Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Hansard source

I was rather bemused to hear that the member for Grayndler is more concerned about the Greens than he is about the coalition. I was also bemused to hear him talking about duplicity, because if ever a party has taken duplicity to its highest realm it is the Labor Party in New South Wales. I will go into some detail about that. One of their methods at present is standing so-called Independents in coalition seats when the so-called Independents have been members of the Labor Party. The Labor Party do not stand a candidate in the election campaign, but they back, with funding, the Independent and say to the people, ‘You’re voting for an Independent.’ It is fairly clear that they are not voting for an Independent; they are voting for a toady who supports the Labor Party. For the member for Grayndler to stand here and talk about duplicity from the Greens is quite hypocritical.

I do not want to bore the House for too long, but there are some very important provisions in the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2005 that I support very strongly. I have been in politics now for just on 23 years and I have seen quite a few of these things in action over the years. I have listened to a number of speeches in the debate on this bill. The feigned anger of the Labor Party on a couple of these issues is quite strange, frankly, in relation to some of the issues that they are bringing forward, having seen them in action over the years. The fact is that we have a system at present whereby people can enrol without having any identification whatsoever. If I want to enrol my pet dog under my surname, I can do that. It is very unlikely it will be checked and that I will be found out. It is quite extraordinary. But if people hire a video, they must have identification.

I have heard numerous members of the opposition talking about how this is an impost on people by requiring them to identify themselves. We have to identify ourselves for everything in life these days. Everyone has a Medicare card. Surely it is very simple to identify yourself so you can enrol to vote in an election. I think I heard the chairman of the committee say yesterday that we have a very good system in Australia. I agree. But we can certainly finetune it in some of the areas where I think it is lacking. It is certainly lacking in the fact that, when you enrol, you do not have to identify who you are. That is just fundamental, as far as I am concerned, when putting your name on the roll.

The member for Grayndler and others have talked about the impost of the closing of the roll and people possibly missing out on voting. I can remember quite clearly what happened a long time ago. In those days when you turned 21, in my era, you put your name on the roll. You could not vote at 18 in those days; it was 21. I will never forget, when I had my 21st birthday, my mother saying to me, ‘Now the first thing you do, son, is go down to the post office and enrol.’ I did. It is fundamental that if you have a right to vote in Australia then, as soon as you turn of age, you go and enrol. If you change your address, you change your address on the roll. Who is even suggesting that you would not change your address for your mail? You have to do that. The arguments that are being put forward by the Labor Party on many of these issues are very spurious indeed.

The member for Grayndler talked about $10,000 donations et cetera. I would love to get a $10,000 donation. I do not think I have seen one. It is quite ridiculous to suggest that somehow people are going to hide behind this. If I get a $100 donation, I am doing well with most of the constituents that I have. We do not have large amounts of money to spend in an election campaign. That is just the nature of a country seat. I do not see anything in this that is the devil that the Labor Party are talking about—this idea that you can be bought for $100 or even for $1,500. That is a ridiculous argument. I might remind the member for Grayndler that it is automatic that part of a union fee goes to the Labor Party. We know that people who do not want to donate to the Labor Party are forced to do so because they have to join a union in certain circumstances. Part of that union fee goes to the Labor Party. They should admit to that.

There are a few other issues that I want to consider. Yesterday some of the speakers talked about the fact that people would be disenfranchised when we close the roll. I heard a lot about academics who had done some studies and what the Electoral Commission had said. I have to say that I think in many instances the Electoral Commission has its head in the sand and does not look at some of the issues that are out there.

I can recall instances as a state member when the roll has been closed. I am pretty certain that all members get a list of new enrollees. I remember in particular when one election was called having a list of 1,500 new enrollees who had gone on the roll from the time that the election was called until the roll was closed. As local members, most of us send out a ‘Welcome to the electorate’ letter to people who are new on the roll. Mr Deputy Speaker, would you believe that 30 per cent of those letters came back marked ‘Not known at that address’ just a couple of weeks after the election? I leave it to the general public to conclude why we would have such a thing. When I sent this information to the Electoral Commission they did not even give me the courtesy of a reply on the fact that we had this anomaly.

I want to talk about the last federal election. I am a neighbour of the electorate of Richmond, as you would know, Mr Deputy Speaker. There were a couple of things that occurred there that I found quite disturbing. First of all, we have heard on a couple of occasions mention of the liberals for forests, who also stood candidates in my seat and got more votes in my electorate than they did in Richmond. Thankfully, I had a bigger buffer. They stood candidates in that election deliberately to defraud and deceive. When I was discussing this matter on the ABC, Dr Woollard came on and admitted that that is what they were about. He said it was because they did not like John Howard. They deliberately went out to deceive the general public. They dressed in the same colours as The Nationals who were handing out how-to-vote cards, they had how-to-vote cards that were the same colour as genuine Liberal how-to-vote cards, they employed backpackers who were not even Australian residents and paid them for the day and they walked up to constituents saying, ‘Liberal.’ They were not Liberals. No. 2 on the ballot paper was Labor. This was the liberals for forests. That has got to stop. You cannot have that deception. I wonder what the Labor Party would think if I started a party called the Workers Party to support the workers, whom they claim to support, and I put my No. 2 preference to the Liberal Party. It is the same thing. It is taking advantage of people who do not listen clearly, I suppose, to what the party is about. I believe that is wrong.

Another issue is provisional voting. Again, as an example, I will use the seat of Richmond. It had an extraordinary number, although the AEC says it is not extraordinary, of provisional votes—something like 1,100. Quite a number of those provisional votes came out of Byron Bay. I was quite suspicious of these votes and soon after the election I asked the Electoral Commission to do a check of, say, 100 or so and get a percentage to see just how many were genuine and how many were not. The Electoral Commission said they could not do it; they did not have the time. Subsequently, way after the time had expired in which we might have appealed the electoral decision, we found out that, of the 1,100, 252 people from memory did not exist but had claimed a provisional vote. Again, I leave it to the general public to conclude what went on there.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I have to say to you—and it is not sour grapes; it is just the facts—that the liberals for forests and the provisional votes elected the Labor Party in Richmond. That might give us some indication as to why the Labor Party are opposing some of these amendments so strongly. I think it is fundamental that, if you are going to claim a provisional vote, you should identify yourself. You should clearly identify yourself—I know you have to do it now when you fill out your address—so that you can be traced, because at the present time you can put a name down and, if it does not exist, it is still counted as a vote in provisional voting. Quite frankly, that is just contrary to our democratic rights in this country.

I do not believe this bill is outrageous. In fact, I would probably go some way further if I had the opportunity. I will put it this way—

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