Laurie Ferguson (Reid, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services) Share this | Hansard source

The starting point with respect to this debate on the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010 must be the comments of Mr Ed Killesteyn, the electoral commissioner of this country, the head of a well-respected, independent authority, when he said, as quoted on page 82 of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters report on the last federal:

It is necessary to be aware of and examine factors that create barriers to achieving greater enrolment participation at the commonwealth level and to find ways to mitigate their impact on the electors and potential electors in order to increase enrolment participation levels.

That is the starting point of what we are discussing here today.

This is an area where there is, indeed, a very genuine difference between the two sides of politics in this country. That is not to say that there has not been, in the case of compulsory voting, significant division historically in the opposition side. The government has a very firm belief that, in the interest of Australian democracy and in the interests of competitive politics, we should maximise the possibility of people being involved—that we do not try to put barriers there; that we do not try to make it difficult; and that we actually continuously seek to have as many people as possible enrolled and registered, and as many of them as possible voting. That is why in the 1920s this country became one of the few countries in the world to introduce compulsory voting. That legislation went through this parliament in a very short time, because there was agreement on both sides of politics at that stage after a very poor turnout at one of our elections. The Labor Party still subscribes to the view that we should not try to reduce participation; that we should actually try to increase it.

The background to this legislation with respect to the closure of the rolls is the fact that, compared to past elections, there was a significant number of people who did not get on the roll in the last election. It is estimated that 100,000 Australians who would otherwise have got on the roll did not because of the short time allowed by the previous government’s practices—in that crucial period before election day. With this bill, the first measure the government is introducing is to increase the time for people to have the opportunity to get on the roll after an election is called. These are not devious people; these are not criminals; these are not sneaks. These are people who, for a variety of reasons, have not got around to it.

I thought the member opposite made one of the more fanciful contributions to this debate—talking about people coming out of trucks with boatloads of suits and coats and dressing up and impersonating other people. Quite frankly, this is preposterous. It is ridiculous to think that, in this competitive democracy, political parties have got enough time on election day to have squads of people travelling around in trucks and cars impersonating other people. Quite frankly, most people aware of practical politics know that all sides of politics these days find it very difficult to get people to staff polling booths. It is a real challenge. It is like participation in other parts of our society, whether it is the local football club, the parents and citizens organisation or Rotary. People in this day and age participate less. To think that either side of politics has enough people and resources to engage in massive fraud on election day is beyond the realms of possibility.

The other element, of course, is the question of rejected provisional votes. The previous government had massive restrictions on the ability of people to have provisional votes on election day. The rejected provisionals in the last election numbered 143,000 people.

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