Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Those dedicated souls, including my volunteers, stood on the pre-poll for three long weeks. I think the temperature got below 20 degrees one day. I had this little old lady come up to me one day. She was almost frostbitten. She said: 'Andrew, are you going to take Medicare away? I had a phone call that you guys are going to take Medicare away.' I didn't know this lady but I reassured her that what was being pedalled by the Labor Party were lies. They were, in fact, lies. I assured her that we would not be selling Medicare or privatising Medicare and that we were staunch defenders of Medicare. And she said: 'That's fine. That's all I need to know. I'm going to vote for you.'

There were many, many stories that came out of the 2016 general election of the lies and the fabrications that were perpetrated by the Labor Party. And the Labor Party, unfortunately, wear it as a badge of honour. It is a great sadness that those opposite would think that it is smart, clever and almost funny to perpetrate a myth that the government was ever intending to privatise or to scrap Medicare. Fundamentally, it was wrong. They knew it. And it was nothing other than a cheap political stunt—and a cheap political stunt that, very sadly, almost worked. We have to ensure, in this place, that those sorts of games, perpetrated by the Labor Party and by GetUp!, never have an opportunity to succeed again.

So this bill is all about ensuring democracy. That's what I thought we were here for. I know I've only been here for 14 months but I thought that this place was all about democracy—not about trying to pull the wool over the eyes of some of our most disadvantaged people. Making robocalls to, in particular, the elderly at night, trying to tell them that they were going to lose Medicare—that is absolutely unforgivable. Those opposite that were involved in that decision-making should hang their heads in shame. It is an absolute disgrace. So we are taking steps to ensure that it doesn't happen again.

The Commonwealth Electoral Act, like many pieces of legislation, with time does not keep pace with modern-day technology. As time goes on, we're living in a world where technology is continuously growing and getting faster and faster. The sort of technology that the member for Scullin is on right now wasn't even thought conceivable 10 years ago. Now they are used as tools for good—sometimes good and sometimes bad. In the 2016 election, they were used for, in part, bad. These reforms that are encapsulated in this bill will ensure the integrity, accountability and transparency of who is actually making these representations. Who is actually behind the messaging will be made clear to the receiver, whether it's by email, by mobile phone or by who knows what the technology will be tomorrow.

Fundamentally, it is a tenet of our democracy that, particularly at election time, if someone makes a political statement, the rest of the country ought to know who has made that statement. When you look at any political advertising—whether it be a billboard or an ad on television or radio—you've always got that, 'Written, spoken and authorised by Joe Bloggs on behalf of the LNP,' for instance. But what we saw in the 2016 election was modern-day technology being used by the Labor Party for no other reason than to hoodwink, fool and misrepresent to parts of our community—our most vulnerable community—so that they thought that Medicare was being privatised. This bill will put a stop to it. As I said, there is nothing more important than that the identification of a representation be made clear. (Quorum formed.)

I encourage all my colleagues to stay and listen to the rest of this speech. It's very interesting that those opposite continue to gag both me and my colleagues when we speak about this bill because they are embarrassed. They are highly embarrassed, and so they should be. I know that some in the House weren't part of the leadership team that made this decision to obfuscate and misrepresent our position in relation to Medicare. I'm hoping that those opposite, as they grow through the ranks in the Labor Party, would staunchly defend the next time something like this comes up in a future campaign and do the right thing—that both lawyers on the other side of the room would do the right thing and not try and misrepresent the facts. As a colleague, I'm sure that they wouldn't do that in their own professional lives. In our democracy, we want to always ensure that we're open, we're accountable and we're transparent.

When those decisions were made by the Labor Party in the 2016 election, they sought to cover up. They sought to manufacture this whole story. It's all coming down to the importance of authorising this distributed material, whether it be in print or whether it be in electronic format. This bill will also have similar provisions. It doesn't matter whether it's a referendum or whether it is a general election, the same things will apply—that's equally important. It will harmonise authorisation requirements across broadcasting electoral and referendum legislation. It'll retain current requirements in relation to specified printed materials.

There are certain exemptions such as clothing. You won't have to have an authorisation on clothing—that's common sense. If you're reporting news or the presentation of current affairs or editorial content in news media, that will also be exempt. Communications solely for genuine satirical, academic or artistic purposes—if those on the other side have anything to do with it, they won't have anything to do with academic purposes, I'm sure—or solely for the purpose of announcing a meeting are exempt. Opinion polling and research related to voting intentions are exempt. Communication for personal purposes is exempt. Communication intended to remain within a disclosure entity is exempt. Real-time communications where the speaker and any disclosure entity on whose behalf the speaker is communicating are, or could reasonably be, identified are also exempt. If someone is standing on a street corner or in a town hall making some representations, whatever it might be, clearly we know who that person is or we can make certain investigations to find out who they are.

Interestingly, it has been decided that schedule 2 is to be removed from this bill, but make no mistake, we will be back. We will be back and we will reintroduce—

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