Parliamentary Electorates and Elections Amendment (Voter Identification) Bill

Debate resumed from 7 December 1995.

Mr E. T. PAGE (Coogee - Minister for Local Government) [10.34 a.m.]: It is rather interesting how a crisis suddenly arises when people -

Mr Armstrong: On a point of order. Mr Speaker, it is good enough to play both sides. The Minister failed to address you at the start of his speech. If the Minister wants to play it hard with this side, as a Minister of the Crown he should observe the correct protocols and processes of the Parliament.

Mr E. T. PAGE: On the point of order. What the Leader of the National Party said is true: I did not use the words "Mr Speaker," but that is not required in the standing orders. What is required is that the member with the call address the Speaker. I was looking at you while I was talking, which was addressing you. So there is absolutely no substance in the point of order.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Minister may continue.

Mr E. T. PAGE: Mr Speaker, it is interesting that when coalition members went into opposition they suddenly found all sorts of problems about procedures and legislation that were overlooked when they were in government and could have done something about them.

Mr Armstrong: On a point of order. Mr Speaker, the matter before the House this morning has nothing to do with the processes or procedures of previous governments. Not only has the Minister of the Crown ignored your ruling; he has completely flouted it.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is no point of order.

Mr E. T. PAGE: The bill proposes that in future voters will be required to produce identification before they can cast a vote in a New South Wales State election. Presumably, this will also apply to local government elections, although that is not spelled out in the legislation. This would put our electoral system at odds with the Federal electoral system. In the past governments have aimed to make electoral systems as consistent as possible. There has been talk about scams, and not long after the Hon. Nick Greiner became Premier he asked the electoral commissioner to prepare a report on multiple voting. As usual in such situations, there was no evidence of a significant level of multiple voting.

One major reason that it appeared that people had voted twice was that an electoral clerk had made a mistake in crossing off names. The previous Premier had a shock-horror attitude about this, but what was done in the subsequent six years when the coalition was in government? Absolutely nothing. The coalition could have passed this legislation through the lower House at any time during its seven years in office, but it did not. It is not an issue and it has never been one. Now the coalition is just trying to cause problems to undermine public confidence in the electoral system. There has been reference to the electoral roll at the cemetery.

Mr Jeffery: That is where you get all your majority from.

Mr E. T. PAGE: That is your excuse why the coalition cannot knock me over in what should be a safe Liberal seat. I certainly hope the coalition continues to be so unrealistic and continues to put up appalling candidates in the eastern suburbs to knock me off. The aim of the bill is to require all voters in New South Wales to produce some form of identification prior to voting; and it prescribes a great long list of acceptable identification. This would only complicate the voting system and ensure that some people who may not be particularly well organised in their social life would forget to take their identification and would not be able to vote on election day. The bill would add a further layer of administration to the process and certainly would not guarantee electoral security. The fact that a person produces one of the prescribed forms of identification does not of itself prove that he or she is the person whose name is on the document.

The only two documents that include a photograph are a driver’s licence and a passport. The other documents have just a name or an address - sometimes not the current address - but do not
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identify the person presenting the document. A Medicare card has only a number and a name or names, but no address; it has nothing to correlate the information on the electoral role that will be crossed off by a clerk to ensure that I am indeed the Ernie Page who lives at 8 Marion Street, Coogee. This bill will cause significant and unnecessary confusion and delay for voters on polling day. Failure to produce identification will not necessarily result in a person not being able to vote, because he or she can make a declaration under section 106.

Mr O’Farrell: On a point of order. I am concerned that students of Muirfield High School are missing this debate and the hard work of their local member, the honourable member for Baulkham Hills.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is no point of order.

Mr E. T. PAGE: The students certainly have not missed much. The Government opposes this bill because it would impose unnecessary requirements that would likely cause delay and confusion. The bill is inconsistent with Federal Government legislation and the current local government system. No evidence was given in the second reading speech of a problem with multiple voting, which was highlighted in the report by the former Electoral Commissioner to Premier Greiner. The former Premier was obviously impressed by the integrity of the system at the time, because he did nothing to change it. This Government agrees with former Premier Greiner that the current system is efficient, that it has no anomalies that are worth worrying about. Therefore, no doubt with former Premier Greiner’s concurrence, the Government opposes the bill.

Mr O'FARRELL (Northcott) [10.43 a.m.]: It is interesting that the students from Muirfield High School understand something that the Minister for Local Government does not: that when they become voters their only check on members of Parliament will be a fair electoral system; and conversely that if the electoral system is not fair, and people are able to vote fraudulently, their say in the affairs of this State and this nation will be diminished. I am sure that is something the students are taught at school; it is just a pity that it is not taught in Sussex Street.

Mr E. T. Page: You did nothing for seven years, you accepted the system, you said it was all right.

Mr O’FARRELL: The point, of course, with the interjection of the Minister for Local Government is that he seems to accept that there is a problem, but his argument for not fixing it is that the former Government did nothing about it for seven years. There are many things that the coalition got wrong whilst in government, and many things that it could not get around to doing, but that is no reason to let the electoral system continue to suffer from fraud or to continue to ensure that people can vote without producing at least the sort of identification that the students from Muirfield have to produce when they rent a video from their local Video Ezy. It is pleasing that the students from Muirfield High School are in the gallery today. Muirfield high was in the electorate of Northcott when it was represented by Bruce Baird. The school now has as its local member the hardworking member for Baulkham Hills, who is a strong supporter of a decent, clean and fair electoral system.

The Minister for Local Government essentially gave three reasons why this bill should not proceed. This bill seeks to ensure that people - whether it be Barry O’Farrell, Ernie Page, Paul Gibson or Wayne Merton - who turn up to cast a vote are the persons they claim to be. Currently there is no proper check to ensure that that is the case. The Minister’s first reason was that in some way the bill would affect people who cannot get their social life together, who might be out all night and forget to bring some identification to the polling booth. The honourable member for Coffs Harbour, very sensibly, has prescribed about 15 items of proof of identification. Most honourable members would have three of them in their wallet.

Our voting system is critically important and if people cannot organise their social life to the extent of attending the polling booth once every four years with the required proof of identity, they are not taking the voting system seriously; and the entire electoral system certainly should not have to suffer as a result. The second reason was that the bill would add bureaucracy to the process. Coming from a Labor Minister, that is a bit rich. Every day in this place unnecessary regulations, rules and other devices are enacted that add to the cost and number of bureaucrats in this State. If people were whether they would prefer to see increased bureaucratisation in local government and in the various areas of State or Federal government, or in the electoral system, they would strongly support increased bureaucracy in the electoral system.

Voters know that every four years in this State and every three years federally their only check on honourable members is at the ballot box. It is important that voters have that check; otherwise
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parliaments could end up doing what the Labor Party headquarters in Sussex Street does every other day: engage in abuse of power. The third reason given by the Minister for opposing this legislation is that the proof of identity documents listed in schedule 1 to the bill are not sufficient because they do not contain photographs. Australia’s system for issuing passports is among the safest and most secure in the world. Most of the proof-of-identity documents prescribed in this bill also apply when one applies for a passport; they show a name and address, but they do not include a photograph. If that identification provides a secure passport system, surely it can also provide an honest and open voting system. Similarly, the documents prescribed in the bill are required when one opens a bank account or takes out a tax file number.

The great pity about this legislation is that it has been introduced not because of problems with the electoral system generally, or because of some idealism about the electoral system, but because the Government did not accept earlier legislation introduced by the honourable member for Coffs Harbour which, as he admitted in his second reading speech, would have been far better legislation. The only reason that legislation did not pass through this House, as you well know, Mr Speaker, is that you used your casting vote to vote against it. The Speaker used his casting vote to vote against a bill that would have ensured that people would not have to produce proof of identity on polling day, but, like when they joined the local Video Ezy store, would produce proof of identity when first enrolling to vote. That would have been far superior legislation than this bill. I acknowledge that this bill will result in some extra bureaucracy at polling booths on election day, that it will take people longer to vote.

Mr Fraser: We have got the staff there already; we can do it.

Mr O’FARRELL: In any event, that is a small price to pay. In an ideal world I certainly would prefer his earlier legislation. In the past couple of weeks the Parliament has debated legislation relating to a redistribution of seats in this House.

Mr Fraser: Tell us about the equity in that.

Mr O’FARRELL: As the honourable member for Coffs Harbour asks, many of us wonder about the equity of the legislation that has gone through both Houses to reduce the size of this House from 99 seats to 93 seats.

Dr Macdonald: It is an old Liberal tradition.

Mr O’FARRELL: I have no idea why the honourable member for Manly is attacking me. I am one of those in the Liberal Party who argue that the seat of Manly ought to be retained under the redistribution, and I will continue to do that. I want to ensure that the electorate of Manly continues to be represented in this House. In fact, I want to ensure that the electorate of Manly is better represented by having a Liberal Party or National Party member in this Parliament. The importance of a redistribution is that, among other things, it ensures that electorates in this State are of the same size. It essentially upholds the principle, which we hold dearly in our electoral process, of one vote one value. But, as I say, unless we have legislation such as the bill we are now debating, there can be no certainty at all that the votes cast will be reflected in the distribution of seats in this House.

Honourable members will recall that at the last State election 52 per cent of the electorate voted for the coalition and 48 per cent voted for Labor - fewer than two busloads of voters would have changed the election result. When it comes to 70, 100 or 140 votes, in an electorate with 38,000 voters, determining which side wins the seat, one starts to realise that the result could be influenced not by large numbers of suspicious votes, that it would not require fraud on a massive scale, that it would not require thousands, or even hundreds, of voters to misrepresent themselves. The result could be influenced by as few as 30, 40, 50 or 60 fraudulent voters. And that is not hard to do in selected seats, which will always be the major battleground of elections.

Most members have scrutineered at elections time in and time out, and I am sure they have all seen curious things. I am sure that members who worked at polling booths during The Entrance by-election - when, I am prepared to accept, the honourable member for The Entrance had a handsome victory - will agree that some pretty curious individuals turned up to vote. At one polling booth three people who had allegedly died in the previous six months came in to vote, but as soon as the Hon. J. H. Jobling challenged them they shot out quicker than the honourable member for Port Jackson shot out of the Premier’s office when she tried to get a ministry.

Fraud and the potential for it continue to exist within our electoral system. As legislators we should do all we can to ensure that we have a fair, open and honest electoral system. If we do not, we will not be honest, open and accountable to the
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electorate, we will traduce the democratic traditions from which we have benefited, and we will leave ourselves open to potential abuse. I firmly believe, as I am sure the Minister for Local Government believes, in the merits of democracy and a system that allows the community to choose the people who govern them, and the opportunity, if necessary, to throw them out. We should be doing everything we can to ensure that the voters’ will prevails.

Mr IEMMA (Hurstville) [10.56 a.m.]: This bill turns on its head a democratic tradition that this State and this country have cherished: that the right to vote at elections should be free and open, and that people should not have obstacles placed in their path in registering to vote. We have witnessed the difficulty of many minority groups in the United States who, for many decades, have faced obstacles, legislative and otherwise, in firstly getting onto the register to vote and then actually casting their vote.

It surprises me that a National Party member, adhering to National Party philosophy, would seek to obstruct individuals from casting a vote at an election. Far from upholding any democratic tradition, this legislation strikes at the heart of the basic democratic principle that people, regardless of their origins, education and background, have a basic, fundamental, human and democratic right to register and cast their vote in an election. This legislation reverses that tradition and reverses the onus that people have a right to vote. Under this legislation people have to prove that they have a right to vote. And the legislation comes from the National Party - it places an obstacle in the way.

The honourable member for Coffs Harbour said this legislation is designed in such a way that anyone wishing to cast a vote in New South Wales at a State election will be required to present proof of identity. That reverses that very basic democratic principle we have always adhered to: that people have a free and unfettered right to register to vote and then to vote. What is the basis of his concern? Has he produced evidence that our electoral system has great problems? Has he produced evidence of wide scale fraud? No, he has not. His basic premise, like that of the Opposition, is that when they look at electoral reforms they are always looking at ways of making the system more difficult for people to vote; they are always looking at making it more difficult for people to get to the ballot box. Witness the sorts of reforms that we have seen from the coalition when it has been in government. The ticks and crosses legislation is an example. That certainly did not make it easier for people to cast a vote; it made it more difficult. When the coalition was in government it brought in zonal electoral systems whereby the vote of a person living in the city was worth only half the vote of a person living in the country.

Now we have a variation of something that the honourable member for Coffs Harbour has tried before: voter ID. Once again this proposal is designed to make it more difficult to vote, because the coalition can never accept that when it is defeated in an election, that is a fair and reasonable result. No evidence of electoral fraud has been produced. In the upper House on 19 September 1995 the Hon. J. H. Jobling asked the Treasurer, the Hon. M. R. Egan, a number of questions on notice relating to electoral fraud, including irregularities in voting and multiple voting. In response, an official from the New South Wales Electoral Office provided instances of electoral fraud in New South Wales elections, particularly the 1995 election. He concluded:

No other examples were detected nor was any evidence received establishing fraudulent voting.

As the Minister said, most multiple voting resulted from clerical errors being made by polling clerks when checking the rolls. The list of multiple voting instances in marginal and sensitive seats shows that in Badgerys Creek the figure was 12; Blue Mountains, 11; Broken Hill, three; Coffs Harbour, 23; Drummoyne, 34; Gladesville, 13; in my electorate of Hurstville, 11; Kogarah, 14; Manly, 25, which is an interesting figure; Murwillumbah, six; Northcott, 22; Penrith, eight; Sutherland, 11; and The Entrance, eight. About 3.5 million votes were cast at the 1995 elections. If the incidence of multiple or scam voting is such a problem the Court of Disputed Returns can be petitioned. Persons with evidence of widespread fraudulent voting, multiple voting or ghosting voting can petition the Court of Disputed Returns.

[Interruption]

I am talking about the basis of this legislation. The Labor Party won the seat of Badgerys Creek by 103 votes. If there were 105 or 110 instances of multiple voting or of dead people suddenly voting, that would be a basis on which to petition the Court of Disputed Returns; and the judge would uphold the petition and order a new election. What evidence do members opposite have of the present system being fundamentally flawed? They have not produced any evidence. They simply want to reverse the onus so that those accused of fraudulent voting are guilty until proven innocent. They do not want people to have the right to vote until they prove their identity.

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It is not surprising that the National Party has put forward this proposal. National Party members always talk about the fact that the coalition parties received 52 per cent of the two-party preferred vote, the Labor Party received 48 per cent of the vote, and the Labor Party is in government and the National Party is not. The way to fix that - the National Party would never propose this - is simple: introduce an electoral system based on proportional representation and multimember electorates. Such a system was adopted by the Tasmanians a long time ago and by the people of the Australian Capital Territory not so long ago. The National Party would never agree to that system because under the present system it received 11 per cent of the vote and about 20 per cent of the seats. In debates on electoral reform coalition members never get to the heart of their problem, that is, that their votes are locked up in certain geographical areas in this State: National Party votes are locked up in the country and Liberal Party votes are locked up on the north shore.

The solution is to introduce a system such as the Hare-Clark system adopted in Tasmania or the Robson rotation system adopted in the Australian Capital Territory. Whilst Liberal Party members are keen to have such a system, it will never see the light of day because National Party members are not keen on it. One way to fix the system is to reform the basis upon which people vote, not to reverse the free and unfettered right of people to cast a vote. The proposal that should have been included in the bill is that the party that wins 50 per cent of the vote should get 50 per cent of the seats, not that the onus should be on people to prove their identities in order to vote. Members opposite want to disfranchise all those hippies on the north coast who do not vote for the National Party.

This bill will not make the electoral system cleaner or fairer; it will simply disfranchise a large number of people by placing in their path obstacles to a free and unfettered right to vote in elections. I refer to the elderly in particular. The National Party has a particular set against the elderly, as evidenced by its total lack of support for what this Government is trying to do to reverse the Federal nursing home policy. This bill is about reversing the longstanding, time-honoured democratic principle that people have an unfettered and free right to register to vote and to cast their vote.

Mr R. W. TURNER (Orange) [11.05 a.m.]: The honourable member for Hurstville spoke for more than 10 minutes but he said absolutely nothing. The Minister for Local Government said that winning seats by five, 10 or 100 votes is not the issue. The honourable member for Hurstville missed the point when he said that winning a seat by fewer than 100 votes is not the issue because the seat was not won by foul means. This bill relates to multiple voting - people registering more than once under various names and then casting multiple votes. The honourable member was wrong when he said that that has not happened and cannot happen. People registering to vote are not required to produce identification; to be registered they simply need to provide a name, address and occupation.

It is well-known that I send out welcome-to-the-electorate letters when people move into my electorate. The number of letters returned to me marked "Not at this address" is amazing. It shows that my electorate of Orange, like many others, has a floating population. It is easy to rort the electoral system because not enough checks are made of people who come and go. Sometimes it can take time for my welcoming letters to be returned. When they are returned, what checks are made to find out whether the person named ever lived at the given address or had simply moved on? At election time a swinging seat could effectively be won or lost by people who travel around the electorate to cast multiple votes. This is probably easier to do in the city than in the bush because of the vast distances between polling booths in regional New South Wales. In some cases people register their names, or the names of recently deceased persons, at every booth and then cast their votes; they can cast up to 20 votes.

The honourable member for Hurstville said that the electoral rolls are checked once vote counting has been completed. What happens if it is found that deceased people have voted or people have voted five times? The officers of the State Electoral Office cannot find deceased persons or persons who have registered at a specific address. In some cases five or six people with similar names may live at the same address. What can be done if an infringement notice is sent to an address but the person is not there? In the meantime votes have been counted and a member has been elected.

There are many instances of electoral fraud. Unions use fraudulent voting methods to influence a swinging seat in Labor’s favour. It happens not only in State and Federal elections but also in local government elections. To register to vote in local government elections one simply needs to visit the council chambers with a witness, and no check is made of the witness. People can provide any name
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and be registered. Indeed, as the counter is not always staffed by the same people, they can return many times over a number of months to register. People can register a number of times and be entitled to vote more than once.

The Electoral Commissioner, rather than local government, is now in charge of elections, and that has made it more difficult to check on voting. But even at the local government level voters’ names can be cross-checked. More than one person registered at an address and not entitled to vote has voted. That person is not at the address and consequently does not pay a fine because that person does not exist. But a vote has been registered which, in many cases, can make all the difference to the result. The honourable member for Hurstville said that the bill will take away people’s democratic rights and make voting more difficult. That is hogwash! How many people who are entitled to vote would not have more than one form of identification? In this day and age people have drivers’ licences, Video Ezy cards, Medicare cards, Bankcards, Visa cards, et cetera.

Anyone who wants to go overseas seems to be able to produce adequate identification to obtain a passport. This morning as I was coming to this place on the ferry I was thinking about people who buy ferry tickets, bus tickets and theatre tickets, which are used once only. They are punched, cut in half, or in some other way marked so that they cannot be used again. If there is a will there is a way to produce a form of identification to be used once only on voting day. No double dipping would occur. It seems plain and simple to me. I cannot understand why, in this day and age of electronic voting, we cannot introduce a system of electronic voting. I do not agree with the assertion that such a system would cause bedlam on voting day and dramatically increase the workload.

Computer voting may be introduced in the near future. It can be done if we want it done. If we continue to give excuses as to why it cannot be done, it will not be done. This fraud cannot be allowed to continue. No-one knows how many times it occurs or what percentage of the vote is involved, although the honourable member for Hurstville came up with multiple voting figures of five here, 22 there, 30 there - but that is not what the bill is about. It is about the hundreds of people who have voted more than once because no checks are made. Many seats are decided on a handful of votes, which may make all the difference as to whether a particular person is elected. As a result of the inability to check whether a voter has voted more than once, the result may not reflect the will of the majority of the people.

Mr NAGLE (Auburn) [11.14 a.m.]: When one introduces a bill into this House, the first thing one should do is present the evidence to show that a mischief has to be rectified. When the honourable member for Coffs Harbour introduced this bill he produced not one iota of evidence to show that rorting had occurred in New South Wales in any circumstances or on such a scale as to warrant the introduction of this type of legislation. The honourable member for Coffs Harbour had the opportunity to present to this House and have recorded in Hansard the evidence to prove that there was a good reason that his bill should be passed by the House. That evidence would be empirical, factual evidence showing, electorate by electorate, systemic corruption in regard to voting thereby necessitating voters to produce some form of identification, such as a driver’s licence. The bill even mentions a death certificate.

The production of such documents would place an enormous burden on the people of New South Wales during an election. The honourable member for Orange has only been in this place for five minutes. If he were to come to my electorate and see the long queues of people waiting to vote on election day he would realise what a burden it would be for them to have to produce some form of identification. If the honourable member for Coffs Harbour could show me, electorate by electorate, evidence of widespread rorting in New South Wales I would be willing to re-examine the legislation. When he introduced this bill he quoted from some article written in a newspaper by Frank Hardy about the Yellow Brick Road, and all this other nonsense he goes on with, as a basis for proving that the Labor Party is involved in widespread electoral rorting and corruption. He has wasted the time of the Parliament by introducing this bill based on something that Frank Hardy wrote in a newspaper article. The honourable member for Coffs Harbour did not even identify the article.

Mr Fraser: You are wasting the time of this Parliament, not me.

Mr NAGLE: The honourable member for Coffs Harbour had his chance to speak, but now it is my turn to speak. In a democracy I should be entitled to say what I have to say without continual interruptions from the honourable member for Coffs Harbour. He once called me unAustralian because I look after 38,000 families in New South Wales. The honourable member for Coffs Harbour said that because Frank Hardy wrote this article Frank Hardy would know about widespread corruption in the
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Labor Party. The Australian Encyclopaedia says of Frank Hardy that he is a well-known author who was born in Victoria on 21 March 1917. He left school at the age of 13 and worked as a fruit-picker, road-construction worker, seaman and grocer. The entry goes on to say:

He became a member of the Communist Party in 1939, and served in the Australian Army from 1941 to 1946. His writing career began at the age of 27 . . .

He wrote Power Without Glory, which was loosely based on the Wren era in Victoria. The honourable member for Coffs Harbour said that as Frank Hardy was a member of the Labor Party he would know what went on in relation to election rorting. Frank Hardy was never a member of the Labor Party. He never joined the Labor Party. He was a member of the Communist Party. He campaigned vigorously against endorsed Labor candidates. If any rorting was going on it would have been in the Communist Party. In every election, except in 1943 and 1946, the vote for the Communist Party was 2 per cent or 3 per cent.

[Interruption]

This is a democracy and I am addressing the House. I am entitled to address the House without you rudely interrupting me.

Mr ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Gaudry): Order! It is the province of the Chair to maintain order in the House. Members will cease interjecting.

Mr NAGLE: The 1943 and 1946 elections were the only elections in which the Communist Party in this country ever got more than 7 per cent or 8 per cent of the vote. In all other elections it polled about 1 per cent or 2 per cent of the vote. Yet the honourable member for Coffs Harbour has relied on an unidentified article by Frank Hardy, having given the House no intimation of when it was written, as the basis on which this House should impose upon the people of New South Wales the burden of having to prove their identity when they vote on election day. The honourable member would have to persuade the Government of the day that there was a real problem or a mischief to be rectified by presenting evidence that at the last election, or the election before last, on a seat-by-seat basis, widespread corruption occurred. If the honourable member does not want to target widespread corruption, he should examine what happened in marginal seats to determine the voting patterns. He should consider the voting pattern in his electorate, marginal Liberal-National party seats and marginal Labor seats to discover whether there has been widespread corruption.

The seat of Manly was won by about 170 votes and Badgerys Creek was won by 107 votes. The coalition had 14 days in which to lodge an appeal against the declared result in the seat of Gladesville if it had evidence of ballot rorting. It said it had all the information, but it never lodged one appeal against the result in any of those three seats. If the coalition had been able to prove rorting in those seats the Court of Disputed Returns would have overridden the results and ordered fresh elections. But it could not be proven, because there was no rorting. This nonsense legislation, based upon Frank Hardy’s article in a newspaper, would impose an enormous burden on people.

Mr ACTING-SPEAKER: Order! The honourable member for Oxley will have an opportunity to contribute to the debate. He will remain silent.

Mr NAGLE: The more Opposition members squeal as the knife cuts into them, the more it becomes apparent that they know this is the truth of the matter. This legislation is about disfranchising a large number of elderly voters, ethnic voters, and people who may not have a driver’s licence. My electorate has a large ethnic community and many women do not hold a driver’s licence because the husbands do the driving, as is their tradition. Ethnic women would turn up to vote with an Australian citizenship certificate.

Mr ACTING-SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Oxley to order.

Mr NAGLE: Ethnic women would turn up to vote with an Australian citizenship certificate and no evidence that the person carrying that certificate is a person who is eligible to vote. What would happen to all the people who could not produce identification? They would be disfranchised and told that they were ineligible to vote. This reminds me of the amazing situation that occurred at the last election, in which ticks and crosses were outlawed for voting for the lower House but allowed for the upper House. In my electorate of Auburn the informal vote rose from 2 per cent to 7.5 per cent, because people put either a tick or a cross; they did not understand the voting system.

Some time ago, during similar debate about the electoral system, it was said that people of ethnic
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origin who do not understand what they are doing when they go to vote should be deprived of the right to vote. Why should they be deprived if they do not understand the intricacies of a parliamentary system which does not allow ticks and crosses? The disallowance of ticks and crosses was not well advertised by the former Government, which won the election by two seats by doing away with ticks and crosses. If there is any rorting in the electoral system it emanates from the Opposition. The basic tenet of National Party and Liberal Party members is that they were born to rule and they will use any method that they can use to ensure they rule.

I call upon the honourable member for Coffs Harbour, who wants people to produce their licence or passport to the electoral officers before being allowed to vote, to prove one element that is essential to acceptance of this bill: that there is widespread electoral rorting in this State. He cannot meet that test. The figures speak for themselves. When I went to vote at the Regents Park polling booth on election day there was a line of about 30 people; they took only 12 minutes to lodge their votes because of the effective electoral officer working there. If each elector had to produce identification, that line would have been longer. Some people may decide not to vote if they have to stand in line in pouring rain or wait for any time before voting. In a democracy it is essential that all eligible voters are able to cast their votes.

Recently I spoke with people from the United States of America who said they envied our system of compulsory voting. In the State of California 36.4 per cent of enrolled voters actually voted and the governor was elected with 18.2 per cent of the vote. That is really a shame. That State is rife with corruption; it is so bad that numerous anticorruption bodies have been appointed to try to weed out electoral, political and bureaucratic corruption and fraud. We do not want that in this State. Australia has two things that set it above the most other countries in regard to the level of corruption; Australia does not have as much corruption as Malaysia, Indonesia, China and Peru. The two things that keep this country free from corruption are compulsory voting in a fair voting system, and question time. Those two great instruments have become an integral part of our fair voting system.

The burden that the Opposition seeks to impose on people by way of this bill will discourage 5 per cent or 10 per cent of people not to vote. That might not seem to be so bad, but the Opposition may well disqualify another 10 per cent or 15 per cent of voters. That latter group will include the elderly, widows, and people of ethnic origin, who may forget to take their identification to the polling booth. Effectively those people will never cast a vote for representative government. In this Chamber enormous power is wielded by members of Parliament and by the Executive. That power should be curbed by the right of the people to freely and without hindrance cast a fair and honest vote every three or four years without being called upon to produce identification.

Mr Fraser: This bill will stop Labor’s branch stacking.

Mr NAGLE: The honourable member for Coffs Harbour mentioned branch stacking. The difference between his party and my party is that Labor allows its rank and file to select its candidate and in his party candidates are appointed by a controlling bureaucracy.

Mr Jeffery: On a point of order. The honourable member for Auburn has made a false accusation about the National Party method of preselection. We do have a rank and file selection of candidates.

Mr ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Gaudry): Order! No point of order is involved.

Mr NAGLE: In my party candidates have to attend at least three branch meetings a year in order to be identified and properly credentialled, whereas in the National Party they have to pay $50 to get a vote. Someone who is rich enough can pay enough people to buy the vote. We will not have that inflicted upon the people of this State. I will repeat it so that the new member for Port Macquarie can understand. He is an intelligent, bright man; I saw him interviewed on Statewide. Honourable members have heard many points of order raised by the honourable member for Oxley; they leave a lot to be desired.

If the Opposition had factual evidence of widespread corruption and rorting in the electoral system of this State, the Government would act to make sure it would never occur again. The Opposition’s bill is a move to rip off the people, to disfranchise perhaps 20 per cent of the electorate by imposing an enormous burden on them, when there is not one ounce of evidence to show that there is a need for this legislation. There is no mischief to be rectified; there never was. The House should reject this bill.

Mr OAKESHOTT (Port Macquarie) [11.29 a.m.]: I will pick up on a couple of points raised by the honourable member for Auburn and the
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honourable member for Hurstville. In the last 10 minutes the honourable member for Auburn asked the Opposition to prove that electoral fraud is occurring. The Opposition cannot prove that electorate-by-electorate because it does not have those statistics. The system does not allow for that. That is exactly the point the Opposition is seeking to make. The bill seeks to put in place a system that will allow for proof of electoral fraud to be obtained and presented.

As to the Labor Party itself, I refer the honourable member for Auburn to incidents at Port Macquarie McDonald’s involving the honourable member for Cabramatta and the honourable member for Fairfield, and I encourage the honourable member for Auburn to read his own Labor document Abuse of Power. If those incidents were not playing with the system, I do not know what is. The honourable member for Hurstville argued that it is a human and democratic right to vote unfettered and unchallenged. It is a strange argument that people have both a right to vote and a right to defraud the system.

Pursuant to sessional orders business interrupted.