Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

It did not. It did not say that. What it said was that more people enrolled, particularly through the campaign run by the AEC in that year—and it was an outstanding campaign; it said to prize your vote, enrol to vote. And that would be my message to every Australian: enrol to vote. Do not enrol to vote just because you think an election might be coming up next week, next month or next year. You are a citizen of this country: enrol to vote. I am sure that in our electorate offices we all have enrolment forms available to people. We all talk about it when we go into our schools, and we should. But what we should not be saying is: even if you cannot be bothered, if you cannot go, if you are not interested, if it is something you do not really want to think about, we can somehow change the rules for you. I think we have to draw a line under these sorts of things.

There are clear laws and rules as to how our democracy operates. It is not an unreasonable requirement to ask any citizen of this country to take a form, fill it out properly and send it to the Australian Electoral Commission. I do not think this is an onerous requirement. I do not think it is burdensome. The fact that fewer people missed out on voting in 2007 than in 2004 demonstrates that the measures that were introduced by the Howard government in no way impeded that task. There was evidence given by the Australian Electoral Commission that the 2007 election gave them more administrative opportunities to focus on the integrity of the roll—which is a very important responsibility that they have in administering our electoral system. I think that having to deal with a rush of enrolments on the eve of an election because people, frankly, could not be bothered to do it earlier puts the AEC under unreasonable strain at a time when they are preparing to oversee and conduct the most important democratic event that takes place in this country on a regular basis.

That is why the coalition continue to keep faith with the provisions that we put forward previously—that is, to ensure that people take the opportunity to enrol to vote in the ordinary course of the year. When we were in government, we ensured that the AEC had funds available to them to be able to promote enrolment. I think that is appropriate because, if you are a citizen, that is your duty; it is your responsibility.

I note that, in one of the dissenting judgments of the High Court, the observation was made—in terms of whether this was a discriminatory matter—that the burden that would fall on a person under the previous provisions was no greater or less. So there was no issue about discrimination. There was no issue about deliberate disenfranchisement. It was simply saying, ‘Get your enrolment in by a particular time and you’ll be on the roll.’ Everyone can take that opportunity on any day of the week, and I strongly suggest they do so, because I do not think we can continue to celebrate the richness of our democracy when one in seven people are basically not fulfilling their obligations under the Electoral Act.

That is not a situation I would like to see continue, and I would hope all members of the House would agree with me on that. I think the way to improve those numbers is not by taking the low road of lowering standards, which is what we are seeing here with this bill, but by taking the high road of saying: ‘You’re a citizen; take up that responsibility, take up the pledge you’ve made, take up the birthright that you’ve inherited and enrol to vote. Do it properly and show up.’ That is the best way to celebrate democracy in this country.

The other section of the bill relates to voting by prisoners. I thought the shadow minister, the member for Mackellar, made her points very clearly in this area—very clearly indeed. Under the previous government, we took the view that a person who was serving a custodial sentence should be denied that franchise. Why? Because they had volunteered up that right through the actions that resulted in their custodial sentence and got them in there in the first place.

When you transgress against a society in this way, when you violate the rights of others in a country like this, you give up certain rights that you have. That is the consequence of your actions. The previous government had a strong view that the franchise should not be extended to people who violate the rights of our community and of our country. The High Court had some things to say about this matter. What they disputed was not the ability to limit the franchise but whether it could be done universally. The coalition has flagged that the limitation of the franchise for people with a custodial sentence should apply to those who have a sentence of one year or more, not three years as this bill suggests.

The member for Mackellar made some very good observations about the types of people who would be given the franchise under the Labor Party’s proposal—those who have violated the rights of the community in heinous ways. I am not going to get into a discussion of the sentencing practices of courts, because I think there is a widespread community view on most matters. But what is relevant here is: where are we going to set the bar for citizens, or others who are living in this country under a visa, to be given the right to vote?

Citizens of this country who have transgressed in such a heinous way are denied the vote—and the member for Mackellar mentioned everything from assault, to sexual assault and a range of other offences which all of us in this place would decry. This government is saying that those offences, those actions against your fellow citizens, should not deny you the vote. Well, we disagree. If the government wants to argue that those who have done those things and have been sentenced for these things and sit in prisons today because of their own actions should still have the right to line up to vote—like every other citizen in this country who has not done these things or who has made amends for these things and is living freely in the community and doing their best to uphold the responsibilities of citizenship—then let the government make that case. Let the government put those who have done these things on an equal footing with other Australian citizens.

But the coalition will not do it. The coalition feels very strongly that this bill has some serious flaws. We will be addressing those flaws. We will be saying that Australians should uphold the responsibilities of citizenship by enrolling to vote. We should not have a lazy franchise in this country. We should not have a passive democracy. We should celebrate our democracy by upholding the standards and principles of our democratic system and expecting all citizens to celebrate them by living up to them.

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