Senator ELLISON (Special Minister of State) (1:28 PM) —I rise to outline, firstly, what has taken place in relation to this legislation. Perhaps I can deal with the more technical aspects first. In relation to the previous bill, a number of amendments were passed by the Senate. When the bill was returned to the other place, the government did not accept them and proposed amendments in their place.

The government moved that the House not agree to an amendment which dealt with financial matters as it was felt that it had unintended application to certain loans and to loans from certain entities. In particular, there was uncertainty over the treatment of credit card debt and concern that credit providers, such as American Express and Aussie Home Loans, were not included in the definition of financial institutions. To correct these deficiencies, government amendment No. 2, which we have here today, provides—

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN (Senator Watson) —Minister, I do not think you are quite on the amendments before the Senate.

Senator ELLISON —No. This is background and introduction as to how we come to be at this point.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN —The question has been divided into two parts: amendments (21) and (26).

Senator ELLISON —In that case, I will still provide this by way of introduction.

Senator Forshaw interjecting—

Senator ELLISON —For the benefit of the chamber and those listening, I am outlining the difference we have with the issue at hand and the other issues which are not in contention. I was shortly to conclude on the aspects which were not in contention. There is a difference here. We have assisted voting, some financial matters and some other technical matters. We have treated them in a discrete fashion by putting some to one side and dealing with the other in this particular debate, and that is assisted voting, which I will now deal with if I am allowed to.

There is no hidden agenda on the part of the government in this situation. The government is proposing something which is fair. When this matter was last before the Senate, there was an anomaly, in that there is a difference between the provisions for a referendum and an election insofar as assisted voting is concerned. The government is proposing that there be a system which pervades both a referendum and an election and that the assisted voting provisions be the same. When one looks at the proposals put forward by the government as opposed to what the opposition is saying, there is not much difference. I reject totally the allegations by the opposition that we are attempting to disenfranchise voters who are incapacitated or indigenous voters or to make life more difficult for them in relation to how to vote. When you analyse the step by step process, you can see that there is a great deal of similarity between what we are proposing and what is in existence at the moment.

Firstly, the voter must satisfy the presiding officer that he or she needs assistance. That remains unchanged. The question then is how that person is to be assisted. We are proposing that the person then has a choice as to how the procedure will be conducted. That is identical to the current situation. A friend can accompany that voter when they vote. That situation is the same; there is no difference. The only difference is who fills out the ballot paper. At the moment, a voter can attend with a friend and say, `I want my friend to fill in the ballot paper for me.' The government are proposing that that person could still attend with the friend; the difference is that, while the friend could be present, the presiding officer would fill out the ballot paper.

The opposition obviously does not trust the role of the presiding officer. The opposition is saying that this opens up a Pandora's box of all sorts of abuse, but it does not. The assistance can still be provided to the voter by the friend, but an impartial assistance is provided by the presiding officer, whom we trust to run the polling booth and to conduct things squarely and properly. The voter is under no sanction or force to have scrutineers present. If scrutineers are present, they can attend but only if the voter agrees. Where is the coercion? Where is the problem with that? If the voter wants those scrutineers to be present, why can't they have them present?

Let us now look at the flip side. The matter has been raised that, by having the presiding officer present—who is most probably a local person—it is no longer a secret ballot. But the current system is not a secret ballot, because it is up to the friend to fill in the ballot paper, and that friend would know how the voter voted. One could say that a friend is in a different position because the voter would not mind a friend being there. But you have to look at the situation in view of peer group pressure and the possibility of external pressure whereby someone might say to a voter, `You're going to take this friend in with you.' That is always a possibility, and the government believe that possibility should be absolutely excluded. It can be excluded by having the presiding officer fill in the ballot paper.

We trust the presiding officer to run affairs at the booth. That presiding officer is in charge. Why can't they fill in the ballot paper in the presence of a friend? A friend can still give assistance, in the presence of the presiding officer, to the voter. That makes it abundantly fair. It does not detract in any way from the assistance that is being given to the voter. People who question this process must be questioning the integrity of the presiding officer. I wonder why people who question this process are so intent on only the friend being present, because there is no diminution in the secrecy or the integrity of the ballot by having the presiding officer there. Those who question this process leave the way open for external forces to dictate to a voter who the friend is who may accompany them.

Remember, you are dealing with a voter who is at a disadvantage. The wording of the bill is that `the voter is so physically incapacitated or illiterate'—or the voter's sight is so impaired—`that the voter is unable to vote without assistance'. Quite reasonably, a number of voters who are disadvantaged would fall into these categories. Why not have the presiding officer fill in the ballot paper for them in the presence of their friend if they so wish and in the presence of scrutineers if they so wish? It is all a question of choice but, at the end of the day, at least we have an umpire in the polling booth who knows that no undue influence is being exercised upon that disadvantaged voter.

So I reject entirely the suggestion that there is any attempt by the government here to thwart the process—in fact, it is quite the contrary. These amendments came about as a result of the debate in this chamber when this matter was last before the Senate. It was as a result of that debate that the other place took on these amendments and modified them. I note that, when assisted voting was first proposed by the government, the opposition's position was that they were going to agree to it, and then there was a change in their position. We have come back with a modified position which the opposition still do not agree to. One can only wonder how far the opposition want the government to go in this respect. I might also point to the fact that the submission by the Electoral Commission—which was put before the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters on 12 March this year—pointed to the experience at Tangentyere polling booth in the Northern Territory during the 1998 federal election. That submission stated:

The Northern Territory legislation provides that, if a person needs an assisted vote, then the presiding officer or another official directed by the presiding officer may assist the voter in full view of political party and candidate scrutineers.

What the AEC was doing, I would suggest, was pointing to that as a desirable practice, and what we are doing here is similar to that. We are providing that a presiding officer be present to make sure that everything is done properly and there is no undue influence exercised on the voter.

I commend this provision to the chamber. It is desirable that both the electoral legislation and the referendum legislation have the same provisions for assisted voting so that, at the end of the day, we do not have a discrepancy. I would inquire of the opposition whether they are satisfied that their proposal does result in this.