David Van (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak against the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Amendment Bill 2022. This bill proposes to amend the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Act 1984, and, in doing so, threatens to undermine the way we do referendums and, by extension, to undermine the Australian Constitution—the bedrock of the institution I stand in today. The referendum act sets out clear regulations on how donations to referendum campaigns are made, ensuring that the process is transparent and fair. However, Labor's proposed amendments to the act, contained in this bill, threaten to undermine these regulations, potentially allowing for foreign interference in our electoral processes. It is a crying shame. It is our duty to ensure that these processes remain free from outside influence and that the voices of all Australians are heard equally.

While the bill does make some noncontroversial changes to the act to bring it in line with Commonwealth Electoral Act, there are still three key issues that remain. Firstly, the removal of the requirement to provide all households with a pamphlet outlining the 'yes' and 'no' cases for changing the Constitution is a significant concern. While the government has announced its intention to restore the pamphlet, we will reserve our position until a final amendment is presented. The provision of an official 'yes' and 'no' pamphlet has been a longstanding feature of referenda in Australia, with the first requirement for a pamphlet being implemented in 1912. This is the first time there has been no official pamphlet provided to voters since before Phar Lap won the Melbourne Cup. I'm reminded of a great quote from the late Roger Scruton, that 'good things are easily destroyed, but not easily created.' I remind those opposite that perhaps there is a reason that we have had official pamphlets for more than 100 years. Perhaps it is because it's a good idea. The foundations of democracy are held strong by having a well-informed public, and by attempting to create a much-less-informed and possibly misinformed public debate is simply a low and deceiving act by those opposite, who claimed an election platform of transparency, little of which we have seen since they were elected.

When I first read the Attorney-General's Department media release on this matter, I couldn't help but laugh. They say:

The next referendum will be the first in the digital age. There is no longer any need for taxpayers to pay for a pamphlet to be sent to every household.

The gall of a government that spends money like nobody's business, with one of the biggest taxing-and-spending agendas in our nation's history, to all of a sudden implement a policy of austerity on our democracy, of all things—it is laughable.

There have been three referenda without an official pamphlet: 1919, 1926 and 1928. None of the circumstances that applied in those cases apply to the current situation. In 1919 there was insufficient time to produce a pamphlet. In 1926 there was no agreement on how to produce the 'yes' argument. In 1928 there was overwhelming agreement between parties and government. In contrast, there is not complete agreement on the issue of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to parliament, but there is time to produce a pamphlet and it is possible to get agreement on how to argue the cases. Furthermore, research has shown that people use official material when deciding how to vote. The Australian Electoral Commission has reported that, when people are provided mailed material in elections, 40 per cent of recipients will use this documentation as their main source of information when casting their vote. This suggests that an official pamphlet would be a very valuable resource for voters, particularly given the increasing influence of misinformation in electoral events.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has reported that 92 per cent of respondents to their news surveys had some concern about the quality of news and journalism they were consuming, and that analysis has identified widespread, entrenched and systemic concerning consumer and competition harms across a range of digital platform services. An official pamphlet would provide voters with a reliable and trustworthy source of information about the proposed changes to the Constitution and would help to counteract the influence of misinformation.