Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Maintaining Address) Bill 2011 and the cognate Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Protecting Elector Participation) Bill 2012. I take on board the previous speaker's comments with reference to the declining number of people not on the roll. From memory, the number was 2.9 million people not on the roll and, of those, 400,000 people cast their votes in an invalid format. Listening to the trend regarding Australians choosing whether or not to be on the roll, as a parliament we need to look at ourselves and do some soul-searching when it comes to asking why people are not motivated to be enrolled and participate in the direction of our nation.

I suggest that there is an increasing number of people who do not trust either side of government. I hear this often on polling days in Queensland. I will be joining state candidates and incumbents in Queensland this Saturday and I know I will get the standard line from a select number who roll up to polling booths and say, 'I don't trust any of you @#$%&* and I wish I could park my vote informally.' I suggest that maybe our behaviour in the House is one way we could address the concerns people have about the integrity of the parliament. I suggest a little more honesty and sincerity.

We do not have to go too far back before the last election when it comes to electoral matters to see that we had a potential Prime Minister looking down the barrel and saying one thing and then directly after being elected doing another. It comes down to the integrity of government. When you are watching which way the data is skewing there could be some collegial evidence to support why people are choosing not to vote.

We have supported nearly 78 per cent of the bills that have come before this House. That is a staggering number given the lines that the government throw out about us—that we oppose everything, that we say no, no, no. The data I received from the library in the last term—

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