Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This debate is effectively one between the two sides of the chamber arguing the issue of inclusiveness against the issue of integrity. I will go into the detail, but what this argument will turn upon is whether one or both or neither of these sides can make a case for either the integrity of the system or, in the government’s case, its inclusiveness—they often use the word ‘franchisement’. The government can only make the case for the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010 if they can demonstrate that, if the increased inclusiveness comes at the loss of integrity, that is a price worth paying. The opposition’s argument, particularly around schedules 1 and 2, is simply about integrity. In the end, if there is no integrity, there is no effective election. There have to be rules somewhere. We have to set a bar somewhere. In the Australian political system, it is well known that there already is the requirement upon Australians to maintain their enrolment details in their permanent place of residence, to cast a vote when an election is called and to fully extend their preferences to the candidates. That is written in the act.

So there is already in place a legislative floor, and part of that floor is, of course, the requirement to prove who you are. If you cannot do that, effectively you are balancing up the right to vote with the right to know who the voter is or whether the voter can say who they are and prove who they are. Can they present something as simple as a piece of identification? What is being argued here today is simply that, in the guise of enfranchisement—straight out of the ALP textbook—we are prepared to erode or, even worse, dilute the requirements around integrity of the voting process.

Let us go straight to the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. I would like to focus on the dissenting report. I think it is important that we go through that clearly. Unlike the government, I am not going to focus on every schedule and give each schedule two minutes. I am going to focus on what we disagree on. It is always a bit suspicious when government speakers come in here and devote two minutes to each schedule, because you truly wonder whether they get what we are debating today. There is disagreement on two schedules in particular—the Australian people are concerned about two schedules in particular—and we agree on the rest. There is no need to devote half of your speech to things upon which we all agree. People want to know why this government is allowing voters to turn up to vote and not be able to present some ID. In the pubs and clubs and around the parking areas around shopping centres, people will say that, if you are going to get out of bed, put on your clothes and drive down and vote, it is reasonable that, if you are asked who you are, you can prove who you are with some ID. Most people find that a thoroughly reasonable request by the DRO.

What we have here is a fairly fluffy obfuscation around this debate, saying that it is all about inclusivity. It is almost this electoral relativism, which is that it is more important that every person who wants to vote is handed a ballot paper because in some way, if we were not to do that, it might affect the result of an election. We are simply putting to the government that, on this side of the House, we have made a very clear argument that integrity of the roll is essential and the AEC needs time to prepare that roll so that the vote can be done properly. In the end, as I think all Australians would agree, the great threat—even though it may well be minor—of fraudulent voting is eliminated.

Australians are right to be fearful that someone can go to one ballot place and say, ‘I’m Jack Smith,’ and get a vote and be ticked off and go to another ballot place and say, ‘I’m Jack Smith,’ and be ticked off and do it two, three or multiple times and, in the end, when the AEC comes back and says, ‘Did you vote a number of times?’ and that person says no, all of those votes are in the hopper. How do we pick out those votes and remove them? They are not provisional votes. These people have fraudulently voted. There has to be some way of preventing that, and I think the average Australian would agree. We are down to the last speakers, and I challenge the members sitting on the other side to answer the question: how will one deal with fraudulent voting? I ask government members to answer that question.

Australia’s voting system is something of which we are all proud, and we are defending 99 per cent of it. The building blocks of our democratic system—compulsory voting, preferential voting—are things that we truly support. But what the majority of members of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters are basically saying is that they do not want to impose an unwarranted inconvenience, and that inconvenience is to show some photo identification. I do not think any reasonable person taking a glance at that proposition would say that that is an unwarranted inconvenience that will dissuade people from coming and voting or will change a result. What will change it is a lack of integrity in the system—not only fraudulent voting but also a perception amongst people that it is not worth getting out and voting because there is so much fraud. We are obliged to fight to eliminate fraud in voting wherever we can. Whether we think it is a big or a small problem, it is important that we have rules.

In its recommendation, the committee is basically saying that we should repeal section 155 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act and replace it with a new provision that allows people to enrol for up to seven days after closure of the writs. A very important point that has not been clearly made is that the closure of the writs occurs a number of days after an election is called. I am just not sure how disenfranchising it is for someone to hear that an election of some form or another has been called and to have the desire to vote but not be able to get to an AEC office within three or four working days to update the roll, as it currently is under the 2007 changes made by the coalition when in government. No case has yet been made by any speaker here that there is a significant threat to the integrity of the system from allowing only four days and not extending it out to seven days.

This government, on the other side of the chamber, has only one job to do in this debate, and that is to find within the AEC the resources to guarantee the integrity of the roll between its proposed seven-day cut-off and election day. We can ask the AEC. In their first submission to the committee the AEC made the statement at 2.3.1 that:

The reduction in the close of rolls period meant that during 2007 the AEC—

had the time and—

placed a strong emphasis on ensuring that eligible electors were correctly enrolled prior to the issue of the writs and that the focus was on having—

for the first time—

an “election ready roll” at the appropriate time.

I say to those on the other side that, until there is a statement from the AEC saying anything other than that, it is clear that, by closing the rolls at the issuance of the writs, the AEC were able to do their job completely—read into that, guaranteed integrity of the system. There is nothing in the committee’s report that speaks against that proposition. There has been no case put by government members on the other side of the chamber to disprove that moving to the seven-day period will need either more resourcing—more hands on deck—or some other system whereby the rolls can be guaranteed. I challenge the final speakers to come forward with a statement from the AEC to that effect. I doubt that they will.

We on this side of the chamber say that the existing arrangements, set up in 2007, actually work. Furthermore, we know what the AEC said in 2.4.5 of their submission. They noted that, under the new rules in 2007, the number of people who missed the closure-of-the-rolls deadline in 2007 was 100,000, compared to the 2004 election, where 168,394 people missed out. There simply is no case from the government that there is a problem. In fact, the system was improved with the rules that this government is now seeking to repeal. The number of people who missed out on the cut-off was reduced by 40 per cent. All that is going to occur with the proposed changes is that an unknown number of additional people may be able to enrol but there will be a definitively reduced amount of time for the AEC to guarantee that these rolls are in good order.

In contrast to the argument that has been asserted by the government, a truly effective AEC campaign to encourage enrolment needs to be combined with a fact that is often missed by the government—the fact that failure to enrol prior to the election must have a consequence. The Speaker, who has taken his seat, knows that we all realise that there have to be consequences to every action. If you remove those consequences, you cannot expect people to follow the law. That is precisely what is being done here. We saw in 2007 a very good outcome. There was increased enfranchisement. I know how much the government want that. They want to see more enfranchisement. That was demonstrated with our laws that were implemented, and they have not been supported in these changes.

Debate interrupted.

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