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

I rise to support the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010. Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, on 24 March I, like you, will celebrate 20 years as a member of parliament. For more than half that time, I have been a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, so I have had an opportunity on that committee to conduct reviews of nearly all the elections that I have participated in. The bill that is before the parliament today largely arises out of a number of recommendations of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters.

It is fair to say that, of the matters before the House, three out of five are non-contentious and are supported by the opposition. They have to do with modernising the enrolment process, with allowing the Electoral Commission to manage its workload more efficiently by enabling enrolment transactions to be processed outside the division and with enabling prepoll votes cast in an elector’s home division to be cast and counted as ordinary votes. In short, that last recommendation makes the divisional returning office basically another booth that is counted on election night, to put it crudely. That will enable 667,000 votes to be counted on polling night, according to the second reading speech. So on those matters there is no contention.

The contention arises, however, in relation to the two key recommendations to restore the close of rolls period of seven days after the issue of the writ for an election and to repeal the requirement for provisional voters to provide evidence of identity. Let me say this at the outset: the paranoia of the opposition, both now and when they have been in government, has caused the disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of legitimate voters at federal election time.

In my first review—the review of the 1990 election campaign—the National Party, having lost the seat of Richmond, was complaining that dead people voted. I can recall the inquiry that we were conducting. We were in the main committee room, and the big allegation made by the National Party was that a code had revealed that all these dead people had voted and changed the result in the seat to Labor—that fraud had been perpetrated on a massive scale. When the Electoral Commission investigated the allegation and evidence was given to the committee, it was shown that the code that was being relied upon to argue there was fraud was actually the code that was used to take the people who were deceased off the electoral role. It was the exact reverse of the allegation that the National Party was making before the electoral committee at the time.

I do not have a problem if the opposition want to argue fraud that will result in massive change to our electoral requirements—if they produce the evidence. The truth is that Mr Danby, my friend and colleague, the member for Melbourne Ports, has already reported to the House that over a period of a decade there were only 71 proven cases of fraud, which is one in a million votes cast. The evidence before us as a committee regarding the instances of multiple voting—the evidence detailed in a table in our report—shows that the multiple voting that occurred was accidental and mostly related to aged-care facilities and older people where multiple applications had been made by mistake. The child thought that the parent had not voted and so assisted in filling in another form on behalf of the voter. Those figures are in our report.

The thing that I like about the report that the committee produced for the parliament this time is that it is an extensive report but all the facts are there. The myths are explored. Everyone is given an opportunity to produce evidence of fraud. We were told about McEwen and fraudulent votes. At the end of the day, the investigations of the Electoral Commission showed that there was not one instance of electoral fraud in McEwen. You will remember that McEwen was the subject of a Court of Disputed Returns hearing. I think the current member was asserting at the time that there were some multiple-voting instances. By the time the commission finished looking at it, there were none. I will quote from table 2.3 on page 18:

(a) Of the admissions/aged category 98 per cent were 70 or over. (b) Of the 64 cases referred, 25 were subsequently investigated by the AFP in a day of action approach. The AFP made referrals to the DPP, but no cases were prosecuted.

I think these cases should be taken seriously. If people break the law and commit fraud, they should be prosecuted. I am not standing here defending people who commit fraud; I am defending the innocent people who have had their votes not counted because of the red tape and the extra provisions that have been put in.

One of those was the proof of identity for provisional voters. They show up and have to produce their driver’s licences. If it is not there, they get a provisional vote and, if they do not produce their licence within so many days, their vote will not count. That provision alone resulted in a massive increase in the number of votes rejected. In 2004 it was 89,841 votes rejected; in 2007 it was 143,470 votes. That is over 40,000 more—and for what? A bit of paranoia. The suggestion that is picked up in the bill before the House is that the way you can check the veracity of the identity of the particular voter is the way that it was done for generations: you can compare signatures. The person who fronts on the day signs an electoral form that the ballot goes into. The Electoral Commission has a signature from an earlier enrolment or variation of enrolment to which it can be compared. If the scrutineers are contesting the identity of the person, you have a signature, which is a lot more secure than a driver’s licence or another form of identification, particularly with young people.

That has become our own little hanging chad. It is like Florida in America during the first Bush election, which we all laughed at. People who went to the booth and legitimately voted did not have their vote counted because the machine malfunctioned. That went all the way to the Supreme Court, with different judgments at each stage of the process. But something that is in there poisoned legitimate votes—not fraudulent votes—and any scrutineer in any tight contest like McEwen can challenge the veracity of a provisional vote by way of signature. I have scrutineered in election after election and by-election after by-election and, let me tell you, the Electoral Commission’s records are pretty good. Votes get knocked out if someone has faced for them. Facing is when someone shows up voting in someone else’s stead. If the signature is suspect then the commission knocks them out if they are challenged in the scrutineering process.

In relation to the matter of the seven-day rule, today I tabled a report in relation to automatic enrolment. It was an inquiry into the implications of the New South Wales electoral amendment act that has recently been passed and which allows automatic enrolment and the reliance of the Electoral Commission on certain documentation to put people on the roll. It even allows people to show up on the day with proper proof of identity and have a provisional vote on the day. The Liberal Party in New South Wales supported that—they were not frightened of it—and our committee has recommended that. That goes beyond the seven-day rule.

But, again, what do we see? Our report shows that 100,000 people were unable to get their change of enrolment or new enrolment in on time at the last election, where there were extra days because of public holidays. That is 100,000 votes. This issue has been around for a long time. I have the 2004 report here—the chair was Mr Tony Smith, the federal member for Casey—which recommended the change to the close of roll with the issue of the writ. There is no evidence in there. There is no substance to the recommendation. There are assertions about electoral integrity—and that this provision somehow weakens electoral integrity. Hundreds of thousands of transactions are processed by the Electoral Commission, or have been, in that window of opportunity that is all about making the electoral roll more accurate for election day. By closing the rolls at the issue of the writ, you end up disqualifying a whole lot of people.

Whether we like it or not, people do move. My electorate used to be the most stable in the country—in the ‘86 census. It now ranks about eighth. The member for North Sydney’s electorate turns over 50 per cent every six years. To allow a safety net of seven days in which people can lodge changes to their enrolments or put in a fresh enrolment does not lead to an increase in electoral fraud; indeed, there is no evidence that it does. The coalition’s change to this enrolment provision for the last election was based on an assessment they made about the types of people who engage in those transactions and the way they vote. That is no way to run an electoral system. I happen to believe in including as many people as possible so that you get an honest result.

I say to the opposition: if you want to oppose these provisions then come forward with substantive evidence, produce the multiple fraudulent votes of the past that have changed elections—because, if you can produce fraudulent votes, particular decisions can be annulled. But, if you exclude legitimate results, as these provisions do—in one instance, more than 40,000 votes, in another instance 100,000 votes—then you cannot change the result, but you are affecting the result. You are calibrating the system to exclude people. The member for Casey, in his report after the 2004 election, engaged in conduct that was about excluding people for partisan political advantage, and it did not save them at the last election.

The figures that the Australian Electoral Commission gave us and the electoral report that we produced has a litany of material that shows legitimate voter after legitimate voter—based on the rules that occurred prior to the last election—being excluded in every single electorate. There is a table at the back of this report, which I have here, which talks about provisional votes—as I said, 143,470 votes excluded. There is also a comparison with what would have happened under the old rules. Under the old rules, I had 297 excluded in my electorate of Banks in 2004. Why? Because those are votes which are put in an envelope and checked and, if the signatures do not match, they are put aside. So they are not all admitted, but I had 297 excluded. In 2007, the change to the act resulted in 729 being excluded. That is 430-odd more.

The opposition have not produced 43 fraudulent votes for the whole of Australia, let alone 430 fraudulent votes. But, in their ideological pursuit of integrity in the election, they have gone a bridge too far. They have excluded hundreds of thousands of people who otherwise would have got a legitimate vote. Frankly, I do not think laziness or being a bit slack is an excuse to knock you off the electoral roll. I have a different view to that of the opposition in relation to that. This is the party that says: ‘Too much red tape!’ You have safety net provisions. Where you exclude people is where it is a fraudulent vote—that is, if it is not the true identity of the person voting but someone on their behalf. As I said, the provisions that we seek to reinstate are not new provisions; they are provisions that have been around for a very long time. The opposition, when they were in government and changed those provisions, were not able to demonstrate one seat in the whole of Australia in the previous decade that had changed hands and would be reinstated as a result of their provisions. I can tell you about the fraud perpetrated on the Australian electorate: it was by the former government, it was about electoral fraud, trying to bring our electoral system into disrepute—one of the best electoral systems in the world. In my foreword—and it has not been disputed since this report was tabled—I said:

It is evident, however, that at least 466,794 electors were unable to exercise the franchise correctly at the 2007 election, either because they were not on the electoral roll, or they were on the roll with incomplete or incorrect details. Much of this disenfranchisement results from changes to the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 made following the 2004 election.

What an absolute indictment on the opposition. There were also 143,470 electors who cast a provisional vote but had their vote rejected at the preliminary scrutiny because of the change of rules. When you compare it, it was 40,000-odd more than the previous election.

The other thing that I think needs to be said is that we have changed the Electoral Act in my time to help people stay or get on the roll—and some of them were your constituents, the farming community. Because of the tyranny of distance, we changed the Electoral Act to allow them to be on the permanent list of postal voters—to cut the red tape from applying to those people who, by the time they received and put in an application, could miss out on a vote because of the tyranny of distance. That is the role of the electoral committee of this parliament. That is the role of this parliament: to enfranchise people, not to disenfranchise them, not to bring in pieces of legislation that are the equivalent of the hanging chads, designed to exclude people who have a legitimate right to vote.

It just irks me that we get these sanctimonious speeches from some on the other side, and I say to them: I am prepared to sit down and listen to your evidence; give me the evidence. As Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, I lay the challenge out to the opposition: bring the evidence, not the rhetoric, and we will respond. It is about letting people have a vote, not knocking them off because they are not going to vote for you. (Time expired)

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