Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in this debate on, and particularly to direct my remarks to the report of the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee which examined the provisions of, the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2006. I was a member of that committee, along with my colleague Senator Carol Brown, and we produced a minority report. I intend to refer in some detail to that report, because it was tabled in the Senate earlier in the year without the opportunity for members of the committee to speak.

This legislation is insidious. I do not think there is any other word for it. It is an insidious piece of legislation. The very title of the legislation, referring to the words ‘electoral integrity’, is a misnomer. This legislation does nothing at all to improve the integrity of the electoral roll or the integrity of the election processes in Australia. The electoral system in Australia is regarded as one of the best in the world, if not the best in the world. It has compulsory voting. We also have the Australian Electoral Commission, which has always carried out its functions, conducting elections and maintaining the electoral roll in this country, to the absolute highest of standards. We are looked upon by other countries and other electoral commissions around the world as being world’s best practice when it comes to ensuring free and fair elections.

This legislation does nothing to improve electoral integrity; rather, its proposed changes—particularly relating to the period for the closure of the electoral rolls once an election is called and the measures in relation to financial disclosure—could well undermine the integrity of the electoral roll and the electoral process. There is potential, if these measures are carried, for the integrity of the electoral roll and the electoral system itself to be seriously undermined. I will come to that in some detail.

You have to ask yourself at the outset: why is the government putting forward this legislation? Why is it proposing to make changes which reduce the period of time available for persons to put themselves on the roll or to regularise their enrolment once an election is called? Why is the government proposing to increase, by anywhere up to 10 times, the level of financial donations below which you do not have to disclose the name of the donor? Why is it proposing to take away the right of prisoners to vote? Why is it increasing the requirements on proof of identify for persons to cast a vote on polling day? The answer is that it is doing it because it can, because it now has an absolute majority in this chamber.

I recall again the oft-quoted words of Lord Acton:

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

It is one of the features of governments run by tyrants and dictators around the world that, in order to entrench themselves in power, they change the electoral system to suit themselves. Not for one moment do I compare this government to some of those tyrants and dictators, but the measures that are being used here are clearly designed to assist the Liberal and National parties to remain office. I ask myself, ‘Why do they need to do this?’ After all, they have won the last four federal elections—three of them quite convincingly. In 1998, the Labor Party actually received a majority of the votes but did not win a majority of the seats. But that is the electoral system that we have, and we accepted the outcome, as we have accepted the outcome of every other election. That is the great thing about our democracy. However, there is no mandate for this government to implement these changes. Clearly what we have is a tired government, which has been in office for 10 years, recognising that its days are numbered, so it is starting to skew the electoral system to its own advantage.

Let me go to some of the key features of this legislation. Firstly, there is the issue of the changes to the period of time that will be allowed for people to enrol or to regularise their enrolment once an election is called. I am indebted to my colleagues who have spoken before me, and particularly Senator Hogg, who quoted extensively from our minority report. I will not quote those same passages all over again, but I will still need to quote some of them to stress the point that these changes are both unnecessary and unfair.

The first point is, as I said, that the Australian electoral system is of the highest integrity and, in relation to the electoral roll, that has been demonstrated time and time again. Report after report of the Australian Electoral Commission and the Australian National Audit Office in its report in 2001-02, entitled Integrity of the electoral roll, have confirmed it. Indeed, the Australian National Audit Office in that report—and of course we all know that the Australian National Audit Office is an independent body of the highest standards—found that the electoral roll in this country was 95 per cent accurate. That is a very high standard. Human nature being what it is, you cannot get 100 per cent accuracy. People change their addresses but do not necessarily get around to changing their enrolment details at the same time. People become eligible to put themselves on the electoral roll because either they turn 18 or they become an Australian citizen, but they may not do it straightaway. So at any one point in time there will be entries on the roll that need to be updated.

What happens is that, when an election is called, people’s minds are brought to attention that they will be voting in a few weeks time, and many Australians go and either enrol for the first time or fix up their enrolment. Under the current arrangements you have seven days in which to do that once the writs are issued. This government proposes to remove that seven-day period. The only exceptions will be for people who happen to turn 18 during the election campaign period or get citizenship during that period. They will be able to go and put themselves on the roll, but only within the first three working days after the writs are issued. Further, persons who are already on the roll will have three working days from the day the writs are issued to update their details—that is, to notify the commission about a change of address. The government has reduced it from seven days to three days, but for all other categories the rolls close the day the writs are issued.

During the inquiry, I asked both the Electoral Commissioner and the representative from the Department of Finance and Administration to give me the reasons for these changes, to demonstrate how this would improve the integrity of the electoral roll. The Electoral Commissioner said that it was not a matter for him, it was a matter of government policy. I then asked Mr Hutson, the general manager of the corporate division of the Department of Finance and Administration—and I quote from the Hansard:

If I can put it another way, is there something about a three-day cut-off that is more conducive to improving the accuracy of the roll than a seven-day cut-off?

He replied:

I am not sure, given the debate here, that I have a lot to add to the question. ... I am not sure that I am in a position to give you any rationale in detail beyond that.

The fact of the matter is that there is no evidence at all to support this proposed change. No evidence has been presented to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, which has considered this issue on previous occasions when it reports after each federal election. No evidence was put to the Senate legislation committee to support these changes. In fact, the only organisations that made submissions in support of this change were the coalition parties—the Liberal Party and the National Party—and the Festival of Light. What was the basis of their submission? Crystallising it down to a very simple proposition, because that is all it is: there is potential for fraud. The argument was put that, once an election is called, there could be hundreds of thousands of Australians surreptitiously being moved around from one address to another in order to get them all onto the roll in certain key marginal seats to affect the outcome of the election. Of course, there is no evidence that that happens. It has never happened. It is a nonsensical proposition.

One of the reasons why it could never happen is that we have a system of compulsory voting and we also have are very rigid system to check the electoral roll. This is a spurious, nonsensical proposition to try and prop up an argument that says you should reduce the period for which people can get themselves on the roll once an election has been called. The Electoral Commission and the Audit Office have said that that proposition is spurious. It was also put forward by the Liberal Party, the National Party and the Festival of Light that the Electoral Commission might be too busy and they do not have time during this period to check the new enrolees. In previous evidence to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, the Electoral Commission are on record as refuting that. They have made it very clear that they can handle the workload during that time.

The other obvious point to make is that, if anybody ever had the capacity, or if any organisation or political party thought it had the capacity to try and perpetrate some massive fraud on the electoral roll, the very last thing they would do is to try and do it once the election is called. When everybody has focused their attention on the election campaign, why would anybody be stupid enough to try it then? What is being put forward is just absolute rubbish.