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

I thank the member for Banks for his question. I will answer the last part first which is in the context of the blind voting and initiatives that were in place for the last federal election and are being considered for the future. It is the case that the Electoral Commissioner is substantially of the view that the Commonwealth systems can be improved and that support for people with disabilities can be extended. One of the great values of the extension of that voting facility for blind or visually impaired voters is that it can also be used to assist mobility impaired voters. That agenda of encouraging and supporting people with disabilities to exercise their rights in our electoral process is alive and is being considered.

In the context of the particular New South Wales iVote initiative, I will need to get advice from the commissioner. I am aware of the iVote system. I think Linda Hornsey from the particular association involved is in the building this week. I look forward to catching up with her, I think tomorrow, to discuss this matter further. But I look forward to getting back to the member on the detail of the commissioner's view of iVote and the extension of those measures which are designed to improve voter participation amongst people with disabilities. The additional funding for the Electoral Commission is, of course, funding that presumes an electoral event in 2013. It presumes an electoral event at some point in the third quarter of 2013, but the funding is not created explicitly in the expectation that that is the only time at which an electoral event can take place. So prudent measures have been put in place by the commission to ensure that it can support the needs of our parliamentary democracy should that be required at any time.

The Commonwealth Electoral Act amendments that are currently before the Senate effectively work to harmonise elector data management systems in the Commonwealth roll with those of our two most popular states. I cannot understate the importance of harmonising the Commonwealth roll with the state jurisdictions. The member for Banks specifically asked the view of the New South Wales government on these measures. The New South Wales government and the New South Wales Electoral Commission are significantly in advance of the rest of the country on these measures. That commission has, we believe, in the order of 100,000 New South Wales electors alone that it can bring into the Commonwealth roll as a consequence of these measures. To simply try to extrapolate that across the rest of the country with the successful operation of these techniques might mean that we could be looking at repairing the enrolments of up to half a million people. What a fantastic thing that would be. But, importantly, I am not aware of any moves by either the New South Wales government, the New South Wales commission, the New South Wales parliament or the Victorian commission, government or parliament to wind back those measures which are directed towards electoral roll maintenance.

In our Commonwealth system we, of course, do not refer to it as 'automatic enrolment'. This is an automated system of maintaining enrolment. We maintain the integrity of the system by requiring that new enrollees properly complete documentation, properly sign documentation and properly lodge that documentation. The methodologies that we seek to introduce through these amendments are methodologies to better track individuals as they become mobile through the course of their life cycle and allow them to exercise their right and their obligation to vote wherever they are domiciled, where we can confirm through high-integrity sources and data matches that that is the person who has been identified as owning the enrolment.

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