Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It certainly caught my attention, Member for Casey! When Mr Whitlam made that point, he was looking at the US system, where people vote on the one day. Some of the reasons he made that point and the reason I make this point now is that there is an issue of voter education—that is, holding those elections all at the same time gives people the opportunity to be informed about and to better understand the processes in place, and what they need to do to cast a valid vote. From my perspective, the AEC needs to increase its focus on education.

As the member for Banks said today, the top 12 electorates in the country—many of them with high levels of informal voting—are located in Western Sydney, and the diversity within those seats is worth considering. There are different literacy rates. There are people for whom English is a second language. There are people who have come to Australia from backgrounds where democracy is not necessarily as strong a proposition as it is here. They may not know that, under a compulsory voting system, you need to undertake certain things to be able to obtain a vote. These are serious issues.

I do not think that advertising alone in the lead-up to a federal election is good enough—that is, using mass advertising mechanisms to educate people on how to cast a vote. While I understand it is considered an efficient way to get a message out, I think other ideas need to be considered to ensure that people understand the voting system and, thereby, that they cast valid votes.

One idea I would put forward for consideration by the AEC is that they identify seats where informal voting is high and where demographic triggers would warrant escalated education processes. By that I mean that the AEC conduct face-to-face briefings with people in those electorates to ensure that they do understand the democratic process—that is, the way that they can cast valid votes. That type of work could be done by divisional officers. I understand that, as always, budgets and the level of support provided to the AEC for this function will be a worthy point of consideration, but I think that AEC officials conducting face-to-face briefings with large groups of community members to better explain the democratic process would be enormously valuable. I note the presence of the Special Minister of State in the chamber, and I would hope that this would be something that could be considered for future election campaigns as a measure to improve voter education.

We also need to maintain close scrutiny of proposals to improve enrolment. I note that last night in the chamber the member for Mackellar made some points about this. I quote from Hansard, where the member for Mackellar said:

I am concerned, for instance, with the proposition that has been put forward that for future federal elections we might go the way of, say, the New South Wales Labor government, which has changed enrolment provisions to encompass automatic enrolment whereby people’s details will merely be taken from other agencies such as the Road Transport Authority, school rolls or whatever they decide can be dealt with.

The member for Mackellar, judging by the way she referenced it in debate, believes that this issue is a problem. But, in actual fact, the number of databases that exist within government provide an easier mechanism to enrol people to vote. Given that the identity requirements—the provisions that are put in place to validate a person’s identity through drivers licences or other forms of identification—sit in multiple databases, there is already an avenue for us to verify the person’s bona fides, their address et cetera and to improve enrolment processes. I think this is something that is worthy of consideration in improving people’s engagement in the process.

I note that those opposite often refer to the fact that it is easier to vote than it is to get a video card. There is a good reason for that—there are fewer video stores these days, because that mode of technology and people’s reliance on DVDs and videos is fast disappearing. There is also a commercial imperative for video store operators to put in place—

See this speech in context