Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Hansard source

This is about the question of integrity. On how many occasions have there been examples in which members of parliament have been required to spend time in one of Her Majesty’s prisons? Of course, the number is minuscule. The government’s logic is that because there has been one case in 1,000 that should justify action against parliamentary democracy. That is the logic that the other side are presenting here: that there have been occasions where this has occurred, despite the fact that no evidence has ever been presented that an electoral outcome was affected. No evidence has been suggested to justify the government’s proposition that, in reality, because they find a one in a million opportunity where people have done the wrong thing with the electoral laws, 432,000 Australians should be disenfranchised. The government says, ‘There is a one in a million chance that people might do the wrong thing with the electoral laws.’ Of course the government knows that of the 432,000 Australians who will be disadvantaged most of them vote Labor.