Page 1237 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 30 May 2007
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means is that some people may not have their details up to date and may result in those people being ineligible to vote.
The motion before the Assembly today notes that the commonwealth changes to the electoral enrolment provisions will disenfranchise thousands of eligible voters in our community. First of all, the changes effectively remove the seven-day roll close period that was introduced after the 1983 election when previously the rolls closed on the day of the issue of the writs. At that election the rolls were closed the day after the election was announced, breaking a longstanding convention that a decent gap was left between when the election date was officially announced and when the writs were issued.
While it is not possible to say how many eligible electors were disenfranchised as a result in 1983, since the seven-day close of roll period has been introduced, it has been typical that hundreds of thousands of electors enrol or change their enrolment during that seven-day period. For example, in 1993, during that close of roll period, that seven-day period, there were 160,700 new enrolments. About half the total population of the ACT enrolled for the first time nationally during that election campaign and they enrolled during that seven-day period. There were 296,000 other changes to the roll, updating the information. Again, almost two-thirds of the population of this city nationally updated their details in that seven-day period after the election was called, but during that seven-day period.
The federal government claims that closing the roll on the day of the issue of the writs to new enrolments should not disenfranchise electors, as enrolling and updating enrolment is compulsory. That just belies human nature. It is a well-known fact that many people leave enrolling and updating their enrolment until the last minute, and that is despite campaigns that the AEC and politicians and political parties run encouraging and reminding people of their obligations to keep their enrolments up to date and to enrol for the first time when they are eligible to vote.
At the 2004 election, the most recent federal election, 78,908 first-time electors enrolled, and 255,000 electors updated their enrolment in the seven-day close of roll period. Most of the first time electors would have been young people. So, in answer to an earlier interjection from Mr Smyth across the chamber, that is what the problem is. The problem is that these changes effectively impact on the enrolment of 79,000 new electors who have previously—and history shows consistently—enrolled in the seven-day period after the federal election is called. Why should those people be disenfranchised? Why should they be denied the right to vote, which is effectively what these changes mean? And why should another quarter of a million people be required to stand up in a queue for the three days that is allowed at all the electoral offices across the country to update their details rather than being able to do it over a more reasonable period of time? Why? What is to be gained from this?
The Liberals argue that it is all about electoral fraud, that there are major issues with electoral fraud which these changes will address. Let us turn to the issue of fraud prevention. Several inquiries have examined whether any such fraud on any significant scale has been occurring in federal elections. Even though the seven-day close of roll period has been in place for federal general elections and numerous federal by-elections and many state and territory elections, these inquiries have failed
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