James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the second reading of the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Contingency Measures) Bill 2021. We live in very interesting times. I certainly couldn't have envisaged at the 2019 election that, at the subsequent election, clearly to be held next year in 2022, we would have the challenges—a once-in-100-years pandemic—that mean we need to pass legislation like that which is before us. We therefore need to look very clearly at the way in which our democracy operates and understand whether or not there are risks to our democratic processes based on potential health challenges that may still befall us come the next election, due by May next year.

I'm a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. This legislation has come from our committee, so I am very interested in this topic and very keen to make a contribution on it today. I note and am thankful for the bipartisan support indicated by the previous speaker for this. I don't like the concept of doing anything to the way in which we conduct elections that isn't in a bipartisan way, wherever possible. We've got an excellent system as it is. It returns the correct results. The people who get elected have been validly elected and voted for, and there has never been a question of the strength and robustness of the way in which the AEC operates our elections.

However, it is very important that we provide for what may be changed circumstances that our existing Commonwealth Electoral Act isn't currently perfectly structured for. We need to give the Electoral Commissioner all the powers that he or she needs to take into account different circumstances. Perhaps this should have been considered earlier, but, to be fair, it wasn't until the coronavirus pandemic came along that some of these questions became a lot more acute rather than abstract. So we're dealing with it now, which means, if this legislation passes through this parliament, which I expect it to do, we will have it in place well and truly in time for the next election.

We're looking at a couple of issues here. We're looking at prepoll and postal votes and giving the commissioner some discretion to vary the current rules under which people can access that type of voting. I think we can all be honest in this chamber that, despite the fact that the rules are prescriptive, all of us stand on prepoll booths and all of us get contacted by people and supporters who want assistance with the postal voting process et cetera. Yes, there are rules in place and a declaration that you make.

The previous speaker outlined the circumstances in which you can access a prepoll vote. I note that, in the Parliamentary Library's work on this bill—and I'm sorry I can't quote the source in their document—they indicated there was some kind of survey conducted after the last election that indicated 22 per cent of people who voted at prepoll confessed that, whilst they might have declared they met one of the characteristics necessary, or the prescriptions necessary, to undertake the prepoll, they frankly didn't completely meet that requirement. For some there's a convenience in voting early. Even though they might be able to vote on the day, they just like the idea of just getting it out of the way. Of course, equally, there are other reasons. People might want to avoid the lines on election day or just wonder whether or not something might come up on a Saturday. For many people, Saturdays are cherished above a weekday, when they can drop into the prepoll and quickly get the vote done. So I think we probably already have a large category of people that participate by way of prepoll or apply to undertake a postal ballot and that probably don't strictly meet the requirements. Not that I would ever encourage anyone to break the law, but it is a matter that we probably just turn a blind eye to because, at the end of the day, it's still people validly, legally participating in the electoral system. If that's the way they are intent on casting their ballot then, frankly, why stand in the way of that?

I support giving the commissioner these powers to expand the criteria.

Perhaps I'm indicating from my contribution that I wonder whether at some point in the future—I accept it's not going to happen now—we will consider removing these prescriptions around prepoll and postal voting and, basically, allow anyone who wants to to do it. I don't know why we have to have that added complexity in place. We did look at this at JSCEM, but we're not recommending that through this legislation. I don't see that it necessarily benefits any particular cause in politics to put that in place. As I said, anecdotally people are already doing it if they want to anyway, even if they don't reach those requirements. There are certainly people who would not be comfortable with doing the wrong thing—good on them; I commend those people—and, through this amendment, they should be given comfort that, through the declaration of the commissioner, other criteria can be added to being able to validly cast a postal or prepoll vote if necessary. It's important that we're enabling that rather than having a system that is structured on giving people a bit of a wink and turning a blind eye.

These powers are very important because there's a much higher likelihood during the 2022 election—I hope this won't be the case, but we have to accept there is a risk—that certain restrictions around the normal course of voting could be required if there are coronavirus related restrictions in place. The previous speaker also obviously mentioned that other natural disasters beyond the health pandemic could be at play. We want to make sure that we've got robustness but also nimbleness in our Electoral Act and that the commissioner can prescribe certain changes to the existing rules around early voting to facilitate the fact that some kind of natural disaster, health challenge et cetera will mean we have to do all we can to enable broader access to voting. Clearly, we all want to make it as easy as possible for people to vote. We don't want to engage in voter suppression or make it difficult for people. That's why we have the alternatives to voting on polling day as it is. If the circumstances meet the tests that are required through this change for the commissioner to so decide that he or she wishes to give broader access to prepoll and postal voting, then I think that's an eminently sensible thing for us to support.

The other major matter addressed in this is ensuring that the proper conduct of the election cannot be interfered with by virtue of certain directives that might be in place that prevent someone from accessing their right to cast a vote on election day. It's important that we at the Commonwealth level maintain our supremacy and our rights over the conduct of our elections, and that there's no ambiguity or ability for any state authority or state legislative directive to restrict or apply itself to the way in which we elect people to this place and to the Senate. Nothing is more important than us being in control of the electoral process for this House and the Senate.

I'm not making any allegation here. I'm not suggesting in any way that we can directly foresee any undue obstruction to future Commonwealth elections. But the reality is and the lessons we've learnt in the last 20-odd months under this coronavirus pandemic are that there could be ways in which certain directives could impinge on the ability to conduct an election. Putting politics to one side—it doesn't matter whether you're the government, the opposition or the crossbench—we as a Commonwealth parliament can't allow anyone to overtly or inadvertently interfere in the way in which we conduct our elections, and potentially influence or interfere with the people who are sent to sit in this chamber and the Senate chamber and represent their electorate or state in the Commonwealth parliament.

So what these changes do is to ensure that we have Commonwealth legislation—which therefore would have constitutional supremacy over any state instruments that might be in force around restricting people's rights to move around the community, congregate together physically et cetera—and that the Electoral Commissioner is given the powers to make sure that he or she can continue to conduct an election on election day, with whatever mechanisms and restrictions the commissioner may feel are important to put in place. So we're not suggesting that, if there is a risk situation, we would go ahead and encourage putting people at risk and demand that the commissioner undertake an election as if nothing were happening. That's not what would happen here at all. What we would be doing is ensuring that the commissioner has the powers that he or she needs to decide how to continue to conduct a Commonwealth election in the safest way possible but not in a way that would disenfranchise people or reduce their ability to participate.

Hence there are the polling day measures, ensuring that people can't obstruct our ability to campaign and to hand out our how-to-vote cards and put up our posters and our messages talking about how great we are. None of us in this chamber want to miss out on that opportunity, and, of course, it's vitally important for the robustness of our democracy that we have the right to do that—to communicate and campaign to our voters. On election day, that is a very important part of that process. We all know that. No-one would sit in this chamber if they didn't have exceptional experience of the way in which we conduct elections and what happens on polling day. It's up to us, as a Commonwealth parliament, to make our decisions about how we conduct those elections and not have them potentially restricted by decisions of another government.

This creates a new principle, the 100-metre rule. At the moment, to my understanding and from my reflection on the Electoral Act, the only rule we have for polling day at the moment is the six-metre rule, which effectively says nothing can happen within six metres. I think this is an excellent outcome for ensuring that we manage the next Commonwealth election in a safe way but also maintain our sovereignty over the way in which we elect people to this House. I commend the bill to the House.

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