Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I made some remarks yesterday in speaking in support of the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Enrolment and Prisoner Voting) Bill 2010 where I quoted extensively from sections of High Court judgments delivered in this area that we rely on. They are from the Roach case and also the case of Rowe. The thrust behind the majority judgments was about enfranchising voters, not disenfranchising voters, which is what we now seek to put into place.

The interesting thing is that it was the former government that legislated to put us in the position that the High Court found was not warranted in both the Roach and Rowe cases. We would not have had to do this if it were not for the paranoia of some on the other side about supposed fraud in the electoral system, or potential fraud.

The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, which I chair, and chaired in the last parliament, made recommendations along the lines of what we propose in the legislation today. They were majority recommendations, and it is prescient to quote the summary and the preamble to recommendation 1, which led to the seven-day rule. The report said:

The committee can see no valid reason why it should be necessary to continue with close of rolls arrangements that serve to disenfranchise electors and that require unsustainable levels of funding to be expended in order to partly mitigate their effect.

There is no evidence that fraudulent activity was reduced as a result of the amendments to the close of rolls. On the contrary, there is no evidence available that indicates systemic fraudulent activity exists.

I think it is worth requoting the joint judgment that I quoted yesterday. It is a judgment relating to Justice Gummow, together with Justice Bell:

A legislative purpose of preventing such fraud before it is able to occur, where there has not been previous systemic fraud associated with the operation of the seven-day period before the changes are made by the 2006 act, does not supply a substantial reason for the practical operation of the 2006 act in disqualifying large numbers of electors.

That is in paragraphs 166 and 167 of the judgment. What the judges are saying there is that you cannot merely assert fraud; you have got to show substantial fraud is occurring before you go down this path of disenfranchising a large number of electors.

In relation to prisoners, the same proportionate approach has applied when they reinstated the eligibility to vote for those who were sentenced to a period of three years imprisonment or less. Indeed, the majority in that case of Roach contained the then Chief Justice Gleeson, someone who is fairly conservative when he comes to judgments. There is no doubt that of those of us who have followed electoral reform over the years—and I have in my 21 years of being in this place—I have to admit that I was very surprised at the pronouncements of the High Court in each of these cases. I was fairly pessimistic as to the success of those cases. I was very surprised, but elated, at the principle on which the High Court has basically enunciated in these cases; it is about enfranchisement. They are setting limits on the ability of this parliament to disenfranchise electors, and I think that is a good thing.

I have a great regard for the High Court. I think we have probably one of the better High Courts in the world in relation to their independence and the quality of their judgments. This is not a radical court; this is a conservative court, if you look at the appointments. There are a number of appointments on the bench that were by the former government. Indeed, when you actually look at the Roach case, the former Chief Justice Gleeson and Justice Crennan, who were in the majority, were appointed by the former government. And in relation to the case of Rowe, Justice Crennan was in the majority—which was a 4-3 judgment—and was appointed by the former government.

I think that is a good thing because it is also a demonstration that it is unlike other places around the world where appointments made tend to be of a more political nature and where there is demonstrated evidence that particular courts may well be following a political objective. That is why in the United States there is such a scrutiny of appointments to the Supreme Court. I think that in Australia we can be very confident of the independence and the separation of powers that exist in this country, and the quality of the people that we place on the bench.

I do not always necessarily agree with some of those judgments; I have different views. And they are not always unanimous judgments—indeed, in the case of Rowe it was a 4-3 judgment—but we accept that. The case of Wik was a 4-3 judgment in a particular way. It created a furore in the broader community, but the truth of the matter is that we do not follow the system whereby you have unanimous judgments—so you are able to test the reasoning. But the reasoning of the majority in both these cases is a reasoning that this parliament should embrace. It should be about enfranchisement and not about disenfranchisement. The tragedy is that for the 11½ years of the former government all we saw was legislative action to disenfranchise, based on paranoia, fear and, I believe in some cases, on a view that a particular group of people did not necessarily vote a particular way—or that they did vote a particular way.

We will see legislation introduced to reinstate provisional voters who, prior to amendments by the former government, were scrutinised and who had signed declaration forms on the day of voting which, when compared with the signatures that the Electoral Commission had, meant those people were reinstated to the count. Changes to the law meant that, unless they produced a proof of identity, those people did not have their vote admitted to the count and they had to come back within a certain period of time. What we now know is that 12,000 people during the 2010 election, who were given provisional votes because their names could not be found on the roll, were subsequently found to be on the roll but were still excluded because they were given provisional votes and the provisions of the act were such that if they did not bring along a proof of identity within the required time then their vote could not be reinstated. That was 12,000 people who were legitimately on the roll. In that instance, I would argue a signature is a good enough proof of identity. And as one who has scrutineered over many elections and by-elections, if there is doubt as to a signature you can compare it with the signature held by the commission. If there is doubt, it gets knocked out. That principle is consistent with these principles that are before us today in relation to prisoners—that is, imprisonment of itself should not be a disqualification from the vote. That is what former Chief Justice Gleeson says in his judgement in the majority in that case, and I commend to the House his judgement. It is worth reading; it is an excellent judgement in that regard.

In relation to the challenge by GetUp!, it was believed that there were about 100,000 people who fell into this category. We are not talking about one or two votes here. The allegation of systemic fraud has been made at every electoral committee hearing I have been involved in subsequent to every election that has been held—this is the eighth I have been involved in personally as a candidate—and I am still waiting for the evidence of systemic fraud. That is what Justices Gummow and Bell were in effect saying in their judgement in that particular case. If you want to assert these things, and the consequences are you are going to disqualify people from their right to participate in choosing a government, then you must put up, you must show the systemic fraud. Not occasional fraud. There is occasional fraud, there is the odd person who multiple-votes. What we also found in relation to that multiple voting is that 80 per cent or more of it related to elderly people who were in nursing homes where confusion reigned, dementia reigned, and people were double-voting. That was the evidence before the committee last time in relation to those particular elements of multiple voting. It was not fraud, it was confusion. I hope to have the analysis of the Electoral Commission in relation to those matters. And in relation to the seven-day rule, let us be clear: we are talking about a situation where there could be 50,000 to 100,000 extra voters on the roll.

It has been a situation where this has been progressively looked at because automatic enrolment now takes place in New South Wales and Victoria, and that is something we will look at as a Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. It is not about favouring the government or the opposition; it is about recognising that as a society there are some changes in our society, but the right to vote is one of the most important rights that can be exercised. It is true equality because an 18-year-old voter is just the same as a voter who has been voting for 40 or 50 years—their vote counts. But there is a lot more movement in the electorate. We have a situation where there are provisions in the Electoral Act that if I moved next door and did not fill out the proper form, even though I am within the same electorate, my vote does not count. It is madness!

The nature of our society requires us to have safeguards, to have checks. That is what this legislation before the House is now about. The government is backed up by High Court decisions. I accept that in some instances you do not necessarily have to follow the High Court; just because the High Court says it, does not mean that you do it. But if we do nothing then the principles in the legislation are what underpin elections on election day. What we are doing is legislating what the High Court has said is the law. Because all of those people who took advantage of the High Court case in terms of Roach all got a vote. The Electoral Commission devoted extra resources to processing those applications.

If the opposition opposes this legislation and this legislation is defeated then the principles underpinning this legislation still apply. Let us have that on the record. It is not a situation where your opposition is going to achieve a close of rolls on the same day that an election is called; the High Court has declared that what the former government did was not in accordance with the Constitution. Those provisions of the act have been struck down. I commend the legislation to the House. I believe it is worthy of support. It reinstates provisions that operated for a very long time—they are not new, they were taken away. (Time expired)

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the government’s Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Enrolment and Prisoner Voting) Bill 2010. It is quite instructive to follow the member for Banks in this debate. He made some pertinent points. The legislation before us is a result of a High Court decision. The High Court has interpreted the Constitution in a certain way. I think the member for Banks is correct in saying that we do not always have to do what the High Court says in relation to this. We have a separation of powers in our society. We have a legislative branch and a judicial branch and often they may disagree on points. In my view, this is not the end of this debate. Many of the issues contained in the legislation will be revisited in the future.

While the government may have the numbers to get this legislation up, it is not unusual with the passage of time for the High Court to alter its decisions or for matters to be revisited. With the nature of the dissenting reports and the 4-3 split decisions in particular in some of the High Court verdicts, I think what we see is a genuine division in terms of how we should proceed.

As the legislative branch, we should not be afraid of legislating—of setting what we believe are the fundamental principles for the integrity of the electoral roll and who can and cannot vote based on sound principles. It is a sound principle to say that people serving prison sentences should have their rights suspended. We suspend their right to liberty anyway by putting them in prison. I do not understand the argument that somehow they have a ‘super-right’ to vote above and beyond the right to liberty and their pursuit of happiness after committing a crime that leads to a custodial sentence. Society has already taken the decision to suspend most of their rights, but to say that somehow they have this ‘uber-right’—they have this absolute right to vote regardless of any other right or any act they have committed or anything that has happened—is an odd contention.

So I do not find it unreasonable that the coalition amended the legislation to provide that prisoners serving custodial sentences of longer than three years ought not to choose the legislators that make the laws that put them in the prison they are in. I do not find that unreasonable. I do not think the average person in our community would find that unreasonable. Often the judicial branch is regarded as out of step and out of touch with community attitudes in relation to these sorts of matters. I think custodial sentences and prisoners voting in elections are a fine example of where the judicial branch has not got the right tenor of the public view.

The coalition, of course, has acknowledged the High Court’s decision. I think it is important to note that this was a narrow decision in relation to a blanket exclusion. It did not—and I think this is where the Labor Party is being a little cute—seek to invalidate the general principle that the franchise may be removed from certain prisoners. That is why we will be moving an amendment to provide that this be reinstated for custodial sentences of one year or more. I think this is a valid way to proceed considering that the Constitution, at section 44(ii), says that any person who:

… has been convicted and is under sentence, or subject to be sentenced, for any offence punishable under the law of the Commonwealth or of a State by imprisonment for one year or longer … shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives.

To clarify this for anybody listening today: you are incapable of serving as a member of the House of Representatives or sitting in the Senate if you are serving a custodial sentence of one year or more. Yet you are capable of voting on who can be a member or senator in this place. It seems odd; that that would be the case seems not the intention of the founding fathers of the Constitution.

I do not think it is unreasonable for us to propose that, if you are serving a custodial sentence that prevents you from serving in this place—from holding office as a member or senator—you are not to have the right to select a member or senator or have influence over what laws are made. It is not an unreasonable proposition. I think the coalition is entirely reasonable and within its rights. I think it is also reasonable to suggest to the judicial wing: you may have a view about a particular court case that had a particularly impact on a particular group of people, but the parliament may disagree.

I note the member for Maribyrnong, who is at the table, is laughing. What is funny about this? We are talking about a very small group of people who are in prison for offences. We are not talking about a major impact on the electoral roll; we are not talking about altering the outcome of elections; we are talking about a general principle in our society that says you cannot serve in this place if you have been sentenced. And it therefore follows that you ought not to be able to vote. This is not a political manoeuvre. There is no real value in this for anybody. It is simply a matter of setting these principles and standards and making them consistent across the board.

This bill has another serious aspect to it, in relation to enrolment. This has been the subject of much discussion over the past few years, including in the lead-up to the 2007 election. The bill seeks to return the law to the situation where the close of rolls would occur seven days after the issue of the writ. In relation to this issue, the first point I would make is that the contention was that the coalition’s changes in 2006 somehow disenfranchised people. The member for Banks was keen to talk about disenfranchisement several times in his speech: ‘People were disenfranchised. People lost the vote—it is outrageous.’ The idea was that the current law—that you must be on the electoral roll and must maintain the correct enrolment address according to the provisions of the Electoral Act—would not apply to those people who could all of a sudden enrol once an election is called. Those who do the right thing make up the bulk of voters in our society today. The situation was that people who did not meet the well-outlined deadlines and rushed to vote at the last minute were in the same category as people who had maintained the correct enrolment all through the year, in accordance with the law of the land. Somehow there was something wrong in us asking people to comply with the law and be on the electoral roll.

Again, I find this an odd argument. It is undermined by the fact that the submission of the AEC to the Senate inquiry noted that under the new rules in 2007 the number of people missing from the close of rolls in 2007 was 100,370 and in 2004 this was 168,394. So during just a three-year cycle 68,000 people were added to the roll, with the new legislation under the Howard government. That is a reduction of 40 per cent. The member for Banks said that people have been disenfranchised. The facts are very different. Actually, 40 per cent more people were franchised as a result of the legislation and campaign to ensure that people enrolled by the correct time and date and there was a consequence if you did not. It is no different from any other form of government activity that we set up. This is the question that the Labor Party has to answer: why should we treat the electoral roll, which is such an important and fundamental plank of our democratic society, as anything less than our other instrumentalities?

We have punitive and enforceable measures in the Income Tax Assessment Act, for example. When the government wants revenue it will have what it wants you to do by the date it wants you to do it by or it will hunt you down until it gets that revenue. But with the electoral roll the attitude is: ‘Let’s relax. We can have people come on after the writs are issued. We don’t really mind if we get a lot of people coming on. What’s to worry about; we just want to enfranchise everybody.’ That is not the way to proceed with something so important. If it is good enough in all our other forms of legislation that we ensure there are deadlines, constraints and principles, it is only common sense to say on the closure of the electoral roll that there ought to be a deadline and that people have to meet that deadline.

We have heard a lot about the court case involving GetUp! The issue was comprehensively dealt with by the High Court, which ruled in favour of GetUp! 4-3 in a split decision. There were plenty of dissenting judgments, including one by Justice Heydon, which is particularly damning of what we would regard as the hypocrisy of the plaintiffs and the poor nature of their arguments. Justice Heydon said:

The plaintiffs were prevented from exercising their entitlement because they failed to comply with simple obligations and procedures …

               …            …            …

All other voters outside the three exceptional classes who fail to enrol or transfer enrolment are the authors of their own misfortunes. They have not taken steps to enable them to vote which were not only available to them, but required of them by s.101. They are simple steps. It would have been very easy to take them. There was ample time to take them.

           …         …         …

It is they who disqualify, disenfranchise, exclude or disentitle themselves, not the legislature.

           …         …         …

The legislation placed no “burden” and no “disproportionate” burden. If there were any burden on anyone, it was a burden which those who bore it placed on their own shoulders.

               …            …            …

There is a statutory command to claim or transfer enrolment. That command is backed by a criminal sanction. The plaintiffs did not dispute the constitutional validity of either the command or the sanction. What they demand is an entitlement to continue disobeying the command and ignoring the sanction for longer periods than the impugned provisions allow.

This is a very sound dissenting judgment. What you hear from Justice Heydon goes to the heart of everything we do in this place and to what I regard as the biggest difference between the Labor Party and Liberal Party. What kind of society is it that we seek to set up? Is it one where responsibility is a key word, the responsibility of the individual to do the right thing, to look after themselves and to conduct themselves in accordance with the law or do we seek to make exemptions and allow people to get away with breaking the law? Justice Heydon is very clear in this regard. This is a law. It has a criminal sanction. It is required of people to be on the electoral roll. There was plenty of opportunity for people to access the electoral roll. Nobody is denying people the opportunity to enrol to vote. It has never been contended that anyone ought to have the right to deny someone the right to vote, but they have to comply with the simple, as Justice Heydon puts it, procedures. It is very simple: all you have to do is get a form, fill it out and lodge it.

There are very few other requirements today to get on the electoral roll, yet we have this contention that people are somehow being disenfranchised. It is a completely odd and bizarre contention, in my mind. We ought to pause and be very careful about this because, while the High Court might have by a 4-3 judgment made a decision in that particular case, it is not outside the realms of possibility this will be revisited in the future. That very valid dissenting judgment by Justice Heydon may end up becoming the law and may end up becoming the majority view of the High Court. To simply say that this has happened and it is all over is wrong. It is a reasonable and plausible contention for the legislature of this country to say that people ought to comply with the law. There was no challenge to this part of the law that says you must be on the roll or you will face a sanction.

This legislation before us today, as the member for Banks says, is reacting to the High Court, but there is a tension in democratic society between the judiciary and the legislature, and the legislature has a strong role to play. I am an advocate for the supremacy of the legislature. We are the people’s house. We get voted here to put in place laws to govern society and ensure the smooth running of the Commonwealth, and the electoral roll is a fundamental tenet of what we do here. It is well within our rights as a parliament to pause and say that there are two very important parts of this legislation where we need to think about what we are doing. We need to be consistent with the Constitution on prisoner voting. On enrolments, we can validly say that people ought to comply with the existing law of the land—that is, comply with the requirements of the Electoral Act.

Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That was indeed a tortuous contribution by the member for Mitchell on the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Enrolment and Prisoner Voting) Bill 2010. Arguments like, because we have particular provisions for who can be in parliament, it should follow that we have exactly the same conditions for voters, are preposterous. That is like saying that, because the United States says that a person born outside the United States cannot be President, no person born outside the United States should vote. Equally, there are age differentials in many countries between who can be in parliament and who can vote. In this country, we have a history of renunciation of citizenship of other countries being a requirement to get into parliament, which certainly every voter in the country does not have to prescribe to. That was a pathetic performance by the member for Mitchell.

Similarly, he made the tortuous argument that, because in the GetUp! case the vote in the High Court was 4-3, somehow that makes the decision second rate—that essentially we can sit around for the next decade and not act on these matters because of the nature of the majority. I am a person who might feel very troubled by many decisions of our court—particularly in regard to immigration—but that does not give me the right to say that we do not have a Constitution in this country and that the parliament can do as it wants. To say it can sit around for decades, twiddling its thumbs and ignoring decisions by the High Court, is absolutely ridiculous.

I do not want to dwell at length on the question of enrolment. I want to devote myself more to the question of prisoner voting. But, as the member for Banks indicates, after every election we have heard complaints by the coalition about massive corruption and we have had all these submissions by Amy McGrath and her group—and they have never, ever produced systematic, worthwhile, valuable evidence about electoral fraud in this country. After every election the number of people who have double-voted is minimal. They are usually found to be people with intellectual disabilities, aged people et cetera. There has never been systematic evidence of electoral fraud in this country.

It also has to be noted that the numbers involved in this change in regard to the enrolment prescription are significant. In the last election, 57,732 voters had been enrolled and a further 40,408 voters had had their enrolment details updated. These are significant numbers of people whose votes would be voided by the provision of the previous government. As anybody who follows this issue knows, the predominance of these people have certain characteristics. They are overwhelmingly people who move more often than most, people who rent properties and people with lower economic circumstances. Quite frankly, the coalition’s position is discriminatory. As the High Court noted, on moving to a situation where there was a seven-day allowance for re-enrolment, there was:

… no compelling practical problem or difficulty in the operation of the electoral system.

I want to turn to the question of prisoner voting. One would assume from some contributions that the kinds of people in prison are the same and always have been, that this is not subject to political decision making and that there cannot be any kind of bias in the way in which people are imprisoned. It is interesting to note an article by David Cole, ‘Hope and betrayal on death row’, one of a series of articles he has written for the New York Review of Books. He noted that in the 1970s in the United States the incarceration rate was very similar to that of Europe—roughly 100 people out of every 100,000 people went to jail. Today it is 700 per 100,000—a growth of seven times the number in the 1970s. They put that down to a tactic by the Republicans in the United States to portray themselves as anti-crime and to portray their political opponents, the Democrats, as pro Afro-American, pro-crime and against law and order. After that period of massive growth in the numbers incarcerated in the US, we saw a trend—predating the election of Obama—in many states of a movement back towards reduced severity, towards treatment, early release, parole, probation, and reduced use of mandatory sentences, because of the absolute cost.

What interests me is the kinds of people who are in prison. They also show very distinct characteristics. In another article by David Cole in the New York Review of Books on 19 November 2009, he noted that in the United States Afro-Americans were 13 per cent of the population but 50 per cent of the prison population. He noted that, whilst their unemployment rate was twice, and their net worth was only one-fifth of, that of whites, they had an incarceration rate eight times higher. He also noted that 60 per cent of all young black men who had dropped out of high school had been to prison, but, for those who had a college education, it was only five per cent. More has been written about this in the United States than even in western Europe or Australia. In those figures we see a very distinct pattern of who goes to jail and who, it is argued, should be disenfranchised. They are overwhelmingly of black derivation, with poor eduction and low income.

This of course has some political repercussions. In the article ‘The truly disenfranchised’ by Jeff Manza, Christopher Uggen and Marcus Britton it was noted:

Our results suggest that felon disfranchisement played a decisive role in several U.S. Senate elections, contributing to the Republican Senate majority of the early 1980s and mid-1990s. Moreover, at least one recent Democratic presidential victory would have been jeopardized had contemporary rates of disfranchisement prevailed during earlier periods.

We saw this most nakedly in Florida some elections ago, where the state governor, brother of the President, illegally disenfranchised large numbers of, predominantly, blacks. In Florida at that stage they had a rule that you could not vote for the rest of your life if you had been in prison, but, as I understand it, it only applied to people who offended inside Florida. Illegally, they scrapped from the rolls people—and they would have had no chance of getting back on them—who had served sentences in Tennessee, Kentucky, Idaho et cetera. That is an example of how these situations can lead to political outcomes. Florida has, since then, moved towards scrapping those laws.

I congratulate the Kings College of London. They produce a very good website, which I would recommend to people, which talks about incarceration rates around the world and the numbers of people who can be affected by these laws. In 1992 the rate of incarceration in England and Wales was 90 per 100,000. The latest figure is 149 per 100,000—the same trend but not anywhere near as extreme as in the United States. More and more people are being incarcerated to the point where today UK prisons should be holding 77,000 people but they are holding 84,000. That is indicative of the large numbers of people who are disenfranchised.

There was a person who took this matter to the European Court of Human Rights. People might be aware that the UK parliament has, in the last few weeks, started to bow to a European Court of Human Rights decision which was made back in 2004. British governments, Labor and Conservative, have been trying to avoid the outcomes of this decision made seven years ago. Now that they are facing a bill of $143 million in compensation to prisoners they are deciding that they might abide by the decision. Last week they voted in the House of Commons, by 234 to 22, to tell the European Court to go jump, but in the end they will do what they are told.

The situation was that there was a prisoner serving a 27-year sentence for manslaughter. He educated himself and he read a book that said that through political pressure and by activity you can affect politics. He set about this challenge to the European Court and eventually succeeded.

Around the world there are very different attitudes towards voting by prisoners. Some countries nominally allow prisoner voting but in practice do not. Cyprus says, ‘Yes, you can vote, but you have to be allowed out of jail on the day.’ Slovakia says, ‘You can vote,’ but does not give people facilities to vote. But the German Constitution—not the laws of the government but the Constitution—says, ‘We should encourage people to vote.’

I had the opportunity a decade ago to go to the Netherlands, to a jail near Groningen, to see prisoners there. I have mentioned this in parliament before. Ironically, the Netherlands is very liberal—it might have changed with conservative governments over the last few years—and has the most advanced prison system in the world. This is not Left liberalism of the 1960s and 1970s. They had a royal commission into jails straight after the Second World War. The Dutch political establishment had been in jail under the Nazis and they thought it would be a good idea to have good prison conditions. In the Netherlands the political parties actually campaign in the prisons. It may interest anyone here to know that virtually every prison guard at that prison is a university graduate rather than a retired policeman.

As I said, it is very different in different places around the world but in general most European Western progressive liberal countries that we associate ourselves with have extremely liberal provisions on this front. As I noted, the European Court is very strongly enforcing prisoner rights in the United Kingdom.

In Australia we have not been immune from the increasing number of people being put in jails. Australia’s rate varies but New South Wales is the most extreme case. I have to give a bit of a plaudit to the state opposition. The shadow Attorney-General has indicated that the matter is so serious that he intends taking very strong measures, if the Liberals are elected, to reduce the number of people in prison. It is a very ironic situation for the Liberal-National parties to be in but that is the policy they have come to because the situation is so serous. In Australia 140 people per 100,000 are incarcerated. That rate has grown very greatly. In 1992 it was about 90 per 100,000. So it has increased from 90 to 140 per 100,000 in the course of 20 years.

We are talking about significant numbers of people who are incarcerated. We are talking about people who predominantly have certain characteristics. People in prison often have intellectual disabilities are often illiterate. Large numbers of people are only in prison because they have not been able to get a stable job and were not able to survive in our society. Many of those people would be disenfranchised.

You could have a situation in a country where the rates of incarceration are so high that it has political dimensions. The kind of people being imprisoned and the number of them are such that political decisions will be different. You could have a government which legislates to put more and more of these people in jail. That has been the trend in the United States in particular. In Australia an Indigenous woman, Vicki Roach, took up the cause. She shows that people can recover and make a contribution. She did a masters degree. She studied and saw the need for people like herself to have a voice.

I commend both parts of the legislation. Returning to the theme of the member for Mitchell, we cannot have a situation where people blithely say that it is irrelevant that the High Court did this because the decision was 4-3 and it might be reversed next week, or that some judge might die and be replaced by a conservative or that this and that might happen. All these are excuses as to why the High Court should be ignored, but it is really a mask for having provisions, particularly in relation to the enrolment period, that seek to make things more difficult for people.

Under the guise of concern about fraud—fraud that has not been evidenced or proven—they seek to make it difficult for people to enrol. There is a whole history of this, including the requirements for how people enrol, the time period for enrolment and identification requirements. All we have here is a systematic long-term approach by the coalition to say that this country is dreadful. Its world-renowned Australian Electoral Commission, respected in most countries around the world and used for electoral observation in so many countries, is so incompetent and stupid that it cannot police the alleged fraud by which people get rights that they should not have. We know the reality: the Australian Electoral Commission is world renowned and we have one of the best electoral systems in the world. These excuses should not be used to justify disenfranchising people and making it more difficult for people to participate in our society.

Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Enrolment and Prisoner Voting) Bill 2010 contains two minor, non-controversial amendments which deal, firstly, with a prisoner being able to remain on the electoral roll even if they are prevented from voting and, secondly, an insertion in the interpretive provision to ensure that references in the Electoral Act to an ‘election for a division’ or similar expressions can operate in the event of a half Senate election held independently of an election for the House of Representatives. The coalition has no issue with these two non-controversial amendments but, as you have heard, it certainly does have concerns with the two issues dealing with prisoner voting and the closure of the rolls.

At the outset, I want to say that it is right and fitting that any government remains vigilant and makes changes that are necessary to improve the integrity of our voting and enrolment system. But, as we know, often much does not change with government legislation and often such change is not for the better but makes schemes worse, and when you are dealing with the very foundations of our parliamentary democracy that can be a very dangerous thing.

The Howard government was very vigilant about trying to improve our electoral system and a number of bills were passed to strengthen and protect it. At the core of our electoral system is the joint Commonwealth-state electoral roll, which of course is used for the conduct of all elections at the local, state and federal levels. For as long as there have been political systems there have been jokes and stories, and indeed legends, about the rorting of the electoral roll—about dead people voting, about cats voting and other dodgy practices. Until very recently the integrity of the roll has been based largely on trust, and still is to a certain degree. It is much easier to present yourself on election day to vote than it is to join up at your local video store, and some people find that a rather peculiar situation.

It was only under the Howard government in 1997 that the AEC commenced a process of continuous roll updates, which of course include mailing and doorknocking campaigns to help ensure that the roll is as accurate as possible. In 2006 the coalition introduced legislation saying that the rolls would close for new enrolments at 8 pm on the day that the writs were issued, and for changes to existing enrolments they would close three days after the issue of the writs, and it did so notwithstanding the concerns regarding potential disenfranchisement with an early closing of the rolls. The government was concerned, and quite rightly so, about the potential for electoral fraud associated with high levels of enrolment activity during the existing seven-day period.

Putting aside the hysteria and the extraordinary claims, let us just have a look at the facts for a moment. In 2004 the number of transactions that the AEC had to process concerning enrolments and changing of addresses was 520,000. In 2007, after the change to the close of the electoral roll to an earlier time, that number dropped to 263,000. This enabled the AEC to deal with those fewer changes in a more efficient and, very importantly, a more accurate manner. It is critical to note that together with the change in the legislation the government did make more money available to the AEC so that they could conduct more aggressive campaigns to get people enrolled in a timely manner. Those of us who were mindful to these matters will recall very extensive television and print media campaigns to get people to change their enrolment details or to enrol, and that started some months before the election.

Under the existing legislation, it is the obligation of an individual to enrol once they attain the age of 18 or become a citizen. It is an imperative and thought to be a sufficiently serious responsibility that it is a criminal offence not to do so. So it is important to realise that it is not just about the rush to try to get people on the roll at the last minute. Where you can have integrity issues and where you can have stacking and fraud, particularly in marginal seats with people putting themselves on the roll at the last minute, having a prolonged campaign to get people on the roll is the proper way to appease those concerns about people being disenfranchised. It is a balancing act, and a sophisticated democracy like Australia can surely be organised enough in the administration of its laws, including its electoral laws, to do what it can in between elections to ensure that electoral rolls are as accurate as possible and people are encouraged to change their details when it is appropriate.

In 2004 when there were an extra seven days for enrolling as a new voter and an additional three days to get your address transferred, fewer than 168,400 missed the deadline with that longer period. But with the shorter deadline—that is, when you had to be on by 8 pm on the day the writs were issued, if you were a new enrolee, or you had three days to change your address—we only had 100,370 people who missed the deadline. Not only did we see fewer transactions, we actually saw a drop in the numbers of people who tried to enrol and were unsuccessful because they had missed the deadline. This proved the strength of a strong and concerted campaign to get people on the roll or to amend their details.

Those of us who have been involved in public debate and in politics for some time can point to a number of examples where individual seats, or in fact governments, can be decided by the narrowest of margins—or in some cases not even decided, as is the current situation in the federal parliament. Let us just have a look at one of these examples. The 1996 Mundingburra by-election in the state of Queensland is a classic case in point. The state election of 1995 saw the Goss government returned with a majority of one seat. The result of that election hung on this seat. The Mundingburra electorate, where the incumbent Labor candidate had been declared successful, had a margin of just 16 votes. Of course, as is normally the case with such narrow margins, this was disputed by the Liberal Party.

When the Court of Disputed Returns declared the result in this electorate void and ordered a by-election, it obviously showed us yet again how critical it is to get the integrity of the rolls and the voting system right. Ultimately the seat was won by the Liberal candidate. As we know, as a consequence the state Labor government lost and the coalition became the new government for Queensland. So let’s not get hysterical and be dismissive or glib about the absolute importance of getting the integrity of the electoral rolls right. A handful of votes can and do matter. They have mattered in the past, they matter now and they will matter in the future.

The fact is that there have been documented incidents of electoral fraud in the past, and for those who say we have the best system in the world and there have not been significant cases of electoral fraud, we are not perfect. Of course we do not have a dodgy system akin to some non-democratic—I am trying to be politically correct here because I do not want to cause a diplomatic incident. But we are not some tin-pot nation that gives lip service to democracy. That does not mean we are perfect and that does not mean that there is not fraud. There is. In fact, we have had documented evidence in the past and all we need to do is go through the history books and have a look at our political history to see some of these examples.

I do not know why Queensland throws up such interesting political examples, but it does. If we go back to Queensland and we fast forward five years to the year 2000 in North Queensland, we see the state Labor candidate in Thuringowa, a former Townsville city councillor, plead guilty to 24 counts of forging Commonwealth electoral forms. She was sentenced to three years imprisonment. So, yes, of course we are not as bad as some of the worst countries on earth, and of course our electoral system is something that many would consider enviable, but that does not mean we cannot improve it and it does not mean that there is not fraud.

We all remember when political parties change and alter voting systems to favour themselves. We all remember when Neville Wran changed to optional preferential voting in New South Wales, because he saw that by conducting three-cornered contests with compulsory preferences the Liberal and National parties were able to maximise their amalgamated support and were able to defeat Labor candidates more easily. Introducing optional preferential voting, effectively minimising the impact of the amalgamated so-called ‘conservative vote’, proved very successful—so much so for the Labor Party that Queensland followed that model. But now that we see a different situation in Queensland, where there is one major non-Labor party, the Premier, who finds that the Greens preferences are now working against her, is looking to change the legislation to go back to a compulsory preferential system because that will assist the Labor Party with Greens preferences. The Labor Party, being the larger party, would of course benefit from that. So we do have a history where political parties do change—some would say manipulate—voting methods to suit their own political purposes.

To return to the bill, if we look at the High Court decisions that relate to the questions of the difference in the time made available, in the case of Rowe and the Commonwealth we see that there are some very strong judgments given by dissenting judges. Three of Their Honours supported the plaintiff and the 2006 provisions were struck down, and three of Their Honours, with separate judgments, supported the argument that the enactments were valid and that they should stand. Justice Heydon made some very important points when he noted:

The legislation placed no “burden”, and no “disproportionate” burden. If there were any burden on anyone, it was a burden which those who bore it placed on their own shoulders.

               …            …            …

There is a statutory command to claim or transfer enrolment. That command is backed by a criminal sanction. The plaintiffs did not dispute the constitutional validity of either the command or the sanction. What they demand is an entitlement to continue disobeying the command and ignoring the sanction for longer periods than the impugned provisions allow.

There is much more to this debate that will follow. These are important issues that do concern people out there in the community, and I am sure that we have not seen the last of judicial consideration of these particular matters, so let’s not be under the illusion that these legal issues are settled once and for all.

If we turn to the issue of prisoner voting, I think the member for Mackellar made some very important points. The Howard government took the view that a person who was serving a custodial sentence should be denied that franchise because they had volunteered up the right through the actions that resulted in their custodial sentence in the first place. If you commit offences against society sufficient to warrant a prison term then you should not be entitled to vote and elect the members of the society whose laws you have disregarded. It is as simple as that and a very decent principle by which we stand—as do most Australians. (Time expired)

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to follow the member for Indi because she always gives me good information to dispute. When we look at the issue we are debating, which is the closure of the rolls, it is interesting that she highlighted in her contribution the fact that governments change laws to favour themselves. It is also interesting, when we look at her reference to the High Court decision on this issue, that she concentrated on the dissenting judgments, because they favoured her argument, rather than on those judges who supported the majority verdict. The member for Indi is always a person who will speak on a piece of legislation or a motion and really distort the facts in some way to give an interesting view of the legislation or motion before the parliament.

The legislation that we are debating today is the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Enrolment and Prisoner Voting) Bill 2010, which gives effect to majority decisions of the High Court. I rise in this place to acknowledge those decisions and to work to see that the problems that were identified in Rowe v Electoral Commissioner are rectified, because that is what this legislation is about. In both Rowe and Roach the High Court declared that certain amendments to bring about the early closure of the rolls and to disqualify all prisoners from voting were invalid. This bill will update the text of the Electoral Act to reflect the current constitutional position. That will restore the close of the rolls to a period of seven days after the date of the writs for the election and reinstate the previous disqualification of prisoners serving a sentence of imprisonment of three years or longer.

One of the really good sources of information relating to this legislation is the Report on the conduct of the 2007 federal election and matters related thereto, from the inquiry conducted by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. It made some very good points. I refer to the section in chapter 3 that talks about enabling the franchise. It highlights that when we are looking at enrolment it is about getting the appropriate balance between ensuring that those people who are qualified to vote are able to exercise their vote and ensuring the integrity of the electoral roll. It then goes on to talk about whether the changes that were brought in under the Howard government were actually about ensuring the maximum ability for people to cast their vote or whether they were really distorting the electoral rolls so that those people whom the Howard government perceived were less likely to vote for them would be disenfranchised.

The background to this legislation is highlighted in the report. The report goes through the history of voting in Australia and enrolling to vote in Australia. It has always been the case that Australia has had an inclusive entitlement to vote. That was fully established in 1962, when all Aboriginal people were granted the right to vote. It has gone through a process, but generally the aim of the changes that have been made has been to absolutely ensure that everyone who is entitled to vote can vote and that that vote is based on Australian citizenship.

That changed when the Howard government came to power, because instead of working to maximise the ability of people to cast their vote, they looked at ways that they could restrict the number of people whom they perceived were less likely to support them in a ballot. People who were identified as being more likely to enrol at the last moment were people who were homeless, people who were itinerant and people who were young. In the lead-up to the last election, a number of young people came into my office who attended local high schools and were trying to enrol to vote. They had only just turned 18. They had not been 18 for very long at all. They wanted to cast their vote, but they were denied the ability to enrol and cast their vote in the last federal election because of the change that was introduced under the Howard government that prevented them from enrolling.

The early close of the rolls was opposed in a number of areas. The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission submission to the committee inquiry, I thought, was very impressive. It started by saying:

A healthy democracy makes sure that all members of a community have equal access to the political process.

It went on to highlight that we are a democratic nation, that politicians are elected by popular vote and that to actually maximise that democracy you need to ensure that all people are registered.

The report highlighted the fact that the commission was very concerned about the early closing of the rolls because of the disenfranchisement of many Australians, particularly those that I mentioned before, that are marginalised: young people, Indigenous Australians, people in remote and rural areas, homeless, itinerant or ill people or people with some sort of intellectual disability or, for that matter, any disability because they find it more difficult to access the paperwork that they need to complete before they can enrol.

The early closure of the rolls was also opposed by a number of community groups, groups representing the disadvantaged and rural Australians. I must be upfront with the House and say the changes did have some support. My reading of this report showed that the Liberal Party of Australia supported the closing of the rolls when the writs were issued, as did the Festival of Light Australia. The report shows that the majority of the submissions received by the committee supported the closing of the rolls seven days after the writs were issued but that the Liberal Party of Australia supported retaining closure at the time of the issuing of the writs. They felt so strongly about it that they prepared a dissenting report. It supported the previous scheme and supported the disenfranchising of all those Australians that actually wanted to enrol to vote.

Now might be an appropriate time for me to mention the Canadian system. The Canadian system of voting is based on maximising the ability of people to vote, it is based on trying to ensure that no voters are disenfranchised and voters in Canada can enrol to vote on the day of the election. Provided that they can show the appropriate identification and verify that they are who they say they are and that they live where they say they live, they can enrol on the day of the election and they can vote. I am not advocating the Canadian system, but I am showing the two extremes here. The Liberal Party want to close the rolls on the day the writs are issued and the Canadian system allows people to enrol on the day of the election.

I think what has been recommended in the legislation before us today is appropriate. It gets the balance right between ensuring people are not disenfranchised and ensuring the integrity of the roll. I know that in the community, in the electorate that I represent in this parliament, people do support the notion that if a person wishes to vote they should be able to vote. They support a system that ensures maximum flexibility of the electoral roll and, at the same time, ensures the integrity of the roll.

I noted that the member for Indi was talking about political parties and the voting systems in different states. She seemed to refer a lot to Queensland. We all in this House remember the Joh Bjelke-Petersen years when there definitely was not a system of one-person one-vote and the government of the day distorted the system of putting the same value on each person’s vote. I am sure the member for Indi would be very supportive of that system being reintroduced not only in Queensland but throughout the whole of Australia whereas we on this side of the parliament believe that we should have a fair system of voting that is part of our democratic process and that reflects the overall voting pattern of people within the community. We should not seek to introduce laws that will prevent people that we as members of parliament feel may not support our particular party or ideology.

This is important legislation because it is about enfranchising people to vote. The other aspect of the legislation, which refers to Roach v Electoral Commissioner, refers to the disqualification of all prisoners serving a sentence. What this legislation does is reinstate the previous disqualifications of prisoners serving a sentence longer than three years. This is a very fair provision, and it will be constitutional, not like those changes made by the Howard government. This legislation is very good legislation. It is fair legislation. It is about ensuring that Australians are not disenfranchised from voting when they choose to enrol. It is maximising the ability of all Australians to enrol to vote when a federal election has been called.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Enrolment and Prisoner Voting) Bill 2010 contains a mixture of objectives, some of which are supported by everyone in the parliament and some of which are opposed by the Liberal-National opposition. I say at the outset that it is vital that all elected representatives in the Australian parliament recognise that it is important to have an electoral system with integrity so that, when an election is called and the result of the election is known, the people of Australia get the government that they actually voted for. It is very, very important in a modern democracy like Australia that our electoral system be open and transparent, free and fair, and equitable because, frankly, we are a country that has had democracy continuously and we are the envy of many other countries around the globe who do not share our long history of democratic electoral tradition. That is not to say that members on both sides of the House cannot differ on the fine points of what ought to be in the electoral law.

I would like to mention briefly a couple of items which are non-controversial amendments and which are not being opposed by the Liberal-National opposition. The first amendment permits a person who is incarcerated to remain on the electoral roll even if the law prevents that particular person from exercising a vote. The second is the insertion of an interpretive provision to ensure that references in the Electoral Act to ‘an election for a division’, or similar expressions, can operate in the event of a half-Senate election held independently from an election of the House of Representatives. As I said, those amendments are not being opposed by the opposition. They are sensible amendments. The first one is practical and the second one clarifies something that possibly ought to have been clarified in the legislation before.

However, I have a very great concern about the attempt by the government, following a High Court decision, to reinsert into the electoral law a provision which would permit people who have been imprisoned—for offences of which they have been convicted—to vote in an election. Surely, voting in an election is a very important right and, at times, that right should be suspended when the conduct of a person has resulted in imprisonment, being locked away and not being allowed to operate as everyone else does, as an ordinary citizen going about their daily life. What I am suggesting is that, for the period a person is incarcerated, it does not seem unreasonable to me that such a person should be denied the opportunity to vote in an election.

The decision made by the High Court was not a wide-ranging decision. When one looks at what the government is proposing in this legislation, one would imagine that the High Court has mandated that the proposed amendments in the bill with respect to prisoner voting ought to be implemented in full. The opposition response to the High Court decision was contained in the opposition members’ dissenting report to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters report on the 2007 election. While that dissent has been stated before, I will restate it here in the House today. The members said:

We acknowledge the High Court’s decision in Roach, but we also note that the Court only gave a narrow decision in relation to a blanket exclusion, and did not seek to invalidate the general principle that the franchise may be removed from certain prisoners. It is the view of the Coalition that voting should be denied to those who are currently serving full-time custodial sentences of one year or longer. …

This would align the voting disqualification with the disqualification from being a Member of Parliament, at s.44(ii) of the Australian Constitution:

Any person who … has been convicted and is under sentence, or subject to be sentenced, for any offence punishable under the law of the Commonwealth or of a state by imprisonment from one year or longer … shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or member of the House of Representatives.

We have a concern that what the government is proposing will diminish the integrity of the electoral roll and will permit people who, in our view, ought not to be permitted to exercise a vote because they are imprisoned. That is why the opposition will not support what the government is suggesting.

With respect to electoral enrolment, there is a concern that the Australian Electoral Commission, while it is a body with very great integrity, clearly has limited resources, and the flood of enrolments which have occurred in the past following the announcement of an election has meant that it is virtually impossible for the Australian Electoral Commission to follow the usual, thorough processes it does to make sure that those people who seek to get on the electoral roll are in fact eligible to do so.

Prior to 2006, the close of rolls for a federal election was set at seven days after the issue of writs. In 2006, the parliament decided that, for new enrolments, the electoral roll would be closed at eight o’clock in the evening of the day the writs were issued and, with respect to changes to existing enrolments, three days after the writs were issued. It has been pointed out by the opposition that the reason that the then government took this view and the then parliament supported that view was their concern about the possibility of electoral fraud associated with high levels of enrolment activity during the seven-day enrolment period which existed prior to 2006.

Elections are held in a cycle. There is an election for the House of Representatives approximately every three years. There is an ongoing obligation on citizens to enrol to vote as soon as they are eligible to do so. In fact, the Commonwealth Electoral Act even makes provision for people not yet 18 years of age to provisionally enrol in the event that an election is called for a date not very far after they will turn 18. So there is already a provision for a young person who is approaching the age of 18 years to be able to get on the electoral roll. If people were doing their duty and getting on the electoral roll as soon as they are able to and if people were prepared to change their electoral enrolment details as soon as they moved then there would be no reason at all for the amendments currently before the chamber.

I have a great concern because in the electorate of Fisher I have seen vast numbers of new enrolments and it was simply not possible to identify those people. We wrote to some of those people and much of the correspondence came back unclaimed. So, if these people ever did live at the addresses they were seeking enrolment for, they certainly did not live there a very short time after their name went on the electoral roll for that electorate.

I believe it is important for the Australian Electoral Commission to be able to do its job in an orderly and timely way. It ought to be able to check the veracity of the details of people seeking to join the electoral roll. It is entirely unreasonable for us to ask the Australian Electoral Commission to make sure that the electoral roll has integrity when we have a huge flood of people seeking enrolment after an election is called. Everyone knows when an election is approaching and there is ample opportunity for good citizens to get on the electoral roll in a timely way so their enrolment details are able to be checked by the Electoral Commission to make sure that, as far as possible, only people entitled to be enrolled are enrolled.

All of us know that the Electoral Commission works extremely hard in the run-up to a polling day, so we ought to support anything we can do to ease that workload, to minimise mistakes and to avoid dodgy and fraudulent enrolments. The existing time frames are practical, sensible and reasonable and they do assist in maintaining the integrity of the electoral roll. The amendments the government is proposing undermine the integrity of the electoral roll, and I do not believe these amendments will be supported by the community at large.

The government ought to reconsider the proposal with respect to the closure of the electoral roll. The seven-day period is unnecessary. It places additional demands on the AEC and its staff. It creates a mad flurry of activity and increases the possibility of mistakes. For 365 days a year voters are able to enrol and change their details. I do not believe we ought to risk the integrity of our electoral roll to assist those people who do not carry out their community duty and enrol as they are required to under the law of Australia.

Regarding those people who launched the High Court action after missing the enrolment deadline just prior to the 2010 election, Mr Justice Heydon on the High Court bench said:

They are simple steps. It would have been very easy to take them. There was ample time to take them.

                  …              …              …

It is they who disqualify, disenfranchise, exclude or disentitle themselves, not the legislature.

I believe the government ought to heed the very sound words of Mr Justice Heydon. The High Court decision was a four to three ruling. Admittedly, it becomes part of the law of Australia because there was a majority on the High Court, but it was a very close decision. The government will say that this bill formalises the decision of the High Court, but I believe that the bill goes beyond what the High Court actually said.

All of us have heard stories of cats and dogs and even of goldfish being placed on the electoral roll. Although it is funny, it does not assist the integrity of the system. We need to make sure that the Australian community does not disengage from the political system. When one hears of mistakes or oversights and sees cats, dogs and goldfish enrolled, it is really very unfortunate. I am not for a moment suggesting that the Special Minister of State for the Public Service and Integrity wants to see cats, dogs and goldfish enrolled—I am sure he does not want to go to kennels, pick up dogs and put them on the electoral roll; I would not suggest that for a moment, because I do have very high regard for the minister—but I think the minister’s brief in this matter is flawed. He ought not to be seeking to make the amendments that he is.

Australians over the years have had an electoral system which has been admired and respected. The Australian Electoral Commission is often asked to send observers to other countries to assist them to conduct fair and free elections. We in Australia have the right to vote freely and without reprisal, and that is the way it should be. We do not face the threat of assault or beatings if we do not vote a certain way, we do not have the risk of riots in the streets and we do not face the fear of losing our lives or having our fingers chopped off, as has been faced by some in Afghanistan, but this does not mean that we should now become excessively complacent with respect to the integrity of our electoral system.

While we might not agree with the result of an election, it is always important that we respect the process. It is important that we have an electoral system of integrity. While I believe honestly that the government does also share that belief, in my view the amendments before the chamber today go some distance towards reducing the integrity of the electoral system. Frankly, I do not think that is a good thing for the electoral system and I do not think it is a good thing for Australia. I ask the government, through the minister, to reconsider these retrograde amendments.

Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service and Integrity) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

in reply—I thank all of those who participated in this debate. There have been 17 contributors; they have varied, and probed and made observations on the nature of these amendments. But in essence there is one golden thread that runs through the commentary on all sides of this House, and that is the importance of our electoral system and the great good fortune that it bestows on our nation. When it comes to our electoral law and its integrity the important thing is that we do actually believe in the ballot and we do believe in democratic elections. As we look at troubled regions around the world as we speak here today we can only reflect again on the great wisdom of our forefathers and of the great contribution that our democracy and the Electoral Act itself bring to this place.

All of those who have contributed to the debate on the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Enrolment and Prisoner Voting) Bill 2010 have made a range of observations, but the bill gives effect to two decisions of the High Court. The first decision, which relates to the close of the rolls period, is Rowe v Electoral Commissioner as decided on 6 August 2010. The second, which relates to prisoner voting, is Roach v Electoral Commissioner as decided on 30 August 2007. This bill responds to these matters that were found to be constitutionally invalid, and it responds by removing provisions added to the Electoral Act in 2006.

As I said when I introduced the bill into the parliament in November of last year, it is appropriate for the parliament to respond to these decisions of the High Court to ensure that the Commonwealth Electoral Act reflects the current state of the law. The shadow minister has claimed that the bill is politically motivated; this is wrong. The purpose of this bill is to ensure that the electoral law in this area complies with Australia’s paramount law: the Constitution. I find it remarkable that the shadow minister would oppose such an action.

Allow me to summarise the key measures contained in this bill. The bill updates the Electoral Act to reflect the current constitutional position as declared by the High Court to restore the close of the rolls period to seven days after the date of the issuance of the writs for a federal election, be that a double dissolution election, a House of Representatives election, a House of Representatives and a half-Senate election, a half-Senate election, a by-election or a referendum. The close of rolls period helps to ensure eligible voters are able to exercise their obligation to enrol and thence their right to vote.

The bill also reinstates the 2006 provisions that the disqualification from voting at a federal election covers prisoners serving a sentence of imprisonment of three years or longer. Furthermore, the bill provides that while people serving a sentence of imprisonment for three years or longer would be disqualified from voting they may remain on or be added to the electoral roll. This gives effect to a recommendation of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters following its inquiry into the 2007 federal election. The bill also addresses an anomaly in the Electoral Act regarding certain references to an election for a division, or similar expressions. An interpretive provision in the bill enables such references to operate in the event of a half-Senate election that is held independently from an election of the House of Representatives. Consequential amendments to be made to the Referendum Machinery Provisions Act 1984 would ensure consistency with the Electoral Act.

I note that the shadow minister has foreshadowed moving an amendment to provide that persons serving a sentence of imprisonment of one year or more cannot exercise their right to vote. The government will not be supporting this amendment on the basis of good and proper reasons, including the longstanding view of this parliament and legal advice from the Attorney-General’s Department. I am happy to discuss this further during the consideration in detail stage of this bill.

The government believes that it is an important bill that is necessary to ensure that the electoral legislation complies with the requirements of the Australian Constitution. Again, I would like to thank all the members who contributed to the debate on this bill, and I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.