen—or Whitsundays as it now is—as their candidate. (Time expired)

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make some comments on the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters Report on the 2007 federal election—events in the division of Lindsay: review of penalty provisions in the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, because this report is of great importance and interest to the people of Australia. They need to know that the conduct in and during elections is above and beyond reproach. We heard earlier Senator Hutchins’s attack on the Liberal Party, in which he referred to the events in Lindsay, which have been condemned by Liberals and most notably by the Prime Minister at the time, who said:

I condemn what happened. It was an unauthorised document. It does not represent my views. It was tasteless and offensive.

Yet Senator Hutchins is in some way trying to suggest that something improper has happened because one man was convicted and another man was not. It is an extraordinary claim and accusation, because there is a marked contrast between the treatment of those who do improper things within the Liberal Party organisational capacities and those who do the wrong thing in the Labor Party. In the Liberal Party they get kicked out, they get asked to leave or they get suspended. What happens in the Labor Party if you do the wrong thing, if you rort the electoral roll and you have to resign from your seat in Queensland? You get a job, a $450,000 job, with no other candidates announced and no advertising for it. That is what happens if you are a rorter in the Labor Party: you get rewarded. What happens if you are a rorter in the Labor Party? You get to be put forward for preselection as a Prime Minister’s choice, as Senator Ronaldson mentioned. In the seat of Herbert in Queensland, the person that the Prime Minister of this country has chosen, having used his authority to override the wishes of the local electorate, is a rorter. Once again, in Labor rorters are rewarded, an inconvenient truth that Senator Hutchins does not want to acknowledge in this parliament.

But how can we touch upon hypocrisy without going to the high priest of hypocrisy and the party of hypocrisy? Quite frankly, that is the Greens movement. It is a continuing disappointment that the public claims of the Greens do not match their behind-the-scenes dealings and that their calls for accountability and adequate scrutiny never apply to their own organisation or policies; somehow it all goes through to the keeper. The other day I used what I would say was an intemperate phrase in here about how the Greens wished to mark businesses associated with the Exclusive Brethren with some sort of green Star of David and I withdrew that use of the Star of David because it offends so many who suffered under the hideous Nazi regime. But the inconvenient truth for Senator Bob Brown is that his press release that went out in 2006 or thereabouts actually asked for a register of Exclusive Brethren businesses—because they dared oppose some of the Greens’ extreme left Marxist policies. He wants a register of businesses based on religious belief or because you are a member of a particular organisation. What a hideous and grotesque thing to want to introduce into Australian public life! So proud of this is Senator Bob Brown that, when it was exposed to public scrutiny, he removed it from his website—just that line—so he could have plausible deniability. But we have a copy of that document, because it is appalling and goes to the very heart of the hypocrisy of the Greens movement.

What about the Greens’ drug policies? They deny they want to deal drugs. They deny they want to make penalties for the illicit use of drugs less severe. If you go to their website, you will find that they want to initiate a trial of prescribing heroin to registered users and addicts. That sounds to me like handing out drugs. They want to have injecting rooms. They want to give the vote to murderers, rapists and other people who are in prison. These are the sorts of policies that the Australian people are not aware of when they vote for the extreme green movement. As Senator Macdonald said, they have a public image where they seem like an environmental party that is actually interested in koalas. Let me tell you that I am more interested in people than koalas. I want to save the lives of people. The koalas might have to look after themselves for a while, particularly the koala that runs around claiming to be from the Wilderness Society, collecting bucketloads of cash and tipping it into the extreme green movement, whose fundraising—if unorthodox—methods led to calls that Senator Bob Brown might go bankrupt, so the money started to pour in for his legal fund. I wonder about the declarations of who donated to that fund or about when Senator Bob Brown stood up in this place and talked about the disclosure of electoral donations, yet he had line after line after line of anonymous donations flowing in through his fundraising efforts.

These are all questions about the integrity, the reliability and the veracity of what is said inside and outside this chamber by a movement, an organisation, that is as deceptive as it is—I am trying to choose my word to go here very carefully. Let me make it very clear that the Greens are an organisation, a political party, that say one thing and do another. They talk about integrity, they talk about reliability, they talk about transparency and we do not actually see much action. I am not sure why they do not get examined more closely and I am not sure why the public statements of their leaders are not examined more rigorously and why they are not continually reminded of them. With my party, with the Labor Party and with the National Party it seems our comments are on the record and are there to be examined, and we are reminded of them regularly, but somehow the Greens seem to escape this. I register my disappointment as to that and I hope that it will change.

In conclusion, going back to the events in the division of Lindsay, it was a sham, it was very poor form and it meets with the support and approval of no-one that I know in the Liberal Party. It is something that most Australians, I am sure, find undesirable in their political system. Accordingly, it is only right and proper that we support stronger penalties that are realistic and practical, and that is why this report has my endorsement. I will leave my comments at that and express once again my support for the findings of this report.

Question agreed to.