Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business and Fair Competition) Share this | Hansard source

I want to respond to a couple of points made by the government. I am sick to death of hearing that states and territories have done something and therefore the Commonwealth should do something. That is a lemming argument. What if one of the states or territories started to disenfranchise, as they would be entitled to do under most of their constitutions, anyone serving any custodial sentence whatsoever? I imagine that people on the other side of this chamber would be screaming and bleating, as they were earlier. So the argument that a state or territory has done something is not an argument for us considering a change to our electoral system. That is a lowest common denominator argument. It formed the basis of much of the argument for automatic enrolment, because New South Wales had done it, but it is not an intellectually consistent argument nor is it an appropriate one, when this parliament has responsibility for the electoral processes for elections to this parliament. We would not let a local government change the laws or influence the laws around the changes to a state election or to this place. I do not see why a state or territory doing something should be of any relevance whatsoever.

Can I also suggest that with respect to the treatment of pre-poll votes as ordinary votes, the agreement from the coalition regarding that before the last election was for their counting only, in order to facilitate the arrival at a fast result and to facilitate the public interest in knowing the result as soon as possible. It was not about anything to do with how people access the votes. I would point out that the Labor Party have actually gone to extraordinary efforts over many years to restrict the involvement of political parties in postal votes for their own naked political interest. Let's not pretend that the Labor Party have haloes in this regard. This amendment does not deny anyone a vote; it merely provides a process whereby people have to declare their eligibility for it. We believe it is a process that could potentially actually provide some evidence if people are acting inappropriately with respect to the Electoral Act.