Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, Civics and Electoral Education, and seek leave to move a motion in relation to the report.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, I have pleasure in presenting the committee’s first report for 2007, Civics and Electoral Education.

As one of the six longest continuous democracies in the world, Australia has a proud history and solid foundation of democratic principles. A basic understanding of our political and voting systems is fundamental to a vibrant participatory democracy. It is of some concern to the committee that surveys have shown that Australians between the ages of 15 and 35 typically have limited knowledge of Australia’s political history and political system and have little interest in Australian political affairs. Young people are not alone in this feeling of disconnection: evidence suggests that Indigenous Australians and migrant citizens also experience some difficulties in their interactions with the democratic process.

The committee’s inquiry sought to examine the reasons for low rates of electoral participation amongst young people, Indigenous Australians and migrants, and to find meaningful ways to encourage citizens to participate more directly in Australian democracy, primarily based on their poor English language skills.

The terms of reference for the inquiry were very broad, enabling us to hear from a diverse range of Australians, from schoolchildren and teachers to community leaders, academics and practitioners. The committee conducted 11 public hearings which included hearings in every state and territory. The committee also visited 10 schools, both primary and secondary, and held two school forums, during which it held discussions with 244 students and 47 of their teachers.

The committee has made a series of recommendations which we believe will contribute to a healthier democracy with more citizens who are informed, involved and engaged in the issues that are important to them. While many of the committee’s recommendations focus on matters regarding the provision of civics education, we also recommend a number of practical measures aimed at reducing the disenfranchisement of eligible voters.

Some of the committee’s key recommendations include: developing a short, focused electoral education unit to be delivered to either year 9 or year 10 students and year 11 and year 12 students in all secondary schools; reassessing the Parliament and Civics Education Rebate, as it affects students from the remotest parts of Australia; improved training and guidelines for polling officials communicating with Indigenous Australians; reviewing the languages which the Australian Electoral Commission currently translates its materials into, taking into account the languages spoken by more recent migrant arrivals to Australia; and providing a program of electoral education in the lead-up to federal elections which specifically targets areas of high informal voting, including those with a high proportion of voters from non-English-speaking backgrounds and those in areas where there are different voting systems in place for state elections.

I take this opportunity to thank my fellow committee members for their dedication to the inquiry. I also acknowledge the support the Australian Electoral Commission provided to the committee throughout the inquiry. I will take this opportunity to also make a number of comments. When this report was tabled in the House, regrettably the relevant shadow minister used the opportunity to criticise the Howard government over the closing of the rolls provisions. Even in New South Wales, where the rolls closed some time after the writs were issued, in the recent state election there were still 120,000 people who did not register early enough to vote. Regrettably, even if one gives a period of time of a day, two weeks or three years, there will always be people who will not register to vote. I think it is better to have a system which protects the integrity of the roll but still affords the opportunity for people to register to vote.

It is not optional to be correctly enrolled on the register; it is the law of the land. Being busy is no excuse. I think it is regrettable that in the other place those opposite were trying to find excuses for just plain laziness. In society in general, people manage to make time for all sorts of things when they are important to them. I think it is important that voting is compulsory in Australia and that therefore there is an obligation to register to vote. I do not think that affording opportunities and parameters that provide excuses is appropriate.

The report was unanimous and there was no dissenting report. Regrettably, the member for Bruce, who spoke in the chamber, did not participate in many of the actual hearings and he made it clear on numerous occasions that he did not think much of the objectives of the report. I think making negative comments at the tabling of the report was quite unfair given the participation during the debates and proceedings of the hearings.

Finally, I wish to thank all the groups, organisations and individuals who gave their time to prepare submissions and appear as witnesses before the committee. Having said that, on behalf of my committee colleagues, I commend the report to the Senate.

John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President Ferguson, for taking over my duties in the chair a minute early. I was a member of the committee and I did participate. I have since left the committee, which was a bit unfortunate from my perspective because I did not get to see and participate in the formulation of the report that was developed. I did go to a number of the schools. I visited the Australian Electoral Commission here in Canberra and schools interstate. We had planned visits to my own state of Queensland but, unfortunately, I could not attend the one that took place in Townsville, and the one that was planned for the Brisbane city region was not able to take place at all. So there were some people whom we did not hear from. I felt that the unfortunate part of the inquiry—and this is not necessarily the fault of the secretariat, the chair or anyone in particular—was that, although we tried to get a balanced view as to what was happening in the area of civics and civics education not just in our school system but in the broader community at large, that was not necessarily always able to be achieved.

We did visit some schools. I recall that we visited a school in Tasmania where there was a highly switched on class in the area of civics and they responded very well to the inquiry. But this could be contrasted with the other end of the spectrum where there were people and teachers—and I am not blaming teachers—who were not as well versed in the area of civics and so, of course, civics was not treated with the same sort of priority as it was in the school we saw, for example, in Hobart.

The other school that comes immediately to mind is the one that we visited in the Northern Territory. The school in Hobart was a junior school; the school in the Northern Territory was a senior school. Again, the people there were highly switched on. The students in that particular class were highly switched on to the electoral processes. But the unfortunate part was that that small microcosm were the only group in that school who were switched on to electoral reform, electoral matters and politics in general, and that was because they were participating in a legal studies course.

I think that one of the weaknesses that I saw in the various inspections that took place—and I do not know if this is reflected in the report, because I must concede that I have not read it at this stage—was the fact that, where there was strength in teacher presence and knowledge and strength in that particular element of the school curriculum, civics was done very well, but where that was lacking it was done poorly indeed. I am sure that this has been addressed in the recommendations of the committee and I am sure that something will be done in the longer term to redress this situation.

One of the things that did concern me as a member of the committee was people’s ability to place themselves on the roll under the new enrolment regime that has been put in place by this government. Again, I have not seen the speech by the member for Bruce, but we had concerns, even if they were not on the Hansard record. Given the way in which some of these meetings at the schools were conducted, this of course was not likely to be forthcoming in the junior school area but more in the secondary school area. We did hear concerns expressed about people’s ability to place themselves on the roll under the new enrolment regime. There are some real concerns that young people will not be aware of the need to enrol themselves and to participate in the electoral process. This is a great concern indeed when one considers that these people will probably this year have the opportunity to exercise their right to vote in a federal election for the first time and that right will not come around for another three years.

Interestingly enough, there were some initiatives where high school students who are becoming eligible to vote as a result of their pending 18th birthdays receive a birthday card which reminds them of their role and their responsibility as potential electors in Australia. That is good. But whilst this is a good program, it certainly does not reach all the students.

We went to Warburton and spoke to the Indigenous students at a junior-cum-secondary high. It was interesting to see the challenges that they are faced with in terms of linking into a civics program that has a meaningful outcome for them. We heard, particularly in the Warburton area, that the Indigenous community related more to local government elections than to state or federal elections. Of course the concept of Federation is not necessarily understood either by some members of the Indigenous community or by the broader community at large. That became a fundamental concern of mine in the conduct of this particular inquiry.

We did receive representations from the migrant community in Sydney. They expressed their concerns about the ability to have other migrants participate in the electoral process and that there should be no barriers placed before migrants participating in the electoral process.

Another issue that was of particular concern to me was in respect of the number of people who travel overseas who are not on the roll when they leave, and their prospects of enrolling once they are overseas. Under the new regime it poses a number of difficulties. I am quite sure that this was not taken up in the committee’s report, but a suggestion did come to the surface during the inquiry that, with the stricter regime in place for passport application these days, the passport application process may well serve in a dual manner to act as a registration for election and may well overcome the need for people to go through some overly rigorous process in an overseas country to get themselves on the electoral roll. I do not believe that that has been taken up by the committee at this stage.

I mention it in this debate because I think it is something that should be looked at in the future. It warrants real consideration not only for those who might be on the roll and moving overseas temporarily, but those—particularly the young people—who will spend two years overseas travelling around and then find that an election has been called and they have great difficulty getting on the roll.

One of the greatest rights that we have in our democratic society is the right to vote, the right to elect the government that we want to see put in place, even though some people will not agree with the government that has been duly elected to office. That will always be the case. If that right is not freely available to be accessed by people, such as many of our young people, they find themselves becoming cynical and detached from the system. Anything that overcomes that is welcome indeed. Whilst I do not believe that it is part of the recommendations of the report before the Senate chamber today, I would think that that is one of those sleeping issues that, at some stage, needs to be taken up by government, regardless of whatever complexion it might be. We should not in any way put obstacles in the path of those who want to participate in the electoral process. I commend the inquiry in that it sought the views of a wide range in the community. Whether everyone believes that civics is being well treated will be seen in the longer term.

Andrew Murray (WA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters report, Civics and electoral education, has been a long time coming. I recall that in the joint standing committee’s inquiry into the 1993 report, former senator Meg Lees, the then Deputy Leader of the Australian Democrats, was calling for a much upgraded program with respect to civics education broadly. It is an issue in this country—it is probably an issue in all democracies. It ties back to the general sense of civic participation in the community at large. It is difficult, depending on the circumstances of individuals—the families they come from, the communities they live in—for people to engage with and get interested in and excited about the issues of civics participation. Any inquiry which would come to this table would recognise that civics is tied back to general issues of participation in the community at large. That of course includes an understanding of history, legal studies, social studies and environmental studies. It has to be part of an integrated education program.

I have been a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters since 1996. I welcome this committee report, and I welcome the fact that it is a unanimous report. The report concentrated on three main sectors: young Australians, Indigenous Australians and migrants. At the heart of any inquiry like this is a recognition that it has two fundamental purposes: the first is an understanding of our system and a desire and an ability to participate in the system in the broadest political sense, not just in the narrow representative sense; and the second is to make sure that people fully participate in our electoral processes. The report will be worth nothing unless the government of the day puts commitment behind it and provides the money and resources to make sure it happens; otherwise it will be just an expression of parliamentary opinion. It really does need the government, either this one or the next one, to respond actively and to make a long-term commitment in this area.

Sometimes governments withdraw from these areas and do not appreciate the consequences until much later. I recall that, as part of the budget cuts in 1996, the Indigenous program of electoral education and encouragement in the civics area broadly was slashed. The consequence was a negative one. Unlike Senator Fierravanti-Wells, I think the remarks of the shadow minister in the House about the early closing of the rolls were relevant to this report because part of civics education is to encourage people to enrol and to participate. But very little can be done to change human nature. Essentially, closing the rolls early has made it more likely that more Australians will not be enfranchised for the federal election this year.

There is a sharp division of opinion between the government and the non-government parties on this matter. I have sat through four inquiries into four federal elections and at none of them did I feel that the integrity of the roll was at risk as a result of closing of the rolls seven days after the writs had been issued. I based my opinion on the evidence that was before me and on the opinion of the AEC principally; however, government members took issue with that. So now the rolls will close early, and we have switched to an address based system rather than a divisionally based system. There is a danger that, compared with the last election, many hundreds of thousands more Australians will not vote this time. That means that not just the AEC but all political parties must do their very best to get the vote out—to get Australians enrolled. In concluding, I confirm my support for the recommendations of the report, and I again urge the government to put its back behind the report in the sense of money, resources and political will. I hope it will have a long-term beneficial effect on civics education and electoral education for young Australians, Indigenous Australians and migrants. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.