Senator CROSSIN (4:01 PM) —by leave—I move:

Senator CROSSIN —I wish to make some comments on the government's response to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters report entitled Territory representation. It has been a very long and, at times, debilitating process to convince this government, and certainly members of this parliament, that the Australian Electoral Commission's decision last year that the Northern Territory would be represented by only one House of Representatives seat in the forthcoming federal election was not only the wrong decision but also one based on incorrect facts. The member for Solomon tabled a bill in the House of Representatives last year that would forever guarantee two seats for the Northern Territory and three seats for the ACT. However, it is not appropriate that this parliament legislate to guarantee a minimum number of seats. It is outside our jurisdiction; it is interfering in what the Australian Electoral Commission does.

It was on the basis of that that we sent the bill and the decision to diminish political representation in the Northern Territory to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. The committee took evidence. To its credit it went to Darwin and listened to the views of people in the Territory and to those who placed a submission with the committee. This is the government's response to that committee, and I am pleased to see that all three recommendations from that committee have been supported by this government.

I quite clearly remember Senator Robert Ray's statement when this committee reported in November last year. He was right when he said that the committee would not be swayed, nor should it be swayed, by arguments of distance, isolation or the make-up of the types of constituents that we have in the Northern Territory—that is, one-third of them are Indigenous. While they are arguments you can sympathise with, they are not arguments you can use as a basis for changing the Australian Electoral Act.

What we have in this report—and its recommendations have been supported by the government—is a way forward. It is a way to deal sensibly with the treatment of the analysis and statistical allocation of seats in the House of Representatives and provide a better outcome for future representation in the Territory. It includes the estimates of populations for Christmas Island and Cocos Island. Christmas Island and Cocos Island are part of the seat of Lingiari. They were not part of the demographic statistics included when seats were determined after a federal election, yet we represent them—my colleague Warren Snowden represents them exceptionally well in this parliament. Therefore, the number of people who reside on Christmas Island and Cocos Island ought to be counted in statistics when determining the number of House of Representatives seats.

It has also been suggested that the margin of error calculations used by statisticians at the Australian Bureau of Statistics in calculating population statistics are also used by the Australian Electoral Commission. I point out that for the Northern Territory the margin of error in the 2001 net undercount for the census—which carries through to the quarterly figures—was 1.2 per cent. This was actually three times higher than the error margin of the states. For the ACT, however, it was only 0.8 per cent. The error margin for Australia as a whole was 0.2 per cent. So we had an error margin in the Northern Territory of 1.2 per cent; for the rest of the country it was 0.2 per cent. Why was that? It was because it is particularly hard to accurately count the number of people in the Northern Territory. This has been highlighted by ANU academics in relation to Aurukun, but it is particularly the case in the Northern Territory.

We believe that in the census there was a severe undercount in the Territory. Try as they may, the Australian Bureau of Statistics cannot get to each and every outstation, and they also find it very hard to track the number of Indigenous people because of their nomadic nature. We had many examples of census forms not being collected or areas being excluded or missed out. The member for Barkly, Elliot McAdam, was able to produce significant evidence to show that a number of census forms had not been collected in the Barkly region. The committee's recommendation, which is now supported by the government, was that the margin of error used by the Australian Bureau of Statistics—and that would have been 1.2 per cent in the Northern Territory—be included in the margin of error that the Australian Electoral Commission uses in its future calculations.

Finally, the third recommendation goes to setting aside the 2003 determination of the Australian Electoral Commission. That determination was that there be only one seat for the Northern Territory in the coming election. If that determination is set aside then we will have two seats at the next election. If the other two recommendations are adopted then that, hopefully, should solve the problem for each and every coming election after this year.

The government have already had two chances of getting it right. We had the David Tollner bill, as it is commonly known. We then had the House of Representatives (Northern Territory Representation) Bill 2004, which was tabled in the House and which has not gone any further. Neither of those bills has actually looked at solving the problem in a sensible and responsible way for the future. The House of Representatives bill was written and tabled before the government's response to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters report was provided.

We have had two bills. Now we have the government's response to this report, and the government is actually supporting all three recommendations. Today I notice in the House of Representatives the third attempt—and they always say `three times lucky'—that is, the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Representation in the House of Representatives) Bill 2004 was tabled. This bill picks up the support of the government for the three recommendations in the report.

As I said, it has been a long process of trawling through exactly what the Australian Bureau of Statistics do at census time, what they do or do not do in relation to the Northern Territory and what that has meant as a flow-on effect in relation to not only electoral matters but also the Commonwealth Grants Commission. As a result of the undercount in the Northern Territory and the way in which those statistics are used, the Northern Territory will be down $48 million in revenue this year from the Commonwealth. This is purely because the Commonwealth Grants Commission base their allocation of moneys on population in the Northern Territory. If you do not get it right, there is a flow-on effect in terms of revenue to the Territory and a significant flow-on effect in terms of the representation of the people in the Northern Territory in the federal parliament.

Through the work that I did in estimates, I was able to prove to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters that the definition of `latest statistics of the Commonwealth' is unclear. I had made a suggestion that the definition of latest available statistics be made clearer through an amendment to the Electoral Act. On that basis it was easy to prove that the statistics that had been provided to the Electoral Commission were somewhat questionable and that, if the latest available statistics had been used, which were those for the June 2002 quarter, the Territory would have easily kept that second seat.

I welcome the government's response to this report. I welcome the fact that they have supported all three recommendations. It is good to see finally today in the House of Representatives a bill that puts in place those three recommendations. I am sure I will be able to continue my further analysis and support for this bill when it is presented in the Senate.