Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to return to an area of interest of mine since I have been on the Joint Committee on Electoral Matters, since being elected to this place. Recently—within the last day, in fact—legislation was passed in the House of Representatives, which is going to go before the Senate, on the early closure of the rolls and provisional voting. I want to remind this place that at least 50,000 people we know of, on the basis of past experience, would have enrolled during the traditional seven-day period of grace after the calling of the last election, but they were prevented from doing so at the last election because of the early closure of the roll. Many more were disenfranchised by being taken off the roll by the AEC when they changed their address and were deterred from re-enrolling by the more onerous enrolment and identification requirements.

Let me remind the House again of the context in which these changes were made at the last federal election. Emeritus Professor Colin Hughes, the highly respected former Electoral Commissioner, and Brian Costar wrote in 2005 that there was a:

… thorough review of the electoral roll conducted in 2002 by the Australian National Audit Office, which concluded “that, overall, the Australian electoral roll is one of high integrity, and can be relied on for electoral purposes”. There are adequate safeguards in the current electoral laws and procedures to deal with any future attempts at fraud without stripping the vote from hundreds of thousands of citizens

The inquiry by the Joint Committee on Electoral Matters into the 2007 election received a submission from the Australian Electoral Commission, the impartial organisation that runs Australia’s elections to our great credit. In fact, its model is used by agencies all over the world for the running of other elections. The AEC submission said:

... it can be clearly stated, in relation to false identities, that there has never been any evidence of widespread or organised enrolment fraud in Australia.

It is very interesting to review the various claims that have been made about this. I think the member for Banks dealt with this in his remarks on the recent bill. I urge senators to understand what happens.

Sometimes in seats there is evidence of multiple voting. The highly professional people in the Australian Electoral Commission go into it and examine why names appear on certain occasions. In table 2.3 on page 18 of the Australian Electoral Commission’s report, the following really relevant piece of information appears. This was pointed out by the member for Banks. In the admissions by age category, 98 per cent of people involved in multiple voting were 70 and over. Of the 64 cases referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions, 25 were subsequently investigated by the AFP and no cases were referred back to the DPP. The small evidence that there is of so-called electoral fraud is mainly committed by people in our electorates who are in nursing homes. They might vote in mobile booths and then, confused and perhaps forgetful, vote on election day or perhaps in some other prepolling arrangement because they have forgotten that they have voted. There is no evidence of widespread electoral fraud in Australia.

Let me turn to the effect of the change in the photographic proof of identity requirement if you show up and claim a provisional vote but are not registered on the roll. You show up, according to the member for Banks, and have to produce a drivers licence. If you do not have it, you get a provisional vote. If you do not produce your licence within so many days, your vote will not count. That provision alone has resulted in a massive increase in the number of votes rejected. In 2004, there were 89,841 votes rejected. In 2007, there were 143,470 votes rejected. That is over 40,000 more votes rejected. The traditional way we dealt with this—and under which the current opposition won many elections where there were no accusations of fraud—when people who had moved within their electorate turned up for a provisional vote was that the Electoral Commissioner took down their provisional vote and took a copy of their signature. Then they went back to the Electoral Commission some days later to see whether they were included in the roll. If they were not then they were excluded. (Time expired)