John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have just withdrawn; I am not apologising for anything. We all know how embittered Senator Macdonald has been since Mr Howard dumped him from the ministry. He is very embittered, and the result of that is that he comes into the chamber and simply raves. We have just heard ravings from Senator Macdonald—‘red faced and belligerent’, to use his own words. I am not surprised that he was described as ‘belligerent’ during the committee hearings into this bill. We have seen an example of it in this chamber today. As I said, not only do the internal affairs of the Liberal Party seem to get Senator Macdonald worked up—we all know what he is about in relation to that—but from time to time he even gets worked up about what happens in the Labor Party.

We are dealing here with legislation that is very unusual. It is unusual because most often—usually—the Howard government’s amendments to the Electoral Act have nothing to do with enhancing the democratic rights of Australian citizens. This piece of legislation, the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Democratic Plebiscites) Bill 2007, would be the first time the Howard government has actually supported people voting. This would be the first time we have seen an attempt by the Howard government to enhance the democratic rights of Australians. Usually, the Howard government spends its time, in relation to electoral legislation, trying to make it harder for Australians to exercise their vote, to exercise their democratic rights. We have seen this government force through a number of regressive and undemocratic changes to electoral laws in this country, including early closure of the electoral rolls, greater identity requirements—