Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I reiterate the comments of my colleague Senator Bernardi. I am now a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, but I was not at the time of its report into the conduct of the 2007 election. The Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010 comes from the recommendation of the government majority in that report. But underlying the philosophy of this bill, and indeed of an inquiry we recently conducted into the provisions of the New South Wales automatic enrolment act, is the fact that we seem to be rewarding, encouraging or otherwise dismissing people from their personal or individual responsibilities. The Electoral Act requires that people enrol. The Electoral Act requires that people update their details within a certain number of days after they move house. And the Electoral Act requires that they turn up and attend at a polling place on election day.

Whether or not people agree with that, and there are quite a number who disagree with those particular provisions of our electoral system, the reality is that we should not be excusing people for failing to update their electoral details. It is a requirement of individuals under the act at the moment and I do not think that we should be effectively permitting people to not do so. We have seen in history—and the Australian Electoral Commission has this pointed out—that as a general rule electoral enrolment stays above 90 per cent. There seems to be a philosophy, and this was pointed out by some in that other inquiry I mentioned earlier into the automatic enrolment provisions, that, if it is 91 per cent and not 92 per cent, we have a problem—that there one million extra Australians excluded from the roll. That was the language of the government majority in that inquiry.

The coalition challenges that language, because no-one is excluded from the electoral roll in Australia. They have to fill out a form and submit it in a reply-paid envelope or at a divisional returning office. That is not a particularly difficult task to comply with. It is not a particularly onerous provision. Could it be easier? Yes, and there have been discussions about changes through which electoral enrolments would be done by other means. But what matters more when it comes to an electoral roll is that there be absolutely no perception that it lacks integrity. I challenge the government majority’s language about other transactions with government being done in other ways, which led to these recommendations. Whether the government agrees with it or not, the coalition strongly believes that filling out a form to get a Medicare card or to make other transactions with government is not as important as the legitimacy of our electoral process.

The last election in my home state of Victoria was close in the electorate of McEwen. One of the great things about Australia—and I commend the AEC for their work on this—is that, following the court challenge and the consideration by a Federal Court judge of a number of disputed ballots, there was really no challenge to the validity of the result. Its legitimacy was accepted. The popular acceptance of the legitimacy of such results when they are that close is substantially dependent upon the integrity of the conduct of the election, and the electoral roll plays a significant part in that. If there had been questions over substantial numbers of votes, such a close election could have been brought into question. In my home state of Victoria in 1999, the state government was effectively decided in the electorate of Geelong by the votes of fewer people than there are in a football team, but the legitimacy of the result was not questioned.

A bill like this, just as the automatic enrolment provisions suggest, proposes that we go too far in seeking to cast the net wider, so absolving people of their individual responsibilities. Complying with the act and enrolling is not that hard. It is false to say that people in Australia who are not enrolled to vote are excluded from doing so. They are not. In the majority of cases they have failed to comply—though there may be the odd individual exception—with the terms of the act. Some people have described the electoral enrolment form as the ‘purple people eater’. It was described as such before the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. However, while it may be possible to design a form better, it is not the most complex government form I have filled out. When my friends applied for the baby bonus before the government started making it more difficult to do so, they felt that the form for the baby bonus was substantially more complex.

As Senator Bernardi pointed out, this bill contains five schedules. Schedule 1 reverses the initiative of the previous government that ensured that the rolls closed on the day that the writs were issued rather than seven days afterwards. Senator Bernardi also pointed out the fact that there were over a half a million people under the previous provisions, which the government is seeking to reinstate, who enrolled after an election was called. It is absolutely impossible for the Australian Electoral Commission, with its resources, to check the validity of every single one of those applications for enrolment and be confident that each of them is valid to the extent that it should be on the roll. It is just not possible to process that amount of information in that short a period.

It is also important to note that under these provisions, along with the strong AEC education campaign that was funded by the previous government, we saw a substantial number of people who updated their details when the election was called. The coalition opposes schedule 1 of the bill because the responsibility of people to update and maintain their details, the ability of the AEC to run education campaigns and the inability of the AEC to effectively oversee a rush of enrolments in the last two days before an election campaign gets underway means that the legitimacy of results that are particularly close could be called into question.

I make the point that people’s maintaining their enrolment details is important because it is fair that candidates and members of parliament know their electors. We do not have election day enrolment, and presumably one of the reasons is that that did not lead to very good outcomes historically. People enrolling on the day was messy and time consuming. It has happened in other countries, but the Australian system requires a constantly updated roll, and that roll means that candidates and members of parliament in the lead-up to election campaigns have an opportunity to know who their electors are. I think that is a particularly important principle that our system protects, and it is a principle that we should continue to protect.

Schedule 2 of the bill repeals the requirement for provisional voters to provide evidence of identity before their votes are counted. This is also a particularly important provision. I note that in its report on the 2007 election the AEC pointed out:

Approximately 75 per cent of provisional voters showed evidence of identity when voting.

Obviously, there were a number of people who did not attend and present proof of identity after polling day within the prescribed period, which would have allowed their votes to be counted. I say again that this is not a particularly onerous requirement. As I understand it, there was no evidence provided by the AEC that administrative errors had excluded people from the electoral roll. By that I mean that no government error has excluded anyone from the electoral roll; rather, the people excluded were generally those who had failed to maintain their enrolment correctly.

It is particularly important that, when we have a number of electorates that tend be close in their results, electors have confidence that everyone who votes is legitimately entitled to vote. Having people turn up and cast provisional votes without identification or without being required to produce some subsequently places this in danger. Again, I think we are getting our priorities wrong when it comes to, on the one hand, protecting the integrity of the roll and, on the other, allowing people who have not necessarily complied with the Electoral Act to vote on the day. We are not talking about a number of people that might bring into question the legitimacy of our electoral roll. We have above 90 per cent enrolment, a number that many countries in the world would aspire to if they had a similar system, and I think we tamper with that at our peril.

I go back to the electorate of McEwen, which was decided after many months, after a High Court challenge and a Federal Court judge reviewed individual ballot papers, and I do not think that particular election result would have any greater legitimacy if these provisions had been enacted. Similarly, I think that there is a risk that such close results could have their legitimacy challenged, if not legally then purely on the basis of public perception, if there had been a massive enrolment in the days after the election was called or there had been a weakening of the identity provisions that are required for people to cast provisional votes.

As Senator Bernardi outlined, schedule 3, which enables pre-poll votes in an elector’s home division to be cast and counted as ordinary votes on election night, effectively, is a sensible amendment. There has been a dramatic increase over the last 20 years in the number of people casting pre-poll votes. I understand—although I am happy to be corrected—this is because over that period the strict application of the eligibility to cast a pre-poll vote is no longer applied in the same way. I have my concerns with the substantial increase in the number of pre-poll votes in a compulsory voting environment—I think there is something to be said for everyone voting on one day—but I do not make any particular comment on that other than to say that that aspect of the bill is supported by the coalition and makes a great deal of sense. It will allow a much greater proportion of the votes to be counted on election night.

Schedule 4 is an administrative amendment that allows the AEC to more effectively process enrolment transactions. Again, the coalition supports this schedule. It makes sense for the AEC to be able to utilise its resources to process the number of enrolment changes in the way it sees fit and there is no way, in my view, that this in any way challenges the legitimacy of the electoral roll. The coalition supports that particular aspect of the bill.

Finally, schedule 5, which did not come out of the government majority report into the conduct of the 2007 election by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, reflects the events of the Bradfield by-election where a particular party endorsed nine candidates in a field of 22. This proposal makes a great deal of sense, although there have historically been multiple endorsements by some other political parties that have not been quite as confusing for voters. Whether that was the intention of the party or not I cannot attest, but I think that, in the modern political era, limiting political parties to endorse one candidate, with all the benefits and privileges they have under other parts of our electoral laws, is a legitimate move. The coalition will be supporting that schedule.

I mentioned earlier that the philosophy underlying this bill is similar to that underlining the government majority recommendation with respect to the automatic enrolment provisions. I restate the view that it is unreasonable and inaccurate to describe the number of Australians who are not on the electoral roll as being excluded from our electoral process. They have the option of participating. All they have to do is fill out a form, Senator Hanson-Young. It is not that difficult. We should not be encouraging a permissive approach to the electoral roll. I have outlined why these provisions should not be compared to getting a drivers licence or a Medicare card. To get a passport or a drivers licence in most states is not easy—you have to provide a substantial amount of identification and it has to be demonstrated to a particular officer’s satisfaction that you are who you claim you are. Our electoral enrolment provisions are nowhere near that strict. Our electoral enrolment provisions ask that you simply find a witness who will sign the form and attest that you are who you claim you are.

This bill and the amendment that the government has proposed talk about comparison of signatures, in terms of counting provisional votes. If, for example, we moved to the automatic enrolment provisions that the government majority of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters recommended, we would have no signatures to compare. When we are looking at legitimacy of elections, the perceived legitimacy of a result is actually more important than casting the net ever wider to drag people in who are not complying with the law as it currently stands. It undermines the current provisions of the Electoral Act, which have compulsory enrolment and compulsory attendance as part of them.

I will conclude by saying that the coalition opposes those changes. There has been no demonstrated benefit from the changes that the government has outlined that satisfies the potential risk of fraudulent enrolment. Australia is one of the countries where it is particularly easy to enrol. We do not have registration or driver enrolment like some American states do, but I do not think there are many aspects of their electoral system that Australians would aspire their own electoral system to copy. We have a form. It is administered by the Australian Electoral Commission, which is held in high regard. The form is not complex to fill out; in fact, it is easier than forms for some government benefits. If people do not comply with that, we have a history of funding substantial education and enrolment campaigns, all of which have a high degree of success.

When we are looking at our electoral enrolment, the metric is not simply the number of people enrolled; the metric is the degree of faith in our political process. I look back at the election for the seat of McEwen at the last election and at an election in 1999 in Victoria. I liked one result; I did not like the earlier one. But the fact that we could have a change of government to a minority government based on one seat, based on fewer people than there are in a football team voting in the seat of Geelong, is testament to our electoral system. I fear that changes like this and the automatic enrolment provisions may not have such widespread acceptance. Are there issues with younger people, certain demographics and social groups not enrolling to vote? Yes, there are, but the AEC has a fine track record of encouraging and facilitating the enrolment of those people, particularly with the schools program and particularly with younger people. Is there more work to do? There is, but this aspect would reduce the incentive for that work to continue and would undermine the strong provisions of our Electoral Act and the integrity that is generally respected by all, so the coalition will be opposing these provisions of the bill.