Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

The Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010 goes to the very nub of what is great about Australia’s parliamentary system, and that is that we are one of the world’s oldest continuous democracies. There are a number of areas in our electoral system that preserve and protect that right, and with that come some responsibilities. First and foremost among them is the fact that our citizens are asked to vote. Indeed, they are required to enrol to vote. They are required to maintain accurate and timely enrolment records. We ask them to cast a vote so that they can have a say in how their country is governed. We also fully extend preferences among the parliamentary parties and candidates.

These requirements are the basic building blocks of our system of compulsory preferential voting. They are not onerous requirements. We know that some people do not fulfil them as accurately as they should or resent having to cast a vote on occasions. But when we put it in perspective—there are any number of countries that fight for the democratic right to vote and people take enormous risks in establishing that right or protecting and defending it—certainly it is something that has made a wonderful contribution to Australia’s stable democracy. So the requirements are not onerous. They represent what I would regard as the modest responsibilities of citizenship. The vast and overwhelming majority of Australians actually fulfil those requirements. That was noted in what was, I regret to say, a dissenting report from a Senate committee inquiry into the Electoral Act, the act which this bill addresses.

The government is seeking to change a number of provisions in the Electoral Act through the schedules in this bill. First amongst these changes is the fact that it will restore the close of rolls period to seven days after the issue of the writ for an election. That means that the electoral rolls will close seven days after the issuing of the writ. The bill will also repeal the requirement for provisional voters to provide evidence of identity before their votes are admitted to scrutiny. I repeat: voters will not have to prove their identity before their votes are admitted to scrutiny. It will enable pre-poll votes cast in an elector’s home division to be counted as ordinary votes wherever practicable, which was a recommendation from the inquiry by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. It will also allow the Australian Electoral Commission, or AEC, to process enrolment transactions outside the division for which the person is enrolling and enable electors to update their enrolment details electronically, which was another recommendation of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. Finally, it will restrict the number of candidates that can be endorsed by a political party in each division.

I would like to speak briefly to each of these schedules. First amongst these is the amendment regarding the closure of the rolls. I consider the closure of the rolls seven days after the issue of a writ to be a threat to the very integrity of the electoral roll. Currently, the AEC gets an extra seven days to verify new enrolments and then an extra four to verify changes of address. So, with the closing of the roll at 8 pm on the day the writs for the election are issued, which is normally three or four days after the election is actually called, the AEC then has some further time—seven days and four days respectively—to confirm new enrolments and changes of address.

The previous government, in which I was proud to play a small part, reduced the time between the calling of the election and the close of the rolls. They did that to protect the integrity of the roll and to prevent fraudulent enrolments. There are some who will say, unfairly, that we do not have much of a problem with fraudulent enrolments. But history shows that there have been any number of fraudulent enrolments on the electoral roll. We have had cats on the roll. I think ‘Curacao Cat’ was an actual enrolment—I stand to be corrected on that—in Queensland. We have had an investigation into rorts of the electoral system and the electoral roll with regard to preselections and voting in general elections. These sorts of things need to be contained because we want to maintain the integrity of our electoral system.

The ALP is proposing here to return to the old scheme, where 520,000 new enrolments and changes to enrolments were submitted to the AEC in the seven days before the closing of the rolls prior to the 2004 election. The AEC was expected to deal with 520,000 new enrolments or changes prior to the 2004 election. It is pretty unreasonable to expect an agency or an organisation to be able to check and verify credibly those changes to the electoral roll. The coalition maintain that the evidence is there to say that the changes that we implemented and introduced, which the ALP is seeking to roll back, actually supported a highly accurate electoral roll. The evidence we have is based on AEC reports. In 2007 just over 100,000 people missed the close of rolls deadline. Compare that with 2004, when there was a much longer period of time for people to amend their disclosure, when 168,000 people missed the deadline. So, by changing that and having a definite date that was linked categorically to the issuing of the writs, there was a 40 per cent reduction in the number of people who failed to enrol.

The coalition believes that a return to the previous system of seven days would discourage citizens from making or maintaining their enrolment during the ordinary course of the year, as human nature so often is to say, ‘I will have plenty of time to do that after the election is called or after the writs are issued.’ By providing an earlier and more definite date, it helps the process be drawn to people’s attention. It also allows the AEC to effectively process and scrutinise those changes to make sure the integrity of the electoral roll is maintained. These changes in the schedule will increase the opportunity for selective fraudulent enrolment.

Schedule 2 of the bill deals with the evidence of identity for provisional votes. The coalition is opposed to any attempts to weaken the proof of identity provisions relating to enrolling or provisional voting. If we weaken them, if we subsume them, it is only natural there are going to be more attempts to enrol fraudulently. Weakening proof of identity provisions would remove a deterrent to people failing to maintain their enrolment or seeking to take part in multiple voting. It does happen. I do not have the figures exactly, but the AEC figures reveal that 70 to 75 per cent of provisional voters showed ID when voting. It is widely accepted; voters regard it as important thing to do. But of those who failed to provide ID, which is about nearly 34,000 people, only one in five subsequently provided proof of ID by the cut-off date. Labor has argued that the attrition rate stems from voter apathy. It thinks the result of the election is already known. But that is not what is important. What is important is that we know those who are casting ballots are doing so in accordance with our electoral law.

There are some extremely close votes, most recently in the Swan and McEwen electorates where counting continued for weeks after the election. In McEwen, the result of the poll was subject to a court case over some disputed votes. We are talking quite literally about a dozen or so votes that really count and can sway an election. We spent a long time in our history saying that every vote counts. We say to the citizens of Australia, ‘Your voice and your say can make a difference.’ There is proof positive because a dozen or so people in McEwen and not many more in Swan made the difference to an election.

If we cannot rely on the integrity of the votes cast, it could call into question the actual mandate or the election result overall. These are the sorts of things that, as a conservative, I would seek to avoid, that we make sure that we stand with what works and build upon the vision of our forefathers. We need to have disincentives for those who fail to correctly enrol. We need to make sure that the benefits are there for those who do the right thing, who correctly enrol and who maintain their enrolment. The coalition and I are against this weakening of these provisions.

Schedule 3 of this bill deals with amendments to prepoll voting. The coalition supports the schedule relating to prepoll voting because current administrative procedures relating to prepoll votes can be cumbersome. Often they take place many weeks after polling day. These changes will enable prepoll votes to be counted on the night of the election, which provides an earlier result of the vote. That is important for the people of Australia. We want to get the results of our votes known as early and as accurately as possible because, as I said, we have seen some disputes over the votes cast continue over many weeks. If we can avoid that, it strengthens our political system. We also support these changes because they appear to have no adverse effects on the integrity of the roll or on the application of practices on polling day.

Schedule 4 deals with an amendment to the processing of enrolments. Once again, the coalition supports this amendment because it will allow the AEC to transfer the processing of enrolments to divisional returning officers. It is expected that this provision will improve efficiency as workloads will be able to be spread out between offices in busy times. These changes also allow people that are already involved to update their details electronically. It is an acceptance that Australia is moving along the digital highway and many voters enrolled to vote will find this a more efficient means of maintaining their electoral details.

Schedule 5 is an amendment regarding the nomination of candidates. The coalition supports the amendment to restrict the number of candidates that can be endorsed by a political party in each division. This provision is relatively new and it stems from a by-election that took place in New South Wales where a single party sought to ‘flood the field’ by nominating many candidates. The reason political parties may seek to do that is that it delivers a higher percentage of informal votes. People get tired of numbering all the boxes, particularly if there are 10 or 12 candidates from the same party. It has been statistically shown that there is an increased number of informal votes when there are a high number of candidates. It mainly relates to the failure to correctly number all the boxes on the ballot paper. I support that because I really do think formal votes are an important thing.

I want to stress that there needs to be the ability for anyone to nominate for parliament in this country who fulfils the requirements under the act. I would hate to see people discouraged from putting their names forward, whatever their cause is—that is, if it is legal in this country. Of course, there are some who would have more of my support than others, but that is not the point. The point is that one of the great opportunities for people is to be an Australian citizen and nominate for parliament because of a cause or because of an issue or because of something that they think is truly very important. In considering this, I do not regard that this final provision is an impediment to our democracy or our democratic rights. It is well-intentioned to ensure that the votes cast are valid votes and to make it as easy and as workable as possible for the electoral roll to get a fair and reasonable result that is in accordance with the views of the electorate.

In supporting these bills, I have reservations about some of the provisions in them. It would be my hope that we can amend them to more reasonably deal with the concerns that I have outlined, and that I am sure my colleagues will outline shortly. In doing so, I recognise that the Labor Party feels very strongly about some of these provisions as well. I just hope there is some negotiating room in them because I am sure we are agreed we want to stamp out electoral fraud. I am sure we agree that we want to minimise the risk of incorrect electoral roll details. But in order to ensure the integrity of our electoral roll we need to make sure that we are not taking steps that are retrograde, that go back to where it has been proven historically that there is going to be some sort of compromise of the integrity of the electoral roll. I regard schedules 1 and 2 as areas of concern for the reasons I have outlined, but most importantly because the old provisions were shown to have worked through the AEC. If something works, why would you seek to roll it back to something that did not work as effectively or as efficiently?

In the couple of moments I have left, I would like to once again emphasise to the Senate how important the validity of the electoral roll is to the integrity of our parliamentary democracy. We have one of the oldest parliamentary democracies in the world. It has been running continuously, we have had our highs and our lows and our ups and downs, but it works and it works very well. We need to continue to maintain the opportunity for Australians’ votes to be valid and to count because, as I mentioned, a single vote or one or two votes can change the outcome of an election. When you change the outcome of an election, you also change the outcome of the policy agenda. I recall that in this place there have been any number of votes, and some conscience votes, that have aroused a great deal of passion on both sides of the debate, where there has been no political party divide, that have been lost by a single vote. We should be mindful that in the future the very nature of our social policy or our economic policy and the very future of our governments and the direction of our nation can change on a single vote. I would urge all of my colleagues to reflect on that in making these changes to the electoral roll lest they have an unintended consequence of supporting electoral rorting, fraudulent enrolments or invalid votes, which can compromise the very cornerstone of Australia’s federation.