Robert Ray (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

He may have seen the light but, by gee, did he reap the benefits of rorting the electoral boundaries in 1977! The Liberal Party’s other great contribution, of course, was that, when they did have the redistribution and it did not go well enough, Reg Withers put the fix in and had to be thrown out of the ministry because he was caught.

And so electoral reform from 1949 to 1983 was a nonevent. But the election of the Hawke government saw the most radical overhaul of the Electoral Act in over 70 or 80 years. We set up the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform, now known as the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. Having reported to government within four months of having vigorous public hearings, what did we come up with? First of all, we instituted the fairest redistribution system in the world. We instituted the overs and unders system, so that on average every seven years electorates would be of equal size—no malapportionment at all. We introduced independent redistribution commissioners to avoid gerrymandering. Auditors-general, surveyors general and independent electoral officials were the ones who did redistributions, which then became final after appeal. They could not be rejected or altered in the parliament of Australia for partisan reasons.

We introduced ticket voting for the Senate, party designation on ballot papers and reduced the Senate informal vote rate from one in 10 to about two per cent, thereby enfranchising far more people across the electorate. We altered the size of parliament, which in turn prevented House of Representatives seats from being oversized. We brought in disclosure of donations and, I tell you what, it was five yards and a bucket of blood against the Liberal Party—they fought it trench by trench. They never wanted disclosure. They always opposed it and, to this day, they oppose it. They do not want anyone to know who donates to their cause—that is secret Liberal Party business.

We introduced public funding to lower the political parties’ dependence on donations, and the Liberal Party did not just oppose it—they said it was ‘morally repugnant’. And then, after the 1984 election, they took the money. The old aardvark snouts of the Liberal Party soaked up every public dollar available. If they had had any principles at the time, they would have rejected it because, according to them, it was morally repugnant.

We introduced draws for positions on the ballot paper to eliminate the donkey vote. We introduced mobile booths, especially in nursing homes. And, finally, we introduced an independent electoral commission. Under that Labor government of 13 years, three electoral commissioners reigned and I never once heard a criticism about their partiality—not once. That is a tribute to the Hawke and Keating governments as to who they appointed.

What did we see when the Howard government was elected? Their very first act in the electoral area in 1996 was to take $2 million off the Electoral Commission and tell them to cancel Aboriginal electoral education. The commissioner said: ‘I’m sorry about that; we really wanted that $2 million. I will find savings somewhere else because I would like to continue funding that scheme.’ The answer from the Liberal government was: ‘When you find that $2 million, we will take it off you again. And, every time you find that $2 million, we will take it off you.’ So much for their commitment to democracy—they did not favour having Indigenous Australians educated in the voting system.

When it comes to the independence of the Electoral Commission, what do we find the Howard government did? When they needed to appoint a deputy electoral commissioner, there was a list of seven candidates. Six were recommended; one was not recommended. Guess who got up? It was the not recommended one, from Senator Minchin’s home state. And when a few years later we had to appoint an electoral commissioner, there was a similar list, divided into ‘highly recommended’ and ‘recommended’ candidates. The one who was highly recommended hit the fence. Of the two that were recommended, one was by a two to one majority and the other, universally, three to nil. It was the two to one majority person that cabinet picked out to be the electoral commissioner. I am saying not that that electoral commissioner was biased but that it was the expectation of the government he would be.

Then, just a couple of years ago, we saw the most unseemly piece of legislation ever introduced into this chamber—the one we call the ‘dash for cash’ bill. The Liberal Party of Australia has its name written into the Electoral Act 33 times so it can centralise its public funding. Here we have a national parliament required to do the factional dirty work of the federal secretariat up at Robert Menzies House. It is entrenched in legislation to the total shame of the Democrats, who were internally divided at the time and who, although most of them opposed it, went along with their spokesman because they did not want to rock the boat. And so that piece of legislation went through. It has now had the unfortunate effect that many state Liberal branches are broke; and for that particular circumstance those branches blame that piece of legislation. We have had several attempts to amend the Electoral Act since, but it is only now, with its Senate majority, that the government is proceeding with this bill—the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2006.

We still have the reputation of having a top electoral system. Compare it with the British system that is run by local government. I witnessed the 2001 shambles in Great Britain—their general election. It is amateur hour compared with us. We know that the United States system is amateur hour; we only have to look to Florida where local parish areas run the election. There is no continuity or consistency in the American electoral system. I will tell you something else: the very first time the United Nations got involved in peacekeeping and there had to be an election, which country did they turn to for electoral help from their electoral commission? It was Australia, as they turn to us still because we remain the best.

But the new regime proposed in this bill—and I love the word ‘integrity’ in the title—comes from lag central up at Sir Robert Gordon Menzies House. That is where the instructions come from. I am sick of the other side saying that we accept instructions from the trade union movement. For the record, I have never once had a union secretary ring me and tell me what to do—never once. But they have been given their orders from up at Robert Menzies House to introduce these changes for electoral advantage.

Let me give you the history of the early close of the rolls. In 1983, Malcolm Fraser decided to ambush the Labor Party when it was in midstream of changing its leadership. It did not work; history says it did not work. But it meant the rolls were closed early. It meant that 90,000 new enrolees missed out. It meant that many other tens of thousands of people were trapped in the wrong electorate without being able to change their records. It meant that election day in 1983 was a shambles. We looked at that straight after the election. We also looked at fixed minimum election times. But it was not the Labor Party that insisted on the 33-day rule. The 33-day rule came in at the insistence of one of the greatest senators ever to be in this place, and that was Sir John Carrick. He argued strongly on the electoral committee that the rolls needed to be kept open for seven days so that 1983 did not occur again. Here we have the godfather of the New South Wales branch of the Liberal Party, an absolute prince amongst politicians, insisting on it, and in my view he is being dishonoured today by this piece of legislation.

We looked at this issue again in 2001 when I rejoined the electoral committee, chaired by Petro Georgiou. Why don’t those opposite go back and read the unanimous report that rejected closing the rolls straightaway and recommended maintaining the seven-day rule? In fact, it was signed off by Liberal Party senators, including Senator Brandis and Senator Mason, who put their names to it. Ms Sophie Panopoulos from the other place signed it off. Mr Petro Georgiou signed it off. John Forrest signed it off. Basically, we are trying to close the lid on this issue by saying, ‘Let’s introduce some requirement for identity for enrolment and just shove these other issues out.’ What has changed? The only thing that has changed is 39 to 37 in the voting—which occurred because the Liberal Party in Queensland got preferences from Pauline Hanson and One Nation. That is the author of this piece of legislation—those few votes drifting to the Queensland Liberal Party candidates in Queensland mean this legislation will go through this chamber.

It should be remembered that we do not have fixed terms, and that makes this an even more severe problem, because people do get ambushed. With a fixed term, as you have in several states, at least people have some notice of when to get on the roll and when to change their enrolment. As for transferees, in the next federal election a couple of hundred thousand people will not have transferred from one electorate to another and they will vote in the electorate where they do not live. That is what will happen. It happens a bit now, but it will happen in a magnified way. Just remember, any court of disputed returns cannot use the accuracy of the roll to turn over an election. So we could well get distorted election results coming from this.

At the same time, they decide to complicate provisional voting because they do not win it. Which means that, when those 200,000 people who are in the wrong electorate try to vote in another one they will have to get a provisional enrolment and then have to bring their driver’s licence down or revisit the electoral office. There will be disenfranchisement everywhere. That, of course, absolutely suits our political opponents.

In the short time available to me, let me go to three other issues. First is the question of prisoners voting. Many years ago we came up with the five-year period. I believe that is now down to three years. This government is saying that if you are in prison you cannot vote—double jeopardy. What about this situation? You are put into prison for assault for 2½ years. You go into prison one month after the last federal election and get out five months before the next. Terrific! You can vote. But if you get pulled up for a more minor offence and you get sentenced to a month and it happens to coincide with the election period, you cannot vote. Where is the equity in that? We often try to avoid double jeopardy in legislation. What about the rights of citizens?

People have gone to the question of disclosure—$10,000 as opposed to $1,500. That is not inflation; that is about three times the rate of inflation from when this legislation was carried until today. Even worse than that, the tax deductibility provisions have gone up 15-fold. Why should the taxpayer be stung even more than public funding? That is exactly what they have done.

I have sat in this chamber over the last 25 years and from time to time I hear some Liberal senator get up and espouse the liberal philosophy. There is always an allusion to John Stuart Mill. Alfred Deakin gets the big rap-up—or some obscure Czech or Hungarian social democrat that has written Cold War propaganda gets eulogised in this chamber. I think: these people love individual liberty; these people respect human rights; what great individualists they are. Yet, really, when you look at this legislation, all gets revealed. What we are looking at over there are third rate ward-heelers. Tammany Hall is not here yet but you can see it coming. You can see the practitioners over there bringing it about.

The worst thing I ever hear from those opposite—and I have heard it plenty of times in this chamber; we often hear the Liberal Party mention this—is that they eulogise Edmund Burke and his letter to his constituents where he said that his individual conscience was more important and, if he had to lose his seat, he would do so out of his conscience. Most people do not know the postscript to this. Yes, he did lose his seat. He then wrote an absolutely obsequious letter to his lordship and was rewarded with a rotten borough seat for the rest of his life. Exactly the same form of double standards and hypocrisy rest on this other side. It is no longer easy to enrol or vote. Take the money off the corporates and do not have it disclosed. Take the tax deductibility and flood your coffers. Do not allow prisoners to vote, knock off young people from voting wherever you can and create mass confusion.

The ultimate paranoia of this Liberal-National Party derives from the fact that they can never conceive they were beaten on their own merits. After every election defeat it has to be ascribed to electoral fraud or something like it, because how could the electorate in their right minds not choose those of the calibre of the people opposite? How could they choose the scruffy socialists opposite? That is their choice, and they should be given the choice. Everyone in this country should be encouraged to and should exercise a vote, and we should respect the result. But there is no respect shown for enfranchisement over there. There will be no respect shown for the result.