Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Electoral and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2017 and welcome the contributions of the previous member and other members in this debate so far. I think we can all agree that the principles of this legislation are to modernise and update Australian electoral law to reflect reality—the challenges we face in a society where electronic communications have become all pervasive as an effective means of communicating directly with the electorate. It will make sure that we have standard and consistent rules that operate across election material. This will make sure that people understand the credibility and quality of information that is being provided but, more importantly, it will stop deception.

That is the critical point: to stop deception. I know there's a lot of calls for bipartisanship. I would hope that would start with the bipartisanship of our political opponents, who did wrong—and acknowledged their wrong—in one of the things that we saw during the last election, where they tried to misinform the public or to misrepresent political campaigns as coming from a Commonwealth entity, particularly Medicare. This bill seeks to require an onus or burden that Commonwealth agencies, entities or services cannot be misrepresented for political purposes to try to scare or deliberately intimidate Australian voters into taking a particular course of action.

We know they tried to do that during what we have now dubbed the 'Mediscare' of the 2016 election. Information material was deliberately circulated to voters, whether it was electronically or in little things handed out at polling booths. I saw them at polling booths in the Goldstein electorate, particularly at the Sandringham College booth. Information was deliberately presented to voters: a misrepresentation of the issues around health care. I am somebody who cares passionately about health care and delivering the healthcare system that we need for the 21st century. I saw Labor Party people or Labor Party acolytes or allies choosing to misrepresent the position of Medicare in the hope that it would convince people to vote against the government. That was based on a deception; it was based on a lie and based on misinformation designed to scare the public, and that needs to end. We should not allow people to misrepresent Commonwealth entities, particularly service providers that might be the basis of people's livelihoods, health care or support. What any political party can do in that—and it may not just be the Labor Party and their behaviour; it might be other political parties as well who seek to promote the idea that they are acting on behalf of a Commonwealth agency—can threaten the livelihoods, the safety and the security of voters.

We see that sort of behaviour in other countries in much more violent forms, but when you seek to do it to somebody's livelihood it can have exactly the same effect of intimidating them into a course of action which may not be not just in their best interests but may also deceive them in the actions of their own free will. That's why this piece of legislation is so important. It controls the behaviour of others, to make sure that they do the honest thing and the decent thing. And it also makes sure they're held accountable for it.

I am somebody who believes very strongly in freedom of speech, and part of the credibility of any content—as a critical condition for freedom of speech—is that people be held to account for their conduct. Nobody ever needs to defend themselves from the excessive use of please and thank you. That is not how freedom of speech works. It is when people cross the lines of social acceptability or say something challenging or difficult. Equally, it applies to making sure that we hold people accountable when they deceive the public.

That's what we saw consistently from the opposition during the last election. And, let's face it: it did work partly for their own electoral gain. I'm quite sure that there were people who were very nervous about the circumstances that they faced. There were people—not necessarily in my electorate but outside of my electorate who contacted people within my electorate who raised the issue with me—who were particularly concerned about the pushing and the messaging that came from the Australian Labor Party and their acolytes and allies to deceive the public to vote for them. We see now that that behaviour continues to perpetuate itself, and our hope is that the measures in this piece of legislation will end that practice, in the public good, in the interests of making sure that we have a democracy built on integrity rather than being built on deception, as so often the opposition would like it to be.

There are lots of things in the authorisation framework that are allies to this piece of legislation. (Quorum formed)It's good to be back. We started this speech on the basis of the deception of the modern Australian Labor Party, and at the heart of the quorum call that they just did is the deception of thinking that anything that they have to say is relevant in this discussion—and we know that's not the case.

But let's get back to the substantive provisions of the bill. We know that this bill includes an authorisation regime—see, I can get excited about anything! The bill’s authorisation regime exempts the need to authorise clothing or any other item intended to be worn by a person; the reporting of news, presentation of current affairs or editorial content in news media; communication solely for genuine satirical, academic or artistic purposes, or solely for the purpose of announcing a meeting; opinion polling and research relating to voting intentions—which is going to be good for those opposite, because when we get to the next federal election, you're going to be sorry about the data that's coming out—communication for personal purposes; communication intended to remain within a disclosure entity; and real-time communications, where the speaker and any disclosure entity on whose behalf the speaker is communicating are, or could reasonably be, identified.

So the authorisation framework, as the previous speaker said, modernises the system for the 21st century. That's a fundamentally good thing which deals with lots of different amendments to other acts, as it reflects the full panoply of electronic media that we use these days for communication. The hope is that we'll be able to continue the legislative change to make sure those opposite can't use those channels for deception and are held accountable for their conduct, as well as making sure the Australian people see the fraudulence of the arguments that are often put out by the modern Australian Labor Party. Critical to that is accountability. That's what we are seeing them do.

The only other point I'd like to make in my remaining five minutes and 19 seconds is on polling booths. I know it isn't covered by the bill, but I think it's something we should all aspire to at future elections and in future legislation. One of the great frustrations that we have in the wonderful Goldstein electorate is that we have our main divisional office in Goldstein, which is in Bay Road, Sandringham. It's a lovely part of the world, though I can't believe the divisional office has a view pretty much towards the beach, but that's for another day. Because of its relatively limited size, the office doesn't have the capacity to absorb the number of people in the Goldstein electorate who opt to vote early—they know what they're going to do and we encourage that behaviour. One of my favourite moments during the last election was when a woman came in and said to me, 'Tim, I've always voted Labor, but on this occasion I'm going to vote Liberal.' The reason had to do with the behaviour of the CFA, the behaviour of the modern Labor Party and their policy around the CFA and the deception of Andrews government—we're back to deception again in how they conduct themselves in industrial relations and want to destroy volunteering. She couldn't vote at the divisional office because it's too modest. So there needed to be a facility rented nearby, which was literally within 200 metres of the divisional office at the Uniting Church in Trentham Street. If you get out Google maps, it's the next street; you can walk there. It doesn't dismiss the fact that there are some challenges in doing so for some people who are less physically able. I'm being charitable to those opposite because the good people of the Goldstein electorate are prepared to turn out and hand out how-to-vote cards in the early voting stage for their candidates, but it's placed a disproportionate burden on everybody being able to put a position forward.

See this speech in context