Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When I left off on the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2006 before question time, I was talking about democracy diminished, in that the so-called integrity measures are far from that. Earlier I dealt with the issue of gifts and party donations and the increase from $1,500 to $10,000. Before we broke for question time today, I also referred to how the Liberal Party can use anonymous sources under the $10,000 regime, if people donate $9,999 to the eight Liberal branches. If you were to use family relationships, you could also multiply that by two and get to some extraordinary numbers. What is important with these things is that there is transparency. It is good to see Senator Abetz here in the chamber because some of the matters he went to in respect of that, as a defence, do not stand up. I dealt with some of those before, but let me reiterate: there is no policy merit in this change.

The other area where there is no policy merit is the early closure of the rolls. Notwithstanding the spirited defence of it by the Australian Electoral Commission, the early closure of the rolls will cause a huge group of people to be disenfranchised from their votes, because it will effectively mean that the rolls will close from 8 pm on the day the writs are issued. There is no longer a period of grace where people are reminded they need to get on the rolls and sort out their enrolment. What Senator Abetz has argued in the past—if I verbal him, I am sure he will correct the record—is that people should take advantage of the issue and keep up to speed on their enrolment and deal with it as they go. That would be terrific in a perfect world, but we do not live in a perfect world. The grace period of seven days acts almost like a reminder, and it is a very focused reminder. When the writs are issued, people take note and turn their minds to an election that is going to occur and deal with it accordingly. This will result in people—people who would have otherwise been able to enrol and vote—not being able to change their particulars and they may be excluded from the roll. In a democracy, if we are talking about ensuring that all people who can vote are able to vote and not disenfranchising groups who we could otherwise deal with, it is wrong to have an early closure, as proposed in this bill.

The guiding principle in this area is that there should be the ability for people to express their will in an election. I am concerned about that ability being changed for new citizens and 17- to 18-year-olds, and not only, as might be argued, that the Liberal Party will seek to gain a benefit. I cannot clearly see how it will transpire, but I think you could make the reasonable guess that the early closure of the rolls will not disadvantage the Liberal Party. I think you could say it is more likely to advantage the Liberal Party and their constituency. The National Party probably have not turned their minds to how it will affect regional and rural Australians—whether their ability to use the seven days that currently exist to sort out their enrolment will be diminished. I suspect it will. I suspect they will also suffer under this integrity measure, so-called. It is surprising that the National Party have not really addressed it in any broad way, but that is a matter for them. It is, of course, still a great concern to the Labor Party.

I will turn to a couple of other issues. Senator Boswell provided some commentary on an old issue that I think has long been a thorn in the side of the Nationals—that is, Liberals for Forests, an issue which has focused them and which took up the majority of Senator Boswell’s speech. The minority report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters report says:

Several electorates on polling day 2004 saw the distribution of how-to-vote cards which were clearly designed to mislead voters into voting for a party they did not intend to vote for. This was particularly obvious when the manner in which these cards were distributed is taken into account. The Government members of the Committee devoted a great deal of time to expounding their view—

and Senator Boswell took the opportunity during the second reading debate to do that again—

that the Government candidate in the Division of Richmond was defeated …

It goes on to say that the government members tried to have it both ways on this question by condemning what they saw as the misleading distribution of the Liberals for Forests cards in Richmond, while condoning a clearly well-orchestrated campaign by the Liberal Party to deceive Australian Greens voters in the division of Melbourne Ports by the blatantly misleading distribution of green coloured how-to-vote cards. The minority report concluded:

We support the recommendation that the AEC conduct a review of the relevant sections of the Act, which are clearly inadequate for the purpose of preventing the misuse of how-to-vote cards to deceive voters. We believe that the practice of some state electoral authorities …

And it goes on. What we have there, of course, is an argument for another day. But I think the minority report does provide a better position than the one argued by the majority in this area. The majority report argued poorly, I think, to try to substantiate the reasons for the earlier closure of the rolls. I think it failed to address some of the more relevant issues. Of recommendation 4, the minority report said:

This is the most radical recommendation in the entire report. It will have the effect of disenfranchising anyone who has not enrolled by the time the writs for an election are issued, and potentially disenfranchising all voters who are not enrolled at their correct address by depriving them of an opportunity to correct their enrolment details.

That is the position that is likely to occur. The government have failed to take heed of what the minority pointed out. They have steamrolled over those issues and in doing so they have steamrolled over democracy. The pretext for this proposal is that the enrolment during the five working days increases electoral fraud because the AEC does not have time to verify the information given by the enrollees. That is the argument that seems to be put, but there was no evidence in support of that contention presented to the inquiry, nor has any been presented to previous inquiries.

If there is evidence out there, it should be tabled. It should be brought forward. The AEC has never said that it cannot handle the volume of applications received, so I think it is disingenuous to say that the AEC would be swamped during this period and not able to cope. If there is that view then it is a matter of ensuring that the AEC does have that flexibility, and the government have the ability to ensure that. The AEC continues to check into the integrity of the rolls in the period following their closure to ensure that people are eligible to vote, so I think that argument is broadly disingenuous. We also heard from an AEC employee, appearing in a private capacity, about the early closure of the rolls. The early closure of the rolls, in his words:

... would disenfranchise a lot of people. We would have had to go to a lot of expense and advertising to ensure that the rolls were as up-to-date as possible and do that on a continuing basis.

That evidence was presented to the committee on 12 August 2005. But the AEC said:

The AEC is firmly of the view that, in the absence of any evidence to suggest that the opportunity to enrol or correct enrolment details in the week prior to the close of the rolls is being significantly abused, the procedure introduced on the Committee’s recommendation after the 1983 election must be judged a success.

But we are still debating these issues in this chamber. The recommendation will also cause, as I have said, particular problems for electors in remote or regional Australia. The Liberals’ partners in the coalition, the National Party, have certainly not twigged to the fact that it is also part of the Liberal Party armoury to ensure that The Nationals are disadvantaged as a consequence. To not have adequate access to appropriate communication facilities would, as the Western Australian government at the time indicated in their submission, cause difficulties and might lead to disenfranchisement of electors.

We have also heard from Senator Mason. Curiously, Senator Mason was the only coalition senator—save, I suspect, Senator Abetz in his summing up—to even attempt a straight-faced justification of the changes. And perhaps Senator Abetz may not even do that. Senator Mason stated that these changes to enrolment awareness campaigns ‘will go a long way to countering any possible unintended consequences of an early closure of the roll’. It is not the unintended consequences that Labor is worried about but the many intended consequences of this bill. When you go to the two major issues that I have talked about today—the donations and the early closure of the rolls—this bill should not be proceeded with. The government know what they are doing. They are seeking to commit another rort. These are not integrity measures. They have again carted out the wheelbarrow of old wish lists that they always want to bring forward. When you look at the broader issue of whether democracy will be diminished as a consequence, it can be safely said that it will be by the passing of these integrity measures. I am going to run out of time now but I will have the opportunity in the committee stage to ask a range of questions about some of these matters and particularly the issues that surround the political financial disclosures under the proposed changes to the thresholds.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2006 will enhance Australia’s electoral system. We have a very good electoral system in this country, but that does not mean that it cannot be enhanced. Indeed, these measures are about making it more robust, fair and rigorous. As a result, people will be able to have even greater confidence in our electoral system. Confidence in our electoral system is vital to the acceptance by the people of the electoral outcomes. What problems does this bill address? It addresses a number of them. I will go through them in some sort of order. I will also try and glean from the contributions of various senators what the themes were.

First of all, in relation to tightening up the electoral roll, Senator Andrew Bartlett, the Deputy Leader of the Democrats, told us that the key aim of the Commonwealth Electoral Act is to make it as easy as possible for people to get on the electoral roll. No; wrong. The Commonwealth Electoral Act should make it as easy as possible for people to get onto the electoral roll, subject to the appropriate tests being in place to ensure that the roll cannot be rorted.

I was absolutely astounded to hear and read in some of the speeches by opposition senators the suggestion that electoral fraud does not exist in this country. Senator Carr made the mistake; Senator Webber did. Every—

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Seventy-one cases since 1990; one in a million.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He now admits that fraud does exist, and he has offered the number 71. Karen Ehrmann went to jail because of electoral fraud perpetrated within the Australian Labor Party. Tony Mooney, Andrew Keogh, Lee Birmingham, Jim Elder, Mike Kaiser, Grant Musgrove, Bill Ludwig, Joan Budd and David Barbagallo are all names that have come up in relation to electoral fraud. It is disingenuous in the extreme for those opposite to suggest that electoral fraud is not a problem. Tell Karen Ehrmann, who served a period of imprisonment, that electoral fraud does not exist.

Jeannie Ferris (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What about that cat that voted twice in a marginal seat?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And we have the case of ‘Curacao Fischer Catt’, who was enrolled in the seat of Macquarie. The cat was able to get onto the electoral roll through fraud and misrepresentation. And, if somebody can get a cat onto the electoral roll, you cannot have confidence in the electoral system. But, for the roll rorters, that is fantastic news. If you can get a cat onto the electoral roll, chances are you can get anybody on the electoral roll, and then you can rort the system. Tell Karen Ehrmann, who served a period of imprisonment courtesy of Labor Party roll rorting, that roll rorting does not exist. It exists, and you know it. Thank goodness it is at a minimum. But we need laws to ensure that that cannot occur again.

The Liberals for Forests campaign was a disgraceful campaign, and the Labor Party support of it tells us why the current Labor member for Richmond refused to come before the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, because she would have been asked this question: ‘Were you aware of what was happening with Liberals for Forests?’ Because there was not a Liberal candidate running in that electorate, the Liberals for Forests wore blue t-shirts with ‘Liberal’ emblazoned on the front. They put their thumbs over the ‘for Forests’ on the how-to-vote cards and accosted people coming into the polling booths saying, ‘Vote Liberal,’ not ‘Vote Liberals for Forests.’ Unfortunately, a lot of people were misled. Disingenuously, the how-to-vote card for Liberals for Forests had only their own candidate’s party listed, next to ‘vote 1’. All the other people on the how-to-vote card did not have their party listed next to them. There was clearly a stunt being pulled. Unfortunately, it worked. We say that that is not good enough.

We then have the situation of Labor trying to defend the changes made in 1984 by the Australian Labor Party in the current Commonwealth Electoral Act. You do not have to listen to me in relation to what motivated these changes. Listening to Senator Ray’s speech, I was nearly convinced. He nearly convinced me how outrageous this was—until the good former senator Graham Richardson reminded me what Senator Ray and he had been up to in changing the rules. This is what Senator Richardson said about these changes. They were made so:

... that Labor could embrace power as a right and make the task of anyone trying to take it from us as difficult as we could.

What shameful cynicism! Then Senator Ray has the audacity to come into this place, having been part and parcel of that, to try to pretend that somehow his hands are clean!

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So that is what you are up to? Is that your confession?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The confession in fact comes later because Senator Sterle foolishly said, ‘If it happens to have suited Labor and it is good for the nation then so be it and let the cards fall where they will.’ Unfortunately, Senator Sterle’s researcher did not read further on in the Graham Richardson chapter because Senator Richardson made a confession. It is very interesting that you should talk about confessions, Senator Carr. This is what Senator Richardson said:

It is hard to argue that we have a better country for it.

Senator Richardson is willing to say that, with all of those changes that the Labor Party forced through, it is hard to argue that we have a better country for it. We now move onto the issue of people’s votes being accepted which are not able to be substantiated. At the last federal election 27,000 provisional votes were accepted into the count. There were more than 27,000 votes in total; but, of those provisional votes that were taken into the count, the Electoral Commission was unable to follow up on 27,000 of them to verify that they actually lived where they had asserted. When you divide that by the number of seats we have in this country, noting that some seats are won by 100 or so votes, that becomes a very serious concern.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Carr interjecting—

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Would you mind, Senator Carr? We actually listened to you guys and your very pathetic contributions for a while. Let me turn to prisoner voting. There are those who are now suggesting that everybody should be entitled to vote, including prisoners, and that this is somehow a fundamental right. It has long been the case in Australia, especially in state jurisdictions, that, if you are serving a period of imprisonment, you do not get the vote. We as a government happen to believe that if through the judicial system you have been sentenced to a period of incarceration—in other words, you have been removed from society by society through the judicial system—then, during that period of your removal from society, you forfeit the right to vote.

Senator Nettle and others are trying to justify the right to vote for these people. She says it is an important part of their rehabilitation. Can I say that I acted in the criminal law jurisdiction for quite some time. Not once did a person likely to go to jail say to me: ‘Eric, whatever you do, just give me the right to vote. Send me to jail by all means, just as long as I keep the right to vote.’ Not once was that said.

Let us get a grip on reality with this. The concern of citizens is their removal from society by the judicial system because they have so offended against the rules and laws of our society that they are deemed to be unworthy to walk the streets. I know some academic said that I put it deliciously simply by saying that chances are that, if you are unfit to walk the streets, you are unfit to vote. I suppose the reason they say that it is deliciously simple is because there is no argument in principle against that proposition. If you are removed from society then chances are that you should not be entitled to vote.

Allow me to go through some of the contributions of honourable senators in relation to the threshold in particular. What I seek to do is put on the record and repeat into the Hansard that which was said nearly a quarter of a century ago. Who said this, Senator Marshall? This person said:

People should be protected, if they want to be protected, by not having their names associated with a particular political party. What we are saying is that people who make these donations to political parties should be allowed to remain anonymous. We say that any donation—

and this will give you the hint, especially Senator Murray, I trust—

over $2,000, which we would regard as significant, should be capable of public disclosure.

That, of course, was the former leader of the Australian Democrats, speaking in this place some 24 years ago, saying that $2,000 was the appropriate threshold. If you then go to the Parliamentary Library and ask them to apply the inflation factor to that, you now have a figure well in excess of $5,000. So if the principle of Senator Don Chipp at the time remained and if you were to forward it to 2006, a quarter of a century later, you would have a figure in excess of $5,000. But he does make this point:

I would be sympathetic to the view that if persons because of altruism want to give a certain amount of money they should be protected if they want to be protected.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They need protection.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Cory Bernardi has quite rightly interjected that they need protection. They need protection from those people who would seek to intimidate them because of their donations. That is quite right. Senator Don Chipp a quarter of a century ago recognised that important point. We as a government, in fact, have had the view that the threshold should be $10,000 for the last 20-plus years. So there are no surprises here. We have remained consistent in that regard.

The important thing about this is that 88 per cent of all donations disclosed by both Labor and the Liberal Party were donated in amounts of $10,000 or more in the 2003-04 year. So, really, only 12 per cent of current donations might not be disclosed. If people are saying that that 12 per cent is going to somehow create undue influence on the body politic of Australia, I would say with great respect that I do not think you are right. What that 12 per cent—the rats and mice of the donations—is doing is putting untold pressure on political parties, especially small political parties, that have difficulty in coming to grips with the current system. And the Australian Electoral Commission spends far too much time on those figures for no real benefit. I would point out that on 9 March 2006, Karen Cassidy, the Tasmanian Greens convenor, said:

The Tasmanian Greens have two part-time employees, one of whom is our adminstrator. She basically has a full-time job in a part-time capacity trying to comply with the current regime for reporting of donations.

So even the Greens are complaining about the amount of work involved with these small amounts—and I am sure that is why Senators Brown and Milne are very quiet in relation to this point.

Those opposite have the absolute audacity, Senator Bernardi, to complain about the new threshold of $10,000. Coming from the state of South Australia, you will undoubtedly recall the stunt pulled by Senator Nick Bolkus—as he then was—for the campaign for Steve Georganas, who is now the member for Hindmarsh. He ran a $10,000 raffle. The one donor bought all the raffle tickets and there was no raffle prize—and it was not disclosed until he was flushed out. Senator Bolkus, a former minister responsible for the Commonwealth Electoral Act, engaged in this sort of behaviour.

It shows that the Labor Party will window-dress and assert themselves as being cleaner than the driven snow and then engage in the practice of trying to get donations and hiding them through the guise of a false raffle. It is the same when they talk about electoral roll rorting—‘It doesn’t exist; we don’t need to tighten up the provisions’—when they are the ones who have had people going to jail for roll rorting. I indicate to honourable senators that the electoral roll is used not only for electoral purposes but also for social security and other fraud related matters. Therefore, it makes good sense for the electoral roll to be robust.

I say to my good friend Senator Fielding that I disagree with his unfortunate reflection on political parties. In his contribution, he told us that community groups and lobby groups that push political agendas are not eligible for tax deductibility status. I say to Senator Fielding, yes they are, unfortunately. There is the Wilderness Society, the RSPCA and a number of organisations. What we are saying is: ‘Let’s level the playing field. Rather than taking tax deducibility status off some of these organisations, we ought to level the playing field.’

Senator Fielding said that he was opposed to the electoral roll being used for the purposes of the Financial Transaction Reports Act. I would be happy to give Senator Fielding a private brief on that. Basically, as a result of Commonwealth legislation, we require banking institutions to undertake checks for which we allow the electoral roll to be used—and they have now outsourced that to a third party. As I understand it, there is, at least on this issue, unanimity between Liberal and Labor and, I think, the Australian Democrats. So, if I have the opportunity to explain things to Senator Fielding later on, hopefully there will be agreement from him on that issue.

Unfortunately, time is short. Suffice it to say that those who are seeking to assert that there is somehow a conspiracy involved in relation to the thresholds et cetera conveniently overlook their own behaviour as a political party—for example, the raffle that I indicated earlier—and what Labour governments around the world do. In New Zealand, the threshold is $NZ10,000 and in the United Kingdom it is ₤5,000, which in very rough terms translates to $A10,000. Nobody has asserted that there is a democratic deficit in New Zealand or the United Kingdom because of those thresholds. They have had Labour governments for some considerable period of time and they have seen no need to change the laws. Nobody is asserting that there is a democratic deficit in those countries, and there is no basis to assert that there would be a democratic deficit if we were to have the $10,000 threshold in this country.

I thank honourable senators for their contributions. I look forward to the committee stage and I recommend the bill as printed.

Question put:

That the amendment (Senator Carr’s) be agreed to.