Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Cities and Urban Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on this package of electoral bills proposed by the government: the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Counting, Scrutiny and Operational Efficiencies) Bill 2021, the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Party Registration Integrity) Bill 2021 and the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Offences and Preventing Multiple Voting) Bill 2021. Labor knows that the strength and integrity of our electoral framework are absolutely fundamental to ensuring we have a functioning democracy. Labor takes any proposals for electoral reform incredibly seriously. We've considered these bills and we believe that these amendments will strengthen our electoral system. These bills do a range of things, including, in particular, limiting the prepoll period to 12 days, amending party registration requirements, making clear that electoral violence is an offence, establishing a designated elector register to address multiple voting, and introducing measures which will increase the efficiency of voting and counting through streamlining the processes of the Australian Electoral Commission.

The changes in the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Counting, Scrutiny and Operational Efficiencies) Bill 2021 have been either requested by the Australian Electoral Commission or recommended by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. One of the biggest changes this bill makes is to limit the prepoll period to 12 days. An extended prepoll period sees the Electoral Commission having to staff prepoll booths for longer. That presents logistical challenges for the commission and for electoral participants, particularly independent candidates and smaller political parties. It also means that people are voting without necessarily having all the information on candidates' policies.

We no longer have one election day but a series of election days. We know that the number of voters who vote during the prepoll period has been increasing at each election, but the figures also show that the large majority of people who vote at prepoll booths do so in the week before the election. At the last federal election, when the prepoll period ran for nearly three weeks, over 50 per cent of voters who voted during those three weeks did so in the last five days before polling day. As such, this change will not impact the great majority of prepoll voters.

Labor support in principle the shortening of the prepoll period, but we need to ensure this is manageable for the Electoral Commission while it juggles the challenges presented by this pandemic. Shortening the prepoll period will mean a higher concentration of people voting across that 12-day period. Of course, Australia is presently in the grip of the third wave of this pandemic. We know that the delta variant is highly infectious and is out of control in New South Wales at the moment, with some experts predicting cases could rise to 2,000 a day. Victoria, my home state, is struggling, as we speak, to constrain an outbreak seeded out of New South Wales. And, unfortunately, cases in the ACT are also rising, as my friend the member for Fenner would be aware of and concerned about. As a direct result of the Morrison-Joyce government's failure on vaccines and quarantine, we're seeing necessary restrictions on people's movements, and there is no guarantee that our vaccination rate will be high enough to avoid these restrictions for many months to come. So, while Labor understand the merit, in the broad, of limiting prepoll to 12 days, we must consider our current circumstances.

The government has indicated there will be further legislation put forward to deal with the recommendations of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters from its inquiry on the future conduct of elections operating during times of emergency situations. We understand this legislation would allow for the Electoral Commissioner to extend the prepoll period and the reasons for exercising a prepoll vote if those are things required by circumstances. Of course, we all hope we will not need these provisions in the future, but it is important that the Electoral Commissioner has the ability to make such changes if they are necessary to preserve democratic involvement and the safety of the community.

Running an election is a mammoth task for the AEC, made all the harder because at the federal level we don't have fixed terms—something every mainland state in Australia has. Imagine if the AEC were able to plan for the leasing of its counting centres, the booking of school halls for election day and the employment of its large temporary workforce. The budget would be saved millions, although, of course, this only hints at the democratic and practical benefits that would flow to the community from such a change.

Short of implementing fixed terms, this bill includes measures to help the AEC provide a timely result for elections. The bill allows the AEC to open and sort prepoll House of Representatives ballot papers from 4 pm on polling day. However, counting would not be able to commence until the close of the polls at 6 pm. Declaration votes will be able to be removed from their envelopes and placed in a secure ballot box up to five days before polling day. Importantly, scrutineers will be able to view all aspects of this process, and there are increased penalties for anyone who would disclose information prior to the closing of the polls.

The Electoral Legislation Amendment (Counting Scrutiny and Operational Efficiencies) Bill 2021 also contains vote-saving provisions to reduce the number of wasted postal votes. This is particularly important during the pandemic, when we have seen, for obvious reasons, the number of postal votes increase in by-elections in Eden-Monaro and also in Groom. The bill will allow a postal vote to be counted if it's received with, but not inside, a voter's postal vote certificate envelope. This will address the situation where a voter places their ballot paper inside their own envelope rather than the official AEC envelope. Overseas voters will also be able to provide an electronic copy of their passport in order to self-certify their vote if they're unable to find an authorised witness. The bill also increases the number of scrutineers at a Senate counting centre and reduces the requirement for the authorisation of electoral material to include the name and address of the printer. This amendment is intended to reduce the number of frivolous complaints the AEC receives and the burden that imposes. The bill includes other technical efficiency measures, which I won't go into here but which will assist the AEC in streamlining its operations.

As I said at the outset, some of the measures in this bill are the result of recommendations from the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. During its inquiry into the 2019 federal election, the JSCEM also looked at enrolment in voting and heard from witnesses in the Northern Territory about issues with polling in remote areas and low enrolment rates in the Territory. On this basis, I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1) notes the bill addresses some of the recommendations made by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters relating to pre-polling and scrutiny of ballots;

(2) further notes that the Northern Territory's enrolment rate lags behind the rest of the country with only 85 per cent of eligible electors enrolled to vote; and

(3) calls on the Coalition Government to close the gap by providing more resources to the Australian Electoral Commission so that people living in disadvantaged, remote and regional communities can exercise their democratic right to vote".

I want to make it very clear to this House, and to the Australian community, that Labor supports the enfranchisement of every Australian, no matter which state or territory they live in, and recognises that the extent of underenrolment in this country is far from uniform. This is something that must be addressed. We are deeply concerned to ensure that everyone has their say on the direction of our nation at election times and, in particular, are concerned by the lower enrolment of First Nations people, especially in remote communities. Resourcing decisions affect this, as all in this place must first recognise and then respond to. We should also be thinking about how younger Australians can be enrolled in numbers consistent with their proportion of the population. Decisions taken here shape their future—rather more than that of those of us who are somewhat older, as I'm forced to concede for myself.

The next bill in this cognate debate, the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Party Registration Integrity) Bill 2021, both increases the number of members required for registration of a political party and prevents parties from being registered should their name replicate a word in the name of an existing party. Non-parliamentary federally registered parties will be required to have at least 1,500 members, up from the current 500 members. The current 500-member minimum is a comparatively low number when considering the registration requirements in various states and their respective populations. New South Wales requires a political party to have 750 members before registration; Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia all require 500 members; South Australia, 200; and Tasmania, 100 members. New South Wales has a third of the population of Australia, yet requires a party to have 250 more members than is required federally to be registered within that state jurisdiction. So making this change is intended to ensure that a political party has an appropriate level of community support to attain the very considerable benefits that flow from registration. Many minor parties already meet the new threshold, including the Animal Justice Party; Shooters, Fishers and Farmers; Pauline Hanson's One Nation; Sustainable Australia; and the Liberal Democratic Party. In any case, the current number of 500 is, of course, arbitrary and has not been increased since the party registration requirements were introduced in 1984, when our population was 15½ million; we now have nearly 26 million Australians.

Party registration brings with it significant benefits, as I said a moment ago. A registered party can run candidates in all 151 House of Representatives seats. It can build a profile and name recognition, with that name appearing underneath the name of the candidate on the ballot paper. A registered party's name will also be placed above the line on the Senate ballot paper, increasing its chances of having candidates elected. Parties are also able to nominate candidates without the need for 100 nominators per candidate. As such, it is justifiable that a registered party be required to show it has national support.

The second amendment in this bill relates to the use of similar names and logos by political parties. The bill prevents a party from being registered if its name contains a word that is in the name, or the abbreviation of the name, of a registered political party or has a similar logo. Exceptions apply for function words, collective names for people, the name of a country, the word 'country', the name of a recognisable geographic place in Australia and the word 'democratic'. A decision by the Australian Electoral Commission under these provisions is reviewable by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

So this bill seeks to reduce voter confusion and the influence of big money through the infiltration of small political parties using the name of earlier registered parties. We know that some parties deliberately use words from the names of recognised parties for mischievous purposes. This amendment addresses that issue. Labor believes that these reforms will strengthen, not weaken, our democracy and that they should be supported by this parliament.

The final bill in this package is the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Offences and Preventing Multiple Voting) Bill 2021. This bill would create a new category of 'designated elector' in an attempt to address multiple voting, and it expands the existing offence relating to interference with political liberty. To be clear, multiple voting is something that occurs extremely rarely. In some circles it's much talked about, but the evidence is very, very different. There is very little evidence of multiple voting in Australia, and the electoral commissioner described the number of voters who vote more than once as 'vanishingly small'. It's something like 0.01 per cent. Most instances of multiple voting are of older or infirm people who have forgotten that they may have already voted.

Nevertheless, this bill will deal with this very small number of people who make that mistake by ensuring that only their first vote is counted. The bill allows the commissioner or their delegate to declare an elector a designated elector. To make this declaration, the electoral commissioner must have a reasonable suspicion that the elector has voted more than once in an election. If a declaration is made, the person must be given notice of that declaration in writing as well as information on their rights of review. Decisions by the commissioner are also reviewable by the AAT.

The amendments also prohibit the disclosure of a person's status as a designated elector. That means no-one else will know that a person has been declared a designated elector, including polling booth officials, This is an important safeguard to protect people's privacy. Designated electors will be able to vote only by declaration vote, and this will be in accordance with the rules relating to postal voting, pre-poll declaration voting, and absent and provisional voting. This is not a new concept. The New South Wales Electoral Act contains similar provisions.

I want to make it very clear that Labor has consistently opposed any form of voter ID rules, and we will continue to do so. It is extremely concerning to view what has been happening in the United States in terms of targeted voter suppression—often racist, as well as nakedly partisan. It is disturbing that there are those here, too, who look to that as a model to emulate. It shows how little confidence some conservatives have in their convictions and in the judgement of their fellow citizens—indeed, in a true functioning democracy. Elections should be contests of ideas, not determined in advance through the cynical and sinister manipulation of processes to deny people a real say over their future and that of their country.

Requiring people to provide identification has the effect of discouraging some people from voting and, in turn, undermining our system of compulsory voting, a cornerstone of Australia's democracy that I am very proud of. However, because the drafting of the provisions that are now before us means that polling officials will be unable to identify a voter as a designated voter, there will be no reason for them to ask a voter for identification—no reason. In addition, I place on the record that the government and the electoral commissioner have given assurances that these provisions will not be able to be used to require, or purport to require, a voter to provide identification. On this basis, Labor is supporting this amendment.

The bill before us also makes clear that the existing offence of interference with political liberty can encompass conduct such as violence, obscene or discriminatory abuse, property damage, and harassment or stalking. Violence, abuse and intimidation are never acceptable in any context. In the context of elections, Labor deplores any behaviour which is designed to influence or disrupt those exercising any of their democratic rights and freedoms. This bill increases the penalty for the offence from six months imprisonment or 10 penalty units or both to three years imprisonment and 100 penalty units or both, which is consistent with the penalties for other offences contained in the Electoral Act. Let me be clear: everyone has the right to participate in our democratic processes free from the fear of vilification, discrimination and harassment.

Labor takes any reform of our electoral system incredibly seriously, knowing that the strength and integrity of our system is what ensures we have a functioning democracy. Bipartisanship is important here. We should always strive to reach for it, and the role of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters is critical here in bringing all the perspectives in this parliament and the community to bear on the question of making our electoral systems fit for purpose. But this does not, and cannot, mean resiling from a wider vision of how our democracy can be improved. And, while we will not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, we will continue to work towards an electoral and democratic framework that's worthy of the Australian people—all of them, every Australian.

We in Labor know that there is more work to be done here, as the persistence of the plague on our democracy that is the dangerous narcissism of Clive Palmer shows us and as does the worrying sense on the part of too many Australians that our politics does not work for them. We must respond to this. That is why Labor is committed, amongst many other things, to wider electoral financing reforms to take the money out of our politics and to remove barriers to democratic participation for all Australians, and, of course, to safeguarding the integrity of our systems through introducing that much-needed national anticorruption commission—something that is present in every other jurisdiction of Australia and something that needs to be a cornerstone of assurance of the quality of our democracy and our system of government in the federal system, as well.

On the basis that I have set out, Labor offers our support for the three bills.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Andrew Leigh (Fenner, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] This is indeed a strange experience, not being in the parliament and actually speaking to it; I find it quite bizarre, to be truthful. But I do want to support the contribution of the member for Scullin, who has outlined Labor's position in fine detail and outlined the contents of the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Counting, Scrutiny and Operational Efficiencies) Bill 2021 and the associated legislation. It's not my intent to repeat the details that he has already given to the parliament. What I want to do is indicate my very strong support for the amendment which has been moved by the member for Scullin—in particular, paragraphs (2) and (3) of that amendment, which note that the Northern Territory's enrolment rate lags behind that of the rest of the country with only 85.6 per cent of the eligible electors enrolled to vote and calls on the coalition government to close the gap by providing more resources to the Australian Electoral Commission so that people living in disadvantaged remote and regional communities can exercise their democratic right to vote.

This is not the first time I've raised this issue in the parliament. Indeed, I just had the opportunity to scroll through speeches that I gave in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 around this very issue. The first of those contributions came as a result of the Commonwealth government cutting the budget of the Commonwealth Electoral Commission, which meant they were required to cut their staffing in the Northern Territory office from 16 to three. That had a direct impact on the capacity to educate and enrol people who live in remote communities, and it's something which is historically par for the course, it now appears, for the Liberal Party. In 1996, when the Howard government were elected, one of the first things they did was to get rid of the Aboriginal voter education and enrolment service in the Electoral Commission, limiting the capacity of the Electoral Commission to go and enrol people and to educate them about their obligations as citizens and their rights as citizens to exercise a vote. That, of course, is the key issue here.

We've now got real evidence that there has been a deliberate effort by the Electoral Commission not to enrol people, because of the passive way in which they've used their powers. This has been historical. It's not something new. They've used their discretion to effectively prevent enrolment of and voting by First Nations peoples in remote parts of the country. We have now, effectively, got a gerrymander against First Nations people and, I argue, voter suppression of First Nations people.

This suppression is so extreme—and I mentioned this in the parliament in June of this year—that it has led constituents in my electorate of Lingiari to take legal action to attempt to end this discrimination. On 15 June 2021, a complaint was made to the Australian Human Rights Commission about the maintenance of the electoral roll and conduct of the 2019 federal election, in respect of remote Aboriginal communities, by the Australian Electoral Commission. The Australian Electoral Commission, as you would know, Mr Deputy Speaker, maintains both the Commonwealth and NT electoral rolls by arrangement with the Northern Territory. This complaint was made by two constituents, Mr Matthew Ryan from Maningrida and Mr Ross Mandi Wunungmurra from Galiwinku. These Aboriginal communities in Arnhem Land are the sixth and eighth largest towns in the Northern Territory. As is common in many Aboriginal communities, there are no enumerated street addresses or letterboxes and no Australia Post mail service directly to residents. Instead, residents collect their mail from community post offices or may use a private postbox.

In 2012, the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 was amended to provide for direct enrolments and updates via sections 103A and 103B of the Electoral Act, an initiative of the then Labor government. It was done to address the alarming drop in the number of eligible persons then on the electoral roll, being only 91.63 per cent in 2009 and trending downwards. The amendments empowered the Electoral Commission to directly enrol eligible persons who were not on the electoral roll or update the details of persons on the roll, such as a change of address. To do this, the AEC can use electronic data from trusted agencies such as Centrelink, vehicle registration, driving licences and the Australian Taxation Office, and it has the power to use the contact details from the now very up-to-date Australian Immunisation Register. The AEC simply gives written notice to the person that enrolment or an update of an existing enrolment is proposed after the elapse of 28 days. If there is no response, the AEC actions the enrolment or update.

Importantly, the amendments explicitly empowered the AEC to give written notice to electors by electronic means, particularly email and SMS or text messages and via social media. In this electronic age, a large number of the AEC's notifications are, of course, done by these means. Electronic notification is now a key to the success of the direct enrolment amendments to the Electoral Act. The AEC state that it led to a staggering and truly outstanding 97 per cent enrolment in the 2019 election.

But the good news doesn't extend to electorates like Lingiari, or Durack in Western Australia, which sit at the lowest enrolment rates of 75 per cent and less than 80 per cent, substantially lower than the 97 per cent enrolment for Australia overall. And it's worth pointing out that the enrolment rates of First Nations peoples as at 30 June 2020 were staggeringly poor. In Western Australia, the enrolment rate of First Nations peoples was only 67.6 per cent. In the Northern Territory, the figure was 68.7 per cent—that is, 32.3 per cent of Aboriginal voters in the Northern Territory were not on the roll. I'm alarmed that, while it is clear the AEC are fully aware of these shortcomings in enrolment, the AEC and this government have chosen to do nothing about it. The primary reason the enrolment rate languishes in Aboriginal communities is that, as a matter of policy, the AEC does not apply the most effective tool at its disposal, namely, direct enrolment and update under sections 103A and 103B. The AEC claims that direct enrolment and update cannot be used because there's no direct post to residents in Aboriginal communities. The claim is wrong in law and must be rejected. The AEC has explicit power to give notice solely by electronic means and regularly does so for other Australians. The exercise of that power is not conditional upon the existence of a household mail service. Instead, the AEC simply chooses to use the law in a way that discriminates against a larger First Nations electoral voice.

The Northern Territory Electoral Commission has said that the majority of Aboriginal Territorians live in regional and remote areas that are not covered by the federal government's program. In its recent report, the Northern Territory Electoral Commission also said the failure to use direct enrolment creates 'an imbalance which places Aboriginal people at a direct electoral disadvantage'. This is a polite way of saying that in the Northern Territory there is a gerrymander. The AEC chooses to apply the law in a way that conveniently discriminates against First Nations voices being heard. By failing to act, this government is complicit in the AEC's discrimination. The AEC's policy predominantly affects First Nations residents in remote communities. It is discriminatory, and it breaches, we would argue, sections 9(1) and 9(1A) of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. The policy operates in practice as a form of voter suppression, or gerrymander, whereby the franchise for Aboriginal residents in federal and NT elections is suppressed or inhibited, compared with non-Aboriginal Australians and non-Aboriginal Territorians. In addition, Mr Ryan and Mr Mandi point out in their complaint that in the 2019 federal election the AEC did not ensure equal provision of polling booths to Maningrida, Galiwinku and other sizeable Aboriginal communities, compared with other towns in the Northern Territory, and these instances of indirect discrimination are also breaches of sections 9(1) and 9(1A) of the Racial Discrimination Act.

The Human Rights Commission has been asked to conciliate this complaint from my constituents. On 8 September the Human Rights Commission will hear the complaint by my constituents. This step is required prior to seeking a remedy of the Federal Court. If conciliation is unsuccessful, I am reliably informed that the Federal Court will be asked to find that the AEC policy and actions are indirectly discriminatory and therefore unlawful under the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. I also note that the AEC has twice delayed giving my constituents its legal response to their complaint. I can only assume that the AEC denies what I have outlined and the facts that the complaint outlines. I assume we can expect the AEC will be squandering taxpayer money and, within the terms of legal representation and legal fictions, denying what are quite clear and obvious facts. If the AEC were prepared to stop discrimination and get on with direct enrolment, then it would be very quick and easy to correct the huge electoral injustices that have now been going on for almost a decade. It is imperative that these three complaints regarding the AEC's policy about direct enrolment and updates and actions are resolved well prior to the next federal election.

First Nations people deserve an electoral voice—they are Australian citizens—and a voice that is not suppressed by government or its accomplices. The electoral act currently has left too much to the discretion of the Electoral Commissioner and we need to have that rectified.

Due to these oversights, large parts of Australia which have large numbers of First Nations electors are under-enrolled. There are insufficient address records for them and there's an insufficient and discriminatory period of time to allow remote people to get to a polling booth.

We have an obligation as a parliament to understand and appreciate our responsibility to be sure that all Australian citizens who are eligible to vote are registered to vote—they have a right to vote—and turn up to vote where at all possible. We're seeing systematic discrimination in this country against First Nations people who live in remote communities. It's beyond time for this to be fixed. It's a matter of great importance.

We're doing some more work on the population data, but the 32.3 per cent could be a lot higher. At the moment, the Electoral Commission, of its own figures, says that there are 16,527 Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory who are not on the roll. I think we will find that it's substantially higher than that. That is shameful and it needs to be addressed as a matter of great urgency. But for some reason—for whatever reason; I'm not sure what it is—the Commonwealth government, your government, fails to understand or to want to do anything about it. The Australian Electoral Commission just denies that they need to do anything. Frankly, it's insupportable and it needs to be fixed, and it needs to be fixed now.

Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] It's a privilege to follow the member for Lingiari, particularly after such a thoughtful and important speech. If anyone has been sitting in the chamber or watching these proceedings online and has heard that something like 16½ thousand, if not more, First Nations Australians in the Northern Territory are not able to be enrolled to vote—and, therefore, aren't given the basic right of participating in Australia's democracy—and aren't moved by that, then I would be shocked. I would like to note that it's probably appropriate that the minister at the table for that important speech is the Minister for Indigenous Australians, and I would expect—and, knowing the way the minister has conducted himself, I would be very hopeful—that he would follow through on the reforms that the member for Lingiari has just outlined as urgent.

Could I also have indulgence to say this. Because of the member for Lingiari's announcement that he won't be contesting the next election, this may be my last opportunity to speak after him in the parliament, and I would like it to be recorded in Hansard that it's been a privilege to have served with him in Labor's caucus, even for the short time that I've been able to do so, and I would like to thank him very much for the support and the friendship that he has shown me over the years, and to put him on notice that he's not going to be able to get away with not giving me that support and friendship, even if he's not in the caucus next to me after the next election! Thank you for letting me do that, Deputy Speaker.

The Electoral Legislation Amendment (Counting, Scrutiny and Operational Efficiencies) Bill 2021, as the member for Scullin noted, sets out a range of measures which are designed to increase the efficiency of voting and counting and, as with the member for Lingiari, I don't intend to go through all of those; they've been set out in the chamber in previous speeches. I note that the member for Scullin indicated that there has been some advice that the government says there may be more legislation to come, to enable the Electoral Commission to deal with issues that might arise in holding an election during a global pandemic. But I will say this about this legislation: whilst it brings in some reforms, it doesn't bring in nearly enough—importantly, those reforms mentioned by the member for Lingiari but not limited to those.

We often hear it said in various permutations—and many of us who are involved in politics and parliament have said it ourselves—that democracy isn't perfect, but it's the best system we have. While that is very true, it is nonetheless the responsibility of all of us who have the privilege of being elected to be members of this parliament to continue to strive to make our democracy better. The most fundamental way of participating in democracy is exercising the vote, and if Australians aren't able to be involved in voting, they cannot exercise that right.

But the problems in our democracy go further than problems with the way elections are run, of course. No-one needs to have polling or research to tell us that the damage done to the trust in politics and politicians over the last decade and longer runs deep. While we may have seen at various times during this pandemic greater trust in government than in the years preceding it, it would appear that that trust is fragile. So those of us who are elected to be in the parliament must do more to bring that trust back, but we must bring it back in a profound and sustainable way, not because of any short-term measures. That will require broader reforms to the way we behave as politicians, both in this parliament and outside of it, to the way this parliament operates in question time and other times, and to the way democracy operates during elections and at other times.

I am very proud to represent Dunkley in this parliament. My community elected me on a promise to work to address the declining trust, and I intend to keep that promise. I want to note then that, while this legislation does bring in some reforms that would deal with some of the logistical difficulties for the Australian Electoral Commission in running elections, it could do much more. We could do much more. We could, for example, do the hard work needed to introduce fixed four-year terms and have the Australian people agree to reform the Constitution to allow that to happen.

For the 2019 federal election, the AEC employed a temporary workforce of some 90,000 people. There were a number of people from my electorate, as there were from the electorates of every other person in this chamber, who were part of that 90,000 total, and they are again every two to three years in the lead-up to an election. The AEC provided over 500 pre-poll or early-voting stations across this country. It issued more than 1½ million postal-voting packages, had more than 550 mobile polling teams visiting more than 3,000 locations, and provided just over 6½ thousand polling places on election day. Imagine how much simpler that logistical exercise would be if we had fixed four-year terms, which is something that every mainland state in Australia has. Imagine if the AEC were able to plan for the leasing of all the counting centres and the booking of the school halls for election day, and were able to plan for the pre-poll venues—some of which are better than others, it must be said—and for the employment of its temporary workforce, knowing when the federal election would be. There's no doubt that not only would the budget be saved millions of dollars but also the AEC's efficiency, and the effectiveness of all of those measures, would be enhanced.

We would also, as a parliament, as a country, as people going about our day-to-day business, know when the election would be. At the moment, of course, it's anyone's guess which weekend the election is going to be. It could be any weekend—33 days from today, for example—up until 21 May. It's commonly said that not even the Prime Minister knows when the election is until the Prime Minister knows when the election is and calls it. That's a state of uncertainty not just for the Australian people but, as I've said, for the AEC trying to plan for an election. They're now trying to plan for an election in a pandemic, which is just so much more difficult. Of course, because we don't have national fit-for-purpose quarantine, and because the vaccine rollout is so delayed by the bungles, the AEC is in the state of uncertainty that families, businesses, schools and organisations across the country are in, not knowing what the public health measures are going to be at the time of the election and having to plan for all of these contingencies. Somewhere around a quarter of the eligible population has been fully vaccinated, and we don't know what proportion of the Australian population, let alone the eligible population, will be fully vaccinated by the time of the next election. We have an electoral commission that has to plan for all of those contingencies.

The other benefit of a fixed four-year term is the benefit to democracy. We wouldn't have to have federal governments already on a campaign footing for the next election from what feels like almost a year or 18 months into their term. We wouldn't have a situation where no-one knows when the election is until the Prime Minister calls it. We all know from history—it doesn't matter which political party they're from—a prime minister calls an election when they think they can win. An election wouldn't be at the whim of a prime minister; it would be at a fixed time. It would benefit governments too, because they could govern. They could spend, as we've seen at the state level, a significant portion of their term of office governing, making hard decisions, bringing in important structural reforms, before having to turn their minds to how every single decision may play out in an election which is to come. They could govern for the good of the people, not for their own electoral benefit. I can't see how that could hurt anyone or do anything other than benefit our country.

Maybe we'd have governments that could implement real reforms that have five-, 10- or 20-year benefits and plans attached to them. My fervent hope is that we could finally deal with a real plan to address climate change for all of the reasons that we've spoken about over and over again in this parliament. It could be a plan that's good for people, for businesses, for the country and for the world, without a government—like we've seen for the last two or three elections at least—always having an eye on short-term electoral benefit. I'm proud and pleased that Labor has a policy of fixed four-year terms, and I will continue to argue for them and raise them as a policy at every opportunity, because I am fervently of the belief that fixed four-year terms would benefit our democracy and, therefore, benefit the people that we are here to represent.

There are other significant electoral reforms that we need to see. We do need to see a voice to this parliament. We do need to see Australia being a republic. There are reforms to the operation of our parliament that would also improve democracy, such as reforms to question time and codes of conduct for those of us who are in this parliament. There are reforms to our democracy like an integrity commission, which this government has promised but has failed to deliver, which will go to the heart of trust. We have to not only act with integrity and transparency as parliamentarians and as governments but be seen to act with integrity and transparency. A national integrity commission is a significant part of that. This government should be looking to introduce reforms such as truth in advertising at elections—that is, truth in political advertising. It beggars belief that political parties need to have laws imposed on them to tell the truth, I think. Nonetheless, it's clear that they do, as do individuals who are campaigning, such as Clive Palmer, who has been named already. We should be looking at introducing laws about truth in political advertising—again, not just to do the right thing but to be seen to do the right thing and, as parliamentarians, to have imposed upon ourselves the sorts of measures that the public are asking us to impose.

These aren't just ideas that come from federal Labor meetings or committee meetings in parliament. These are ideas that come to me week after week from members of my community who say: 'We want all of you in Canberra to do better. We want the government to do better. And we want you to introduce reforms that will allow you to be seen to do better.'

So, while there is much more that could be said about reforming democracy, from donations to spending caps, I will end by saying that I am pleased that reforms are being introduced today, but it is very clear that the time where piecemeal reforms are going to be good enough has passed, and we do need to look to those bigger structural reforms, not just to get trust in democracy back to the levels that we used to enjoy but also to ensure that our democracy keeps functioning as well as it can to deliver for the people we are here to represent. Minister, again, I'm pleased that you were at the table to hear the member for Lingiari's submissions or contributions to this debate, and I look forward to the government taking up his suggestions.

Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on these amendments to the electoral legislation, which basically deal with three items: party registration integrity; electoral offences and preventing multiple voting; and counting, scrutiny and operational efficiencies. They all sound fairly innocuous but they are important in terms of how our elections are conducted.

I have been a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters for the last five years. I like to say that it's the committee for political junkies. The member for Franklin, who is at the table, is a former party secretary and campaign director in Tasmania—alongside myself in Queensland. The member for Franklin and I are not only defenders of democracy but also people who see the value and role of every single voter in this country as important. I know from working on the electoral matters committee just how important the work of that committee is, and I want to pay tribute to the members of that committee—the chair, Senator James McGrath; the deputy chair, Senator Carol Brown; and all the members who have worked so hard to make sure the integrity of our electoral system is maintained and, hopefully, as a result of the passage of the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Counting, Scrutiny and Operational Efficiencies) Bill 2021 and related bills today, is enhanced.

Firstly, I want to touch on the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Party Registration Integrity) Bill 2021. Labor believes that a number of changes proposed in this piece of legislation and the related pieces of legislation will support and enhance our electoral system, and we are supporting it. In the dissenting report for the inquiry into the 2019 election, which I was a part of, Labor members of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters recommended that the minimum number of members required for party membership be increased to 1,000. This is consistent with what the committee recommended in 2013 and in 2016. In this bill the government is proposing that the minimum number of members for a non-parliamentary party be increased to 1,500. Currently, it sits at 500—which I believe was introduced around 1984. When you consider our nation's population and the different requirements at a state level, this is an incredibly sensible change and one I wholeheartedly support.

Currently, the membership requirement is lower than in the state of New South Wales and is the same as in Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia. Parties will have three months from the date specified for them to become compliant, if they're not already at that threshold. There has been some debate and media commentary on the threshold for minor parties. But parties such as Animal Justice, the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers, Senator Hanson's One Nation, Sustainable Australia and the Liberal Democrat Party—which I'll come back to in a moment—already meet these thresholds. This change reflects the expectation that political parties have a base amount of political support in order to attain the advantages that come with being a registered party and the responsibilities that come with a modern democratic system.

I do note that there are some people whingeing and whining about this change—so-called believers in freedom and democracy—and that includes the failed former Premier of Queensland, Campbell Newman. He's ratted on the Queensland LNP, and now, in his latest political incarnation, he has joined the Liberal Democrats to be their Senate lead candidate for Queensland. As I like to say, in Queensland that right-wing extreme marketplace is quite crowded—whether it be Senator Hanson's party; or Bob Katter's party; or now, of course, Clive Palmer's party, led by the member for Hughes, who is in the chamber today; and now Campbell Newman. So it's a crowded marketplace and that's even before you get inside the LNP in Queensland, which has elements of the ultra Right inside as well.

Campbell Newman, who was thrown out of office back in 2015, said that this is a shabby tactic and a bid by the major parties to 'rig the electoral laws to their own benefit'. This is the guy who, when he was Premier of Queensland, rigged the electoral laws and demanded that voters right across Queensland—he brought in ID requirements and tried to shut down and disenfranchise voters and to change the electoral laws to suit his purpose. I served with Campbell Newman on the Brisbane City Council, when I was a councillor and he was the Lord Mayor. Let me tell you about Campbell Newman: he is only interested in his own political career. He has never been interested in anything else. He comes from political royalty and he has always expected and had a privilege about him. Now he's expecting, after he ratted on the LNP, to criticise these laws that we're debating in the chamber today. The guy stands for nothing and represents nothing except his own political advancement, and now he has the hide to turn around and say that we're rigging the electoral laws to help the parties' own benefits.

That is just absolute nonsense! It's little wonder he was a failed experiment in Queensland and thrown out of office. Now he has the hide to criticise these laws, but I'm not surprised. Australia has always had a long line of splinter parties—those on the fringes and on the edges. He's just going to be another one of those people sniping from the sidelines because he didn't get his own way inside the LNP. He spat the dummy and now he has moved out.

I support these reforms today, and we're doing this in a bipartisan way to ensure that our electoral processes are of the highest integrity. These advantages are significant if you want to register as a political party. A registered party can run candidates in all 151 House of Representatives seats. As we know, the member for Hughes, the Leader of the United Australia Party, has indicated they will do that. Its name can appear under of all their candidates on the ballot paper, allowing them to build name recognition and profile—another privilege of party registration—and they will also appear above the line on the Senate ballot paper, increasing the chances of having a candidate elected. Parties are also able to nominate candidates without the need for 100 nominations per candidate. These advantages can make a huge and significant difference come election time and I believe that it's reasonable that parties should be required to show they have the support of a significant number of Australians. Requiring a party to have only a small number of members opened the door for wealthy stakeholders to run political parties and campaigns based entirely on their own interests. That is not how our democracy should run, and I support these changes to prevent this from occurring.

Secondly, the bill addresses the use of similar names and logos by political parties. This has been a growing trend on the fringes of the political classes in Australia. This will prevent the registration of a party that has used the name or an abbreviation of the name of a previously registered political party. These are sensible reforms and they will apply both to registration of parties after the commencement of the amendments and to currently registered parties with similar names. We know that some parties deliberately use words from the names of recognised parties for their own purposes. This should not be permitted and, under these reforms, it won't be. These reforms will clearly strengthen our democracy and should be supported by all members of the House.

I'm a strong believer in an open and a democratic process in this country. I'm a strong believer in every vote being counted and that's exactly what these reforms will do. I know that Senator Don Farrell, Labor's shadow minister, and the Assistant Minister for Electoral Matters, the Hon. Ben Morton, have been working incredibly hard to ensure that we do work in a bipartisan way so that we do ensure that a level of integrity is respected and supported.

I want to move on to the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Offences and Preventing Multiple Voting) Bill 2021. This bill attempts to address multiple voting, expanding the existing offence and creating a new category of designated elector. We all know that multiple voting is extremely rare. Labor will be supporting this bill. I do want to put on record that the evidence regarding multiple voting, as the Electoral Commissioner has said, is vanishingly small and is something like 0.001 per cent. This is always a bit of bogeyman that comes out. Over the years I've sat on the electoral committee we've had these vast conspiracy theories of multiple-voting allegations come forward. There are all these headlines and there's all this evidence that comes forward but, of course, there's never any evidence when you actually ask the question: 'Do you have examples? Where is it? Who did it?' Former senator Ian Macdonald was famous at coming before the committee, and Senator Abetz and all the others lining up from the other place, saying, 'There is this terrible fraud happening over all this multiple voting.' So we'd say: 'Where are the examples? What is happening? Where is the evidence? Let's get the police on to this. Let's call the investigators.' 'Oh, we'll get back to you. We just know it's happening.' It's the old bogeyman that we've heard a million times before.

These reforms today are the middle road and the sensible way of doing the reforms. Designated electors will only be able to vote by declaration vote. This will be in accordance with the rules relating to postal voting, pre-poll declaration, absent voting and provisional voting. The bill does not require voter ID. Individual status, as designated, will not be disclosed to anyone. They will not be asking an individual for ID in order to vote. I'm a strong believer in making sure that we suppress and make sure that we don't have voter identification laws which make it harder for people from non-English speaking backgrounds and people without relevant ID to be able to vote. That has been tried before and has been shown to disenfranchise voters. Just as the member for Lingiari has been talking about, it's about getting more people on the roll and getting more support for the Electoral Commission so that every Australian has their vote counted and everyone has the right to participate in our democratic processes, free from fear of vilification, discrimination and harassment. That's why Labor will be supporting this bill.

Finally, I want to talk about the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Counting, Scrutiny and Operational Efficiencies) Bill 2021. This bill increases the AEC's ability to run effective and efficient elections. One of the major changes this bill introduces is limiting the pre-poll period to 12 days. I don't think there will be too many members of this place who would be demanding that we keep the same level or increase it, so I'm delighted that I fought hard for this reform. Given we are now moving towards a voting period rather than a voting election day, I think this is another commonsense approach. It's a huge effort for the AEC to conduct three weeks of pre-polling. I think that having a 12-day period makes a lot more sense, particularly if you look at the statistics—which I have done—where the last five days is predominantly where the vote is. It makes sense; it makes sense from a practical side for the allocation of resources.

I want the AEC to have the full opportunity during the pandemic to have every available mechanism at their disposal to ensure that every Australian has their vote. I know, speaking to my colleagues, that there is strong support for this. I think the public are getting used to early voting. They understand the convenience, particularly during the pandemic, where we've had local government elections in Queensland, the Queensland state election, the Tasmanian election, the West Australian election and, I think, the Northern Territory election all conducted safely and efficiently. We have seen the rise of early voting in pre-poll in particular.

There is another important measure here, just a minor measure, whereby the requirement for an authoriser of an electoral matter to include the name and address of the printer has been removed, to reduce the number of frivolous complaints made to the AEC. Also, people overseas—the member for Macquarie might be interested in this provision—will be able to self-authorise, rather than getting another Australian citizen to do it. Particularly at the moment, with people trapped overseas, this will mean getting as many votes from overseas counted as possible. It will make sure that we have every Australian counted, whether they are present here and able to turn up to a polling booth, whether they are doing an early vote—a prepoll, a declaration or a postal vote—or whether they are sitting in London or in other centres across the world where they're perhaps not able to go and visit an embassy. I'm really pleased that that mechanism has been delivered.

So we will be supporting this package today. Labor support these bills because we support effective, efficient and fair elections, and this legislation will help the AEC deliver for our community so that every Australian has their say.

Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] The Electoral Legislation Amendment (Counting, Scrutiny and Operational Efficiencies) Bill 2021 and related bills will make considerable changes to our electoral laws. These changes come as a result of the recommendations of the government-majority Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters in its 2019 report on the federal election. It's really concerning that the government has decided to push these bills through at a time when the lower house is sitting with absolutely minimal numbers—a time when there will be minimal scrutiny of these major changes to our electoral laws.

As I sit here listening to speakers from both sides of the House, and in particular Labor speakers, I feel just how opportunistic it is that we hear them, one after the other, speak about the importance of democracy and about upholding democracy and scrutiny. The only time we ever hear that strong bipartisan support is when the major parties are, ultimately, desperately trying to hold on to our two-major-party system of politics. That is definitely when they come together to really ensure that they maintain their monopoly and their status. We know that from election to election the primary vote for major parties continues to decrease. The cynic in me would say that this is an attempt to address this by cutting off competition.

These bills go to the very foundations of our democracy—our right to vote and to politically organise—and they should not be pushed through under the cover of COVID-19, particularly the party registration integrity bill. This bill amends the registration eligibility requirements for a federal non-parliamentary party—that is, someone who has not already had someone elected. The amendment bill will increase the minimum membership requirements for registration from 500 to 1,500 unique members. If the bill passes, parties will have just three months to demonstrate that they have 1,500 members. Of course, it's easy for the major parties to be happy with this proposal. They don't have to worry. It's not going to challenge them. What it will do is get rid of competition, get rid of challenge. No matter what the ideological basis is, that is ultimately what this will do.

The bills also amend prohibitions regarding registering names, abbreviations and logos. For example, if a party replicates the name, abbreviation or logo of an already registered name without consent, that will be a contravention of this legislation, and the Electoral Commission will refuse registration. Unique membership is the one that I really think has garnered more attention. By moving from minimum membership of 500 to 1,500, you're impeding individuals' right to politically organise; that's what you're really doing. This will decrease participation in our parliamentary democracy by increasing barriers to entry. I'm particularly concerned that this change will make it difficult for parties in smaller states and territories to organise and form a party.

Take the example of Kim Rubenstein in the ACT. She's an acclaimed constitutional lawyer and advocate for women's rights. She is the exact type of person that we need in parliament, and I'm pleased to see her announcement last week that she's running for the Senate seat in the ACT. She wants to challenge the duopoly of the major parties, who both assume that each of them will take one seat. What a comfortable arrangement that is. In her efforts to be on an equal footing with the parties, she's looking to form a party to ensure she can be above the line, but potential signatories are limited because it's a smaller jurisdiction. That job of gaining equality with the major parties will now be made that much harder by the introduction of this party registrations bill.

I don't hear the members of the opposition, of Labor, talking about those aspects. It's always very convenient to talk about the importance of upholding democracy and improving our democratic system, but only when it also is convenient to them. In the House of Representatives, for individuals focused on a particular electorate only, rather than a broader support base across a state or even the nation, if they want to form a party and benefit from the advantages that would bring, this amendment makes it that much harder. Essentially, if we're saying that a party can only be a party if it's aiming at national representation, you take away that opportunity for more regionally based party systems. It's alarming that the parliament and the government is choosing to crack down in this way. I can only describe it as a naked attempt to consolidate power for the major parties, and Labor is only talking up the virtues of it being 'such a bipartisan approach' because it will also benefit them. In effect, these bills reduce political competition. Anyone who believes in a strong crossbench in either chamber should be [inaudible] about these changes. I have no doubt this is an attempt to muzzle the influence of minor parties and the crossbench. It's an unduly restrictive change and it should be opposed.

In relation to the names, it's again an attempt to reduce political competition and neutralise new threats. I don't believe in the ideologies of parties like the New Liberals or the Liberal Democrats, but I do believe in competition. In response to this perceived threat to government members from these parties, there is now an idea that you can monopolise the word 'liberal'. They don't own the liberal concept. The government and the Liberal Party do not own the liberal concept, just like the concept of 'democrat'. It is equivalent to giving political entities intellectual property rights over words. That is a minefield for potential legal challenges. There will be extensive disagreement of what each word means and if they are linked to another registered entity. The word 'liberal' means something very different in different countries around the world and in different contexts. This amendment is, I would argue, an entirely antiliberal push, and by 'liberal' I mean small-l liberal, liberalism being a political and moral philosophy based on liberty, consent of the governed and equality before the law. These changers are antiliberal, anticompetitive and antidemocratic.

Regarding the political campaigners bill, this bill will lower the expenditure threshold for political campaigners from $500,000 to $100,000. This is, again, an attempt to control smaller actors by forcing them to jump through bureaucratic hoops. It will increase the barriers to participate in the federal election for many individuals and organisations. It will particularly affect charities and smaller NGOs, exactly the kinds of actors who are central to a functioning and healthy democracy and to challenging the views and the spin that is churned out at election time by the major parties.

The government is pursuing these antidemocratic laws whilst ignoring the reforms that actually could have a positive effect on our political discourse. What we really need to be doing is tightening up truth in political advertising rules. Major parties shamelessly weaponise mistruths and lies to win elections. We saw it with the death tax campaign in 2019, and we saw it with the 'Mediscare' campaign in 2016. The community is fed up with it. According to polling by the Australia Institute, 87 per cent of people support truth in political advertising laws. Where is that legislation? Where is that legislation introduced? Nowhere. That's why I will be introducing a private members' bill to introduce truth in political advertising. Just one in four Australians have confidence in their political representatives. By 2025, if the trend continues, only 10 per cent of the public will trust politicians. We must reverse this trend. It's not a big ask. Managing truth in advertising is not unusual. There is corporations law that prevents misleading and deceptive advertising by businesses, and there are enforcement bodies in place to keep an eye on it.

There's no law or body to stop politicians or third parties from lying about a candidate or their opponent during an election campaign. That is outrageous. This year we have seen a number of examples of misleading and deceptive advertising, including from members of parliament and from political parties without current representation in the Australian parliament. We can look to other jurisdictions for successful examples. Truth-in-advertising laws have been in place in South Australia for over 20 years. They were adopted in the ACT last year. We can and should progress this reform, and I look forward to having a debate on the bill to be introduced by me as a private members' bill later in the year.

Overall I'm concerned these changes ultimately undermine our democracy. Minor parties, charities and NGOs are essential at maintaining a healthy democracy, and they bring different elements of discourse, different priorities and scrutiny. Who else will hold the major parties to account, if not them? These bills are a shameless attempt to consolidate power and should be rejected. If the government is serious about electoral reform, it must consider meaningful reforms like tidying up political advertising and donation laws. Only then will our public regain, again, some hope of trust in politics and politicians.

Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Western Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] It is good to be joining you here from my cave in Western Australia! I'm speaking on behalf of the Croods of WA, the 2.7 million people who the Prime Minister continues to insult and attack. Our cave has all the modern conveniences, including an internet link to the federal parliament. Elections should be about raising the standard. Instead, the Prime Minister uses cartoon analogies to speak down to voters and to lower the standard.

The Electoral Legislation Amendment (Counting, Scrutiny and Operational Efficiencies) Bill 2021 and associated bills are about democracy. Democracy is a value we make every new Australian citizen affirm their belief in. Democracy means that politicians can say whatever they want but are held accountable at election time. So, when the Prime Minister says that Western Australians are 'cave people', we will hold him to account for that. When the member for Pearce says he agrees with Clive Palmer rather than with the people of Western Australia, we will hold him to account for that. When Liberal backbenchers roll out this standard line that's clearly in their talking points, that Western Australia is 'a hermit kingdom', we will hold them accountable for that, too.

It might be worth the Prime Minister watching The Flintstones. Bamm-Bamm, in The Flintstones, had a baseball bat. So, too, do Western Australian voters. The fact that not one Liberal politician dared speak against the Prime Minister's insult, not one of the 16 Liberal members from Western Australia, shows how gutless they are. Silence. Weak. What happened to the party of free speech? It's just another attack day on day from this Prime Minister, who has failed in the jobs he was given—failed on vaccines, failed on quarantine.

When it comes to the main bill, Labor supports the bill and the changes that it makes to our electoral system. It's important; improving our democracy always is. We must constantly improve our democracy. But we can't fool ourselves that democracy is certain or stable; events this year in the United States, Myanmar and Afghanistan have reminded us it can be very blunt, in very brutal ways. Currently in Australia some 17 million Australians are registered to vote. The AEC estimates that 96.2 per cent of eligible Australians are enrolled to vote. Democracy is important, and Australians know it. It's important not just for those who can vote but for all 25 million Australians who live here.

Democracy is important to me. I remember handing out cards with my parents at Bicton Primary School in the 1990s for the local member for Fremantle, Carmen Lawrence, and for Prime Minister Paul Keating. I have spent most of my life—as has the member for Franklin, sitting at the table—in the business of democracy building and democratic participation. It has highs and it has lows, but you always need to respect the rules.

These bills are about the integrity of our democracy. Increasing the membership requirements of registered parties from 500 to 1,500 members will increase integrity. In Western Australia we recently saw the perverse electoral results that occur when political parties with very few members manage to harvest preferences. It resulted in the Daylight Savings Party electing a member to the Western Australian parliament with just 98 votes. By strengthening membership requirements, parties will require a genuine base of community support. That's what members want when they join a political party: a genuine democratic party, not one that hides their constitutional platform.

I'm a proud member of the Australian Labor Party, the most open and democratic party in Australia. Our platform and our constitution are publicly available. Our conferences are open. We don't hide from the media like the Greens political party do. We make sure that we see being an open democratic party as part of educating the people of Australia about democracy. This bill kind of does half the job. We also need to increase voter education and reduce voter confusion. Reducing the similarities between the names of political parties will help to ensure voters' intentions are accurately captured. We've heard the stories about novelty names making improvements to electoral outcomes, the claims that adding words like 'marijuana' or 'sex' can deliver as much as an extra two per cent to the vote. That's is democracy. But having microparties using counterfeit names and false branding is wrong. No party should be proud of electing people as a result of trying to fool voters.

I believe that we also need to do more on voter education. We have unacceptably high unenrolment and we have unacceptable results when it comes to informal voting. We know that we have unacceptably high unenrolment when it comes to Indigenous communities and amongst younger Australians. That's why I support the member for Scullin's amendment. It is unacceptable that the Northern Territory's enrolment rate lags behind the rest of the country, with only 85.6 per cent of eligible electors enrolled to vote. Unenrolment in the north of Western Australia is also unacceptable. In Western Australia we just have 67.6 per cent of Indigenous voters enrolled to vote, the worst Indigenous enrolment anywhere in the country. That's 22,087 Aboriginal Western Australians with no voice. It's gerrymander; it's undemocratic. The electorate of Durack has an enrolment of less than 80 per cent, along with Lingiari, the lowest in the nation. It's another gap we must urgently close.

The opposition amendment also calls on the government to close the gap by providing more resources to the Electoral Commission so that people living in disadvantaged and remote and regional communities can exercise their democratic rights. This problem also extends to WA mining and resource projects. With just 12 days of prepoll, those on longer swings of more than four weeks on remote worksites, where they may not have regular mail deliveries, risk not having their voice not heard. I've been a longstanding advocate to the Electoral Commission saying they need to do more remote polling at remote mining sites where we have hundreds of workers who deserve to have their vote heard. One of the challenges that the Election Commission, election on election, has failed to solve has been Barrow Island, where long swings combined with no remote voting has left voters without a voice in elections.

We sadly also have too many informal votes—voices wasted. We need to do more about reducing informal voting. One of the areas where I know we need to do something about reducing informal voting is the confusion that's caused by local governments and, indeed, local governments here in Western Australia using imperfect and inaccurate systems of voting. Where local governments advocate for people to tick or just number a 1 or use first-past-the-post voting, it leads to informal voting at other levels of government, including the federal government. I call on local governments to stop using these 19th century forms of voting, because it doesn't do anything for our democracy at large.

The more consistent we can make voting for Australians across the levels of government the better for our democracy in the long-term. I've been lucky to see democracy in action all over Australia and I've always believed that we can do more to strengthen our democracy in the parliament, in our electoral systems and in our political parties. I was proud to work with Kevin Rudd when we introduced reforms to democracy in the Australian Labor Party, for the first time giving party members a say in who leads their party. These rules have been adopted by Labor Party branches across the country, including here in Western Australia. It leads to more vibrant and democratic political parties and it means that members have more say.

But, when it comes to vibrant democracies, when it comes to actually listening to the people of Australia and their views expressed at elections, I find it interesting that the assistant minister who introduced these bills spoke at length about the importance of electoral integrity. But this seems completely inconsistent with his position on the unnecessary Roe 8 road. At the last two state elections, Western Australians have overwhelmingly rejected the Liberal Party's Roe 8 proposal, yet the member for Tangney continues to push for an old 2000 Colin Barnett project. He's got $1.2 billion locked up—

Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I call the member for Tangney, on a point of order.

Ben Morton (Tangney, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister and Cabinet) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The contribution is hardly relevant to the bills before the House, and I ask you to draw the member back to the bills before us.

Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Perth, I bring you back to the bills.

Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Western Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. I was just saying that it's important that we respect democratic mandates and that, if we're looking to improve our democracy and make sure that we have integrity in our political parties, we also need to listen to the voices of the states and decisions that voters make at a state level, including the message they very clearly sent about the $1.2 billion locked up in the budget—taxpayer money held hostage for the member for Tangney. But he's asked me to move on, so I will.

These bills are about increasing integrity in our electoral system, but they have nothing to do with one of the most important integrity issues in our electoral system: political donations. One of the many important reforms introduced by the Hawke Labor government was to bring transparency into political donations. That bill was introduced by the Special Minister of State, now the Governor of Western Australia, Kim Beazley. Since 1983 we've seen the details of many political donations made in Australia. The vast majority of political funding in Australia comes from private donations. But let's look at the big donations. It was in 2010 that the Greens political party accepted the then biggest ever single political donation in Australian political history. The Greens political party accepted a single $1.6 million cheque, and what happened? At the next election, the member for Melbourne became the first of the Greens elected to the House of Representatives, off the back of a $1.6 million donation to the Greens political party. We then saw the then leader of the Liberal Party, the then Prime Minister, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull—never one who likes to be outdone—choosing to dig into his own wallet with a $1.75 million donation.

Then we get to the 2019 election campaign and along comes the biggest political donor of all, Clive Palmer, chipping in some $89 million into his own election campaign. We know the help that was provided by Clive Palmer to the government. They're sitting on the government benches today in part because of the contributions that Clive Palmer made to that election in 2019. We saw them pay that back in a pretty ridiculous and radical way when the Prime Minister decided, along with the member for Pearce, to back Clive Palmer in the High Court. They take direct donations as well from Mr Palmer. We know that Mr Palmer donated $75,000 directly to the National Party. That was revealed earlier this year. When it comes to confidence in our democracy, which these bills seek to address, there's no doubt that Clive Palmer has done a lot of damage to confidence in our democracy. We had his $89 million ego trip, but you used to be able to say that at least Clive Palmer was upfront about it. He always put his name to everything he did, but now he won't even do that. Now he's going to hide his involvement from Australians, trying to sneak his way back into politics.

In June the Australian Electoral Commission provided public notice of the proposed name change for the Palmer party. The Clive Palmer's United Australia Party was to become the United Australia Party. This was an attempt by Palmer to hide from Western Australia. Palmer knows that Western Australians will never forget that in the middle of a pandemic he tried to rip open WA's borders. Fortunately, Western Australians stood up to Clive Palmer, which is something that those on the government benches did not have the integrity to do. Instead, they supported him. I stood in this chamber while I was heckled by members of the WA Liberal Party, backing Clive Palmer, even though not only was Clive Palmer morally wrong; he was wrong in law. His case was legally unsound. Clive Palmer should not be allowed to hide. I have tried to stop him. I have written to the Electoral Commission, opposing his attempts to hide his name from the political party which he owns and funds. But, if he's going to continue to try and manipulate state and federal elections, I'll continue to fight against him.

What we've got now is, not only does Clive Palmer have a strong supporter in the Lodge—we have the so-called modern Liberals, and now we have the Palmer Liberals. Craig Kelly is the newest recruit, having jumped out of the Liberal Party party room straight into Clive Palmer's heavily funded political machine designed to drive preferences to the Liberal Party. They drove preferences to the Liberal Party in the electorate of Perth, where they preferenced the Liberals. They drove preferences and helped elect Liberal Party senators, where they preferenced the Liberals in the Senate.

This government needs to give up on its addiction to Clive Palmer. Only then will they be serious about their commitment to democracy. (Time expired)

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today we're debating the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Counting, Scrutiny and Operational Efficiencies) Bill 2021, the first of three bills of a suite of electoral reforms. These bills, for the most part, implement some of the recommendations of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters from its recent election inquiries.

I'm relieved when bills have origins in a committee report. At least I know they've benefited from some process of evidence collection, scrutiny, analysis and consideration. It's not perfect and it's regularly politicised, as I know all too well, but it's better than legislation made on the fly simply to make a ministerial pronouncement legal or driven in response to a shadowy interest that can't be properly investigated. Committee scrutiny is even more important when parliament is asked to change the fundamentals of the most important democratic event on the calendar.

I will always closely review changes that affect people outside the tent who do not have a seat in this House and who are trying to get in. I will support these bills today, but with some reservation, and I will watch closely any amendments to the bills which occur in the Senate. I'll also have more to say when the next set of bills are debated. I met the Assistant Minister for Electoral Matters yesterday and put him on notice that I do not think this suite of electoral reforms actually goes far enough. There are some simple changes, widely supported, that could go much further to increase the transparency and integrity of our elections. The question for me is: does the government actually have the backbone to live up to the standards that we rightly demand of it and not just to legislate to overall maintain the status quo?

To me, the most concerning change in the set of bills before us today is increasing the party membership from 500 to 1,500. This ostensibly comes from recommendation 4 of the joint standing committee's 2016 report, yet this threshold is a full 500 members higher and double the increase recommended, and I ask: why is this really necessary? There is a suggestion, because states and territories have membership thresholds from 500 to 750, that 1,500 is a sensible number in a nationwide aggregate for a party that wishes to run a candidate in a federal election. But that's a very major-party-centric view from a party with national reach. Minor parties can, and do, represent one geographical area and give voice to regional issues that are lost in mainstream politics. They put a local voice front and centre in their decisions and give that voice nuance across national issues too. That's the reason why they're elected by their communities—communities who feel like they've been ignored by the major parties for decades and suffer neglect as a result. A party may have 1,000 members from one state, but that doesn't make it an any less valid voice in the national parliament.

These bills don't affect me, as an Independent politician, but that's beside the point because I actually really care about democracy. The rationale for this reform is to ensure that registered political parties are built on a genuine foundation of community support. This is a curious position from a government which has seen the Liberal Party membership plummet over the last few decades to between 50,000 to 60,000 in 2020. This is dwarfed by my mighty Richmond Football Club, which has 135,358 members, mostly in one state. How times have changed! For the size of the major parties, one asks, 'Can they still claim to have a genuine foundation of community support like the standard this bill will now apply to newcomers on the political scene?'

The beauty of minor parties is that they represent issues that may fall outside the mainstream, but which are no less valid. They give a strong voice to those who our political system silences and marginalises. One in four Australians cast a primary vote for a candidate other than a major party in the last election. Our democracy is simply not a two-sided competition, and nor should it be. Minor parties and Independents broaden our discourse beyond the zero-sum game of an adversarial opposition and government. Independents and minor parties don't see this place as purely a forum to trash the other side. Minor parties and Independents form the crossbench in the Senate and the House. From here, we shape legislation and secure amendments to bills. We push for action on climate change when the government resists meaningful action. We lead the call for an integrity commission when the government's unworkable and unamendable model has been roundly rubbished by everyone, from pillar to post, and will not be in place before the next election—that's a broken promise that the Independents and crossbench minor-party people call out for what it is.

Minor parties and Independents are indeed the conscience of this place. Increasingly, we have the brains and the brawn too. By being here, we are creating better policy and better laws. We are working with people across the aisles. Any changes that would limit the ability to get diverse voices into this place should be solidly justified and closely scrutinised, as I know they will be when they reach the other place—which is effective due to, and because of, the influence of minor parties.

Electoral reforms must be supported too by an integrity commission which can investigate and act on noncompliance. This is why we need to legislate bills such as my Australian Federal Integrity Commission Bill 2020 without delay and before the next election. That's what integrity is about. My integrity commission would have the power to investigate corrupt conduct, which includes election bribery, election funding offences and election fraud—including breaches of lobbying codes of conduct or existing electoral funding laws. AFIC would also require the government to create a whole-of-government national integrity plan which would focus on preventing corruption in high-risk settings, including elections. The case is clear and the need is pressing. We need a robust integrity commission now; we need it for electoral reform, as much as anything.

I will support these bills, but I put this challenge to the government: go the next step and leave us with a real legacy of electoral reform to donations and election spending which will, ultimately and importantly—more importantly than anything we're seeing today—truly strengthen our democracy.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Counting, Scrutiny and Operational Efficiencies) Bill 2021 and related bills.

Firstly, I'm pleased to see that the prepoll time has been reduced to 12 days, although I would personally like to see it reduced to even slightly less than that. In recent elections we have seen many Australians voting well out from election day—a long time out before the election day—when policies of the parties are still being announced. I think that's a threat to open, fair and free elections. I'm also disappointed that there have been no requirements in these amendments for people to show ID before they vote. I think that is an important integrity measure that has been overlooked. I find with great surprise that those who are most vocal about the need for people to show some type of vaccine passport or health papers to go to the pub or to cross a state border are the ones who are most vocal against simply showing a form of ID before you vote.

However, I am greatly concerned with the specific bill dealing with the party register integrity measure, the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Party Registration Integrity) Bill 2021. This bill increases from 500 to 1,500 the number of party members a party needs to have to be recognised at an election. Now is not the time in our nation's history to try and narrow the field, to reduce the competition, to make it more difficult for independent and alternate voices to have their say. Now is not the time for a concentration of power between the minor parties—which this legislation will bring about. You just need to have a look at what is happening around our nation at the moment to realise that this is not the time to limit the voices of independents.

I no longer recognise the country that I grew up in. I look out and I see endless lockdowns across the nation. I see the greatest assault on our small business community since Federation. How is a small business person meant to survive when they are ordered out of their business by government for months but yet they are left with obligations for rent, and for which they may have personal guarantees signed for and underwritten by their own family home? That is the assault that we are perpetrating on small business. We are seeing the emergence of a police state, I saw scenes last weekend that I thought I would never, ever see in my country. We saw Victorian police pointing firearms at unarmed citizens and firing projectiles at high velocity at close range. This is not Australia. This is what you would expect in some Third World nation in South America where the police force was out of control. I've seen our police in Victoria arrest and handcuff pregnant mothers in front of their children in their own home. And their offence? For posting a protest on Facebook against the government. And against this background we want to restrict and make it more difficult for individuals and alternate voices to come to this place and have their say?

What about the censorship that is going on? We have got AHPRA, a health regulator, clamping down on any doctor or nurse that has an alternate opinion. There are many of them that have an alternate opinion to what our health bureaucrats are saying, but they are silenced and censored with a threat of losing their licence.

Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member will return to the bills before the House.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker, it is important to understand what is happening in our country in order to understand the reasons why these bills should be rejected. It is because of the concentration of power that is going on in our nation. We even see in this parliament the trashing of the principles of the Bill of Rights 1688. For four centuries, this parliament has had a tradition, as have all Westminster parliaments around the world, that the proceedings and debates of this parliament should not be questioned or impeached by anyone. Yet last week the member for Dawson gave a speech, which he posted to his Facebook page, through the official links on the Australian parliamentary website, and he had to actually censor the words that were said on the floor of this parliament in order to comply with the regulations of a tech giant. When what is said on the floor of this parliament is censored, we have a serious problem. That is why it is so wrong to reduce the number of and make it difficult for independent voices in this country. We also now have a net Commonwealth debt of over one trillion dollars. That is a million millions. Both the Labor Party and the Liberal Party have run up a debt of a trillion dollars. When I first came to this place, we were concerned that the debt had been over $100 billion. A $100 billion debt had been run up, and we expressed our concern that that was leaving a debt for future generations of Australians. Both parties have run that up to a trillion dollars while I've been in this place. And we bring a bill before parliament to limit independent voices and give more concentration of power to the major parties. How does this make any sense?

I've also seen in this parliament the freedoms that were once the birthright of every single Australian and the freedoms that were the contract we made with those migrants that decided to become Australian citizens and took an oath of citizenship. They were freedoms that were underwritten by being Australian. But we are seeing those freedoms suspended, not by the parliament but by unelected health bureaucrats, with the vague promise that those freedoms that have been stolen will only be returned to us, at some time in the future, if we submit to some mandatory vaccination program.

This is not the time to narrow the power in this place by concentrating the power in the major parties. That's what this does. We need more independent voices. I strongly disagree with the member for Indi on many things. I strongly disagree with the member for Warringah on many things. But we sit here and we argue it out with each other, and that, I believe, makes our democracy a stronger place. Anything that weakens the opportunity for independent and alternative voices makes our democracy weaker, and that's what the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Party Registration Integrity) Bill 2021, the second of these three bills, does, and I cannot support it. I foreshadow that, during the consideration in detail stage, I will be moving an amendment to reduce the threshold back to 1,000 members—rather than it being increased from 500 to 1,500.

We need independent voices. We need alternative opinions. We do not need more power in the hands of both major parties. I therefore oppose, and I will vote against, the second bill in this cognate debate. But I will support the other two bills and, as I said, I will be moving an amendment to that second bill.

Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the amendments moved by Mr Giles be disagreed to.

Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will be supporting the legislation and making some other comments, as my comrade from the Northern Territory, the member for Lingiari, has done. There are things that we need to continue to bring to the notice of this House and its members when it comes to the AEC's performance and the effect that is having on democracy in our Northern Territory. I do want to support the elements of this bill that were articulated extremely well by you, if I can say so, Deputy Speaker. The member for Oxley pointed out that the changes in the legislation, when it comes to the naming of parties or the increase to the number of people that are required in parties before they're taken seriously, are good changes, as is the 12 days of pre-polling. I support those elements, and there's no need for me to go over that ground again. There are other elements of the AEC's performance and this legislation that I want to bring to the House's attention.

I also want to emphasise the importance of the role of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters and the work that it does. It's incredibly important. As the member for Indi and many others have said, we're all here because we believe very much in democracy, so I thank that committee for its important work.

However, I do also need to bring to the House's attention the contribution from the member for Perth and, in particular, the comment that he made about Clive Palmer being supported by the WA Libs. I'm not saying that every member of the WA Liberal Party in this place needs their head read, but a lot of what I've heard from them over the last couple of days makes me incredibly disappointed. Yesterday, a member of that political organisation from the west tried to politicise paedophilia and claim that those on this side were not for the kids but for the paedophiles. It's just disgusting, and it's unbecoming of people in this place. They had best leave. They had best resign. If they're not going to uphold the high standards of integrity that should be demanded of people in this place then they should resign.

They should likewise resign if they are going to mislead the media as part of a protection racket to make excuses for those whose incompetence or worse led to our interpreters from Afghanistan being left at the airport and not allowed to get onto flights. Members of the WA Liberals, veterans themselves, say that that's not happening. They say that every combat interpreter has been able to get onto a plane. They're the people from that organisation who, instead of backing the WA people, backed a bloke like Clive Palmer. Wake up to yourselves! It's noted.

To return to the bill, the government's proposed changes to the Electoral Act have many glaring omissions. Members would remember me highlighting the unconscionable behaviour of those opposite, the federal government, in relation to the AEC office in the Northern Territory. The AEC office in the Northern Territory had 15 employees, and part of the job of that group of Australian public servants was to go out into the communities of the Northern Territory—where, as all honourable members know, we've got the lowest enrolment in the country by far—and do electoral education and enrolment. There were 15 employees in total in that team, which was going out into the communities in the Northern Territory, signing people up to the roll and educating them about the electoral process and how to have their voices heard—voices which have been largely ignored by those opposite forever.

The government cut the staffing of the Australian Electoral Commission office from 15 employees to three. They moved the team that does the electoral education and enrolment in the Northern Territory—a big place, bigger than Texas—to Brisbane. They said, 'No, they can do that job from over there.' Even before COVID, how was a team of people in Brisbane going to enrol people in the remote communities in the Northern Territory and educate them about our electoral process—about our democracy? How was that going to happen? It was another deliberate attempt by those opposite, the coalition federal government, to deliberately disenfranchise the First Nations voters in this country more broadly and in the Northern Territory specifically. The member for Lingiari well pointed that out, and the evidence shows that that is exactly what is occurring.

As the member for Lingiari pointed out, it took until 1962 to give First Nations people the right to vote. But, as we've seen from the actions of those opposite, they're not happy with that. They want as few people as possible in the Northern Territory, particularly in the seat of Lingiari but also in my seat of Solomon, to be enrolled. They're making it as hard as they possibly can. The member for Hughes mentioned the need for ID. A lot of First Nations people don't have identification, but when they do have identification—because they're involved in government services such as Medicare, or Centrelink if there's no work—then there's direct enrolment which connects that First Nations person, through direct enrolment, to the ability to vote. But the coalition—which the member for Hughes was part of until very recently—have deliberately, through the AEC, started to stop that from happening, again deliberately disenfranchising First Nations people. And, in a second, I'll tell you exactly why they're doing that. In several substantial ways, the AEC is using its discretion, prompted by the federal government and those opposite, to prevent enrolment and voting by First Nations people. As a result, in 2021, we have an effective gerrymander against First Nations people as the member for Lingiari said, , and also voter suppression of First Nations people. That's disgraceful, isn't it? It's Australia in 2021! But that's what this tired eight-year-old government is trying to do to win federal seats, to win NT seats and to win local government seats.

We know that the government has failed to sufficiently close many gaps. Three out of 17 Closing the Gap targets are on track, we heard recently in this place. But the government is also willing to not close the gap, and is actively working towards not closing the gap, with regard to First Nations voting opportunities—that is, participation in our democracy. And the government is, obviously, doing this because it sees an electoral advantage for itself. We saw it in the NT elections last year. In several of the electorates in the Northern Territory at the NT election last year, the result came down to a handful of votes. Do you know what happens when you've got the lowest enrolment of First Nations people in the country—disgustingly low rates? You win by a handful of votes instead of losing by a handful of votes. So the deliberate attempts of those opposite, through the Australian Electoral Commission, are achieving the outcome of deliberately disenfranchising First Nations people, and they're just picking up seats where they wouldn't normally if the First Nations people had a vote.

We're coming up to a by-election in the Northern Territory in a place called Daly. I won't get into politicking around who's a better candidate; I know them both. I think what the people of that electorate deserve is the best possible candidate that the majority of the people in that seat think will represent them well. We've got some big Aboriginal communities in that electorate, and we've got some big non-Aboriginal communities in that electorate. And we know that, because of deliberate—and successful—attempts to disenfranchise the First Nations vote, the voter turnout will be a lot higher in the non-Aboriginal areas. So let's see the outcome of that election. We hope that every single eligible voter in that electoral area has a vote, because the person representing them in the NT parliament should have the confidence of all the people who are eligible to vote in that electoral area. Let's see what the results are. But we know that there are about 50,000 people in the Northern Territory who aren't enrolled to vote. I don't know what that team in Brisbane are doing, but they're not effectively getting people on the roll in the Northern Territory.

As the member for Lingiari said, the AEC is cooperating with the government to suppress that First Nations vote, and, in the process, it is discriminating against them in a way that may very likely break federal laws. That's one of the reasons why some Territorians have made complaints to the Human Rights Commission, and we hope that their complaints are taken seriously. I congratulate those Territorians for taking that step and giving voice to their concerns.

If the AEC were prepared to stop discriminating and just get on with direct enrolment, which facilitates eligible Territorians being enrolled and able to vote, then we would be doing a lot better. It would be very quick and easy to correct the huge electoral injustice that has now been going on for almost a decade. It's imperative that these complaints, that've been made regarding this AEC policy about direct enrolment and update inactions, are resolved well prior to the upcoming federal election, because Territorians—no matter whether they're First Nations or non-Indigenous—deserve an electoral voice and a voice that is not suppressed by this government, those opposite and their accomplices.

First Nations people will be able to work with us to close all these gaps so that they can join in determining their own futures. I think what you'll find is when that respect of being an Australian citizen is honoured by making sure that they've got the ability to have a voice we will see all sorts of gaps starting to close, because we will be doing things, as the government likes to say, with Aboriginal people rather than to Aboriginal people.

These Electoral Act changes that're needed need to happen right now, because these oversights—in large parts of Australia, including my electorate of Solomon—see large amounts of First Nations people underenrolled, and it's simply not good enough. The existing Electoral Act does not sufficiently provide machinery that could not be rigged by bureaucrats, who conveniently back the government that appoints them. It is a serious issue. These loopholes that the AEC, with the support of the federal government, continue to exploit need to be fixed. We clearly must expect a lot better out of the AEC.

I want to thank the shadow special minister for state, Senator Don Farrell, and encourage the work that he's doing to assist the AEC to get back on the path to honour direct enrolment for First Nations Australians.

Ben Morton (Tangney, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister and Cabinet) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ordinarily I would thank those in the chamber who have contributed to this debate, and, of course, I do that overall. But I do want to reflect on some of the comments that've made against the Australian Electoral Commission and the hard-working members of the Australian Electoral Commission, and ask that members of this House do reflect on their words used in this chamber when talking about hardworking members of the Australian Public Service that serve the Australian people appropriately, as they should. I do thank those opposite for their support. I thank the member for Indi for her support for these bills. I acknowledge that she has put me on notice in relation to matters that are important to her moving forward.

These bills have come about as a result of the hard work of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. I thank them for their consideration of electoral laws and practices. The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 is one of the oldest pieces of legislation in Australia and it requires continual review to harmonise electoral law and administration of the evolving environment. The reforms in these bills are important and are necessary to modernise Australia's electoral system and strengthen the integrity of our electoral framework. They will benefit the Australian voting public through enhanced service delivery and enhanced voter confidence in election processes.

The bills recognise the changing electoral environment and safeguard Australia's electoral system by responding to public expectations regarding access to prepoll and postal voting; modernising the Electoral Act to provide the AEC with flexibility on how it delivers elections; providing the AEC with the ability to commence the opening and sorting, but not counting, of prepoll and postal votes prior to the close of polls on election day; supporting the AEC to deliver a timely election outcome while maintaining electoral integrity; enhancing party registration requirements to ensure that parties are built on a genuine foundation of community support; mitigating the risk of voter confusion in an election due to political parties being registered or continuing to be registered with very similar names; providing additional options for the AEC to combat and prevent the rare instances of multiple voting in Australia; and ensuring that voters can participate in the electoral process free from harassment and intimidation, while strengthening our electoral system's defence against instances of multiple voting. Not only will these reforms assist the AEC to deliver effective and timely electoral events; they will promote public confidence in the democratic process and the resulting outcomes of electoral events.

The Australian electoral roll is in the greatest shape it has ever been in, largely due to the ongoing efforts of the AEC and its hardworking staff. We have the best roll since Federation. Every area of the roll has increased, including for Indigenous Australians. It is therefore odd, against this backdrop, to see such criticism raised by some participants, particularly in the way they have done so. It is incredibly important that Australians from remote and Indigenous communities can exercise their franchise. Electoral participation is of vital importance.

The issue of Indigenous underenrolment is not new but rather an enduring challenge. Improving electoral participation among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people has been a long-term focus for the AEC and our Indigenous Electoral Participation Program. The AEC is working to build engagement with the electoral processes and enrolment of Indigenous Australians. This includes through partnerships with organisations already operating in Indigenous communities, the extension of the AEC's digital footprint into more remote areas, locally targeted activities, and building on the success of the FDEU program. This change in strategy is directly attributable to the increases that I am about to outline.

It is important that what hasn't been noted is that the government announced in the 2020-21 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook a further $5.6 million to expand the AEC's presence in the Northern Territory to ensure that we can enhance electoral enrolment and participation, particularly for Indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory. While the enrolment rate among Indigenous Australians still needs improvement—and I accept that—the enrolment rates are increasing at a steady pace, and in some jurisdictions faster than the national estimate. The estimated Indigenous enrolment rate has been increasing year on year, with an encouraging, positive trend, increasing in the years 2018-19 to 2019-20. The latest estimate of the Indigenous enrolment rate as at 30 June 2021 is in the final stages of analysis, and early indications are that Indigenous enrolment continues to rise, as has been the case for the last few years since the AEC changed its strategy to focus on partnerships. Early analysis also shows the Indigenous roll continues to rise at a faster rate than the non-Indigenous roll.

The current strategies implemented by the AEC and their staff over the last few years are working. Where they need to do more, they will have my support, they will have this parliament's support, they will have the support of the shadow minister for electoral matters and they will have the support of all Australians. We should support the AEC in this important work. We should support them and encourage them to do more and not call into question their motivations. Once again, I thank my colleagues for their contribution and I commend this bill.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Scullin has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the amendment be disagreed to.

Question agreed to.

Original question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.