Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the government’s response to the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters on the conduct of the 2007 federal election and matters related thereto, together with a statement by the Special Minister of State, Senator Ludwig, relating to the matter.

I seek leave to have the government response incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The document read as follows—

Government Response to the Report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters

Report on the 2007 federal election electronic voting trials

September 2009

Recommendation 1Given the additional burden imposed by remote electronic voting with its paper-based backup systems on defence force personnel in operational areas and the relatively high average cost of voting at $1,159 per vote compared to an average cost per elector of $8.36 at the 2007 federal election, the committee recommends that remote electronic voting for defence force personnel should not be continued at future federal elections.

Response: Supported.

Recommendation 2— Given the support of the Department of Defence and the Australian Electoral Commission for the ‘Assistant Returning Officer’ (ARO) model that is likely to increase the probability that defence force personnel serving overseas can cast a vote and have it included in the count, the committee recommends that the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 be amended to facilitate the implementation of the ARO model for voting by selected Australian Defence Force personnel serving overseas. The model should have the following features:

• AROs may be appointed to issue pre-poll votes from static locations and provide mobile pre-poll facilities to smaller out posted camps in areas of operations;
• AROs may be appointed to issue pre-poll or postal votes to electors who are serving on naval ships on overseas deployment where this service is suitable and appropriate;
• AROs may be appointed to receive postal vote applications and issue postal votes to electors within operational areas and may receive completed postal votes from electors in order to facilitate their prompt return to the relevant DRO;
• Registration as General Postal Voter to remain available to all Australian Defence Force personnel serving overseas, in case they are not in the service area of an ARO; and
• Streamlined postal voting procedures should be implemented for those areas of operation where the ARO model will not be utilised.

Response: Supported. Minor legislative changes to the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 will be required for the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) and the Department of Defence (Defence) to develop an effective ARO model for implementation at the next federal election.

Recommendation 3—Given the importance of gaining full commitment by the Department of Defence to the implementation of the ‘Assistant Returning Officer’ model, the committee recommends that the Department of Defence ensure that an officer at a suitable level of rank be appointed to oversee electoral operations and to ensure those operations are conducted and resourced effectively.

Response: Supported. Defence will identify the relevant officer and advise the AEC expeditiously. It is also important to note that operational considerations and restraints at the time of a federal election may impact upon the employment of the ARO model in some locations. General Postal Voting will remain available to all ADF personnel serving overseas, including those who may have access to a Defence ARO, to maximise the opportunity to vote.

Recommendations 4—Given the high average cost per vote of $2,597 for electronically assisted voting compared to an average cost per elector of $8.36 at the 2007 federal election and a concern that participation will not increase to sustainable levels, the committee recommends that electronically assisted voting for electors who are blind or have low vision should not be continued at future federal elections.

Response: Noted. See response to Recommendation 5.

Recommendations 5—Assisted voting provisions in the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 give people who are blind or have low vision the opportunity to seek assistance from a person appointed by them in casting a vote at federal elections and referenda. Electors who have low vision may benefit from the provision of electronic magnifiers. The committee recommends that the government provide sufficient resources to the Australian Electoral Commission for the deployment of electronic magnifiers at sites where there is likely to be demand from electors who have low vision.

Response: Supported in principle. The Government notes that the AEC has been consulting with peak bodies for persons who are blind and have low vision to consider cost-effective options to enable voters who are blind or have low vision to cast a secret and independent vote at the next federal election. The AEC is to report to Government on the outcome of these consultations, including costings, by December 2009.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I have not at this stage seen this response. It may well be in the Table Office by now, but, again, the normal courtesies were not extended in relation to this matter. Anyway, that is a matter for the minister. In relation to this matter and the final report the coalition actually agreed more often with the government than we disagreed. This committee has worked on that basis for some time. There was a very substantial and compelling dissenting report and my colleague Senator Birmingham, who I was not aware was sitting behind me, is going to address that in greater measure. Given that he is here, I will confine my remarks to a couple of matters.

As a matter of principle probably the most important piece of legislation that governs the lives of Australian citizens is the Commonwealth Electoral Act. It is hard to think of an act of this parliament that is more important than the electoral act. It is hard to imagine an act of parliament that must be treated with the same amount of caution than the Australian electoral act. That fundamental right that each and everyone of us has to vote—the single most important thing we do in our lifetime, in my view—is that right to maintain our democracy of which we should be incredibly proud, and voting is an absolutely pivotal part of that. What you have got to establish and what you have got to be able to say to the Australian people is that, when you vote, the integrity of your own vote is guaranteed and equally important and the integrity of the vote of every other person who votes is guaranteed. We have quite clearly said over many, many years that we will do whatever is required in relation to the electoral act to ensure that it is not abused and that fraudulent activities are not allowed.

That, of course, is not a matter that has always been shared by the Australian Labor Party. I can go through the list, which is as long as your arm, but I will just give you a couple of examples. We have: Andrew Kehoe, Labor Party worker convicted and fined; Karen Ehrmann, Labor Party worker sent to jail; Mark Kaiser, former Labor Party MP; Christian Zahra, former Labor Party MP; Gino Nandarino, New South Wales Young Labor convicted and fined; and so on. If you really want to spend a bit of time looking at the level of fraud perpetrated by the Australian Labor Party, just go and pick up the Shepherdson inquiry report and you will need nothing else to establish the bona fides of the Labor Party.

I know that my colleague will be talking about participation, closure of the rolls, proof of identity and mobile polling. On that basis I will speak very briefly about participation, because I was not getting the rapid head-nodding that I was getting in relation to the other matters. The minister and I will be speaking at the 25-year celebration of the AEC in Canberra next week, and I will be making some comments about the participation question on that occasion. The simple fact is that non-institutional barriers are the chief problem with participation rates.

There are certain elements of the government’s response that cannot be supported by the opposition. The Commonwealth Electoral Act mandates that Australians have some basic rights and responsibilities—upon reaching enrolment age to enrol to vote; to actually maintain their enrolment to vote in election; and to fully extend their preferences to all candidates in their electorate who are contesting elections. These are the basic building blocks of our system of compulsory preferential voting. Yet the government’s response concludes that these requirements impose an unwarranted inconvenience on citizens. The Labor Party wants to shift to the lowest common denominator approach. That was wrong in our view and we oppose it.

The greatest right we have is to vote. Our very strong view is that participation is the key to this. With the rights come responsibilities and the responsibilities are clear that Australian citizens are required to participate in this process by enrolling. I will now hand back to my colleague, Senator Birmingham, who was a very active and important member of this committee as he is in relation to everything else he does, and he will continue with his remarks.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Ronaldson for that very nice rap at the end. I do rise to take note of the government response tabled today. However, I note that the response is not entirely the response that I was expecting to see. As you would appreciate I have had only a few brief short minutes during Senator Ronaldson’s remarks to consider the response.

Today’s order of business stated the government was going to respond to the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters on the conduct of the 2007 federal election, and matters related thereto. It was reasonable, therefore, to assume the government was going to provide its response to this substantive report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters into the 2007 federal election. Instead, I find the response relates purely to the federal election electronic voting trials and is therefore a much more limited response than the one that had been anticipated to be forthcoming from the government today when reviewing that order of business.

In the response that is provided I acknowledge that the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters provided a unanimous report in relation to electronic voting trials. Electronic voting trials were conducted at the last election for people who suffer vision impairment, as well as for Defence Force personnel serving overseas. However, those trials were found to be inordinately expensive on a per-vote basis and, regrettably, were not deemed to be able to be continued in the future. The committee provided that recommendation and I note that the government supported those recommendations in its response.

In relation to this matter, I and other members of the committee have met with representatives of the vision-impaired community since the JSCEM report was handed down. We hear their plea for the government to continue to find ways and to work hard through the Australian Electoral Commission to find means by which vision-impaired Australians can achieve the right to privacy when casting their vote. It is vitally important that we use every means possible to achieve that within reasonable allocation of resources. The committee found, and the government has accepted, that at the last election the allocation of those resources were not reasonable and the government needs to go back to basics. I urge the Australian Electoral Commission to heed the concerns of the blind and vision-impaired community and come up with new ways to support and assist them in progressing to a means by which they can enjoy the same rights as all other Australians in providing a secret ballot, without the aid of others, at election time.

However, the fact that this is a very limited response by the government does mean that its response to the substantive report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters remains outstanding. The coalition awaits that report and that response with great interest. We expect the government will look closely at the minority report that the coalition senators provided to that inquiry. We hope the government will recognise that there are a number of very important issues—some of which Senator Ronaldson raised before—that the government should heed, issues that go to the integrity of the electoral roll and ensuring that that integrity is not undermined through partisan changes to the Australian Electoral Act. We need to ensure that we have reasonable proof of identity provisions that guarantee that it is not easier to get onto the electoral roll than it is to take out a video from the video store.

It is important to ensure that we do not undermine the responsibility side of the equation. Voting is a right. It is a passionate right. It is a right that all Australians should enjoy. But there is a responsibility of Australians to ensure their enrolment is up to date, that they undertake the enrolment that is required. The opposition will watch closely for when the full government response to this report is handed down. We hope the government will heed our warnings on a number of the recommendations that the majority of government members’ opinion made during the JSCEM report. We urge the government over the ensuing weeks or months, until they provide a response, to be very mindful of the concerns we raised, which have the potential to go very much to the absolute heart of our democracy and the effectiveness and trust we have in our electoral system.

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities, Carers and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the coalition’s disability spokesman, I want to offer some brief remarks in relation to the government’s response to the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters into the last election, particularly the issue of electronically assisted voting for people who are blind or vision impaired. I recall the comments of Mr Graeme Innes, the Disability Discrimination Commissioner, at the time of the last federal election. He said that he had tears in his eyes as he voted, as it was the first time that he had been able to cast a genuinely secret ballot. That was the experience of many blind and vision-impaired Australians. The right to a secret ballot is something which most Australians take for granted, but for many Australians it was an experience they had not previously had.

I certainly appreciate the finding of the JSCEM report that by using the electronically assisted technology that was available the cost per vote was extremely high. It stands to reason that the cost per vote would be high under a trial, because that facility was available at a very small number of places. Obviously, if that facility were available throughout Australia at every polling place the cost per vote would be much lower. I must say that at the time the joint standing committee’s report came out I was disappointed because for members of the community who are blind or vision-impaired that report looked like a full stop. It looked like a dead end. It held out no hope for people who are vision-impaired to be able to cast a secret ballot in the future.

I think it is regrettable that at that time the government did not indicate an intention or even a disposition to work towards finding a way by which blind and vision-impaired Australians could cast a secret ballot in the future. That is something that the government should have done at the time. I recall seeing a statement by Mr Melham, who was the Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters at the time, in which he said he did not feel good about the recommendations of the committee. I can understand why he did not feel good, because I am sure that he appreciated that it was a suboptimal outcome for blind and vision-impaired Australians simply to be told that the trial was not going to continue and not to be given any indication that there would be any work undertaken to try to ensure that that option or an alternative was available.

It is my hope that the government does work towards finding a solution. I think that the Australian Electoral Commission should work together with the Disability Discrimination Commissioner to see if there are indeed ways of providing the option of a genuinely secret ballot for blind and vision-impaired Australians. Who knows: it might be by way of those individuals preregistering so that there can be that facility at the place at which they will choose to vote. That is an option. It may well be that there are lower cost options to provide that facility for these Australians. I cannot help but put to myself that if we can put a man on the Moon surely we can find a way, in this day and age of using modern technology, to facilitate, in a cost-effective way, a secret ballot for blind and vision-impaired Australians. I would certainly urge the government to take steps to ensure that happens so that the experience at the last election, which was so significant and so profound for those Australians, will prove not to be a one-off but something that can be repeated and in fact be seen as a right at future federal elections.

Question agreed to.