Mike Symon (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010. This bill before the House will amend the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 and the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Act 1984. This amendment bill is based on the inquiry conducted by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters into the conduct of the 2007 federal election, as we heard previously from many members in this place. The resulting report was tabled in June 2009 and is entitled Report on the conduct of the 2007 federal election and matters related thereto. It contains 53 recommendations for electoral reform. Forty-five of these recommendations were unanimously supported. The inquiry received 198 submissions from interested parties, including the Australian Electoral Commission, state governments, disability groups and, of course, political parties. This bill will enact a number of the recommendations of the report, and the aim of the amendments in this bill is to enhance the ability of otherwise eligible Australians to participate in the electoral process by removing obstacles to their enrolment.

In December of last year there were an estimated 1.39 million eligible electors currently not on the electoral roll. A third of these missing electors were in the 18- to 25-year-old cohort. Amendments introduced in this bill are designed to address declining enrolment rates and improve electoral participation. That figure of 1.39 million, if it is extrapolated out across the country, means about 9,000 people per electorate that should be on the roll are not—that is, in my seat and everyone else’s seat.

The amendments contained in the bill implement six reforms to the Electoral Act and the referendum act. Schedule 1 of the bill is to ensure that rolls are closed seven days after the issue of the writ for an election. Schedule 2 will provide that provisional voters are not required to produce evidence of identity. Schedule 3 enables prepoll votes cast in an elector’s home division to be cast and counted as ordinary votes. Schedule 4 enables electors to update their enrolment details electronically and enables the Australian Electoral Commission to process enrolment transactions outside the division for which the person is enrolling. Schedule 5 restricts the number of candidates that can be endorsed by a political party in each division.

In 2006 the Howard government made an amendment to the Electoral Act and, as we know from the figures, subsequently disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of voters. In the 2007 federal election the electoral roll was closed three working days after the issuing of the writs, due to the changes by the previous Liberal government. This cut the time available for people to ensure they were on the divisional roll by a full four days. In the 2004 election the electoral roll closed seven days after the issue of the writs. During the period from 14 to 23 October 2007, 279,000 people enrolled or changed their enrolment in time for the election before the rolls closed. Over 423,000 enrolled or changed their enrolment details during the corresponding period at the 2004 federal election. The difference between the figures meant that more than 144,000 fewer people were able to add themselves to the electoral roll due to the Howard government changes to the Electoral Act. I am sure this is a clear and strong argument that the act should be amended to restore the full week for people to be able to add themselves to the roll or amend their details once the election writs have been issued. Three working days has been proven to be too short a period, and that is easily done by examining the substantial numbers who did not get the opportunity to add themselves to the roll. As I have already said, potentially hundreds of thousands of eligible voters missed out on being placed on the electoral roll due to this regressive change by the previous Liberal government.

In its submission to the inquiry, the AEC focused on strategies to lift enrolments. Its main concern was to increase the number of Australians directly involved in elections, which is an important and central role in any democracy, as I see it—that is, that every eligible person has a say in how their country is run and by whom. The Australian Electoral Commission in its submission to the inquiry also wanted to ensure that a requirement to provide proof of identify did not lead to disenfranchisement. Under previous legislation introduced by the Howard government, obligations were placed on voters to provide proof of identity and they were tightened. Schedule 2 to this bill repeals the requirement for provisional voters to provide evidence of identity. As we know, provisional votes are a type of declaration vote cast by an elector at a polling place on polling day. The Electoral Act and the Referendum Act currently specify that a person who needs to cast a provisional vote at a polling place on polling day must provide a polling official with evidence of identity at the time of voting or by the first Friday following polling day. Currently, if the elector does not provide such evidence of identity by the deadline, his or her provisional vote will be excluded. The AEC estimates that that happened to over 27,000 provisional voters at the 2007 federal election due to the operation of the evidence of identity provisions.

In 2007 those 27,000 voters who turned up at a polling station ended up being excluded because they did not carry proof of identity and they did not take the opportunity, which they probably did not have, to go along to an AEC office, which they might not have been able to get to, to present that proof of identity. Many people work full time and they do not get time off during the day to go and do things they like. That is a problem that many of us face. Work is busy. Sometimes we are needed by others. You may get time off on a Saturday to go and vote but try getting time off between nine and five on a weekday to go and prove that you are who you say you are and things get a whole lot harder.

This bill will ensure that where there is any doubt as to the bona fides of the elector then the signature on the envelope containing the provisional vote will be compared with the signature of the elector on previously lodged enrolment records. This method will ensure that voters are not excluded from voting because they were not carrying proof of their identity on the day, in the case of a provisional vote. The amendments will still protect the integrity of the voting roll where there may have been doubt over the entitlement to vote, as verification by comparing signatures will ensure that a person was on the electoral roll and was entitled to vote. It would seem, to any sensible person at least, that these amendments were a fair and important way to ensure that those who are eligible to vote have got the time to get on the electoral roll and will not have their vote disallowed due to the fact they were not carrying their proof of identity. I really could not see why such reasonable amendments would not be supported by all members of this House to ensure maximum participation in our federal elections. Yet, surprisingly, coalition members of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters produced a report opposing these changes, stating:

The proposed timeframe of seven days will again make it was virtually impossible to exclude fraudulent votes from the count.

So even though, under the Howard government amendments that came into effect at the last election, 144,542 fewer people enrolled in the period between the issue of the writs and the close of rolls, Liberal Party members want the three-day cut-off to continue because of their concerns over fraudulent votes.

In the 21st century we all live very busy lives. People do not always keep their details up to date on the electoral roll, even though they should. But it is not only the electoral roll. When people move, as happens quite often, there are a vast number of things that they need to update, ranging from things as simple as power bills to mobile phones to lists in some cases running into the dozens, and I am sure some people have to contact hundreds of organisations to change their address details. That is not so bad in the case of a monthly telephone bill or a quarterly electricity bill, because you do get reminded of it when you receive a bill. But elections come along only every three years or less, so it is not always at the front of everyone’s mind—even though it may be at the front of the minds of people in this place. Keeping the rolls open for a full working week would again give people who were entitled to be on the roll the time to make the changes and enact their right to choose their government. To have members of the House oppose this amendment is surprising, to say the least. And it really does just show how out of touch the Liberal Party is with the lives of average Australians.

The amendments contained in schedule 3 of the electoral and referendum amendment bill 2010 will enable prepoll votes issued in an elector’s home division to be cast and counted as ordinary votes wherever practicable. Recent elections have seen a large increase in the demand for early voting. At the 2007 federal election almost 15 per cent of the total votes cast were early votes, but that of course also included postal votes. Under the current act the results of an election are more likely to be delayed, as the counting of early votes generally does not take place on polling night as the declaration envelopes containing the votes must go through the time-consuming preliminary scrutiny processes. This bill provides for prepoll votes cast in an elector’s home division prior to polling day to be treated as ordinary votes—a very sensible amendment. The AEC estimates that if this amendment had been in place for the 2007 federal election it would have resulted in an additional 667,000 votes being counted on polling night rather than sometime in the week following that. As we know, at the last election a number of seats hung in the balance for days while these votes were counted. This reform will help the AEC make their determinations in a more rapid way, which I think is good for everyone involved.

In my electorate of Deakin the result was not declared until 14 December, which was weeks after election day, and even though the margin was not particularly close there were 6,673 prepoll votes that were counted after polling day, and there were also 5,493 absentee votes and 7,149 postal votes. These amendments would not have changed all of that but they would have sped up some of the process. These days, in the 21st century, when we have a computerised system in place, a lot could be done to speed up the results and act on the determinations of the people.

Schedule 4 of the electoral and referendum amendment bill 2010 will amend the Electoral Act to enable the AEC to manage its workload in non-election periods by allocating work, principally enrolment applications and enrolment changes, throughout the AEC divisional office network. I am fortunate in that my division of Deakin has an AEC office in it, but it actually serves another three divisions as well and sometimes they can be overloaded with work because they in effect have almost 400,000 constituents running through that office. So, as I said, such changes allow the AEC to manage its workload more efficiently by enabling work to be done outside the relevant division. These amendments will also provide the AEC with additional tools to maintain the electoral roll in a timely and efficient manner.

Schedule 4 will enable persons already on the electoral roll to update their address details by providing this information to the AEC in electronic format. Under the current act an elector cannot update their details via the web or email. Again, looking at what happens elsewhere, that type of thing is quite common. Of course, at the end of it all you still need to be able to prove who you are, but there are now many services that we use on a daily basis where we can update our address and contact details via email or via the web. That is a good thing as we continue into a digital economy. At the moment, any changes need to be provided on a hard copy electoral enrolment form, which needs to be signed and lodged with the AEC.

This amendment bill will enable people to easily change their enrolment details online. Of course, the beauty of doing such a thing online is that it does not have to be done during business hours. If someone is working during the day then getting along to an AEC office or getting hold of the forms that are needed is not always as easy as we may think it is. Speaking for myself, I do a lot of my banking and the like outside business hours. Frankly, that is the only time that most people get the opportunity to do such things.

The first four schedules on the electoral and referendum amendment bill 2010 were based on recommendations of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters inquiry into the conduct of the 2007 federal election. In addition, schedule 5 aims to restrict the number of candidates that can be endorsed by a political party in each division. The need for this amendment arose out of the by-election held last year in Bradfield in New South Wales. In that election, as we have heard, there were 22 candidates, nine of whom came from one party. The ability for a registered officer of a political party to endorse candidates for an election was introduced back in 1987 into the Electoral Act, with the intent of providing a streamlined way for political parties to nominate candidates. If not endorsed by a registered political party, a person seeking to be a candidate for an election must obtain the support of 50 electors. The intent of this amendment was to simplify the process for the political parties. It was never intended to be used for multiple candidates.

The current act does not limit the number of candidates a registered officer of a political party can endorse. At the Braddon by-election where, as I have said, there were nine candidates nominated by one party, the Christian Democrat Party, there was a great deal of confusion. According to the views I have heard, however, it was probably not illegal under the current act. I am sure, though, that it was a clear breach of the intention of the act.

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