Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2005 contains provisions the cumulative effect of which will undermine the integrity of our electoral system. This government is intent not on improving our electoral system but on partisan political advantage.

The Americans, two elections ago, had Florida and the hanging chads. This government, in this bill, produces early close of rolls for most people—apart from two modest exceptions—and also introduces a proof of identity requirement for provisional voters and for people enrolling or updating. I regard those as the equivalent of the hanging chad provisions. They are being put into our Electoral Act. They are designed to knock out potential electors—not to enfranchise them but to disenfranchise them, as was the case with the hanging chads in Florida. In Florida, the system resulted in a president being elected—as was subsequently found—with a minority of votes. When the votes were subsequently counted, it was found that he was in a minority.

I want to correct something that the member for Casey said when he impugned the member for Melbourne Ports in relation to provisions contained in the 1997 Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters report on funding. Sure, there was a unanimous recommendation; but it was never the policy of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party to increase thresholds. Members on parliamentary committees do not bind the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party. The Federal Parliamentary Labor Party rejected the particular recommendations of the committee and pushed for maintaining existing threshold levels. That is why we have the legislation before us today. Until the government got control of the Senate, we managed to do that.

The member for Batman referred to the fundraising events that are going on this evening—how this parliament is being used to fill the coffers of the Liberal Party and its members through fundraising events coinciding with the—

See this speech in context