Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It has been said that Australia is a nation that was founded through the ballot box. Indeed, this country has a fine democratic tradition marked by an exemplary record of developing and maintaining democratic institutions and of ensuring the integrity of the electoral system that underpins them. If you look into our past, you will see the constant evolution of the franchise—a constant quest to ensure that every Australian has a vote to cast. By the late 19th century we saw that all enrolled adult males were allowed to vote. By the early 20th century the franchise was extended to women and Australia was leading the world with democratic reform. By 1962 we had a franchise that truly extended to all Australians, with the rightful removal of the shameful preclusion of Aboriginal Australians from voting. In 1973, we cut the qualifying age for enrolment and voting from 21 years to 18 years. Those moves form part of the fine democratic history that we own as a nation. That history also extends to the independence, fairness and rigour of our electoral system.

As Professor Marian Sawer has noted, along with other prominent academics:

Australia has long been a source of best practice in terms of non-partisan professionalism in electoral governance.

This proud history will be slighted by the bill before this chamber. The purpose of the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2006 is to put in place the government’s reform measures for our electoral system. Those measures were championed by the former Special Minister of State, Senator Eric Abetz, and comprise his narrow vision for our democratic society. In basic terms, under these changes that vision translates to making it harder to vote but easier to donate to political parties. That is some vision for Australia’s future!

I was fortunate to be a member of the Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee inquiry into this bill. I had the privilege of reading the many submissions from eminent experts on our electoral system, political disclosure and civil liberties. The conclusion I drew from this inquiry and its hearings was clear: this bill does a disservice to Australia’s international reputation as a champion of democracy and enfranchisement. It does a disservice to our quest for transparency and openness in the political process, particularly as it relates to the disclosure of political donations. It is a bill built on flimsy premises; it is poorly justified and devised with partisan intent.

The Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2006 amends aspects of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 and the Referendum Machinery Provisions Act 1984. In particular, it deals with the closure of electoral rolls, the disclosure of political donations, disclosure requirements in non-election periods for third parties, prisoner voting rights, proof of identity requirements for enrolment and provisional voting, access to and the use of the electoral roll, deregistering and reregistering political parties, the deposits required for candidate nominations at elections, the definition of an associated entity, the abandonment of requirements for broadcasters and publishers to provide returns, paid electoral advertising on the internet, the location of Australian Electoral Commission divisional offices, and the AEC’s powers to demand information. In addition to those amendments to the electoral and referendum acts, this bill also amends the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to increase the tax deductibility of political donations. If some of those areas sound familiar to senators, they should. Many of the changes proposed in this bill have been knocked back by this chamber in the past.

I will now address the major concerns that I have about this bill’s core intentions and its likely effect. Chief among those concerns is the changes it proposes for disclosure requirements, making it easier and less transparent to plough dollars into our political parties. This bill proposes increasing the threshold for disclosing donations to political parties from its current level of $1,500 to a whopping $10,000. From the point of this increase, that amount will be indexed to CPI and will continue to increase at the rate of inflation. The substantive argument advanced in favour of this change is that the original figure had been devalued by inflation, but the government’s argument is spurious. It says that the sensible and logical way to do so would be to apply the rate of inflation to the original amount and calculate the new disclosure threshold on that basis. But does $10,000 at today’s value equal $1,000 or $1,500 in 1983? No. As one submission to the Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee inquiry into the bill argued, according to ABS time series data that amount is worth $3,404 in today’s money—nowhere near $10,000.

The former Special Minister of State, Senator Eric Abetz, suggested:

The arguments in favour of lifting this threshold are clear and unassailable.

He went on to say:

Put simply, this threshold has at a minimum been eroded by inflation, and was much too low when originally set. It adds nothing to Australia’s democracy other than unnecessary red tape.

I could not agree less with the sentiments Senator Abetz expressed in this speech to the Sydney Institute in October last year. However, between the arguments he advanced in this speech there was a grain of truth. Although appearing as a somewhat innocuous paragraph in the middle of a flimsy tirade on the need for an increase to disclosure thresholds, Senator Abetz said:

... when it is known which political party individuals or organizations, particularly small businesses have donated to, anecdotal evidence suggests that they are subject to pressure and intimidation.

To me, it is clear what Senator Abetz was saying. It need not take a paragraph for him to say it. He was saying that the moves in this bill will make it easier to donate in secret. The result is that these moves will make it easier for political parties to fundraise in secret, because no-one will know if you have kicked the company can for $10,000; you will be promised secrecy, whereas transparency exists at the moment. While the story of the development of the secret ballot in this country is a great one, the tale of the development of the secret donation is a sorry one indeed.

Unlike Senator Abetz, I believe the disclosure of political donations does a lot for our democracy. It demonstrates the transparency and independence of the system we use to produce our elected governments. We all have the right to know who is donating to whom and how much they are giving. In fact, beginning disclosure at a relatively low level is a real and effective counter to perceptions of influence being bought or traded for political donations. In short, it is in all our interests to have it.

Some submissions to the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee’s inquiry went so far as to highlight flaws in the current system that would be exacerbated through these changes. Joo-Cheong Tham, from the University of Melbourne Law School, highlighted an existing flaw within the disclosure system. Under current provisions, disclosure thresholds apply separately to each registered political party. As Mr Tham points out, that means that each branch of the Liberal Party, or for that matter the Labor Party, is treated as a separate registered political party and has its own disclosure threshold for the purposes of the act. Mr Tham revealed that, under the current system, a company could donate $1,499 to each state and territory branch of a political party without the identity of the donor being revealed. The cumulative effect of this for a party with one branch in each state and territory and a national office would be $13,491 before disclosure is required.

Under these proposals, however, that figure would rise to $90,000—a significant amount that would only continue to increase through indexation. As Mr Tham puts it:

Increasing the disclosure threshold to more than $10,000 will create such a gap in the disclosure scheme that describing this as a ‘loophole’ seems almost laughable.

He goes on:

Having such a high threshold in practice can only mean more secret donations.

Senator Abetz and his replacement, Mr Nairn, have both supported arguments for the changes to disclosure requirements based on the practice in the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Here they cite disclosure thresholds in line with the ones they are proposing for Australia. In his speech to the Sydney Institute in October last year, Senator Abetz argued:

Neither is a $10,000 threshold too high by international standards.

In the United Kingdom, the disclosure limit is 5,000 pounds - or about $A12,000. And in New Zealand, it is $10,000 New Zealand dollars - or about $A9,350.

…         …         …

There is of course no democratic deficit asserted in those countries.

But let us look at these arguments. As Joo-Cheong Tham points out, this is:

... a weak and decontextualised argument.

While there is a crude similarity in the figures involved, that is where the comparison begins and ends. The transparent and rigorous features of the UK disclosure scheme bear no resemblance to the ones we see before us in this chamber. In the UK, unlike Australia, parties lodge quarterly returns. During election campaigns this requirement is increased to weekly. Auditors’ statements, too, are required in support of these reports. There are checks and balances to ensure transparency. None of these protections sits alongside these arbitrary proposals to raise disclosure thresholds in this country.

As we look at these proposals we get an opportunity to consider the future of Australia’s democracy under the Howard regime. We need to ask: is it a future of transparency in process, openness in policy debate and honesty and rigour in accountability processes, or will we continue to see public accountability retreat even further up the corridors of Howard government power? With these moves on the financial disclosure of political donations, we have to assume the latter. The sad fact for our democracy is that the changes this bill proposes will hide from public scrutiny the overwhelming majority of those who donate to John Howard’s government. Indeed, some estimates suggest that as many as 80 per cent of the coalition’s donors will slip from public view through these changes. Whilst it might be easier to raise funds under the cover of darkness, it is in the interests of neither the Australian people nor our democracy that donations to political parties be hidden from the public eye.

As I have said before on many occasions, disclosure as it stands is a useful check and balance on the activities of all political parties. It helps inform public debate and breaks down the velvet curtain surrounding party fundraising activities. The public has a right to know who is contributing to politicians and political parties. My message on the changes to disclosure proposed in this bill is simple: if you raise the threshold, you hide the dollar; and if you hide the dollar, transparency is lost. We should not be taking this step in this chamber. The existing threshold is appropriate and should be maintained.

Another area of this bill that causes me great concern is its moves to close the electoral rolls early. Currently, section 155 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 specifies that rolls are to close seven days after the election writ is issued. Schedule 1 of this bill reduces this period for new enrolments and re-enrolments to 8 pm on the day the writ is issued. Generally this is the day after an election is called. Similar changes will be made to the referendum act through this bill. Although there are some minor exceptions to the new roll closure provisions, the overwhelming effect is to disenfranchise a large percentage of the Australian voting public. As Dr Brian Costar pointed out in his submission to the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee inquiry, these changes have:

... the capacity to effectively disenfranchise some 300 000 people on dubious grounds.

And who are these people? They are those in our community who already have the greatest difficulty accessing decision makers; who already have a silenced voice in our democracy. As Labor has pointed out in its minority report for the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee’s inquiry, we are talking here about young Australians, Australians from non-English-speaking backgrounds, Indigenous Australians and the homeless. We know from the AEC’s own figures that in the one-week period from the writs being issued in the 2004 federal election, 423,000 Australians either enrolled or changed their enrolment details. Of these, 78,908 were new voters registering for the first time.

The arguments advanced for this change are again spurious. Best articulated once again by Senator Abetz, they represent an increased workload on the AEC as a result of the one-week grace period, leading to potential errors and fraud escaping detection. His argument is that the rolls close early in Tasmania and New South Wales and other states and territories, so why not nationally? He also argues that it was the system that was used for the first 83 years of Federation and we should return to it.

But, perhaps unsurprisingly, this is not the complete picture. As several submissions to the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee inquiry into the bill point out, the AEC has stated on many occasions that it applies its processes and procedures with the same degree of rigour during the seven-day grace period as it does on every other day of the year. In fact, until recently, the AEC has argued that cutting the grace period could result in a less accurate roll. As it stated in its submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters inquiry into the integrity of the electoral roll in 2000:

Expert opinion within the AEC is that the early close of rolls will not improve the accuracy of the rolls for an election, simply because the need for field checking or any other kind of checking will be eliminated, or because the potential for enrolment fraud has been closed off. In fact, the expectation is that the rolls for the election will be less accurate, because less time will be available for existing electors to correct their enrolments and for new enrolments to be received.

Beyond that, it is impossible to believe that an organisation that can arrange 7,700-plus polling booths and recruit 65,000-plus polling officials for a national election is going to struggle with a bit of paperwork processing. But, even if you accept the government’s argument, no matter how flimsy, would an open and transparent government seek to remove Australians’ right to vote? No, of course not. You would expect that they would properly fund and properly resource the AEC to do its job.

As for the arguments based on the early closure of the roll in New South Wales, Tasmania and other states and territories, again it is not the full picture. As Professor Marian Sawer points out:

... NSW, Victoria and the ACT all have fixed-term elections, so there is plenty of notice of an approaching election.

She goes on:

In Tasmania the Electoral Act (s. 63) requires there to be between five and ten days between the proclamation dissolving parliament and the issuing of the writs. This year it was six days. So there is a statutory period of time between the calling of the election and the closing of the roll for new voters, unlike the current federal proposal.

How do these moves compare with international trends? Sawer points out that Canada closes its roll on polling day, New Zealand the day before and in the UK rolls stay open until 11 days prior to polling day.

The third argument advanced by Senator Abetz and now Special Minister of State Mr Nairn is that it was always this way but, again, that is not quite right. Senator Abetz has argued that the seven-day grace period was introduced as part of changes made to the Electoral Act in 1984. He has even attempted to suggest that this was done to advantage Labor. But, as Emeritus Professor Colin Hughes, a former Australian Electoral Commissioner, argued in his submission to the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee inquiry into the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2005:

... the statutory period set in 1983 did no more than regularise what had previously been unchallenged practice.

…            …            …

Prior to 1983 there was always a period of some days, usually more than 7, between the announcement of polling day and the close of rolls at 6pm on the day writs were issued.

In other words, it established in law what had been the longstanding convention of our electoral system.

Having read this bill and participated in the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee inquiry into it, my view is that there is little benefit to be derived from making these changes and that, through making them, the potential exists for us to cause considerable damage to our democracy. It is almost impossible to see any rationale for this approach, other than for the advantage of the government, and we should oppose these changes accordingly.

In concluding my contribution to the debate on this bill, I would like to touch on another area that causes me concern and also puts Australia at odds with trends in other nations—that is, the area of prisoner voting. This bill would disenfranchise all people serving a custodial prison sentence in Australia, regardless of its length. Currently, prisoners serving a sentence of less than three years can vote in federal elections. As a result, following enactment of the bill, these changes will deny a vote to more than 25,000 people. As the Justice Action Group points out in its submission to the inquiry on this bill, more than half of the prisoners represented in this number are expected to serve sentences of less than two years. In other words, as the group puts it, these are ‘people who are likely to be released within a political term’.

To me, this move smacks of populist politics and flies again in the face of the rich tradition of democratic reform and strong electoral administration we enjoy in this country. As Marian Sawer argues, it is also contrary to moves being made internationally in this area. She points out that in 2002 the Canadian Supreme Court found that the disenfranchisement of prisoners under Canada’s Elections Act violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Similarly, the European Court of Human Rights found the UK’s restriction of voting rights for prisoners was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. Yet this draconian and populist path is the one we are taking today with our own electoral and referendum acts. What a disservice to a fine democratic legacy. What a short-term, blinkered, unprincipled and illogical path to take us down. (Time expired)