Senator CROSSIN (1:08 PM) —I rise to provide a few comments on the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Representation in the House of Representatives) Bill 2004. We have spoken about the issue behind this bill a number of times in this chamber to date, so I will not hold up the passage of this legislation any longer than it needs to be. There are many people, not only in this parliament but also in the Northern Territory, who are waiting for us to ensure that this legislation is passed today and retains the Territory's representation of two seats. There are a number of comments that I want to make. I have noticed that yesterday in the House of Representatives my colleague Warren Snowdon went to some lengths in outlining some of the detail as to how we got to the situation of looking at only having one House of Representatives seat at the last election. I can say that the determination by the Australian Electoral Commission for the Northern Territory to revert to one seat gave us a very good opportunity to have a very close look at the way in which the Australian Bureau of Statistics conduct their census. It forced us to look at the way in which data is collected in places like the Northern Territory during census time, and of course we now know the implications of what happens when that data is not collected accurately. Not only does it have a flow-on effect on the representation of places like the Northern Territory but of course it affects the money that is provided through the Grants Commission, because that is based on per head of population.

I, along with a number of colleagues in the Northern Territory, presented a submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters last year when the first bill relating to this was sent to that committee for inquiry. As we know, on 20 February 2003 the Australian Electoral Commission determined that, due to a population decline, the extra seat would be lost. On the basis of the figures provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Northern Territory missed out on retaining its two federal seats by 0.0022 of a quota, or 295 people. Through a lot of work that I and my office undertook during the estimates process—questions we asked of the Australian Bureau of Statistics—we were able to finally, at the end of the day, obtain from the Australian Electoral Commission evidence that what the Australian Bureau of Statistics had provided to the Electoral Commission was not in fact the latest available public statistics at the time they were requested. I will quote from a letter that was sent to Mr Trewin of the Australian Bureau of Statistics by Mr Andrew Becker of the Australian Electoral Commission. He says:

of the Australian Bureau of Statistics—

estimated resident population—

Australian Electoral Commission—

My understanding is that that is exactly what happened. I suppose if you want to be cute about this you could say that the ABS cobbled together some statistics that they believed would satisfy the requirements of the Australian Electoral Commission and put together a special version of the December quarter figures, as opposed to using the latest available statistics. It was in fact the statistics that were somehow put together by the Australian Bureau of Statistics that were used by the Australian Electoral Commission. Senator Ray is right: if the latest available statistics had been used, they would have been the June 2002 quarter figures and they would have clearly entitled the Northern Territory to retain its second seat.

For the Hansard, I also want to say to the Australian Bureau of Statistics that I hope they have listened to and looked long and hard at the debate about the reasons why the Northern Territory was going to lose its second representative in the House of Representatives. I hope it has read the transcripts of comments by people like Elliot McAdam, the member for Barkly, who said on 27 March 2003, in an interview on the ABC when he was questioned about the collection of the statistics:

he is talking about Tennant Creek in his area of Barkly—

He goes on to say:

Clearly, there were some very severe problems with the way in which the census was conducted in 2001 in respect of the Northern Territory. Work was done by Taylor and Bell, academics at the ANU who produced a report for the Queensland Centre for Population Research. They had this to say about their study in the Cape York Peninsula:

They go on to say:

It would seem that that is a concern that is replicated in the Northern Territory. I hope this leads to the Australian Bureau of Statistics taking a very careful look at the way in which people in remote Indigenous communities are counted in the census. I hope they will undertake an evaluation of the way in which that work is conducted. I hope that we see significant improvements in that by the time of the next census in 2005.

Thanks to the work of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters we now have an outcome that we can all live with. This does not give the Northern Territory two seats forever; it does not mandate a minimum representation in the parliament forever. This bill recognises that a mistake was made in 2003 and that the latest available statistics should have been used. That would have given the Territory two seats; therefore the 2003 determination needs to be set aside. But the legislation also ensures that the error of margin that is normally used by the ABS will be picked up and used by the Australian Electoral Commission and it puts in place a good foundation for the way in which these figures can be utilised in the future.

That is not to say that at some time in the future we will not go back to one seat. That may well happen but at least we now have a process that is much more thorough, takes much more account of the reality of the way these figures are used and, hopefully, will stop any reoccurrence of errors such as that which occurred last year. I commend this bill to the Senate. I again thank the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters for its work, and I am sure that the people of Solomon in particular will be pleased to know that their representation in this chamber will continue at least into the term of the next parliament.