Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2006 demonstrates to the Australian people the cynical nature of the government. Now that the government find that they have control of both houses of parliament, they move to change our electoral laws.

Our electoral laws are the best in the world. Without any doubt, Australia has thrived as a democracy. There is no substance to claims of electoral fraud or vote rigging. It is true that after every election there are people who will tell anyone who is prepared to listen that large-scale fraud has taken place. They will tell you that there are numerous incidents of people voting more than once, the dead casting a ballot from beyond the grave, people voting who are not entitled to and so on. I know from personal experience, though, that we have a robust and strong electoral system, maintained by the hardworking and honest staff of the Australian Electoral Commission and supported by the people of Australia, because election results reflect the wishes of the Australian people—although, in more recent times, I would want that they had wished for a different outcome.

We as representatives of political parties, along with the members and supporters of our political parties, do not always like the results but nor do we seek to overturn them. Trust in this process is a two-way street. The Australian people trust us to ensure that our electoral laws and their administration are above the political fray. They are above the partisan nature of politics.

Politicians do not administer our electoral laws. They set the laws and then leave it up to officials of the Electoral Commission to run the process. It is a relationship that is remarkable for its robustness, for its strength and for its integrity—and it is respected around the world. How often are the Australian Electoral Commission approached by other countries for their advice on and assistance in establishing and running rigorous elections under the rule of law? The commission are especially approached by the newer democracies both in our region and in the wider global community. I think most recently of Indonesia and Iraq. The Australian Electoral Commission quite proudly point to and report on the assistance that they have given to both of those countries.

It is interesting to see how disconnected we have become from the way Australia has led modern electoral law administration over the last 100 years or so. I would refer anyone who has not done so to visit the ‘Enrolling the People’ website. That website is the work of Peter Brent from ANU. It should be compulsory reading for anyone wanting to understand the importance of the Australian approach to electoral laws and the innovations that were pioneered here. Consider some of the world’s firsts that have taken place in this country: the first government-supplied ballot paper; the first jurisdiction where women could vote and run for office; the first implementation of the postal or absentee voting system; the first jurisdiction to abolish public nominations; and the first salaried electoral official.

All of these innovations took place before we actually became a country. In fact, during the late 19th century, Australian electoral voting processes were referred to elsewhere in the world as the ‘Australian ballot’. Many people have assumed that the important innovation referred to here was the secret ballot. However, secret ballots were not what made Australian electoral laws unique. What was different was that the ballot papers were printed by the government. They included all the candidates for a particular office and voters indicated their choice by placing a cross in the box next to their choice. Yes, Australian electoral laws had a secret ballot, but what made them unique was that the only ballot papers that were counted were those printed by the government and issued by an independent electoral official in a polling place. In fact, the work that was pioneered in this country in respect of electoral laws, mostly by a South Australian, is honoured in the name of the electorate of Boothby.

The importance of the peculiarly Australian notion of fairness—the concept of a fair go—is made manifest in our electoral laws. Such a system has been amended, and rightly so, whenever deficiencies are found. We have not suffered in modern times from the blight of electoral fraud. We have a system that has prevented ballot stuffing, wholesale fraud, intimidation, coercion or other practices of electoral maladministration. This country is one of the greatest democracies in the world simply because our electoral laws have guaranteed fairness and equality during elections.

As one commentator, Robert Pastor, from the Center for Democracy and Election Management at the American University, noted on the American presidential election of 2004:

We didn’t have one election for president in 2004 … We didn’t have fifty elections. We actually had 13,000 elections run by 13,000 independent, quasi-sovereign counties and municipalities.

In the country that is supposedly the strongest democracy in the world, you have electoral laws that vary from state to state, from town to town and from polling official to polling official. Before I am accused of being anti-American, let it be said that I am simply using the example of the so-called strongest democracy in the world to demonstrate that it has achieved that reputation, even though its electoral laws are not the strongest in the world. In fact, American democracy succeeds, in spite of the impediments of electoral administration.

Electoral administration in the United States is not run by an independent electoral commission; rather, it is a politically partisan process conducted in a partisan way. The redistributions in the American electoral districts are controlled by the legislature. Redistricting is an art form in America and it is conducted in the most partisan of ways. Consider the difference here in Australia. The Australian legislature sets out the rules to guide the Electoral Commission in redistributions. The Electoral Commission seeks input from the public, considers their submissions and, based upon the law, makes the determination. The process is not run by politicians for political advantage. That is what makes this country the greatest democracy in the world. Our electoral administration is above party politics. It is fair and it is equal in its approach. No matter what complaints, no matter what conspiracies are theorised, it has stood the test of time and is supported by the people of this country. Yet we probably have one of the most relaxed set of rules concerning voter identification.

The Australian people do not need to produce identification papers before they are provided with their ballot papers. The Australian people are not required to dip their thumbs in indelible ink to show that they have already voted. We accept who they say they are. We do not mark their hands to show that they have voted, because Australians do not try to vote more than once. For the everyday citizen, consider this question: who would want to run the gauntlet of party supporters trying to give you how-to-vote cards each time you go into a polling place? Australians suffer it as a necessary evil, but it is not something, no matter how partisan they are, that they would want to go through again and again. Our electoral laws and the way in which elections are conducted are a reflection of the level of trust that we Australians have in each other. The Australian people know that their right to vote is respected, upheld and valued. They know that the trade-off for our relaxed voter identification is that our electoral officials trust the Australian people to do the right thing.

For the proclaimed reason of voter identification the proposed bill states that any Australian who wants to enrol or vary their enrolment will be required to provide their drivers licence number on their application form. If they do not have a drivers licence then they must supply a prescribed form of identification. If they do not have a form of identification then their application form must be signed by two electors who sign their name stating that they have known the applicant for at least a month. One cannot help wonder whether this is not a deliberate ploy to disenfranchise some of the remote and Indigenous members of our community—those who are not necessarily renowned for possessing a drivers licence or other forms of identification and whose friends are not necessarily renowned for being literate. In other laws in Australia we take into account the unique challenges that our Indigenous people face with the standard identification process. Yet, when it comes to their right to participate in the greatest democracy in the world, we do not seem to allow for those special circumstances.

One of the key strengths of the Australian electoral system is that we accept electors on their own say. It has stood the test of time and it works. In fact, this amendment will create two classes of electors in our country. New electors and anyone who changes their electoral details will have to prove their identity.

The government proposes that anyone who wishes to cast a provisional ballot on election day will also have to prove their identity. So, again, we will end up with two classes of voters. Anyone who casts a provisional vote will have to prove their identity and anyone who does not cast a provisional vote will not have to prove their identity. We end up in the stupid situation where people on election day will be asked for different standards of identity, depending on how they are going to vote. We already have measures in place that determine whether provisional votes are counted. They are rigorous, they are robust, they have stood the test of time and they work. Requiring a person who wishes to cast a provisional vote to prove their identity does not add to electoral integrity; rather, it complicates it.

The next cherished conservative notion in this bill is to close the rolls within three days of the writs being issued. The conservative parties are always interested in reducing the franchise in this country and this bill is no different. Again, this change is about that trait of the Australian voter who says that their electoral enrolment does not enter into their thoughts until such time as an election is called, and what is wrong with that? For those of us who work in politics we should not be at all surprised that our fellow Australians have a somewhat more lax approach to politics. For many years Australians have seen it as their right to wait until an election is called before they seek to enrol or update their enrolment. Why is that a problem?

The Australian Electoral Commission has dealt with that problem for many years and does not seem to have any serious issues with that Australian approach. It is part of our Australian approach to life, after all. It is an acceptable part of our character, and the Electoral Commission runs public information campaigns to address that issue. The current system is fair to all electors. It does not disadvantage anyone and it does not affect electoral results. However, these changes may result in fewer people being on the electoral roll than are entitled to be there. That does not improve electoral integrity; it reduces it.

One of the key strengths of our electoral laws is that we do not restrict the franchise—in fact until now we have always sought to do the opposite. We encourage people to enrol; we encourage our fellow Australians to have their say. Reducing the time that people have to enrol or update their enrolment reduces the franchise, and that is not a desirable outcome. It is particularly not a desirable outcome for the remote and Indigenous communities in my home state of Western Australia.

We have a government that cannot deliver decent telecommunications facilities—Perth is a black spot for broadband access—so how can people in remote and regional Western Australia be expected to enrol as soon as an election is called? You are effectively saying to them that they must enrol three or four days before the government calls the election. You are dealing with communities that have weekly postal services. They do not have access to other forms of communication and so they cannot access information in other ways. This legislation effectively disenfranchises a large sector—geographically if not in population—of my state and a lot of the original inhabitants of this country.

Likewise, the changes in this bill to the voting rights of people serving prison sentences are about reducing the franchise. We already have rules about this, and I find no compelling reason to change the current law. We have a system of penalties under the law for those who have committed offences. Our electoral laws are about how elections are conducted. They should not be used to apply additional sanctions over and above those prescribed by the current and relevant legal system.

I know that there are many other matters covered in this amendment bill. Time does not allow me to canvass them adequately. I also know that there are other members of my party who can far more eloquently deal with some of the other challenges proposed by this legislation. However, I say to those who support this bill: we should be proud of the current Australian electoral laws. We should be very proud of the administration of the Australian electoral laws. What we should be about is coming up with innovative ways to conduct elections to make it easier and simpler for our fellow Australians to participate. We should accept that Australian electoral law and practice is what makes us a great democracy, and we should therefore resist the urge to amend those laws for no good reason.

Our strength as a nation is built on the trust that we place in those who elect us to this parliament and the trust that they place in us to work for the national interest. Independent electoral administration of world-leading electoral laws is the most important part of that relationship. All of us here should be especially careful not to place restrictions on our fellow Australians that do not apply to all. We should not be about creating different rules for different groups of voters. All Australians should be treated the same under electoral law to ensure that our greatest strength—fair, open and just electoral administration—is not diminished. If it is diminished, we as a strong democracy are diminished.