Senator MAGUIRE(5.54) —I have great pleasure in supporting the motion. I am aware of the great honour conferred upon me by the electors of South Australia on 5 March. I am aware of my great responsibility to the people of South Australia and intend to serve them in full through the national Parliament. Mr President, I congratulate you on your elevation to the Senate's highest office and look forward to serving here with your guidance.

It was the intention of the Founding Fathers at the original constitutional conventions to establish a national upper House of parliament to protect the smaller States. It was also their intention to establish a House of review. Those intentions eventually became reality in the Senate. As the Australian political system evolved, the Senate became more of a party House; less emphasis was given to its role as a forum for the States. The successful 1977 referendum on the filling of Senate casual vacancies endorsed the role of parties in the Constitution. That referendum provided that casual vacancies be filled by persons from the same political party as those formerly occupying seats. Since 1979 it has been the policy of the Australian Labor Party to reform rather than abolish the Senate. Labor's policy to expand and develop the very valuable committee system of the Senate is worthy of support.

It is an honour to be elected to the Senate as a member of the Australian Labor Party. I thank the many members of branches and trade unions affiliated with the Labor Party who supported me. I wish also to thank my family for their strong support and I acknowledge their sacrifices over the years.

The Australian Labor Party is the longest established political party in Australia. It is the democratic socialist party in Australia which stands for equity and social justice. I am proud to have the opportunity to uphold those principles in this place.

I am the thirtieth Labor senator from South Australia since the Senate was first elected 82 years ago. My predecessors have in general been long-serving members of this place and have represented the community well. I am encouraged by the longevity of my predecessors and by their contributions here. The twenty- sixth ALP senator from South Australia was Geoff McLaren. Senator McLaren was elected in 1970 and was a member of this place for almost 12 years. It is worth noting that he defeated the now South Australian Premier, John Bannon, in the ALP pre-selection for the 1970 Senate team. Senator Mclaren always took up a challenge. He was a tireless worker for South Australia and the Labor movement. In particular, he was a hard working representative of the country people of South Australia from his office in Murray Bridge. I believe that the Murray Bridge Post Office is now a much quieter place with his going. I wish Geoff McLaren and his wife Beryl well in their retirement, and I am sure that all other honourable senators join with me. I am delighted to see Senator Crowley here as the first Labor woman in Canberra from South Australia. I regret that Brian Keneally, the other member of our Senate team, was not elected.

I welcome and applaud the election of the first Federal Labor Government in over seven years. In South Australia we gained the division of Kingston and the Labor Party now holds seven of the 11 electorates. If all States matched this proportion of seats the ALP majority would be very comfortable indeed. It is worth noting that while Labor was in Opposition my State elected a majority of ALP members.

In many areas South Australia has been a pioneering State. In 1840 it innovated in the area of local government when the Adelaide municipality was incorporated- the first in Australia. In 1858 the Real Property Act came into effect. That Act broke from past practice and embodied Torrens's principles of property conveyancing. As a consequence there is great simplicity in land titling in South Australia that is the envy of many other places. In 1876 South Australia was the first State to give legal recognition to trade unions. Before that time the bodies representing industrial workers had an uncertain role. In view of this enlightened attitude to trade unions it is no coincidence that my State for many years has had the lowest rate of industrial disputation in Australia.

In 1910 the first majority Labor Government in the world was elected in South Australia under the leadership of John Verran. That was a real milestone which was to be marked later in many other places in the world. In 1975 the Independent Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission was established, taking the drawing of State electoral boundaries out of the hands of governments. Both the Liberal Party and the Labor Party have won elections on boundaries drawn by the Independent Commission. Now my State has the electoral system which is possibly the most responsive to community choice. It was evident at the recent Constitutional Convention that the debate over the drawing of electoral boundaries still rages elsewhere in Australia.

In recent years South Australia has borne the brunt of the economic problems facing Australia. The severity of the State's economic difficulties is linked to its high reliance upon manufacturing. It is that sector of the economy which has experienced the greatest pressures. Problems in South Australia have been more intense because relatively few industries dominate the manufacturing sector there. The industrial structure is heavily dependent upon motor vehicle manufacturing, steel making and white goods. The particular problems of those industries are very evident and have been reflected in massive numbers of retrenchments. If and when the General Motors-Holden's Ltd plant at Woodville closes, people living in the surrounding suburbs will be crippled economically. The area is already hard hit by the recession, with 1,300 people a day having contact with the local social security office.

For almost every month in recent years South Australia, unfortunately, has had the highest or second highest unemployment rate of any State. Indeed, for 23 consecutive months in 1980 and 1981 South Australia had the highest jobless rate .

Clearly the economic difficulties there have not just been the result of temporary factors. The monthly tallies of unemployment figures cannot express the despair, lack of dignity and social in- justice which are the human stories behind the loss of a job. Even those who still have jobs are facing the worry and uncertainty that by the end of the week they too may join the ranks of the unemployed. In Australia there can be no social justice before there is a return to full employment. In those parts of Australia where jobs have been harder to come by the goal of full employment would be achieved more readily with special assistance from the national Government. That would be one way to begin ridding Australia of inequalities of a spatial nature.

A regional policy needs to be developed to supplement the Government's main thrust, to achieve economic recovery. In the past, it seems that economic policy in Australia has been based on conditions in the largest capital cities, conditions which may not be as severe as elsewhere. Sales tax has been increased sharply in recent years, with little attention being given to the distribution among the States of the industries which are taxed.

Regional policies and regional programs are needed so that many more jobs can be created in the most disadvantaged parts of Australia. The standard argument against the development of regional policy in this country goes that there is no real difference in economic conditions throughout Australia. That argument must now be seriously questioned. It appears that Australia has become divided into an economic centre and outlying areas, which share less in the benefits. At the periphery are States such as South Australia and Tasmania. Both should be seen as regions for the development of special assistance programs. I am aware that the mover of this Address-in-Reply would argue that that should also be the case for north Queensland. The announcement of new regional policies by the ALP earlier this year is an important beginning.

The formulation of regional policy could be served by the development of new government machinery. At present, the highly respected Commonwealth Grants Commission tries to take into account the special needs of each State in the delivery of government services. The Grants Commission uses long-established guidelines in allocating finance. Since the 1930s there has been an attempt here to ensure that adequate resources are available to all State governments. But, half a century later, public policy still is really only about resources available to governments. Each State's distribution of private sector resources is not taken into account in developing economic policy. This is surprising, given that the private sector is the major part of the economic system. Little account is taken if a State is suffering from large scale closures in industries . Until the special needs of industries in certain areas are identified on a comprehensive basis the underlying economic problems of a region will not be addressed. I emphasise this need for comprehensive studies of regional industries. The potential for growth in each region should be studied too. Appropriate policies should include the relocation of some Commonwealth Government employment to areas suffering the most severe job crises.

Labor now faces the challenge of reversing the inequalities imposed on the community in recent years. In view of budgetary constraints that, of course, must be a longer term task. Government actions in recent years had a regressive effect on the distribution of income and wealth. The thrust of some measures tended to overlook the needs of the most disadvantaged Australians. For example, funds allocated for Aboriginal programs were almost halved in real terms. Taxpayers on low incomes suffered a decline in disposable income under the effects of tax changes yet, inexplicably, people earning high incomes enjoyed a strong increase in disposable income. One of the greatest inequities was that interest rates rose to record levels with crippling effects on young home buyers .

Regressive policies should not be allowed to persist and must be reversed. Priority should be given to making the taxation system more progressive, including the reduction of the relative burden of sales tax and other hidden taxes.

The Governor-General's Speech referred to a wide range of proposals and legislation to enhance the quality of government in Australia and to strengthen the foundations of parliamentary democracy. The Governor-General referred to legislation to ensure that the principle of one vote one value is clearly established. It was also indicated that there would be moves for the public funding of elections and measures to reduce informal voting through the development of simpler voting procedures. It is pleasing to note that there is momentum at last in the areas of electoral and constitutional reform by a Commonwealth government. It is long overdue. Australia once was a real innovator in these fields and was a world leader. Sadly, we fell behind because of government inaction and community complacency. Australia now has a very long way to go if it is to match the reforms being implemented elsewhere. There is a pressing need to do so because we have one of the most complex voting systems in the world.

A number of major electoral reforms occurred in Australia in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. In 1856 Victoria and South Australia introduced secret electoral ballots, a world first and a radical departure from previous voting methods. They became known as the Australian ballot, and secret ballots still are described in this way in some countries. In 1894, South Australia legislated for voting rights for women. It was not a world first, but South Australia was among the world leaders. When the Federal electoral boundaries were first drawn they basically reflected the principle of one vote one value. At the time few electoral systems in the world did so. There were even moves early in this century to allow the use of voting machines in Australia. In 1908 the South Australian electoral Act was amended to provide that such machines could be used. It is a matter of interest that that section still exists in the Act.

The Commonwealth electoral system has tended to become more complicated and, probably, less equitable in its effect since World War I. Following the formulation of the Country Party, preferential voting was introduced to avoid splitting the conservative vote. In 1934 full preferentail voting was applied for Senate elections, the basic cause of today's high level of informal votes. Later, the first legislation was passed requiring that rural Federal electorates should have a lower enrolment that others.

Not all electors are able to cast a valid vote because they are frustrated and defeated by our electoral system. The system should be there to help them express their choice effectively. In my State this year the total number of Senate informal votes almost attained one quota. A Senate quota was exceeded by informals in New South Wales and Victoria. That is a real indictment of the system. One could validly ask who are the missing members of this place, as the composition of the Senate may have been different if the informal votes had been lower. Unfortunately, at Senate elections informal votes have become the third largest bloc of votes, after the Australian Labor Party and the conservative coalition. In the electoral division of Lalor, the Senate informal vote was 16.3 per cent; in Reid it was 14.7 per cent; in Blaxland it was 14.2 per cent; and in Port Adelaide it was 14.1 per cent. Within that latter division there was a 27 per cent Senate informal vote at two polling booths. Informals exceeded one in five at other South Australian booths. These shocking findings should not be tolerated in a democracy.

Few informal votes are deliberate, as some commentators would suggest. A close investigation of informal voting in the Adelaide metropolitan area has revealed that it is linked with certain population characteristics. In suburbs where there are many senior citizens, recent migrants from certain countries, or citizens with relatively little schooling, high levels of informal votes can unfortunately be expected with the present voting system. It is appalling that these groups, which are among the most heavily reliant upon the Commonwealth Government for their well-being, through the social security system, are those least able to express their choice because the voting system defeats them. The very people who most need a strong voice at the ballot box are effectively denied a vote by the unnecessarily complex voting system. Possibly, this is one reason why our social security system has fallen behind. The estimated number of two million Australians living in poverty would have been lower with the implementation of more compassionate policies. The thrust of policies might have been different if fewer of the poor were prevented from having a say in who is elected to parliament. The public finance theory assumes the ability to choose between public goods, yet we have a voting system which effectively denies choice to so many.

Another inequality in Australian public life has been the growing disparity between the expenditures of individual parties and groups at elections. It is possible that, per head of population, Australia's elections are now the most expensive in the world. The conservative parties have been relatively well financed and have tended to have a hold on the political system. Electoral success should not be allowed to depend on the amount of money available to fund campaigns. The importance of the establishment of the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform cannot be overemphasised. To give early effect to the principle of one vote one value, I hope that the Committee will recommend the scrapping of the requirement that large electorates have a smaller enrolment. If we are to improve the general standing of parliament in the community, a priority must be the reform of the flow of money into politics, and its expenditure. I congratulate the Special Minister of State (Mr Young) on his announcement foreshadowing legislation in this area.

I hope we can have a package of reforms, including not only public funding of elections but also limits on expenditures, the disclosure of the sources of donations and limits to their size. To a varying degree, all such measures are the law in other democracies, particularly in countries such as the United States of America and Canada. Public funding of parties' research activities occurs in a range of countries too. Australia can only benefit if each political party researches policy in more depth. The massive amounts for funding political campaigns are used in the main to buy television and radio time or to finance the production of broadcast material. New policies should be focused on access to television and radio by political groups. Television and radio political commercials as we now know them should be replaced by allocations of time according to a strict and equitable formula. That is the system in some other countries, including Canada. Broadcast time could be allocated in, say, five minute segments, making it harder to sustain fear campaigns. In essence, the allocation of broadcast time on commercial stations in future would be an extension of the present Australian Broadcasting Commission practice. The funding of broadcast time should be the responsibility of the Commonwealth or the joint responsibility of the Government and the stations.

Surely, a basic objective of our electoral system should be to maximise the number of valid votes. The ability to allocate preferences should be a later consideration; that is, after the maximum number of electors have been able to cast a valid vote. The scale of informal voting in Senate elections can be reduced. After all, the majority of informals are cast by electors who cast valid votes in House of Representatives elections. A move to optional preferential voting in the Senate, by simplifying the voting system would reduce the number of informals. To maximise the number of valid votes electors should have only to express a few preferences. The system which has the greatest potential to maximise the number of valid votes is the European list system of voting which operated in South Australia up to 1979 for upper House elections. Under that system, an elector simply had to place the number '1' against a party list to cast a valid vote. In 1979, that reduced informal votes to 4.4 per cent- a smaller percentage than in the lower House elections. That was a remarkable electoral achievement in this country.

Arguments against the list system of voting are weakened by the fact that few electors depart from suggested rankings of candidates on how-to-vote cards under the present system. Research has shown that only 2 per cent or 3 per cent of all voters in mainland States-including Labor, Liberal and Democrats-depart from the order of how-to-vote cards. So while 2 per cent to 3 per cent pick and choose candidates, informal votes by others are forced possibly 5 per cent to 6 per cent higher.

Voter education schemes will help reduce informal voting too. The Australian Labor Party has shown what can be done. In my State, after voter education activities, Senate informals fell by 11,000 in 1980. But it should be the Government's responsibility to carry out voter education rather than that of individual political parties. Voting should be simplified by the identification of parties against candidates' names on ballot papers. This would reduce voter confusion resulting from the growing length of ballot papers. How-to-vote cards should be placed in voting cubicles as in South Australian State elections.

I hope that the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform will be able to examine computerised voting in depth. Modern equipment, including optical scanners, could handle preferential voting with ease. Such equipment now is in widespread use in parts of the United States. The adoption of computerised voting would result in a major simplification of the Australian voting system. In establishing the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform, Parliament is taking a major step to foster the further development of our democracy. It is to be hoped that the Committee's recommendations can be supported and given effect at an early date. Democracy needs constant nurturing if it is to survive. A complete overhaul of our electoral system is indeed timely. It offers real hope for increasing participation in our political process.

The PRESIDENT —Before calling on Senator Zakharov I draw the attention of all honourable senators to the fact that this will be the first speech made in the Senate by Senator Zakharov. I ask all honourable senators to accord her the normal courtesies.