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

This bill, euphemistically called 'improving electoral procedure', is a bill where there was an agreement between both the government and opposition parties in the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, to which the bill was referred, as to the way forward and the way it should be treated. The bill basically deals with postal vote applications, PVAs. It deals with increasing the amount of money to be paid on nomination for the House and for the Senate. It deals with an increase in the number of people required from 50 to 100 for somebody to be nominated who is not a grouped individual. It also deals with the question of the term 'of unsound mind' being in the present legislation, wishing it to be removed in the amending legislation on the basis that the AEC had recommended it and also some people in the disability movement feel strongly about the term. Currently 'of unsound mind' is the manner in which someone is removed from the roll or from voting.

If I can deal, first, with the question of postal vote applications, the bill centralises the power or the authority to deal with postal vote applications—that is, to send out packages once an application has been made in a centralised manner. It also makes the Electoral Commissioner himself responsible rather than the DROs. That caused concern to me and to the coalition because, although the commissioner has a power to delegate, there is no obligation in the legislation for that delegation to be given to the DROs. I and others were concerned that this could mean that people would not be able to deal with their postal vote applications which, of course, presently is that political parties send out their applications, people respond, they come back to the office of the candidate and then they take them down to the DRO. This enables people to get political information as if they were standing at a polling booth and receiving it as they went in to vote.

However, I did receive from the commissioner an undertaking—he was, as the chairman of the committee pointed out, speaking under oath or the equivalent thereof—that he would delegate his authority to the DROs so that at the coming election postal vote applications will be dealt with in precisely the same manner that they are now. Even the change in the centralisation legislation will not change the way in which the matters are dealt with because in 1999 the Electoral Commissioner obtained legal advice that the centralising of postal vote applications and the sending out of packages was legal under the existing law. So nothing will change in that sense. However, I do believe that the delegation of power to the DROs would be better in some legislative form be it primary or subordinate. But, for the moment, we are accepting the undertaking given by the Electoral Commissioner. There was agreement about the increase in the nomination fee for both the House and for the Senate and there was agreement about the need for 100 people to nominate as distinct from 50 as the law now provides.

When it came to the question of the term 'unsound mind' and therefore incapable of understanding the enrolment and voting process, the committee heard evidence from a number of people. We went back and had a look at a previous report of the joint standing committee's inquiry into the 1996 election when the Electoral Commission gave its opinion that the term should stand and not be changed. We heard other evidence that said it should remain as it is because it at least has a fixed meaning within the law. In any event, if it were changed it would make the ability to exclude people from the roll and from voting easier because the proposal was to increase the number of people who could be qualified to say that the person should be taken off the roll and that would have included a social worker, not just a medical practitioner.

The government has agreed with the recommendations of the joint standing committee that the legislation should remain as it is. The government has agreed that it will, when we get to the consideration in detail stage, remove that part of the act that would change those provisions. I pointed out when I spoke on the tabling of the committee's report that it was a highly unusual report because for once it was a universal or unanimous report. Normally it is a very partisan and political report that we bring down but on this occasion there was agreement; therefore, the opposition will be supporting the government's amendments during the consideration in detail stage and will support the bill in that final form.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When I last spoke in the parliament supporting electoral reform, I noted my genuine delight in welcoming new Fraser residents onto the electoral roll. I spoke of how each month it is my pleasure to send enrolment forms and letters to potential and newly enrolled electors. But if we are to ensure we increase democratic participation we must also make it easier to vote. For the Labor Party, franchise and participation have always been important. Having as many votes as possible count in the next federal election matters to me and that is why this bill is important.

Since the introduction of compulsory voting in 1924, Australian citizens have been discharging their responsibility to elect their state and federal representatives. Voting powerfully symbolises what it is to be part of the democratic process. While the majority of voters still cast their vote in person at a polling booth, more and more are choosing to cast a postal vote. That means we need to make it easier to apply for and process postal votes. In the 2010 election there were over 800,000 postal votes cast. That is in comparison with over 700,000 in 2007; 600,000 in 2004; and about 100,000 in 2001. The same trend that can be seen in my electorate of Fraser can be seen across Australia. The number of postal votes increased by almost 60 per cent since the 2001 election from 3,293 in 2001 to 5,176 in 2010. As more and more people choose the option of postal voting, we need a more effective and efficient system for processing postal votes. We need to make sure that postal voting is a more accessible option and has minimal hassle while ensuring the safeguards that are critical in the electoral process.

The progressive side of politics has a long history of wanting to expand the franchise to ensure as many people as possible can vote and that voting is as straightforward as possible. In his book Australia's Democracy: a Short History, John Hirst wrote, 'In 1850 Australia did not look like a country that would rapidly become democratic.' He notes that there was a small band of dedicated democrats who called for a widening of the franchise—albeit that they were then looking at male franchise. He notes that in the space of just six years, 1850 to 1856, the share of adult males in Sydney who could vote rose from 34 per cent to 95 per cent. So in this six-year period in the middle of the 19th century we saw the franchise go from just a third of men to essentially all of them.

Amusingly, Hirst then relates William Wentworth's reaction to the widening of the male franchise. A member of the New South Wales parliament, Wentworth was a conservative landowner who, along with his friends, was appalled at the success of democrats in expanding the franchise. When he ran for his old seat of Sydney after a new rule had been introduced where you needed £10 of property to vote, 'he boldly told the new £10-electors that he would never have given them the vote.' He only just scraped in. He came third in the primaries and only got through on preferences.

The conservative aversion to expanding the franchise in the 19th century is something that we have sadly seen at other moments in history. We saw it with the Eureka Stockade, a powerful movement to which the expansion of electoral rights was central—the fight for the democratic principle of having parliament be representative of the people. And while the miners may have lost the fight on 3 December 1854, they continued to fight for the expansion of the franchise. In 1856 the Victorian parliament mandated white male suffrage. Peter Lalor went on to become the first member of the Legislative Council for the seat of Ballarat in 1855.

Thanks to those efforts, Australia led the world in expanding the franchise. Women received the vote in New South Wales in 1902 and in Australia from 1903. Indigenous Australians gained the unqualified right to vote in federal elections in 1962. Queensland was the last jurisdiction to permit equal voting rights in 1965.

This bill sits in that proud tradition of expanding the franchise and making it easier to vote. It amends the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 and the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Act 1984 to facilitate online applications and ensure that the Electoral Commissioner may use an automated system to receive and process applications for postal votes. In my last speech on electoral reform, I spoke about improving voter participation through making it easier to be on the electoral roll. This bill takes increasing voter participation another step forward. It will ensure that the Australian Electoral Commission can use automated systems to deal with applications for postal voting as quickly as possible.

The amendments have been written not just to take account of present technology but to allow for future technological changes. Complementary amendments increase the number of nominators for an unendorsed candidate from 50 to 100 electors. There is no change to the law with respect to endorsed candidates. This amendment seeks to strike the right balance between providing the opportunity for all eligible citizens to stand for parliament while at the same time putting in place some reasonable thresholds that candidates must meet.

And that is in order to deal with the practical issues of conducting elections. As we have seen, particularly in the New South Wales upper house, if candidate numbers are unchecked then printing the New South Wales Legislative Council ballot paper in a reasonable font size is going to become a real issue. In their submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, the Australian Electoral Commission noted that the 2010 New South Wales upper house ballot paper was 1,020 millimetres wide, listing some 84 candidates. It was that size because that was the widest ballot paper the printers could manage to cut. To fit all the candidates, the font was reduced to a size that many voters found difficult to read. In one case, a candidate's surname was split over two lines.

Ultimately when you have ballot papers that are a metre across, and candidates listed in a tiny font, you end up increasing the informal voting rate. That additional complexity acts as a hurdle and ends up making it more difficult for the opinions of the electorate to be given practical effect in the parliament. So this measure puts in place reasonable requirements that a candidate must meet, and that strikes the right balance between allowing citizens to stand for parliament and minimising the complexity.

Labor believes that everyone who is eligible to vote should vote and have their vote count. If we do not have high voter participation then we are not truly representative of our electorate. That progressive tradition of supporting democratic participation is a foundational Labor value.

At the last election, my electorate of Fraser was the second-most populous electorate in Australia—and it is now either the most populous or the second-most populous electorate. Some 94 per cent of enrolled voters in Fraser cast a ballot in 2010. But I want that number to be higher. I want to make it easier to register and lodge a postal vote in order to make sure that every voter in Fraser has the opportunity to have their voice heard–—whether that is for me or for one of my opponents, I want them to participate in the democratic process.

My electorate has a significant proportion of residents who are younger than the national average. That is a result of the many young people who move to Canberra to study at one of the great universities here—whether that is ACU, UNSW at ADFA, the University of Canberra or the Australian National University—or to work in the Australian Public Service. The changes in this bill will make voting easier for younger voters who want to be able to cast a postal vote online. A recent intern in my office, Rebecca Mann, said the suite of electoral reforms we have introduced will make it easier for her. She also pointed out that she may well be in the middle of her year 12 exams when the next election comes around, and this will make it easier for her to get onto the electoral roll without stress. I would like to thank Rebecca for her work in preparing this speech and I would also like to thank Kyneton Morris, another intern in my office, for his research and comments.

Labor wants to ensure that every Australian has a say in their future and the future of their country. In June 2010 the Leader of the Opposition attempted to block legislation that would make it easier for Australians to vote, by lowering the provisional age at which young Australians can register to vote. In response to this, the Member for Eden-Monaro stated:

I think that Tony Abbott needs to explain to the Australian people why he does not want to make it easy for them to enrol and vote in the forthcoming election.

The Labor Party is committed to ensuring that everyone who is eligible has a say in our nation's future. For us democracy is about inclusion and having every Australian represented. We want to make sure we protect and enhance the right of Australians to put their mark on the ballot paper. We want to make it more convenient to vote and make sure that more and more Australians can have their voice heard.

We want all eligible voters to take their part in the 2013 election, because that will be an important election in deciding the future direction of this nation. We want to facilitate online applications, ensure that the Electoral Commissioner can use an automated system to receive and process applications for postal votes in a timely manner and we want to do that because we want to expand access to elections and expand the number of voices that are heard in this great democracy that I am proud to be a representative of. I commend the bill to the House.

Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would very much like to talk to this Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Improving Electoral Procedure) Bill 2012. I for one have always taken a great interest in voting procedures in Australia. As a kid of 12 I would sit up at night—pre-TV—and as the figures came through on the radio I would write them down and try to predict who was going to win that election. My taste for politics began early—around the radio at 12 years of age, trying to predict elections. My interest in it has never faded.

When my mother went voting I would get her to bring back the how-to-vote cards of the various candidates, which were very basic in those days. Eventually, I got involved in politics. I stood for the first time in 1969. In fact, had I won then, I would be the Father of the House now—but I probably am in age anyhow, so it doesn't much matter.

The electoral acts are very important. How we vote is very important. During the Howard years we brought in some rules—I know the current government felt that they were too restrictive—but I thought it was fair enough to ask someone who was going on the electoral roll to identify themselves, whether by a birth certificate or a driver's licence and so on. You go into a video shop to get a movie out and you are required to identify yourself, and yet for the most important thing we do in community life—that is, vote—we have a bit of a slapdash attitude.

The other thing I thought was fair enough was that when people came in to vote they could be asked for identification. I do not know the person in question but I heard the story all right. It happened in my electorate. He was going up to have himself ticked off to vote at the last federal election and, as he was standing in the queue, the person in front of him gave his name and address. That is a million-to-one shot: the bloke who was recording a false vote by using someone else's name was one in front of the guy whose name he had subsumed. When the guy said, 'Hey, wait a minute, mate, that's my name,' the guy took off through the door—took off at the speed of a thousand gazelles, as well he might. A lot of that stuff used to go on. I can remember in one election a carload of guys was reputed to have gone to four or five polling booths and voted. You are never likely to catch a group like that, but it does happen that the electoral system is rorted.

Anything that makes the electoral system safer has my support. This bill is going to change the method of postal voting. I think some of the things proposed are probably fair enough. There was one I had some concern about, and that was the centralising of all power in the Electoral Commissioner rather than the DROs, the district returning officers. I understand that that process will probably continue within the department because the Electoral Commissioner under this bill will have the right of delegation. I know the shadow minister at the table—the member for Mackellar—has checked this matter out and she is fairly comfortable with it. That is one thing that had me a bit concerned.

I am always suspicious when you start centralising the process of sending out postal vote applications. It is usually done by local officers, but someone in head office in Brisbane or Sydney says, 'We can do it better than you guys.' I think you, Mr Deputy Speaker, one year had all your postal votes mucked up. The postal vote applications for one of the western New South Wales seats ended up in Maranoa. That sort of thing can happen when you have excessive centralisation. I would hope that, if the Electoral Commission does go to some form of centralisation, they have a very good system. If it is a system that is slower than the current one, then to some extent it will limit democracy.

Over the years, I think, we have had a few silly rules. One was: if you were having a postal vote and you were out in the country, you had to have your application date marked by 5 pm on the day before the election. But out in country areas, you do not have postmen and post offices in every suburb where you can get a letter date stamped; you have the mail contractor who goes from property to property, from little country hamlet to little country hamlet. He might collect up all the mail—he might pick up 50 or 60 letters and little parcels that afternoon—and he goes back in to the town he operates from, but he does not get in until, say, quarter to six or six o'clock. The post office is closed, the postmaster has gone home, and nobody date stamps those things until Monday morning. What happened? All those votes were ruled invalid. In the spirit of things, they had handed their postal votes to the representative of the postal service before 5 pm on the Friday, but lost the technical stamping of the envelope.

I think we need to drive those sorts of things out of the system and have regard for people in the west, in inland Australia or on remote islands and the like.

This bill gives precedence to allowing electronic applications for postal votes. I was a bit nervous about that at first until I thought it through. Providing you have certain identification points so that every man and his dog cannot use your name to get into the electoral system, I suppose it is fair enough. The application for a postal vote has to go to either the Electoral Commission or the DRO's office, should the Electoral Commissioner delegate it to the DRO, and it is then his or her job to make sure that the application accords with the roll. If it does not accord with the roll, it could be declared invalid.

We are moving into a new technological age in this regard. I support that, but with some ambivalence until this process occurs for the first time and we are able to see its after-effects—for example, whether it leads to rorting or to too many postal votes. I would be happier if it were trialled in, say, one electorate in each state initially just to see how it worked.

The bill deals not only with electronic applications for postal votes but also with the Senate ticket. We have above-the-line voting, which is easy enough, but a lot of people seem to think it is their right to vote below the line in Senate elections. In New South Wales, the ballot paper has reached its maximum size for most printeries in Australia. If we get any more candidates, the font size on the ballot paper will be quite small, and that is a problem. To address that, this bill proposes that the deposit required to nominate for a Senate election rise from $1,000 to $2,000. I think a deposit of $2,000 is fair enough to get into the Senate. Further, the number of nominees required for someone to apply to stand for the Senate will increase to 100. If two Independents want to sit on the paper as a team or 'grouped', as it is called, each of them will require 100 nominees. It will not be sufficient to get 100 nominees for the two of them unless they are a formal political party. Similarly, the deposit for the House of Representatives will go up from $500 to $1,000, and the number of nominees required will increase from 50 to 100. I think that is also fair enough, because you do not want a lot of people making a protest on a ballot paper with silly party names, just to make a statement. Elections are far too serious for that sort of nonsense.

There were 84 candidates at the last New South Wales election. If you are voting below the line, that really is an effort. You only have to get two of them wrong—write '68' or '69' twice, or whatever it might be—and your whole ballot paper is invalid. At the last election in New South Wales 42 candidates recorded fewer than 200 votes. Those 42 candidates represented only 0.6 per cent of the total number of people voting. That is something we could help to eliminate.

There were some minor amendments, which I do not think we need to canvass tonight. I think we should concentrate heavily on making sure that the integrity of the roll and the integrity of the postal vote—and also the provisional vote application, which is not subject to this bill—are watched very closely. I hope the committee, in its report after the next election—which, as we know, is only about 12 months away—will be equally rigorous in dealing with these matters.

If I can speak for the opposition and the shadow minister, I say that we accept this bill. We had a little concern about a few aspects of it, but the shadow minister has talked that through with the Electoral Commissioner to her satisfaction, and on that ground we will support the legislation.

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

The Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Improving Electoral Procedure) Bill was introduced to the House on 27 June and was referred to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. I tabled an advisory report in the House on 16 August 2012. That was a unanimous report and basically recommended the passing of this legislation after deleting the changes proposed in schedule 3 in relation to the unsound mind provisions and consequential amendments. The term 'unsound mind' and the current requirement for a certificate from a medical practitioner should be retained.

The bill resulted from a government response to the joint standing committee's report into the 2010 federal election, specifically recommendations 12, 31 and 32. I want to have it noted that the committee at no stage recommended the removal of the unsound mind provisions which were first presented in the bill.

They were regarded as minor technical amendments and were included in this bill. Subsection 93(8) of the Electoral Act provides:

… A person who:

(a) by reason of being of unsound mind, is incapable of understanding the nature and significance of enrolment and voting; or

(b) has been convicted of treason or treachery and has not been pardoned;

is not entitled to have his or her name placed or retained on any Roll or to vote at any Senate election or House of Representatives election.

That provision has been in the Electoral Act since, I think, 1902. Under this provision, in 2008-09, 5,735 electors were removed; in 2009-10 4,341 electors were removed; in 2010-11, 13,082 electors were removed; and in 2011-12, 5,445 electors were removed. So the provision is being used. The proposed amendments to the Electoral Act recommend omitting 'by reason of being of unsound mind' and substituting 'in the opinion of a qualified person'. Also, in the proposed amendments, the definition of 'qualified person' is expanded to include not just medical practitioners but also psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers.

When the committee examined the existing definitions and asked the Electoral Commission to come back with how many concerns there were with them, no statistics of substance were provided. However, the supplementary submission of the AEC, submission 2.1, said:

The AEC is aware of at least two recent complaints where family members have experienced difficulties in obtaining a medical certificate completed by a Medical Practitioner. One of the complainants also objected to the use of the phrase "unsound mind" in describing their loved-one.

The committee was unanimous in the view that these objections were not sufficient as a basis for changing the existing provision in the Electoral Act and that the provision has been referred to in legislation and is well known.

The other matter that concerned the committee was the expansion of the definition of 'qualified person' from medical practitioners to psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers. We felt that there was an acceptance and respect for certificates issued by medical practitioners. The other thing that concerned me and the committee was that if the new definition were to be adopted, because the definition would be broader it would lead to a greater number of exclusions from the electoral roll. The committee was of the view that the franchise is too important to allow this extension of definition. There has not been a flood of complaints about the existing definition, the provision is being used and the odd inability of a person to get a medical practitioner to conveniently provide a certificate is not, we believe, a sufficient basis for changing the definition.

It is rare, as the member for Mackellar has said, that the committee is unanimous. I believe that the groups which made submissions—the Electoral Commission and so on—were genuine in doing so. I also believe that in this instance we should be more conservative. I do not believe that the case has been made for a change in the provision, and I commend the government on accepting the joint standing committee's advisory report and believe that an appropriate amendment will come forward. So the redefinitions will be removed from the bill, and there will be a provision inserted on postal votes, on deposits, on the number of people nominating and on other matters. Hopefully, these will be passed unanimously.

I am not being critical of the Electoral Commission or anyone else; it is just that occasionally it is important to take a conservative approach. I understand that the evidence that came before the committee was submitted in good faith; indeed, the disability groups made submissions and supplementary submissions maintaining their objection to the use of the phrase 'of unsound mind'. But the committee has unanimously taken the view that the redefinitions should be removed from the amendments proposed in the new bill.

The member for Mackellar wants to talk about differences on the committee and so on, but I have been on the committee on and off for 22 years, and, whilst we have a bit of a crack at one another within acceptable bounds, I think that the committee is working quite well in shining a spotlight on the Electoral Act and on the Electoral Commission. That is our role. Quite frankly, I think that a lot of what the member for Mackellar says is without substance, and I am sure that she thinks the same about what I say; but we are both members of a transparent committee which works well. There was no caucusing on the question of the redefinitions; as the evidence flowed in front of the committee during the hearings, we all came to the same conclusion pretty quickly. That is evidence of good faith. I as both a member of the government and the chair of a committee never believed that I needed to defend the government at all costs; I thought that there was merit in sticking with the existing provision.

It is unusual for this committee to produce unanimous reports—and so be it. The merits of the competing cases are out there for people to see, and people can take whatever side they want to take. I happen to think that we have one of the best electoral commissions in the world. It contributes to assisting democracy around the world. The officers of the electoral commission, particularly the divisional returning officers, are second to none. They are committed to the electoral system. If there is a problem, it arises as a result of politicians being a bit intransigent and not facilitating recommended changes in legislation. At the end of the day, the commission can only operate off the back of the legislation which passes through this House.

On the provisions in subsection 93(8) of the Electoral Act, the committee has taken a cautious approach and said, 'Let's stick with the existing terminology even though some people might not like it, because fewer people will be disenfranchised and doing so will mean a retention of certainty in the interpretation of the provision.' I am really pleased to see that our unanimous report has been picked up by the government. This fact will, hopefully, mean that the legislation goes through both houses in an amended form and with the full support of both houses instead of the paranoia which sometimes accompanies the bringing forward of legislation.

Debate interrupted.