Senate debates
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010
Second Reading
Debate resumed from 15 March, on motion by Senator Wong:
That this bill be now read a second time.
6:07 pm
Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
The Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010 goes to the very nub of what is great about Australia’s parliamentary system, and that is that we are one of the world’s oldest continuous democracies. There are a number of areas in our electoral system that preserve and protect that right, and with that come some responsibilities. First and foremost among them is the fact that our citizens are asked to vote. Indeed, they are required to enrol to vote. They are required to maintain accurate and timely enrolment records. We ask them to cast a vote so that they can have a say in how their country is governed. We also fully extend preferences among the parliamentary parties and candidates.
These requirements are the basic building blocks of our system of compulsory preferential voting. They are not onerous requirements. We know that some people do not fulfil them as accurately as they should or resent having to cast a vote on occasions. But when we put it in perspective—there are any number of countries that fight for the democratic right to vote and people take enormous risks in establishing that right or protecting and defending it—certainly it is something that has made a wonderful contribution to Australia’s stable democracy. So the requirements are not onerous. They represent what I would regard as the modest responsibilities of citizenship. The vast and overwhelming majority of Australians actually fulfil those requirements. That was noted in what was, I regret to say, a dissenting report from a Senate committee inquiry into the Electoral Act, the act which this bill addresses.
The government is seeking to change a number of provisions in the Electoral Act through the schedules in this bill. First amongst these changes is the fact that it will restore the close of rolls period to seven days after the issue of the writ for an election. That means that the electoral rolls will close seven days after the issuing of the writ. The bill will also repeal the requirement for provisional voters to provide evidence of identity before their votes are admitted to scrutiny. I repeat: voters will not have to prove their identity before their votes are admitted to scrutiny. It will enable pre-poll votes cast in an elector’s home division to be counted as ordinary votes wherever practicable, which was a recommendation from the inquiry by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. It will also allow the Australian Electoral Commission, or AEC, to process enrolment transactions outside the division for which the person is enrolling and enable electors to update their enrolment details electronically, which was another recommendation of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. Finally, it will restrict the number of candidates that can be endorsed by a political party in each division.
I would like to speak briefly to each of these schedules. First amongst these is the amendment regarding the closure of the rolls. I consider the closure of the rolls seven days after the issue of a writ to be a threat to the very integrity of the electoral roll. Currently, the AEC gets an extra seven days to verify new enrolments and then an extra four to verify changes of address. So, with the closing of the roll at 8 pm on the day the writs for the election are issued, which is normally three or four days after the election is actually called, the AEC then has some further time—seven days and four days respectively—to confirm new enrolments and changes of address.
The previous government, in which I was proud to play a small part, reduced the time between the calling of the election and the close of the rolls. They did that to protect the integrity of the roll and to prevent fraudulent enrolments. There are some who will say, unfairly, that we do not have much of a problem with fraudulent enrolments. But history shows that there have been any number of fraudulent enrolments on the electoral roll. We have had cats on the roll. I think ‘Curacao Cat’ was an actual enrolment—I stand to be corrected on that—in Queensland. We have had an investigation into rorts of the electoral system and the electoral roll with regard to preselections and voting in general elections. These sorts of things need to be contained because we want to maintain the integrity of our electoral system.
The ALP is proposing here to return to the old scheme, where 520,000 new enrolments and changes to enrolments were submitted to the AEC in the seven days before the closing of the rolls prior to the 2004 election. The AEC was expected to deal with 520,000 new enrolments or changes prior to the 2004 election. It is pretty unreasonable to expect an agency or an organisation to be able to check and verify credibly those changes to the electoral roll. The coalition maintain that the evidence is there to say that the changes that we implemented and introduced, which the ALP is seeking to roll back, actually supported a highly accurate electoral roll. The evidence we have is based on AEC reports. In 2007 just over 100,000 people missed the close of rolls deadline. Compare that with 2004, when there was a much longer period of time for people to amend their disclosure, when 168,000 people missed the deadline. So, by changing that and having a definite date that was linked categorically to the issuing of the writs, there was a 40 per cent reduction in the number of people who failed to enrol.
The coalition believes that a return to the previous system of seven days would discourage citizens from making or maintaining their enrolment during the ordinary course of the year, as human nature so often is to say, ‘I will have plenty of time to do that after the election is called or after the writs are issued.’ By providing an earlier and more definite date, it helps the process be drawn to people’s attention. It also allows the AEC to effectively process and scrutinise those changes to make sure the integrity of the electoral roll is maintained. These changes in the schedule will increase the opportunity for selective fraudulent enrolment.
Schedule 2 of the bill deals with the evidence of identity for provisional votes. The coalition is opposed to any attempts to weaken the proof of identity provisions relating to enrolling or provisional voting. If we weaken them, if we subsume them, it is only natural there are going to be more attempts to enrol fraudulently. Weakening proof of identity provisions would remove a deterrent to people failing to maintain their enrolment or seeking to take part in multiple voting. It does happen. I do not have the figures exactly, but the AEC figures reveal that 70 to 75 per cent of provisional voters showed ID when voting. It is widely accepted; voters regard it as important thing to do. But of those who failed to provide ID, which is about nearly 34,000 people, only one in five subsequently provided proof of ID by the cut-off date. Labor has argued that the attrition rate stems from voter apathy. It thinks the result of the election is already known. But that is not what is important. What is important is that we know those who are casting ballots are doing so in accordance with our electoral law.
There are some extremely close votes, most recently in the Swan and McEwen electorates where counting continued for weeks after the election. In McEwen, the result of the poll was subject to a court case over some disputed votes. We are talking quite literally about a dozen or so votes that really count and can sway an election. We spent a long time in our history saying that every vote counts. We say to the citizens of Australia, ‘Your voice and your say can make a difference.’ There is proof positive because a dozen or so people in McEwen and not many more in Swan made the difference to an election.
If we cannot rely on the integrity of the votes cast, it could call into question the actual mandate or the election result overall. These are the sorts of things that, as a conservative, I would seek to avoid, that we make sure that we stand with what works and build upon the vision of our forefathers. We need to have disincentives for those who fail to correctly enrol. We need to make sure that the benefits are there for those who do the right thing, who correctly enrol and who maintain their enrolment. The coalition and I are against this weakening of these provisions.
Schedule 3 of this bill deals with amendments to prepoll voting. The coalition supports the schedule relating to prepoll voting because current administrative procedures relating to prepoll votes can be cumbersome. Often they take place many weeks after polling day. These changes will enable prepoll votes to be counted on the night of the election, which provides an earlier result of the vote. That is important for the people of Australia. We want to get the results of our votes known as early and as accurately as possible because, as I said, we have seen some disputes over the votes cast continue over many weeks. If we can avoid that, it strengthens our political system. We also support these changes because they appear to have no adverse effects on the integrity of the roll or on the application of practices on polling day.
Schedule 4 deals with an amendment to the processing of enrolments. Once again, the coalition supports this amendment because it will allow the AEC to transfer the processing of enrolments to divisional returning officers. It is expected that this provision will improve efficiency as workloads will be able to be spread out between offices in busy times. These changes also allow people that are already involved to update their details electronically. It is an acceptance that Australia is moving along the digital highway and many voters enrolled to vote will find this a more efficient means of maintaining their electoral details.
Schedule 5 is an amendment regarding the nomination of candidates. The coalition supports the amendment to restrict the number of candidates that can be endorsed by a political party in each division. This provision is relatively new and it stems from a by-election that took place in New South Wales where a single party sought to ‘flood the field’ by nominating many candidates. The reason political parties may seek to do that is that it delivers a higher percentage of informal votes. People get tired of numbering all the boxes, particularly if there are 10 or 12 candidates from the same party. It has been statistically shown that there is an increased number of informal votes when there are a high number of candidates. It mainly relates to the failure to correctly number all the boxes on the ballot paper. I support that because I really do think formal votes are an important thing.
I want to stress that there needs to be the ability for anyone to nominate for parliament in this country who fulfils the requirements under the act. I would hate to see people discouraged from putting their names forward, whatever their cause is—that is, if it is legal in this country. Of course, there are some who would have more of my support than others, but that is not the point. The point is that one of the great opportunities for people is to be an Australian citizen and nominate for parliament because of a cause or because of an issue or because of something that they think is truly very important. In considering this, I do not regard that this final provision is an impediment to our democracy or our democratic rights. It is well-intentioned to ensure that the votes cast are valid votes and to make it as easy and as workable as possible for the electoral roll to get a fair and reasonable result that is in accordance with the views of the electorate.
In supporting these bills, I have reservations about some of the provisions in them. It would be my hope that we can amend them to more reasonably deal with the concerns that I have outlined, and that I am sure my colleagues will outline shortly. In doing so, I recognise that the Labor Party feels very strongly about some of these provisions as well. I just hope there is some negotiating room in them because I am sure we are agreed we want to stamp out electoral fraud. I am sure we agree that we want to minimise the risk of incorrect electoral roll details. But in order to ensure the integrity of our electoral roll we need to make sure that we are not taking steps that are retrograde, that go back to where it has been proven historically that there is going to be some sort of compromise of the integrity of the electoral roll. I regard schedules 1 and 2 as areas of concern for the reasons I have outlined, but most importantly because the old provisions were shown to have worked through the AEC. If something works, why would you seek to roll it back to something that did not work as effectively or as efficiently?
In the couple of moments I have left, I would like to once again emphasise to the Senate how important the validity of the electoral roll is to the integrity of our parliamentary democracy. We have one of the oldest parliamentary democracies in the world. It has been running continuously, we have had our highs and our lows and our ups and downs, but it works and it works very well. We need to continue to maintain the opportunity for Australians’ votes to be valid and to count because, as I mentioned, a single vote or one or two votes can change the outcome of an election. When you change the outcome of an election, you also change the outcome of the policy agenda. I recall that in this place there have been any number of votes, and some conscience votes, that have aroused a great deal of passion on both sides of the debate, where there has been no political party divide, that have been lost by a single vote. We should be mindful that in the future the very nature of our social policy or our economic policy and the very future of our governments and the direction of our nation can change on a single vote. I would urge all of my colleagues to reflect on that in making these changes to the electoral roll lest they have an unintended consequence of supporting electoral rorting, fraudulent enrolments or invalid votes, which can compromise the very cornerstone of Australia’s federation.
6:27 pm
Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
I reiterate the comments of my colleague Senator Bernardi. I am now a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, but I was not at the time of its report into the conduct of the 2007 election. The Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010 comes from the recommendation of the government majority in that report. But underlying the philosophy of this bill, and indeed of an inquiry we recently conducted into the provisions of the New South Wales automatic enrolment act, is the fact that we seem to be rewarding, encouraging or otherwise dismissing people from their personal or individual responsibilities. The Electoral Act requires that people enrol. The Electoral Act requires that people update their details within a certain number of days after they move house. And the Electoral Act requires that they turn up and attend at a polling place on election day.
Whether or not people agree with that, and there are quite a number who disagree with those particular provisions of our electoral system, the reality is that we should not be excusing people for failing to update their electoral details. It is a requirement of individuals under the act at the moment and I do not think that we should be effectively permitting people to not do so. We have seen in history—and the Australian Electoral Commission has this pointed out—that as a general rule electoral enrolment stays above 90 per cent. There seems to be a philosophy, and this was pointed out by some in that other inquiry I mentioned earlier into the automatic enrolment provisions, that, if it is 91 per cent and not 92 per cent, we have a problem—that there one million extra Australians excluded from the roll. That was the language of the government majority in that inquiry.
The coalition challenges that language, because no-one is excluded from the electoral roll in Australia. They have to fill out a form and submit it in a reply-paid envelope or at a divisional returning office. That is not a particularly difficult task to comply with. It is not a particularly onerous provision. Could it be easier? Yes, and there have been discussions about changes through which electoral enrolments would be done by other means. But what matters more when it comes to an electoral roll is that there be absolutely no perception that it lacks integrity. I challenge the government majority’s language about other transactions with government being done in other ways, which led to these recommendations. Whether the government agrees with it or not, the coalition strongly believes that filling out a form to get a Medicare card or to make other transactions with government is not as important as the legitimacy of our electoral process.
The last election in my home state of Victoria was close in the electorate of McEwen. One of the great things about Australia—and I commend the AEC for their work on this—is that, following the court challenge and the consideration by a Federal Court judge of a number of disputed ballots, there was really no challenge to the validity of the result. Its legitimacy was accepted. The popular acceptance of the legitimacy of such results when they are that close is substantially dependent upon the integrity of the conduct of the election, and the electoral roll plays a significant part in that. If there had been questions over substantial numbers of votes, such a close election could have been brought into question. In my home state of Victoria in 1999, the state government was effectively decided in the electorate of Geelong by the votes of fewer people than there are in a football team, but the legitimacy of the result was not questioned.
A bill like this, just as the automatic enrolment provisions suggest, proposes that we go too far in seeking to cast the net wider, so absolving people of their individual responsibilities. Complying with the act and enrolling is not that hard. It is false to say that people in Australia who are not enrolled to vote are excluded from doing so. They are not. In the majority of cases they have failed to comply—though there may be the odd individual exception—with the terms of the act. Some people have described the electoral enrolment form as the ‘purple people eater’. It was described as such before the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. However, while it may be possible to design a form better, it is not the most complex government form I have filled out. When my friends applied for the baby bonus before the government started making it more difficult to do so, they felt that the form for the baby bonus was substantially more complex.
As Senator Bernardi pointed out, this bill contains five schedules. Schedule 1 reverses the initiative of the previous government that ensured that the rolls closed on the day that the writs were issued rather than seven days afterwards. Senator Bernardi also pointed out the fact that there were over a half a million people under the previous provisions, which the government is seeking to reinstate, who enrolled after an election was called. It is absolutely impossible for the Australian Electoral Commission, with its resources, to check the validity of every single one of those applications for enrolment and be confident that each of them is valid to the extent that it should be on the roll. It is just not possible to process that amount of information in that short a period.
It is also important to note that under these provisions, along with the strong AEC education campaign that was funded by the previous government, we saw a substantial number of people who updated their details when the election was called. The coalition opposes schedule 1 of the bill because the responsibility of people to update and maintain their details, the ability of the AEC to run education campaigns and the inability of the AEC to effectively oversee a rush of enrolments in the last two days before an election campaign gets underway means that the legitimacy of results that are particularly close could be called into question.
I make the point that people’s maintaining their enrolment details is important because it is fair that candidates and members of parliament know their electors. We do not have election day enrolment, and presumably one of the reasons is that that did not lead to very good outcomes historically. People enrolling on the day was messy and time consuming. It has happened in other countries, but the Australian system requires a constantly updated roll, and that roll means that candidates and members of parliament in the lead-up to election campaigns have an opportunity to know who their electors are. I think that is a particularly important principle that our system protects, and it is a principle that we should continue to protect.
Schedule 2 of the bill repeals the requirement for provisional voters to provide evidence of identity before their votes are counted. This is also a particularly important provision. I note that in its report on the 2007 election the AEC pointed out:
Approximately 75 per cent of provisional voters showed evidence of identity when voting.
Obviously, there were a number of people who did not attend and present proof of identity after polling day within the prescribed period, which would have allowed their votes to be counted. I say again that this is not a particularly onerous requirement. As I understand it, there was no evidence provided by the AEC that administrative errors had excluded people from the electoral roll. By that I mean that no government error has excluded anyone from the electoral roll; rather, the people excluded were generally those who had failed to maintain their enrolment correctly.
It is particularly important that, when we have a number of electorates that tend be close in their results, electors have confidence that everyone who votes is legitimately entitled to vote. Having people turn up and cast provisional votes without identification or without being required to produce some subsequently places this in danger. Again, I think we are getting our priorities wrong when it comes to, on the one hand, protecting the integrity of the roll and, on the other, allowing people who have not necessarily complied with the Electoral Act to vote on the day. We are not talking about a number of people that might bring into question the legitimacy of our electoral roll. We have above 90 per cent enrolment, a number that many countries in the world would aspire to if they had a similar system, and I think we tamper with that at our peril.
I go back to the electorate of McEwen, which was decided after many months, after a High Court challenge and a Federal Court judge reviewed individual ballot papers, and I do not think that particular election result would have any greater legitimacy if these provisions had been enacted. Similarly, I think that there is a risk that such close results could have their legitimacy challenged, if not legally then purely on the basis of public perception, if there had been a massive enrolment in the days after the election was called or there had been a weakening of the identity provisions that are required for people to cast provisional votes.
As Senator Bernardi outlined, schedule 3, which enables pre-poll votes in an elector’s home division to be cast and counted as ordinary votes on election night, effectively, is a sensible amendment. There has been a dramatic increase over the last 20 years in the number of people casting pre-poll votes. I understand—although I am happy to be corrected—this is because over that period the strict application of the eligibility to cast a pre-poll vote is no longer applied in the same way. I have my concerns with the substantial increase in the number of pre-poll votes in a compulsory voting environment—I think there is something to be said for everyone voting on one day—but I do not make any particular comment on that other than to say that that aspect of the bill is supported by the coalition and makes a great deal of sense. It will allow a much greater proportion of the votes to be counted on election night.
Schedule 4 is an administrative amendment that allows the AEC to more effectively process enrolment transactions. Again, the coalition supports this schedule. It makes sense for the AEC to be able to utilise its resources to process the number of enrolment changes in the way it sees fit and there is no way, in my view, that this in any way challenges the legitimacy of the electoral roll. The coalition supports that particular aspect of the bill.
Finally, schedule 5, which did not come out of the government majority report into the conduct of the 2007 election by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, reflects the events of the Bradfield by-election where a particular party endorsed nine candidates in a field of 22. This proposal makes a great deal of sense, although there have historically been multiple endorsements by some other political parties that have not been quite as confusing for voters. Whether that was the intention of the party or not I cannot attest, but I think that, in the modern political era, limiting political parties to endorse one candidate, with all the benefits and privileges they have under other parts of our electoral laws, is a legitimate move. The coalition will be supporting that schedule.
I mentioned earlier that the philosophy underlying this bill is similar to that underlining the government majority recommendation with respect to the automatic enrolment provisions. I restate the view that it is unreasonable and inaccurate to describe the number of Australians who are not on the electoral roll as being excluded from our electoral process. They have the option of participating. All they have to do is fill out a form, Senator Hanson-Young. It is not that difficult. We should not be encouraging a permissive approach to the electoral roll. I have outlined why these provisions should not be compared to getting a drivers licence or a Medicare card. To get a passport or a drivers licence in most states is not easy—you have to provide a substantial amount of identification and it has to be demonstrated to a particular officer’s satisfaction that you are who you claim you are. Our electoral enrolment provisions are nowhere near that strict. Our electoral enrolment provisions ask that you simply find a witness who will sign the form and attest that you are who you claim you are.
This bill and the amendment that the government has proposed talk about comparison of signatures, in terms of counting provisional votes. If, for example, we moved to the automatic enrolment provisions that the government majority of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters recommended, we would have no signatures to compare. When we are looking at legitimacy of elections, the perceived legitimacy of a result is actually more important than casting the net ever wider to drag people in who are not complying with the law as it currently stands. It undermines the current provisions of the Electoral Act, which have compulsory enrolment and compulsory attendance as part of them.
I will conclude by saying that the coalition opposes those changes. There has been no demonstrated benefit from the changes that the government has outlined that satisfies the potential risk of fraudulent enrolment. Australia is one of the countries where it is particularly easy to enrol. We do not have registration or driver enrolment like some American states do, but I do not think there are many aspects of their electoral system that Australians would aspire their own electoral system to copy. We have a form. It is administered by the Australian Electoral Commission, which is held in high regard. The form is not complex to fill out; in fact, it is easier than forms for some government benefits. If people do not comply with that, we have a history of funding substantial education and enrolment campaigns, all of which have a high degree of success.
When we are looking at our electoral enrolment, the metric is not simply the number of people enrolled; the metric is the degree of faith in our political process. I look back at the election for the seat of McEwen at the last election and at an election in 1999 in Victoria. I liked one result; I did not like the earlier one. But the fact that we could have a change of government to a minority government based on one seat, based on fewer people than there are in a football team voting in the seat of Geelong, is testament to our electoral system. I fear that changes like this and the automatic enrolment provisions may not have such widespread acceptance. Are there issues with younger people, certain demographics and social groups not enrolling to vote? Yes, there are, but the AEC has a fine track record of encouraging and facilitating the enrolment of those people, particularly with the schools program and particularly with younger people. Is there more work to do? There is, but this aspect would reduce the incentive for that work to continue and would undermine the strong provisions of our Electoral Act and the integrity that is generally respected by all, so the coalition will be opposing these provisions of the bill.
6:44 pm
Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
I rise to make a brief contribution to the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010. The bill before us today is an essential measure to restore integrity to Australia’s electoral system. Schedule 1 is particularly important in allowing Australians to enrol to vote or to change their enrolment details seven days after the election writs are issued, rather than by 8 pm on that day. When the Howard government amended the Electoral Act to close the electoral roll on the day the election was called, it was very clear that their motivation was one of political interest rather than sound public policy. In taking action, they disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of first-time voters and did democracy in this country a great disservice.
The Greens have been concerned about this issue from the day these changes were made. We moved an amendment to that original bill, the Commonwealth Electoral Act (Political Donations and Other Measures) Bill, and today we welcome the government finally taking action. I understand that back then the government and the coalition argued here in this place that the changes to the act were necessary to reduce the administrative burden on the AEC and the potential for electoral fraud. Strangely enough, however, an audit conducted by the AEC of South Australians who changed their address from the week in issuing the writs in 2001 found no evidence of electoral fraud in a roll of one million people.
Could it be, however, that perhaps the coalition tried to amend the Electoral Act to disenfranchise a demographic that polls showed were not necessarily sympathetic to their government? Could it be? Let me serve as a reminder to this place that no party should be able to change the goalposts of our electoral system to achieve what is politically best for it. I hope that this kind of cynicism is something of the past.
The AEC tells us that in 2007 only 17,208 Australians enrolled or updated their details by the 8 pm deadline on the day the election writs were issued. In the previous election in 2004 under the old seven-day rule, the number of people who updated or changed their enrolment or enrolled was 423,975 individual voters. There is clearly a stark difference between the 17,000-odd and the close to 424,000 people who updated their details. This, of course, is not surprising given the fact that young people in particular are a demographic likely to move around more frequently, and the Prime Ministers of both persuasions seem to always keep their cards close to their chest around election times, not wanting anyone to know when that election date will be set. If we here as senators do not know when the next election is, and we are unable to look into that crystal ball, I am staggered as to how we believe that young people who are changing their addresses all of the time would be able to predict an election any better than we can.
Unfortunately, young people and first-time voters are often the demographic that is overlooked politically, often in this place as well as the other. We only have to turn to the game playing that has characterised the debate over youth allowance and student services here in this place to see exactly what I am talking about. It is hard to conceive of the coalition taking this kind of approach to other demographics within the community and clearly, obviously, their key voter groups. But, sadly, when it comes to young people, our political culture all too often says, ‘That’s okay; they’re just young.’
However, young people have a vital role to play in our democratic system. After all, it is the young people who are the leaders of tomorrow and it is they who will have to deal with the consequences of some if not all of the decisions that are made here and into the future. For instance, on climate change it is young people who have a real and genuine concern for the issues and what this means to them for their future and the future of our planet. Unfortunately, we have a Leader of the Opposition who does not seem to understand these issues and dismisses their concern and we have a Prime Minister who, while talking about action, does very little to deliver it.
We have a responsibility as political leaders to ensure that young people are empowered politically and encouraged to participate in our electoral process.
Debate interrupted.