Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Give me a break—a $1,100 fine would be a union whip-around. This is an insipid response which should be stronger, and that is my very strong view on this. It was a deliberate tactic used at the booth and authorised by the state secretary of the Australian Labor Party, and you can bet your bottom dollar that it was authorised at higher levels than that. We need to see it ruled out before the next election because the Australian Labor Party will use any tactic. We have already seen the campaign start with negative ads about the Leader of the Opposition. It will be a purely personal, negative campaign just as they ran in South Australia and they will crawl along any gutter to hold onto government.

I support moves in this place to protect the integrity of the electoral roll and our electoral system. We have a very proud record in this country. We should be extremely proud of the fact that we are largely corruption-free particularly at federal elections. We have an election nearly upon us, which will be very tightly fought. I believe that one of the great aspects of our democracy is that the government that wins the day will have a mandate and support of Australian people because they trust the result.

I give credit to the AEC for the role that they undertake. It is a difficult role and they need support. There are, of course, always difficult and close ballots and we need to ensure that our electoral roll and our electoral system are very well protected. Acts such as handing out fake how-to-vote cards and dressing up as someone you are not to try and fraud someone else into an election outcome they do not want should never be supported. It should be completely ruled out in this place by both major parties and by those who seek to govern both Australia and the states of our Commonwealth.

In that respect we support some of the moves by this government on some of these bills but we do not support the close of rolls bill. And we certainly think there should be a much stronger response to the outrageous, disgusting tactics used by the South Australian Labor Party.

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