Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens also oppose the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2006, which is an invitation to corruption of the current political system and a move away from the probity and defensive integrity of the electoral system and from the right of 20 million Australians, most of them voters, to know that the democracy of this country is governed by the principle of one person, one vote, one value.

It is hard to know where to start on the criticism of this legislation. Many notable commentators have done a good job of that, but it has fallen on deaf ears. Even now, in this debate, we have two government members here in the chamber—including the minister involved—and they are talking to each other. There is just no note being taken of the very serious matters that are at hand here, because the government, in its arrogance, says it has the numbers. The debate being had and the arguments being put—not just by opposition and cross-bench senators but by experts right across the board; indeed, by everybody who appeared before the committee looking into this matter, except the Festival of Light and the Liberal Party—are ignored by an arrogant government which is taking this opportunity to benefit itself through this legislation. And isn’t that the hallmark of decay in a democratic system and in a government’s obligation to serve the people rather than itself?

This is a self-invested piece of legislative amendment to furnish benefit to the coalition and, in particular, to the big end of town against the ordinary Australian voter. How much better it would be if some of the shortcomings of our electoral system were really being addressed—and these are matters that have gone to post-election committees looking at our electoral system and been a matter of cross-party agreement, in some cases, over decades now.

Why is it that we do not have legislation to guarantee the right to stand for parliament for the millions of Australians whose Constitution forbids them from standing for parliament? Why is it that if you happen to have, along with your Australian passport, a passport from another country you are disqualified from standing for parliament? Ought we not be putting before the people of Australia, through this legislation, the removal of any doubt that pensioners or public servants can stand for parliament? Should we not be making sure that the five million, six million or seven million voters of this country who cannot stand for parliament have that right given to them? It is a right that was taken away simply because the Constitution was written more than 100 years ago, when the world was a different place. No, the government is not looking at that.

Should we not be looking at integrity in advertising so that people are not misled on the way to the ballot box by unscrupulous advertisers in the heat of an election campaign? Let me cite one notable example affecting the Greens. Exclusive Brethren members advertising in the Tasmanian election in March this year said to voters that the Greens had a policy, effectively, of distributing cannabis. But they left out the concluding phrase of that policy, which said ‘for medical purposes’—that is, for people dying in pain from cancer, cannabis is a remedy where many other drugs will not do. This is law in the United Kingdom, California and a lot of other places. The Exclusive Brethren lied to the people of Tasmania on the way to the ballot box. There is no remedy for that. Ought we not be tightening up on that sort of premeditated deception of voters? They have a right to know who is behind advertising like that and to be assured that they are not being told lies and deceived so that their vote can be wrongly affected.

Instead of that, this legislation will remove the high barrier to hiding the money that is being given to political parties in the form of donations, which is of course given not just for the purpose of support but also very often for the purpose of influence. Let us be clear about this: donations have a corrupting influence on the body politic. Huge donations are given with a huge anticipation of return. It is obvious that people who make a big donation to a political party hope that the political party will win office—because they will get some return for it. Moreover, they very often want the people in the political party to know about that donation. We now have an insidious process whereby you can pay the government parties $1,000 and sit at a table with a minister for 15 or 30 minutes. Through that donation process, you obviously hope to have your minute of influence on what the government does. This is insidious, it is corrupting and it should be stopped.

Instead of moving to end political donations, particularly from corporations, unions and influential entities in our society—as Canada has done; it has replaced political donations with public funding—this bill opens the door to manipulation by unscrupulous people through the secret funding of political parties. Whereas the unaccountable limit was $1,499, it will now go to $10,000. As Senator Carr pointed out earlier, that can mean $80,000—I think it might be $90,000—because you can donate to a party at the national level and, similarly, donate $10,000 to each of the states and territories without any of that being accounted for. How clever it is that this legislation is written so that, instead of making a $10,000 donation accountable, if you donate $10,000 you are okay but if you go over $10,000 it becomes accountable. Wealth’s ability to influence the body politic is insidious. But it becomes worse when it is done behind closed doors—when it is done secretly, when it is not accountable and when it cannot be spotted. The media cannot see it, the electorate cannot see it and political opponents cannot see it. It is a step in the wrong direction and the Greens will vehemently oppose it.

Why is this legislation not fixing three year terms of parliament? Why is it not removing the ability of governments to manipulate this in their favour? And, these days, this is always consequent upon tens of millions of dollars in taxpayers’ money being spent on advertising for the incumbent government. Why is that process not being shut down through this legislation? Why are we not getting three-year fixed terms, as the Constitution would provide, instead of providing the temptation for governments to go to an election at a time which is convenient to them?

There is so much that could be done to improve our electoral system but, instead of that, the government is going in the opposite direction. One of the matters that both Senator Carr and Senator Murray have pointed to is the move to refuse people late enrolment after an election is announced. At future elections, this may cut out 80,000 or 90,000 young voters who would otherwise go to enrol once an election is announced. When they realise they have not enrolled and want to have their first vote, they will find the door closed if this legislation goes through. What has Prime Minister Howard got against young Australians? This legislation can so easily curtail their right to vote, simply by ensuring the door is closed when they get to the electoral office after an election is called.

New Zealand allows late enrolment up to the day before the election. Canada allows it on the day of the election. Unless things have changed since I was in the Tasmanian parliament—and this followed moves by Lance Armstrong, the Greens member for Bass in the 1980s—late enrolment is possible there. In fact, you can do it on the day. You can certainly change your address and make sure that it is okay on the day. It has been argued by Senator Abetz, and therefore by the government, that this puts a strain on the electoral office. How about the government properly and adequately funding the Australian Electoral Commission so that it can easily meet this basic requirement that Australians should not be disenfranchised when an election is called simply because they have changed their address or have not yet enrolled?

Obviously, the best outcome would be people being able to be enrolled on the day if they have not done so before, because the hallmark of a healthy democracy is that no elector is disenfranchised through misadventure or the lack of a reasonable opportunity to ensure that she or he can vote. Instead of improving the situation, as it should be doing, this electoral bill is making it worse. The estimated number of 423,000 people who, after the calling of the last election, enrolled, changed their address or for some other reason made it known by putting their hand up that they needed to get a valid vote would potentially be cut down by this legislation. That is an enormous number of voters. It is more than five per cent of the voters in the Commonwealth potentially falling foul of these new electoral restrictions. And tell me that this has not been very carefully considered by the men and women in the back room of the Prime Minister’s office, weighing up what is going to be to the government’s electoral advantage and to the disadvantage of the other parties and of the Independents in this parliament. It is insidious and it is anti-democratic. One should expect better behaviour by a government running a wonderful democracy like Australia’s.

Going back to my earlier point, why doesn’t the electoral office have the ability to vet integrity in advertising? Instead of the government pulling on the electoral office’s purse strings, why don’t we have a special commission for electoral integrity so that after or in the run-up to elections people wishing to mislead voters can be brought under scrutiny? We have no such office of electoral integrity. Say you ask the Australian Electoral Commission, Australia’s electoral office, to have a look at a piece of misleading advertising against the simple test of whether a voter would be misled by what was being put before them—and that should be the rule for all advertising in the run-up to an election. The electoral office would say: ‘We have no power to look into that. We cannot judge whether people are being lied to or whether they are being deliberately misled on their way to the ballot box.’

In this age when tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of dollars go into trying to advantage all parties and candidates as voters are on their way to the ballot box, when—I have forgotten the figure—$30 million or $40 million of taxpayers’ money goes into public funding and when a bigger amount still, taken from taxpayers’ pockets, is spent by the government on influencing voters through projecting onto TV screens and other things in the year preceding an election stating how good the government is, shouldn’t there be vetting of that process to make sure it is honest and not misleading? Shouldn’t we be in agreement on that to ensure that the government does not take that advantage? Of course we should be. Of course we should have integrity in these things. Of course it should not be left to political parties or candidates to say whatever they want to advantage themselves in this age when more and more attack advertising, negative advertising, is found to be productive and is being used by the political powers that be on voters as they head to the ballot box.

Where does this legislation get honesty and integrity into the voting process so that voters are protected from being misled by well-heeled opponents in the run-up to an election? Of course that is what we should be looking at today. Instead of that, here we have the government legislating to make the situation worse by allowing donations of $10,000, instead of $1,500, to go to political parties without any registration of those donations, without any publication of them and without people knowing where those moneys have come from. There is an exponential growth in the potential for corruption in this process. But the government has the numbers and control of the Senate, so it is going to get away with this unless somebody opposite has the integrity and honesty to say: ‘I’m not going to stand for that. I put the voters of Australia first and I don’t put this sort of insidious political legislation ahead of my obligations to Australia and the voters of Australia.’ I doubt we are going to see that today. But in the committee stage we will see the government grilled on these matters and it will be interesting to see what the response is. I hope there is a better attendance by government members when we get to that stage.

Tax deductibility, of course, is another matter available for change here. Where donations of up to $100 were tax deductible in the past in any given year for a political party or entity, that now has increased fifteenfold to $1,500. I will be interested to see the explanation for that. I would reckon that, in another term of government, we will see that increased again because it simply means that donors to the political arena are effectively subsidised by taxpayers to make those donations more effective. There are many worthier causes than political parties and political campaigners for tax deductibility in this country.

My colleagues will be speaking about other aspects of this legislation. It is unbecoming, to say the least, for the government to be presenting the Senate with legislation like this. It is negative in almost every aspect. It is against the voters’ interests, it is against this nation’s interests and it is undemocratic.