Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am astounded that the Australian Labor Party is unable to hear the simple facts, which were the findings of the committee after its inquiry into the 2004 federal election. It is clearly the case that voters in the seat of Richmond were confused by a highly misleading and deceptive how-to-vote card—which the liberals for forests issued—with preferences flowing to the Australian Labor Party.

Liberals for forests in Richmond secured approximately 1,500 votes, despite the liberals for forests candidates not even turning up in the seat of Richmond to campaign, despite the liberals for forests candidate in Richmond living in Sydney and despite the liberals for forests candidate doing essentially no advertising or campaigning of any kind. Despite these facts, 1,500 people voted for liberals for forests. The finding of the committee is that if only one in 10 people had been misled by the liberals for forests how-to-vote ticket out of those 1,500 people who voted for liberals for forests—and we took evidence directly from people who were misled by the liberals for forests ticket——the outcome would have been different. The Labor member for Richmond won by 150 votes.

In my view, it is a simple case of a large number of people being deceived in the seat of Richmond, and the beneficiary of that deception was the Labor member for Richmond. People are angry about that deception, and they have every right to be. So I welcome one of the key initiatives in the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2005, which is to ensure that this problem will no longer be allowed or permitted to exist. I welcome the fact that a key finding of this committee has been adopted so that this problem will not occur again and the Australian Labor Party will not see one of their candidates elected—whether through some deliberate deal or as a beneficiary of a deal as occurred in the seat of Richmond—because of a deceptive how-to-vote card that the liberals for forests candidate issued in that seat.

There are a number of other key measures that I would like to touch upon in the very short amount of time that I have left. With regard to the disclosure thresholds, I simply have not heard any sound argument that highlights the way in which a $10,000 donation is going to buy any MP. The increase from the amount that was introduced 20 years ago is barely in line with inflation. This increase that the Australian Labor Party rail so strongly against does nothing other than effectively allow the disclosure limit to be CPI indexed. That is hardly a radical concept. The Australian Labor Party can come into this chamber and attribute all sorts of motives behind this increase, but let us put on the record the clear motive, the very simple motive, that it is nothing more than CPI indexation. These kinds of reactionary comments from the Australian Labor Party underscore the fact that they are engaged in a scare campaign about this issue as they do on so many other issues.

I would also like to touch briefly on the early closure of the rolls. We have seen in the Shepherdson inquiry in Queensland that the Australian Labor Party has deliberately rorted enrolments, has deliberately rorted those people who are seeking to enrol and has created fictitious people who enrolled in marginal seats. We saw this happen in Queensland to benefit the Australian Labor Party. So is it any wonder that the committee recommended that there be an earlier closure of the rolls than is currently the case? The reason is that the current closure of the rolls and thousands and the thousands of enrolments that flow in simply do not provide the AEC with the appropriate amount of time required to ensure the bona fides of those who have enrolled. (Time expired)

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