Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am concerned that the member for Moreton is so eager to put off the election for so long; I am sure he will not do as badly as he thinks he is going to. Obviously, we hope the election is soon so that we can have the election of an Abbott government, as the Speaker pre-empted so helpfully yesterday. The member for Moreton made the point and I also think that this amendment that stops political parties running nine candidates in a by-election is a good amendment. I note in Bradfield that was the case, but in Bradfield as in my by-election it was very unfortunate that the Labor Party could not find one person to nominate. It would have been nice if the Labor Party had one person to nominate, fight and represent those Labor voters who still to this day express their great disappointment and anger at the Labor Party for not having the guts and the ability to front up to the Mayo by-election or to the Bradfield and Higgins by-elections. It was very disappointing. Hopefully, the electors in those three seats at the next federal election will send a very clear message to the hollowmen in the Labor Party that it was not a tactic that was received well. But that is an amendment in the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010 that we do support.

There are five general areas in this bill that we are discussing. The opposition has indicated through the shadow special minister of state, Senator Ronaldson, that we will support three of them. These are the schedule 3 amendments relating to the prepoll vote, the schedule 4 amendments relating to the processing of enrolments and the schedule 5 amendments relating to the nomination of candidates, again making the point that the Labor Party chose not to run candidates in by-elections in my seat, Higgins or Bradfield at the recent by-elections.

The electoral roll is one of the great things that we have in our democracy in this country. We should always ensure to the best of our ability that it is protected, that it is correct and that the data is as up to date as it possibly can be. Any bill that we debate in this place which changes the way the electoral roll works needs to be looked at and considered very carefully. We are very fortunate in this country that we have had very few examples of fraud relating to elections. There are always suggestions and views put that there has been some misuse of the roll or election procedures but we have not had a crisis as some other countries have had. We have a reliable system. The AEC needs to be commended as do the state electorate offices, in that they ensure that we do have election results which are not questionable given the large number of people who vote.

Following the last federal election I spoke with a representative of the US embassy who commented on how impressed he was with the ease of the transition from one government to another, how it happened without question and very effectively. Even though we did not like the result, it was never questioned because we have great faith in the roll and in the system that governs election campaigns. It is with that in mind that we do look very carefully at how the roll operates. As the member for Moreton identified, in the last parliament the former government amended the Commonwealth Electoral Act to ensure that that roll was given even greater protection than it had previously. This was to address what were not only perceived issues but in some cases real issues relating to potential fraud in relation to the electoral roll.

The first of those issues was the amendment relating to the close of roll. The government argues that this measure was designed to ensure that young people in particular did not have an opportunity to vote. By closing the roll on the day the election was called, it allegedly removed—as the member for Moreton said—magically all of these people’s right to vote. That argument is completely misleading. The amendment ensured that the AEC could not be flooded the week after the election was announced, making it impossible to verify and keep a check on new enrolments where there could have been questions about the legitimacy of those enrolments. The amendments very much were about ensuring that we had a very strong roll and very strong protections about who could and could not be enrolled.

It is a weak argument to say that people in the three years leading to a federal election, four to a state election, do not think about and contemplate changing their address or enrolling. One of the great things that the AEC does is to consistently roll cleanse. It ensures that it keeps the role up to date and reminds people to enrol. We should make it easier to ensure that people can change their address. I think the use of electronic enrolment and so forth are a good idea remembering that there needs to be protection of the privacy elements of that.

But to say that you need a seven-day period at the start of an election campaign is weakening the protections around the electoral act and that is why we do not support these provisions. It does increase the opportunities for fraud and there have been circumstances in Australia where the electoral roll has been subject to fraud. We have had some very high profile cases where members of parliament have resigned because of it. The most recent was in Queensland when, in early 2000, that government was struck by allegations that people had been caught up in fake enrolments and so forth which related to Labor Party preselections involving fake enrolments using the electoral roll. It is very important that we ensure the electoral roll is protected. I noted with interest recently that the former MP who was caught up in that scandal and had to resign from parliament has been employed by the Rudd government on a $450,000-a-year salary.

The second amendment relates to the evidence of identity for provisional voters. The member for Moreton talked about the electoral roll in Afghanistan. The truth is that in Afghanistan you have to show ID when you vote. It is interesting that the member for Moreton, on one hand, argued that it is onerous for provisional voters to be required to show proof of identity after five days notice while, on the other hand, he also argued how great the electoral roll is in Afghanistan where they are required to show ID. It appears to be a conflicted statement for him to argue on one hand ID is good and on the other hand ID is bad. Truth be told, to give increased comfort about these provisional votes the last government moved the identification requirement, a reasonable requirement and hardly onerous when provisional voters have five days to make that decision. It is something that we still support and this is an area where we will not support the government’s moves. It will weaken the rules relating to proof of identity for provisional voters and it should be opposed. It makes it easier to enrol fraudulently and cast a fraudulent vote. We should prevent anything that does that, not encourage it. The member for Morton argues that it is not widespread. Sure, it might not be widespread in Australia, but we should not have loopholes which allow it to be used. We should never weaken the electoral roll to the point where people have the ability to question the veracity of the information or the veracity of votes. That is something we will argue very strongly against in this parliament.

We are arguing strongly against those two schedules of amendments relating to the close of the roll and identification of provisional voters. We do not trust this government to get it right—for so many of these policy issues we have seen them getting it wrong, such as for the insulation program. We think if they cannot manage an insulation program, how can they possibly manage to change the electoral roll and still ensure that it is being used in a fashion which is not fraudulent? Therefore, on those two areas in particular, as the shadow special minister for state articulated so very well, we will be opposing those moves. We think it weakens the roll which is a big mistake. As I said earlier, the roll is one of the things that we should be very proud of in our democracy. It is largely beyond dispute and that is a credit to the AEC and the system we operate. However, any changes which weaken that should be opposed. That is why we are opposing them. We do not trust this government to get it right. In too many areas we have seen them get it wrong—in the NBN they are getting it wrong; they want to censor the internet and they will get that wrong; they want to change the electoral roll and they will get that wrong. We do not believe that they will get this right, and therefore on those two issues we will be opposing.

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