Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was going to mention that—but Professor Williams says that perhaps the Electoral Commission should be given greater funding to, in effect, check the veracity of those enrolments. The government has decided, and I think it is right, that people should enrol when they are entitled to enrol and that a government advertising program will assist in doing that and any sense that there will be fraud or a lack of capacity by the AEC to undertake its role will therefore be nullified.

The second issue is proof of identity requirements. This has been a bugbear of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters since I joined that committee when I first came to this place. The bill introduces a requirement for electors to provide proof of identification and address at the time of enrolment. This change is long overdue. The bill also strengthens the current processes for provisional voting by requiring electors casting provisional votes to provide proof of identification and address before these votes are accepted into the count. Evidence received by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters indicated that it is very difficult for the Australian Electoral Commission to check the veracity of these provisional votes and, in some electorates, as you know, Mr Acting Deputy President, those votes determine the outcome of an election. These changes are consistent with everyday proof of identity requirements that Australians face for things such as obtaining video library membership. It is not too much to ask that electors provide proof of identification and address at the time of their enrolment. Again, this will reduce the scope for electoral fraud and thereby strengthen the integrity of our electoral system.

The third issue is disclosure, again a matter raised by Senator Brown and Senator Carr. Australia’s disclosure laws generally work well and provide the Australian public with a reasonable degree of transparency and accountability in relation to political donations. But the thresholds over which donations must be disclosed and at which tax deductibility ceases are far too low and have not been raised in more than a decade. This bill increases the amount over which donations must be disclosed to $10,000 and the amount at which tax deductibility ceases to $1,500. These limits are not inconsistent with similar laws in comparable Western countries. The new disclosure threshold will be inflation indexed each year to maintain its value on an annual basis. The bill also strengthens the disclosure provisions for third parties and will require them to furnish annual returns rather than simply election returns. This is a good thing and aligns treatment of third parties with that which exists for other entities under the Electoral Act. I suspect all senators will support this measure. The changes to disclosure requirements will provide the strong level of transparency demanded by the Australian public and will be a more appropriate reflection of contemporary economic reality.

The fourth issue I would like to raise in this debate is the registration of political parties. This bill will enable the rules governing the registration of political parties to apply equally to all political parties. This measure will not discriminate against smaller parties, as has been contended this morning; on the contrary, it will create a level playing field for all parties. It will also resolve some of the confusion that has arisen in recent elections over party names. This change will ensure that voters are not misled into unintentionally voting for a political party on the basis of its having a name similar to or like that of another party. You may remember, Mr Acting Deputy President, that in the 2004 federal election Mr Larry Anthony lost the seat of Richmond on the North Coast of New South Wales because of the preference flow from Liberals for Forests. The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters heard evidence that the Liberals for Forests how-to vote-cards and, indeed, their banner were very similar to those of the Liberal Party. Mr Anthony only lost by the narrowest of margins and I think it is fair to suggest that, without that misleading advertising, Mr Anthony would have held that seat. This is an important issue addressed in part by this bill.

The fifth and final issue I would like to discuss is prisoner voting. This bill revokes the right of all prisoners to vote. Currently, the law allows prisoners serving sentences of three years or less the right to vote. The government believes this sends mixed signals to prisoners and would-be offenders. Imprisonment is intended to deny offenders a range of liberties and entitlements in order to provide a disincentive to reoffend. Permitting some prisoners to vote undermines that disincentive and is contradictory. Removing the entitlement of all prisoners to vote sends a clear message that breaking the law and reoffending come at a high price for those who do.

Concerns that this measure will be detrimental to prisoner rehabilitation appear to me to be emotive and rather overblown. This measure in no way affects the ability of prisoners to access the rehabilitation programs that they currently enjoy while incarcerated. I refer to the distinguished Melbourne Age and an article on page 11 of the Tuesday, 13 June, edition. Mr Waleed Aly, who is a secondee solicitor at the Human Rights Law Resource Centre, argues—and this crystallises a point made by some of my opposition colleagues:

Suddenly, to vote is not a right of the people from which government derives its legitimacy; it is a privilege to be conferred at Canberra’s discretion.

This is the point that Senator Carr and Senator Brown made. Mr Aly argues:

The logical extension of this is to restrict the power to appoint the government to a government-authorised elite.

The article becomes emotive and overblown and a long bow is drawn. To my mind, imprisonment in 2006 is a very serious sanction, increasingly reserved only for those who commit serious crimes or crimes of violence.