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

It was not meant to be offensive but, if it is offensive, I withdraw. That is not the nature of what I am trying to say. What I am saying is: have a look at the quality of the material that the member for Mackellar is putting up. I have looked at it. I know she is genuine about it and I do not really question her genuineness. But she is wrong; she is absolutely wrong. If we followed what she said, tens of thousands of people would be disenfranchised. We were not inundated by submission after submission from groups who have an interest in electoral matters saying, 'You're on the wrong path.' This is not the first inquiry we have had in relation to each of these bills, because they arise out of submissions to the inquiries into the 2007 election and the 2010 election. People had an opportunity then to submit to the bills but we did not get many submissions. We struggled to get people and the member for Mackellar was allowed the opportunity to bring along anyone she wanted. If what we were doing was wrong, if what we were doing was crooked, if what we were doing was partisan, this parliament and the committee would have been inundated, before, during and after the event, with criticism.

The Privacy Foundation people again were genuine. I missed the first hearing—I had another commitment—but I was there for the second and I listened respectfully to them. Again, the transcript speaks for itself. It did not convince me that we were going down the wrong path. I believe in my heart of hearts that what we are doing by these two measures is enfranchising. We should pursue them to the end and enact them, because many tens of thousands of eligible people will then have their vote counted; otherwise, they will continue to be disqualified, morally and in every other way wrongly, from having their vote counted to elect their parliament, their representative, their government.

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