Mr LINDSAY (5:49 PM) —I am very pleased to be able to speak on the Electoral and Referendum Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1998 this afternoon because I believe more fraud has been committed in my electorate on the electoral roll of Australia than in any other electorate in this country. I am pleased to see the major provisions that the government is presenting to the parliament today. Some of them certainly will go a long way to stopping the fraud that has occurred in the city of Townsville and Thuringowa over the last two or three years.

There are some major provisions which are very good indeed. One of them requires new electors to produce one original form of identification at the time of enrolment. The member for Eden-Monaro earlier made the observation that it is easy to produce a form of identification. Currently, Mr Deputy Speaker, I can go down to the Electoral Commission and say that I am you, and I can have you moved off your electoral roll and into my electorate—just at the drop of a false signature. That is simply what has been done in the fraud that has occurred in Herbert. I have seen examples of many electors who have been moved off electoral rolls in one electorate, without their knowledge, and onto electoral rolls in other areas. Certainly many other areas of the community require identification, and there is no reason why, to preserve the integrity of the electoral roll of this country, we also should not require proper identification.

Another provision of this bill is that a person witnessing an enrolment application must be an elector in a prescribed class of persons. That simply further tightens the integrity of the roll, and I think it deserves full support.

The provision that all electors must notify the Australian Electoral Commission of a change of address within one month of moving is also sensible. At the last election I found that I had thousands of provisional votes cast. Why does that happen? It happens because people are not meeting their responsibilities in relation to notifying the Electoral Commission of their current address. I think it is eminently sensible that we require people, if they wish to have their names recorded on the electoral roll, to do what is necessary and notify the Electoral Commission if they move.

The other thing I note in my electorate is that, whenever I do a mailout, almost 10 per cent of it comes back unclaimed. How could that be? A reason could be that people simply move and do not change their records. We have to fix that because, while that situation exists, it opens opportunities for fraud, and the people of Australia deserve an electoral system where the possibility of fraud is minimised.

This bill also allows for the provision of date of birth and salutation details of electors to be recorded. In Queensland, we are very fortunate that we already have date of birth recorded, and I find that very useful in my parliamentary duties. We do not have salutation recorded. In relation to salutation, many of us would know that, when we write to an 85-year-old Mrs and we call her Ms, the wrath of that household comes down upon us. You then have the problem where Mrs, who we called Ms, might in fact be a Miss. To tidy this up is a very sensible thing to do, and it will be widely welcomed by all members of parliament, I believe.

On the matter of providing that only the presiding officer at a polling place may assist electors in marking their ballot papers, I draw your attention to what has happened on Palm Island in my electorate. At the last election, I was out polled by the informal party. How could that be? I also have certain evidence in relation to ballot papers being marked by other people, by people with cartons of XXXX beer in their hand. These sorts of things have to stop. It happened in the electorate of Leichhardt in Cape York. Some very suspicious things happened at the last election.

Mr Slipper —Tell us about the Northern Territory.

Mr LINDSAY —Yes, the member for Fisher correctly indicates the Northern Territory. That has to stop. We have to have people whom we can trust in our community where assistance is needed and, undoubtedly, assistance is needed to get a ballot paper marked correctly. It is such a sad shame that you can get so many informal votes being recorded.

Finally, I wholeheartedly support the provision that states preliminary scrutiny of declaration votes may commence on the Monday prior to polling day. It certainly helps to move the count along and get the result of a count quicker. In my case, where I spent too much money campaigning and won by 150 votes—I should have spent less money because you need to win by only one vote—I think it is sensible, after waiting for some two weeks for these declaration votes to be collected, checked and so on, to start the Monday prior to polling day so we can move the result along much quicker.

The member for Melbourne said earlier that there was no fraud on the Labor side of things. I refer the parliament to one Andy Keogh, who pleaded guilty in Townsville earlier this year to just that—electoral fraud. He was a member of the Labor Party who was manipulating the electoral roll and voting procedures in response to getting a certain person preselected. Later last year, the Townsville Bulletin was full of this sort of information where two very high profile Labor members were charged with electoral fraud.

Mr Laurie Ferguson interjecting—

Mr LINDSAY —Thanks, and we get people like former Councillor Shane Foster, who pleaded guilty. It was on the front page of the Bulletin , `I'm guilty, Foster admits electoral forgery, agrees to testify against former Councillor Karen Ehrmann' and so on. Ultimately, Foster won, which was not before time. So we have the situation where Shane Foster pleaded guilty to 22 counts of electoral forgery and Karen Ehrmann has been ordered to stand trial now on 64 counts of electoral forgery after pleading not guilty. (Quorum formed)

Calling a quorum is not going to stop me putting on the public record the disgraceful electoral fraud that the Labor Party have been committing in the seat of Herbert. Electoral enrolments have been manipulated using false addresses, signatures and other details. Labor's voting lists were based on the official electoral roll, so to rig the electoral roll helped those voting lists.

Records produced by the prosecution showed that one person was overseas when they apparently applied for electoral enrolment in Townsville. How could that happen in the current system? The court has heard of another man who has allegedly enrolled three times in Townsville in 1993 and 1994, even though social security records showed he was clearly living in Perth. How could that be? In other examples, one house in Eura Court, Mount Louisa was apparently used as an address for six false enrolments, as were houses in Ross Street, North Ward and William and Perry streets in West End.

I will not comment on former Councillor Karen Ehrmann's situation because her case is still outstanding and I would not want to prejudice it in any way. However, the now former Townsville City Councillor Shane Foster has pleaded guilty to 22 counts of electoral fraud. I was stunned at the length of time Mr Foster took to step down from his position on the council following his admission of guilt. He wanted to stay there, on the public purse, taking the money from the city council, when he clearly admitted his guilt in relation to electoral fraud.

The constituents of division 6, who now go to the polls this weekend because this councillor was forced to resign to elect another representative, deserve much better than they received from Mr Foster and the Labor Party in the electoral fraud that was perpetrated on the citizens of Townsville. I am pleased to say that at the election on Saturday we are pleased to offer a candidate who has integrity, who is honest and who will work hard for the constituents of division 6. I would like the people of Townsville to recognise with their vote that they do not want to see this electoral fraud occurring in this country.

It will cost the Townsville City Council $40,000 to have a by-election in the division. It is the second one this year. Earlier this year we had to have a by-election in division 5 because former Councillor Steve Wilson had to stand down and flee to London because of the allegations that were being made. This is the Labor Party being fraudulent with the electoral roll.

I was stunned at the hypocrisy of the Labor Party in this matter, particularly at the antics of Labor Premier Peter Beattie. Shortly following the Queensland state election it was revealed that a member of Mr Beattie's government was facing potential criminal charges. I was stunned, as many people were, at how fast the Premier called on that member to resign, even though no charges had been laid. Compare this with the situation of Councillor Shane Foster, another member of the Labor Party who had actually pleaded guilty to the criminal charges of electoral fraud. What did we get from the Premier and the other Labor Party members? Nothing. They let him stay there. It was amazing. It took public pressure to make sure that this person stood down and did the right thing.

The by-election this Saturday at $40,000 would not ever have occurred if the changes that are being proposed in this bill had been law in the last 12 months, two years. It would not have been possible to have fraudulently rigged the Australian electoral roll in the manner in which it was done in Townsville if these measures had been the law at that time. So I am very pleased to support the position that is being put to the parliament today by the government.

The changes to the Electoral Act that we have introduced today will help put a stop to the incidence of electoral fraud in Australia. I hope that the Australian Labor Party will support these changes. As the electoral matters committee said, it is unacceptable that the most fundamental transaction between an Australian citizen and a government—that being the act of choosing a government or an elected representative in an election—is subject to a much lower level of security than such things as opening a bank account or applying for a passport or a driving licence—

Mr Nairn —Joining a video shop.

Mr LINDSAY —Or even, as the member for Eden-Monaro says, joining a video shop. Protecting the integrity of our electoral system is absolutely critical. How else can we expect voters to have any faith in our democratic process? As the member for Fisher pointed out in his second reading speech, under the Electoral Act in its present form it is remarkably easy to place on the roll a dead person's name, a false name, a non-citizen or a person who is not yet 18—

Mr Slipper —They all vote.

Mr LINDSAY —And they all vote. In addition, the enrolment could have a fake or false address. That has very clearly been the case in Townsville in many of the Labor Party preselection situations that have gone on there which have been outright fraud.

I am certainly serious about supporting a measure that will help stamp out that electoral fraud. I do not want to see it in my city any longer. I do not want to see it in Australia. All of us should be strongly supportive of this measure. We should send a strong message to the people of Australia that we are fair dinkum about making sure that the electoral roll maintains its integrity. For that reason, I certainly support the bill.