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

I was watching the deputy speaker there, but I will actually get back on track now.

The large number of candidates in the by-election created a number of issues for voters. With such a long ballot form there were many, many boxes and some people forgot to put a number on. Other people put a number on twice, which led to an informal vote. Back in 2001 I recall there being a by-election for the seat of Aston, near my seat, which had something like 16 different candidates. The informal vote went up because there were mistakes made on ballot papers. Having said that, each of those 16 candidates represented different political parties or different independent points of view.

Under the electoral system, as we know, for a voter to register a formal vote they are required to number a ballot paper from ‘1’ and run down the number of candidates on the ballot paper in their choice without errors in the numbering sequence. At the Bradfield by-election the rate of informal votes was nine per cent. This was more than double the informality rate for the division at the 2007 federal election and it was way more than double the national average informality rate at the 2007 general election, which was 3.95 per cent. The practice of multiple candidates for a single division being endorsed by the registered officer of a political party had not emerged on this scale prior to the Bradfield by-election last year. Schedule 5 under the electoral and referendum amendment bill 2010 is required to prevent a similar rise in the informality rate in multiple divisions at the next federal election.

The Rudd government is committed to restoring the integrity of our electoral processes and systems. The first step in that process, which is still underway, was the introduction of the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Political Donations and Other Measures) Bill 2008, and the subsequent 2009 bill, which aimed to restore accountability, integrity and transparency to our system of donation disclosure. But unfortunately these provisions have been blocked by the Senate. The reforms in this bill currently before the House will take important steps to ensure that voters have the time after an election is called to get on to the electoral roll. I commend this bill to the House.

See this speech in context