Barry Haase (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Senator Conroy now admits that the boxes could cost up to $1,528 each in rural areas. Gerry Harvey says he can do it for $168. What more evidence do I need to cite to prove that this government should not be put in charge of the asylum. It is the duty of each Australian citizen to enrol to vote—that is a given—to accurately maintain their enrolment at their permanent place of residence, to cast a vote when an election is called, and to fully extend preferences to all candidates contesting an election of the House of Representatives. Surely we as adult Australian citizens can be trusted to do this. Compulsory enrolment for federal elections was introduced in 1912, and I fail to understand why this government is hell-bent on reinventing the wheel in this matter.

Madam Deputy Speaker, you may ask how the integrity of the electoral roll is at risk if the AEC is managed by a three-person Australian Electoral Commission made up of a chairperson, who must be an active or retired judge of the Federal Court of Australia, the Electoral Commissioner, and a non-judicial member. I am in no way passing judgment on the reliability of individuals. I am in fact passing judgment on a government that has proven they cannot be trusted with anything, much less trusted to pass on accurate data.

This bill gives the AEC the discretion to determine what 'reliable and current' data sources are. According to the Australian Electoral Commission's website, the AEC has seven core business functions. These are to manage the Commonwealth electoral roll; conduct elections and referendums, including industrial and fee-for-service elections and protected action ballots; educate and inform the community about electoral rights and responsibilities; provide research, advice and assistance on electoral matters to the parliament, other government agencies and recognised bodies; provide assistance in overseas elections and referendums in support of wider government initiatives; administer election funding, financial disclosure and party registration requirements; and support electoral redistributions. Surely deciding what is reliable and current data to determine where someone lives is far beyond the purview of the AEC. This bill does not give a specific definition of what the Electoral Commission may regard as a 'reliable and current data source' from which to change elector details. What is considered a 'reliable and current data source' is open to interpretation.

I believe there are significant risks to the integrity of the electoral roll by using external data sources such as the ATO, Medicare or other government agencies to update elector details. In fact the Australian National Audit Office report No. 24 of 2004-05, Performance audit: integrity of Medicare enrolment data, stated that the Australian National Audit Office 'found that up to half a million active Medicare enrolment records were probably for people who are deceased'. I wonder if I ought to be challenged on that with respect to straying from the bill, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am sure you will agree that it simply supports my argument that this government has no track record that demonstrates their ability to get anything right, let alone taking over the electoral roll.

A 1999 report by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, Finance and Public Administration, Numbers on the run: review of the ANAO report No.37 1998-99 on the management oftax file numbers, found that there were 3.2 million more tax file numbers than people in Australia at the last census that had been undertaken, that there were 185,000 potential duplicate tax records for individuals and that 62 per cent of deceased clients were not recorded as deceased in a sample match.

This government has ruined the reputation and standing of the office of Prime Minister, it has ruined the reputation of Speaker of the House, it has ruined our international reputation as a country with low sovereign risk and now it seeks to ruin the reputation of the AEC. We, the people of Australia, must be concerned that, should this bill pass, we are again being manipulated by the Gillard government. To maintain their tenuous hold on power they removed the Speaker of the House to their backbench and cajoled a member of the Liberal coalition to take up that position. This deceitful manoeuvring took a voting member away from the opposition, added a voting member to the government, allowing the Prime Minister to renege on her agreement with Mr Andrew Wilkie, the member for Denison, to curtail poker machine activity.

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