David Hawker (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In speaking to these bills, the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill (No. 2) 2010, theElectoral and Referendum Amendment (Pre-poll Voting and Other Measures) Bill 2010, the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Modernisation and Other Measures) Bill 2010 and the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (How-to-Vote Cards and Other Measures) Bill 2010, I would like to join with colleagues from the coalition in pointing out what seems to be some remarkable anomalies in the proposals. I think we should be very strongly opposing some of the measures proposed by the government.

I looked with amusement at some of the speeches made by members of the ALP on this matter. Their sanctimonious claims about not disenfranchising people sound so hollow when one knows the reality of it all. If you listen to the claims you would have to question why they even want to propose these changes. Nonetheless, we know from bitter experience that the simple fact is that when it comes to trying to practise fraud there are some—and I do not say all, but some—members of the ALP who are very accomplished at doing this. They worked out long ago how to ‘rig the ballot’, as it is put, whether it be at the local union elections or more recently when we saw what they did in the general election. Colleagues have given examples of individuals who have confessed that they have voted not more than once but in many cases many times more than once. They almost wear it as a badge of pride that as an ALP stalwart part of the job is to go out and ‘vote early and vote often’—the old saying that has been around for a long time, attributed to a former ALP member.

We can look at some of the evidence about what has happened that has caused major disruptions. I think of the Nunawading election for the upper house in Victoria some years ago. The then state secretary of the ALP was caught out rigging how-to-vote cards. As a consequence, there was a re-election. The whole ballot had to be re-held.

See this speech in context