Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

And we have the case of ‘Curacao Fischer Catt’, who was enrolled in the seat of Macquarie. The cat was able to get onto the electoral roll through fraud and misrepresentation. And, if somebody can get a cat onto the electoral roll, you cannot have confidence in the electoral system. But, for the roll rorters, that is fantastic news. If you can get a cat onto the electoral roll, chances are you can get anybody on the electoral roll, and then you can rort the system. Tell Karen Ehrmann, who served a period of imprisonment courtesy of Labor Party roll rorting, that roll rorting does not exist. It exists, and you know it. Thank goodness it is at a minimum. But we need laws to ensure that that cannot occur again.

The Liberals for Forests campaign was a disgraceful campaign, and the Labor Party support of it tells us why the current Labor member for Richmond refused to come before the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, because she would have been asked this question: ‘Were you aware of what was happening with Liberals for Forests?’ Because there was not a Liberal candidate running in that electorate, the Liberals for Forests wore blue t-shirts with ‘Liberal’ emblazoned on the front. They put their thumbs over the ‘for Forests’ on the how-to-vote cards and accosted people coming into the polling booths saying, ‘Vote Liberal,’ not ‘Vote Liberals for Forests.’ Unfortunately, a lot of people were misled. Disingenuously, the how-to-vote card for Liberals for Forests had only their own candidate’s party listed, next to ‘vote 1’. All the other people on the how-to-vote card did not have their party listed next to them. There was clearly a stunt being pulled. Unfortunately, it worked. We say that that is not good enough.

We then have the situation of Labor trying to defend the changes made in 1984 by the Australian Labor Party in the current Commonwealth Electoral Act. You do not have to listen to me in relation to what motivated these changes. Listening to Senator Ray’s speech, I was nearly convinced. He nearly convinced me how outrageous this was—until the good former senator Graham Richardson reminded me what Senator Ray and he had been up to in changing the rules. This is what Senator Richardson said about these changes. They were made so:

... that Labor could embrace power as a right and make the task of anyone trying to take it from us as difficult as we could.

What shameful cynicism! Then Senator Ray has the audacity to come into this place, having been part and parcel of that, to try to pretend that somehow his hands are clean!