Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service and Integrity) Share this | Hansard source

I think the member for Blair for his question. He has a great commitment to ensuring that the rights of Indigenous Australians are translated effectively into electoral action. Indigenous Australians are significantly less likely to enrol to vote than any other Australians. They are less likely to vote and they are more likely to vote informally than non-Indigenous Australians. The AEC has long-established programs to try to deal with this challenge. In 2009-10, to close the gap in Indigenous disadvantage in electoral participation the commission was allocated an additional $13.2 million to establish its Indigenous electoral participation program. There are 25 field officers across the country, with 18 of them being Indigenous Australians. I have one operating out of Mandurah. They particularly operate around schools to ensure that Indigenous people become enrolled. But it is not as easy as that.

Some of the measures that the shadow minister has interrogated me upon in a previous question are measures that become troublesome in terms of encouraging and maintaining Indigenous voters. Among the lists that will be considered are road transport department lists—lists of people with drivers' licences. Indigenous people are less likely to have a driver's licence and so are less likely to be accurately identified through that mechanism. Then there is the ATO system. To be in the ATO system, it is likely that you will need to be in a period of full-time employment. As such, some of the lists that we will try to use to maintain enrolments will not work effectively in Indigenous communities. The AEC needs to continually apply itself to the task of ensuring that Indigenous electoral participation is what we as a parliament and we as a country aspire to.

There was a fantastic effort when the AEC sponsored its National Indigenous Youth Parliament to be in Canberra over the weekend of the last sitting. Members from all sides of the parliament attended a fantastic lunch and a series of events attached to the youth parliament. It was an event put on by the AEC designed to encourage real time, real life, active participation in our political process in order to get a willing and supporting cadre of Indigenous people who understand the importance of getting members of their community on the roll and getting them out to vote.

We see through our IEPP processes the continuing growth of enrolments of Indigenous citizens—but it is not happening quickly enough. We are seeing the strengthening of the integrity of the roll particularly in remote communities, but we can do a lot more. We are seeing an increase in the number of Indigenous people working as polling officials on mobile and static polling facilities in Indigenous communities, but we can always do better. We are seeing an increased number in requests for fee-for-service elections by Indigenous organisations. That is building a strong culture of familiarity with our electoral processes—processes of getting on the roll and getting out to vote.

Can we do more? Yes, we can. Should we do more? Yes, we should. Is it expensive? Yes, it is. I will get back to the member for Blair with a specific set of answers from the electoral commission to those issues that he has raised which I have not addressed in my answer.

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