Page 1544 - Week 06 - Thursday, 2 July 2020
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This is a new amendment to section 59 that will require an extract from the electoral roll to include the elector’s current electorate and future electorate, if subject to a boundary determination. Section 59 is not omitted by the original bill. However, we feel this is a very straightforward and simple amendment that would improve the legislation.
We will also be supporting the government’s amendment to our amendment, which clarifies our original intent. The amendment proposed by the Attorney-General will provide the electorate of the elector unless they fall under one of the restricted categories in 59(c), such as an elector whose address is suppressed, an eligible overseas elector et cetera. We agree that these types of electors should be excluded.
MR RAMSAY (Ginninderra—Attorney-General, Minister for the Arts, Creative Industries and Cultural Events, Minister for Building Quality Improvement, Minister for Business and Regulatory Services and Minister for Seniors and Veterans) (4.50): I move amendment No 1 that amends Mr Coe’s proposed new clause 4A [see schedule 3 at page 1578].
The existing provisions in the Electoral Act allow an elector’s address to be extracted from the roll, and the electorate information is also readily available on the website. There are exceptions, however, to that, as has been mentioned, that are set out in section 59(c) of the Electoral Act, including what is known as a silent elector. The government amendment is simply making sure that that is maintained in the new clause proposed by Mr Coe, which we support the principle of.
Mr Ramsay’s amendment to Mr Coe’s proposed amendment agreed to.
Mr Coe’s amendment, as amended, agreed to.
Proposed new clause 4A, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 5 and 6, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 7.
MR COE (Yerrabi—Leader of the Opposition) (4.52): The opposition does not support this clause. This clause omits section 80, which closes the rolls at 8 pm on the 29th day before polling day. As I outlined earlier, we have real concerns about the integrity of our election, should this amendment go through. We think this is opening up the ACT to voter fraud, due to the potential stacking of people into electorates in the lead-up to election day.
Elections in the ACT are often decided by just a handful of votes. The fact that we have before us today an amendment seeking to go to six decimal places is further evidence of just how tight elections can be when you are talking about ruling in and ruling out candidates along the way. Therefore, we think it is absolutely vital that every single vote has the utmost integrity attached to it. There is real concern that if we allow people to sign up right until polling day we run the risk of bringing into question the validity of an election. Therefore, we will be opposing this.
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