Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Seniors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Maintaining Address) Bill 2011 results probably from the deliberations of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. One of the things that was a condition of advising that automatic enrolment and automatic changing of addresses would be agreed to was that the lists the Australian Electoral Commission was able to draw on—and the discretion remains entirely the Electoral Commissioner's—should be subject to tabling and disallowance. This bill does not provide for tabling and disallowance, and I ask the minister why that decision was made.

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

The Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Maintaining Address) Bill 2011 and the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Protecting Elector Participation) Bill 2012 grow from recommendations of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters which cover a number of deliberations by that committee following the 2007 and 2010 elections. The bills respond to the need to ensure that 1.5 million Australians who are not on the electoral roll are given the opportunity of getting onto the electoral roll. That is 10,000 people, on average, in every federal division across our nation.

The Australian Electoral Commission itself feels that the need to move to modern technology to ensure an electoral roll that better represents our voting population—or our potential voting population—is an appropriate thing to do. These two bills necessarily harmonise the Commonwealth electoral roll with the rolls that are now being developed in our two most populous states. It is important to be aware that the act of harmonising the Commonwealth roll with the rolls in our two most populous states, creating a high-integrity system for ensuring that the roll itself is as accurate as it can possibly be and ensuring a direct enrolment system, is not—as has been characterised repeatedly in this place—an automatic enrolment system. It is a direct enrolment system that in many ways adds to the integrity of the roll itself. These measures respond to identified needs in our community to ensure that our roll provides the service it is meant to provide to the electoral process: to be as accurate a roll of electors as it can possibly be. It allows for technology to be used to ensure that the roll is accurate. It creates contestability for electors whose electoral details may be subject to these updating processes to challenge, via the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, decisions made by the electoral commissioner.

These bills represent a modernisation of the roll maintenance process that is long overdue, that responds to the needs of our community and that also responds to the Australian Electoral Commission's accurate identification of the weakness in our electoral roll and the ways in which we can attend to that.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind the House that under normal circumstances when we are considering bills in detail we will be referring to amendments. We do not have amendments before the chair, so the question is that the bill be agreed to as a whole.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Seniors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The bills were referred to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters for consideration and investigation, and during that process the Electoral Commissioner gave evidence, in answer to a question of mine, that it was quite possible, as the Electoral Commission only writes to the new address and not to the address that is currently on the electoral roll, that indeed someone's address could be wrongly altered and when they turned up to vote at their normal place they would be unable to vote. Yet if somebody else was aware that the Electoral Commission had changed their address, they could go and vote for them in that different address. That means that the electoral roll is opened up to fraud. The answer to my question by the Electoral Commissioner was, 'Yes, that is factually true.' He wondered why people would have two addresses but he admitted that it was quite possible and that what I had said would result would. I ask the minister why he has not provided in this bill that the Electoral Commissioner is required to write to both the old address, which is the one that is existing on the electoral roll, as well as the new one which results from his consulting databases, which can come from any source, as the option is the Electoral Commissioner's to use any list he chooses. Why is he not required to write to both addresses?

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the bill be agreed to.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Seniors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In another chamber earlier today we had a similar situation where the minister was not able to answer any of my questions.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Mackellar must realise that this is not question time. We have had this debate before and there is no need for the minister to respond. This is consideration in detail. You can put the question but this is not question time.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There was an agreement.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Seniors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I had no agreement.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The opposition whip did.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Mackellar has the call. The Leader of the House is not assisting.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Seniors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

During the scrutiny that took place when the bill was referred to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, it was pointed out that there was no provision in the legislation for the privacy of individuals to be protected. Under the current law, if someone has an appropriate reason to be left off the electoral roll and they make a submission to the Electoral Commissioner, they are entitled not to be put on the roll. It could be because of domestic violence; it could be for a whole range of issues. Yet under this legislation someone who is in that position who has not had the opportunity to request that they be omitted from the roll can be automatically placed on the roll. That evidence was given and I ask the minister why no amendment was brought in to protect the rights of those individuals.

Peter Slipper (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the bill be agreed to.