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

At the last election, 166,000 Australians who applied for provisional votes were denied them by legislation passed at the end of 2006 by the previous conservative government. This is an absolute disgrace to democratic Australia. Only 19 per cent of Australians who applied for a provisional vote who had shifted their address in their electorate were able to obtain a valid vote. By contrast, at every election between the early 1980s and 2007 more than 50 per cent of people who applied for provisional votes were able to obtain a valid vote. In a compulsory voting system, our ethics should be to include every real person possible who can substantiate their address and identity. It is important to maintain the integrity of the electoral roll. But the fact that 166,000 of our fellow Australians were denied a vote at a previous election is a disgrace.

It is directly due to the legislation introduced by the Liberal Party and the National Party in 2006-07. That should be worn around their neck. The legislation that the then coalition majority passed was completely unnecessary, because all of those provisional votes had at previous elections helped elect previous conservative governments. No-one had argued in 2004, 2001, 1998 or 1996 that these provisional voters should not be entitled to a vote. The fact that they were denied a vote at the last election is something that this parliament must fix up as part of the democratic ethic of Australia.