John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to 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)

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also wish to speak on the Australian Electoral Commission's report for 2012-13. As Senator Faulkner said, the conduct of the 2013 election, which is referred to in this document, is the subject of an inquiry by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. I have attended a couple of meetings of that committee so far. The committee is initially having a look at the Western Australian result and the lost votes, and then when that is finished we will move on to other issues relating to the 2013 election.

It is clear, and I think those of us who have been involved in elections for decades will know, that over the years the actual security for ballot papers can be sometimes problematic, particularly with the Senate, where usually one or two votes lost or one or two wrongly counted does not really make a great deal of difference when—for example, in my state of Queensland—there are some two to three million voters. So my impression has been that, where in what are regarded as safe seats, there are not quite the same standards of scrutiny and security adopted.

In this last election, I spent quite a bit of time campaigning in the electorate of Kennedy. It was thought by all—except me, I might say—that this was a safe seat and the sitting independent, Mr Katter, would be returned without any problem. As it turned out—as I expected and as I knew, but as not many others did—the election was very, very close. In fact, the LNP candidate, Noeline Ikin, polled about 10½ thousand more primary votes in Kennedy than Mr Katter did. But he was saved by the preferences of the Labor Party, the Family First party and the Palmer United Party, all of whom preferenced Mr Katter before the LNP candidate.

As I counted there for the three days after the election, and from looking at the Senate vote as well, it was clear that security could have been impugned. I have concerns with the Western Australian issue that I have raised at both of the committee's meetings, which is that people are saying, 'This is just a lack of attention by the Electoral Commission.' But you have to consider that, at the time these votes went missing, the government of Australia had been determined and there was a fairly good idea of what the composition of the Senate would be after 1 July. I am not suggesting any conspiracy but I am concerned that there could have been direct criminal activity here. We know there are a number of politicians in jail for electoral fraud. I do not know whether any of you have read the book by Amy McGrath in which she details numerous cases of electoral fraud and mismanagement. I would not say that I agree with all of Dr McGrath's work, but there is enough there to make one suspicious. With big money involved in what happens in this chamber and in the government of Australia after 1 July, it is not beyond the realm of fantasy to think that there could have been direct criminal activity in the loss of those votes.

Mr Keelty said that, on his investigation, he could not come to that conclusion; but, in the evidence he gave the day before yesterday, he made it quite clear that anything could have happened, that the systems were so fluid—to put it nicely—that he could not rule out anything. This is a concern. As a result of legislation going through this chamber after 1 July, or legislation not going through the chamber after 1 July, it could be a matter involving different people with millions and millions of dollars. I think it is something the AEC needs to carefully look at.

Question agreed to.