Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

But, as my colleague says, who doesn’t? In this instance they gave evidence before the committee. It was not the first time; they did it before the last election, but the nature of the Senate was such that this would not get through.

It is about time that members of this House started to argue for enfranchising people, not disenfranchising them. At the federal level the Liberal-National parties have not done too badly out of compulsory voting and the provisions of the Electoral Act, because they have been in government for more than two-thirds of the time. This is not a situation where they could have argued, as they did in 2006, that it stopped them from getting elected in 1996, 1998, 2001 and 2004. No, they were spurious arguments and we now know, as a result of proper investigation, what those amendments mean.

That was why I was surprised by the High Court decisions in Roach and Rowe. The High Court basically put a limit on the parliament’s power to legislate because of the precious nature of the right to vote. The right to limit prisoners and the right to limit people getting on the roll in the seven-day period after an election was called were quite historic decisions by the High Court, but they were right. They were underpinned by enfranchisement, not disenfranchisement, which is what this current provision on provisional voting does.

It is separate to what happens with postal votes and other declaration votes. The signature is used to verify postal votes. As the National Party point out in their submission, for over 5,000 people there was a question over their signature. Signatures are used in the postal vote provision to determine identity. It might be a relative or someone else who has signed but, if there is a doubt, it is out. We do not have to listen to the garbage from the other side that this is going to be doom and gloom for our electoral system. They say there is going to be doom and gloom because they think there is a disadvantage to them because this class of people are not necessarily their supporters.

As I said, my principle has always been—and it has been on the record for 21 years; and I have been on the electoral committee for about 12 or 13 years—for enfranchising. Yes, we have to have safety nets. I support the reinstatement of the signature as the basis for provisional votes. If someone is not on the roll for two elections before the election they wish to vote in, they do not get a vote, so not every one of these votes gets put back into the count—don’t believe that either. Many get excluded for good reasons. I commend the legislation to the House.

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