Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Western Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Democracy is a fundamental Australian value. Indeed, it is a value that we make our newest citizens sign up to when they take their citizenship pledge, and, because Australia's democracy is so strong, we do sometimes take it for granted. But every single federal election we are reminded just how lucky we are to live in Australia and how lucky we are to have the institutions which lead and run our democratic processes, from those that run the processes we have here in the parliament through to the Australian Electoral Commission and their thousands of staff who help us have free and fair elections.

Like many in this place, I've been involved in democratic elections for a long time. And, I worry, like many do, about what COVID is doing to our democracy. I have memories of joining my parents at polling booths when I was a primary school student, handing out how-to-votes, being bored out of my brain hanging around at Picton Primary School for hours and hours. But, as I got older, I started to enjoy those experiences more and more. It does make me realise that the election we're about to face, not just for policy and other reasons but because of the particular circumstances of a global pandemic, will be an election like no other.

The schools and how they interact—schools at the moment across the country are telling parents and community members not to come onto school grounds. We have elections where we actually have thousands of people come onto school grounds, admittedly on a Saturday, but it really is a challenge for all of the school communities. I know it's a challenge for the school communities in my electorate.

We're going to see more and more early voting, which I have experienced where, if the early voting location is poorly chosen, can be a real pain for the small businesses that are located next to them. That's before you pile on the challenge of a global pandemic and the potential for infected voters to be attending those voting locations. I worry that voters will be scared of seeing these long, socially distanced lines thinking: 'Oh my God, how many people in that queue! How long am I going to have to wait to vote?'

We know that there are the challenges that we've seen around having more postal votes and the logistic challenges that presents. We are all changing the way we communicate with our electors. We've done that over the last two years, but we're going to change that again in the context of an election—fewer town halls, more outdoor gatherings. I wouldn't have known two years ago what a COVID-safe phone bank was, but now I am very good at them.

There'll be challenges for the Australian Electoral Commission in both keeping their staff safe but also, as we've seen across this country, of getting enough workers to run that election. We have a very high standard of the quality of service that people expect. I note that one of the recommendations in the amendment moved by the shadow Attorney-General is about making sure that we have enough resources for the Electoral Commission to do all of the things that they need to do to run the sorts of elections that we are used to having and ensuring that everyone can have a say in those elections. I'll talk more about that in a moment.

I've worked in elections trying to elect good Labor people across this country, from Brisbane to Melbourne. I've helped out in a campaign in Frankston and here in the Australian Capital Territory in a territory election, and I've done a fair few in Western Australia as well. But the most remarkable election experience I've ever had was in 2014, when I went to Afghanistan, to Kabul, to be an election observer for the counting of their presidential election. That was an election like no other. The fights over individual ballot papers and the markings on those ballot papers make us look too polite, in terms of the conversations we have with our scrutineers on election day. I was lucky to join my friends—back then my friends were known as Luke Gosling and Josh Wilson, who are now known as the member for Solomon and the member for Fremantle—on that delegation, spending three-and-a-bit weeks trying to make sure we helped a country in their transition to democracy. As we look at, in this legislation, how we strengthen our democracy, it's quite heartbreaking to think that there have been democracies that have fallen over the last few years. What has happened in Afghanistan, not just to their democracy but to the country and the people of Afghanistan, is particularly heartbreaking for me and many others in this place. That's why, wherever we can, be it through our aid program or through our leadership in the international community of making sure we have strong, fair, democratic and open elections, we should do everything we can to strengthen democracy—not just here but everywhere.

One of the challenges we have—it's been in the media this week—is the challenge of making sure we comply with the various laws that are passed in this place to make sure we have open elections. I have been a party secretary responsible for filing the forms with the Electoral Commission to make sure all appropriate matters are disclosed, as the Australian people expect, and to ensure all candidates comply and to make sure we train volunteers in how they can comply with the relevant electoral laws. Whatever side of politics it is—government, crossbench, wherever—it is disappointing when someone does not comply with those rules. I think the expectation of the Australian public is that a swift apology and full disclosure are delivered.

When I think about the challenges of elections and people putting in all the paperwork and everything, one of the things that scares me most about elections—it's thankfully no longer a challenge I have; I had it when I was a party secretary—and the thing that used to terrify me more than anything was lodging candidate nominations. What if a form was wrong? What if you forgot one? What if there wasn't the right number of dollars on the cheque attached for the candidate deposits? I think that's something that has made people nervous for many decades in terms of making sure people fulfil their obligations. This week in this place we paid tribute to another Western Australian party secretary, Michael Beahan, who then went on to an incredibly distinguished career in the other place, in the Senate. He was a proud Western Australian and a fabulous secretary of the Western Australian branch of the great Australian Labor Party.

I turn to the amendment that has been moved by the shadow Attorney-General. I think this speaks to some of the other challenges that need to be addressed in making sure we have that robust democracy. We have seen one particular concern raised by those opposite about foreign interference—a concern I share. There should be no foreign interference in Australian elections. Australian elections should be run by Australian rules, run for Australians and decided by Australians. But there are other things we can do to strengthen our democracy, as the amendment notes. We could lower the disclosure threshold, no longer taking $14,500 before a single cent is disclosed. Instead, bring the threshold down to $1,000 and disclose every donation over that $1,000 threshold. Further, let's start talking about real-time disclosure. We in this place, when we have to fulfil our obligations with members' interests, have 28 days. Political parties sometimes have up to almost 18 months. We should fix this. We should get to a point where there is proper disclosure in reasonable time that the public would expect.

The amendment also recommends that we should provide more resources to the Australian Electoral Commission to increase enrolment and turnout. We know we still have a problem in Australia where there are by-elections with poor turnout. We know COVID presents some particular challenges about people feeling comfortable about engaging with their democracy. And we know, in my state of Western Australia, we still have, in 2022, a completely unacceptable rate of Indigenous enrolment. Only 69 per cent of First Nations people in Western Australia are understood to be on the electoral roll. That's completely unacceptable. And the only reason that that is the case is that there are not enough resources put into helping people not just get on the roll but stay on the roll. And we also can't avoid the fact that the vast bulk of those people who are not on the roll in Western Australia are concentrated in one particular electorate, Durack, which covers the north of Western Australia. I would call on the minister, himself a Western Australian, himself a former party director in Western Australia, to take further serious action on this. Unless we have every Australian voting, able to vote, and fulfilling their obligations to be enrolled and participate in our elections, they are not truly representative of the full spectrum of the Australian people. We can find the resources in this place to fix it, and we should. That's one of the reasons I commend and support the amendment.

We also need to make sure that people have confidence in their democracy, that they're not being fed all this misinformation and disinformation. There's a lot more that can be done there. Just as there is a lot more that can be done to make sure that when people go to vote, particularly where they're voting for the re-election of members of the government, they can have confidence that those members of the government have been under the oversight of a powerful and independent national anticorruption commission.

Turning to the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Foreign Influences and Offences) Bill 2022, I welcome that this is a ban for foreign campaigners. It closes a loophole so that foreign entities cannot incur expenses for the purpose of federal elections in Australia. As other speakers have said, Australian elections are for Australians. In 2018 the parliament banned foreign governments, citizens and entities from making donations to candidates in federal elections. This was an important measure and had broad support. But we all need to remain vigilant about other ways that foreign entities might seek to inappropriately influence our democracy.

Those amendments did not take into account circumstances where a foreign entity could incur electoral expenditure and communicate electoral matter. This meant that a foreign government or corporation could campaign for a candidate, or on an issue, in a federal election. We can all think of examples. Greensill has deep connections with the conservative side of politics both in the UK and here in Australia. It could be Trump enterprises. For all Clive Palmer's faults, at least most of his companies are based here in Australia. We also need to make sure that we have penalties for those who seek to avoid or circumvent these laws. That's why it's good that this legislation has penalties and anti-avoidance measures to close further loopholes. Further, electoral material should be authorised by people here in Australia—and this bill closes that loophole.

Over the years, there have been attempts by foreign actors to undermine our democracy, and all sides of the parliament have been targeted. With all sides of the parliament having been targeted, it's important that all sides of the parliament are vigilant. Labor is committed to ensuring that the parliament and our democracy are protected from foreign interference. While the Prime Minister only ever acts on this if it's in his electoral interests, Labor is committed to legislating in the national interest. That's why we welcome that this bill increases the penalty for publishing misleading material in relation to the casting of a vote and gives the Australian Federal Police further powers.

The Electoral Legislation Amendment (Authorisations) Bill 2022 makes minor but important amendments to ensure that material is authorised. It's important that material that is placed on digital platforms is properly authorised, and that must comply too. It allows parties to use a shortened version of their name. When we're talking about the names of political parties and what they have done, we can't avoid the fact that the biggest change to a political party name since the last election was the change that Clive Palmer made to the registration of his party. It used to be Clive Palmer's United Australia Party, an entirely owned entity of the Clive Palmer machine. Clive Palmer still owns and runs the whole show and pulls every single string, but he knew that he needed to take his name off the political party, so he changed it to simply the United Australia Party. But then he couldn't help showing that this is still his machine—still something that he drives every day to help the re-election of the Morrison government. In doing so, he's come out and announced that he's going to spend the most money ever in an Australian election: $100 million. We know that, just as he announced after the last election, that is money that he spends because he wants to keep people like his friend the Minister for Defence in government. This huge spending has practically no scrutiny, and the government doesn't want to scrutinise it. If you ask, 'Why don't they want real-time disclosures and why don't they want to bring the disclosure threshold down to 1,000?' I'd say the answer is simply two words: Clive Palmer.

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