Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Before the House this morning are three bills: the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Foreign Influences and Offences) Bill 2022, the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Authorisations) Bill 2022 and the Electoral Legislation Amendment (COVID Enfranchisement) Bill 2022. It's fair to say that one involves technical amendments, one operational and one fundamental, and I will deal with them in that way.

Firstly, I'll deal with the technical. The technical relates to ensuring that electoral material which is disseminated by all of us—and, indeed, many not in this place but wishing to come to this place—needs authorisation. That authorisation ought to carry not the technical name—namely, the entity last included on an AEC return—but effectively the common name. It is intended to convey exactly that. People want to know, and I think it's appropriate that people do know that electoral material has been authorised by entities, and, in that regard, people might well know of the common name for a political party.

If I can just digress on that, the member last night in his amendment suggested that we be allowed to use—and I understand that this met with favour in the Senate—acronyms. I personally am concerned about that. Whilst everyone in this place, deeply engaged in politics, might know what UAP Queensland means, there are a lot of people out there who might not. It's not a big stretch to ask for the name rather than the acronym to be included. It might, indeed, shock people in this place to know that many of my friends don't know what ALP or LIB stand for. So perhaps some consideration might be given to that. But, like I say, that is a deeply technical bill, and it's one I support but not one which I think requires deep consideration or debate in this place.

The second of the bills is what I would describe as an operational amendment. COVID has changed almost everything we do, from the fact that I have a disposable mask in my pocket to put on once I finish this debate to holiday plans to when children go to school. It's fair to say that we're exhausted and that we've faced a lot of changes as a result of the pandemic, and that is true of the forthcoming federal election. There is a prospect that at the date of the next federal election there will be a large cohort of Australians—large in an electoral sense, perhaps not in a notional sense—who will be prohibited from visiting a polling booth because they are dealing with a COVID diagnosis and are therefore forced to isolate. No-one, and I mean no-one, in this place wants to disenfranchise those people from casting their vote, and I remind Australians—and this is something I'll have a little bit more to say on shortly—that three of the last five elections in this place have been incredibly tight. If you cast your mind back to 2010, 2016 and 2019, they were incredibly tight. They were equally tight in terms of the number of votes required to change the outcome on the floor of this place. And so it is understandable that the government is taking measures—measures that have bipartisan support, I'm pleased to say—to ensure those individuals can cast their vote at election time. How could it be that they couldn't? If you were to undertake a PCR or a rapid antigen test within 72 hours of election day after the time for nominating a postal vote before the election and obviously without the ability to cast a declaration vote in any other way then you would be disenfranchised. And so, sensibly, unique amendments have been cast to ensure that authority can be provided to the Special Minister of State to facilitate phone voting for those individuals. I'm pleased to see that this measure is sunsetting at the end of this calendar year. I'm pleased for no other reason than that it's a show of optimism that we'll be past the pandemic by the end of this calendar year. I've got to say that 2022 has felt like 2021 wearing a wig! But let's hope that this is the only federal election that we need these extraordinary powers for.

I have dealt with the technical, not wanting to detain the House very long on that, and mentioned the operational. I should say this issue has given cause for concern in relation to the upcoming South Australian state election which is occurring next month. I do note that the member for Isaacs made some comments about that last evening. I will make the point that the South Australian Electoral Commissioner has put in place a mechanism to ensure all South Australians are enfranchised at that election.

Noting that, and hoping that this will be the only federal election where this power is ever required and having dealt with the technical and the operational, I will go to the fundamental. The fundamental in relation to this string of bills is the need to ensure that our electoral laws are sufficiently robust to prevent any form of foreign interference. Foreign interference in election outcomes I don't think is a new or novel concept, but it seems to be on the rise. It's a fundamental truism that the outcome of elections with respect to this place should be determined by the Australian citizenry and the Australian citizenry only. I don't think anyone in this place, or anywhere else in this nation, would disagree with that assertion. So we need to make sure our laws are robust enough to ensure that we don't end up in a situation where we effectively risk the very real prospect of serious international actors with serious resources influencing the outcome of federal elections.

Why is this debate and this legislation particularly timely? It would be important at any time, but it is particularly important given the information provided by the director-general of ASIO on 9 February of this year regarding his annual threat assessment in which he revealed that a person linked to a foreign government recently attempted to fund political candidates in an unspecified Australian election. This is where I want to draw the attention of those in this place and anyone who might be listening to the fact that, as I mentioned previously, three of the last five elections in this place were determined on a wafer-thin margin. I think it's fair to say that we can call the 2010 election a dead heat. The 2016 election came down to a handful of votes in the seat of Capricornia, ultimately. And, of course, we sit in a parliament now where the margin—as evidenced by the events of last week—is wafer thin.

None of that is a problem, except for the fact that it presents a particularly delicious opportunity to those foreign actors who might wish to change the course of Australian political history. Why do I say that? Well, I say that because three of the last five elections have been determinative. If a foreign actor with significant resources—and long may it be that political campaigns in this country are run on relatively modest budgets. Indeed, I understand that at the last federal election the seat of Longman, the last coalition seat to be declared, ran on a budget that represents something about the size of my monthly household expenditure—a wafer thin amount of money. So it's a deliciously attractive proposition for a third party, particularly a foreign government, to seek to influence outcomes. Quite frankly, that is very achievable, unless we have these kinds of protections.

I want to make sure that Australians determine the outcome of these elections. I want there to be the highest level of confidence in the Australian citizenry in the outcome of elections. I remember waking up in 2007 on the day after the election, and those opposite might not be surprised to realise that I woke up incredibly tired because I'd spent the day on a polling booth. I woke up incredibly disappointed, but I wasn't angry, and nor was there any thought that that election was anything other than fair and the outcome one that I had to, albeit over time, come to accept. I don't want, and I done think anyone else in this place wants, the kind of uncertainty, innuendo and other considerations that were offered up after the last US presidential election. We don't want that to become a feature of Australian politics, and, accordingly, this bill is an important safeguard.

The last thing that I want to say is about something that has garnered a little bit of attention in the media today, and that has been the subject of a couple of interactions in question time over the course of this week. It is important that the people of Australia understand that they will determine the outcome of the election in 2022—not foreign government or actors or otherwise. The one thing that I want to point out is this, and I want to be really clear so as not to offend the standing orders and to be clear about what I want to say. At no point in what I'm saying am I suggesting that those opposite or the Leader of the Opposition have garnered this support. I'm not making that assertion. I would never make that assertion, and I don't think that it would be fair to. But one thing that I am desperately concerned about, as we have seen reported overnight, is that some foreign governments have made the decision about who they would prefer to see govern this country. That's a matter for them. I note that it is attracting significant media attention.

But there is one thing that I will say to the Australian citizenry—the people, I remind the House, who will determine the outcome of the 2022 election. I make this plea to them: make your own decision about who is to govern your country following the next federal election. Don't be influenced by the attitude of foreign governments. You take an Australia-first, citizenry-first approach to this election. Don't be swayed by what might be coming out of foreign capitals and foreign leaders elsewhere—and I make that assertion very clear in what I'm saying about who is motivating those outcomes. I don't believe what we're hearing from one foreign government in particular is being courted by those opposite at all. I think it's an unfair criticism to suggest that. But it is clear that that foreign government would very much like to see that outcome, and I don't want that view to infect decisions that are made by the Australian citizenry in the lead-up to the 2022 election. Australians must decide the outcome and make-up of this House and no-one else.

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