Senator VANSTONE (Minister for Justice) (6:15 PM) —I table a revised explanatory memorandum and move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard .

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

This bill contains a number of technical amendments to the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 and the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Act 1984.

This bill contains the majority of provisions introduced into the 37th parliament as the Electoral and Referendum Amendment Bill 1995, and which received, in the main, support from all parties. These amendments were recommended by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters in its report on the conduct of the 1993 federal election tabled on 16 November 1994.

In addition to those amendments, there are further amendments included in this bill which result from recommendations of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters report entitled Electoral Redistributions which was tabled on 19 December 1995. The government's Response to that report was tabled in the last few days.

Further, the bill also contains technical amendments arising from some of the recommendations contained in the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters' report on the conduct of the 1996 federal election, which was tabled on 16 June 1997. Other recommendations of that report relating to matters of electoral reform are currently being considered.

Some of the amendments arising from the 1993 report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters include:

. enabling the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) to delegate to staff its powers to supply and charge for goods and services and provide that such goods and services may be supplementary or an alternative to those already supplied under Joint Roll Arrangements between the Commonwealth and the states;

. improving the enrolment objection process by allowing relatives and friends who do not live in the same Subdivision as electors of unsound mind to apply for their removal from the roll on medical advice and without the payment of an objection deposit;

. allowing canvassing in and around hospitals that are polling places other than on polling day, and in special hospitals other than during the five days before and including polling day. Currently, canvassing is prohibited from the issue of the writ until the close of polling;

. allowing the AEC to use state of the art security printing methods in the printing of ballot papers rather than relying on watermarked ballot paper. This will result in savings estimated at $800,000 in ballot paper storage and production costs as the AEC is currently required to store enough watermarked paper for two electoral events;

. extending the two-candidate preferred count, conducted in polling places on polling night, to the fresh scrutiny and declaration vote scrutinies, conducted by the Divisional Returning Officers in the week following polling day;

. allowing for the provision of gender information to Members, Senators and registered political parties and for use in approved medical research and public health screening surveys;

. providing state and territory electoral administrations access to electoral roll information, including gender, date of birth and occupation information, of all other states and territories. This will assist in the maintenance of the joint electoral rolls as well as improving the service to electors for both state/territory and federal elections.

The amendments recommended by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters in its Electoral Redistributions report are also technical and of a non-controversial nature. These include:

. providing for the advertisement calling for suggestions and comments relating to a redistribution to be placed by the Electoral Commissioner, rather than the Redistribution Committee, so as to allow interested parties to prepare suggestions while the appointment of the Redistribution Committee is being arranged;

. providing for the determination of state and territory representation entitlements to fall due in the thirteenth month of the first meeting of the House of Representatives rather than the tenth month. The effect of this amendment is to enable the population figures to be one calendar quarter closer to those applying at the time of the next election, than is currently the case;

. providing that comments and suggestions relating to redistributions be available for public scrutiny in a manner similar to suggestions;

. removing the requirement that persons or organisations must object to a Redistribution Committee proposal to be able to lodge an objection to an Augmented Electoral Commission's proposed redistribution;

. bringing the membership of a Redistribution Committee for the Australian Capital Territory into line with the equivalent body for a state; and

. allowing for the redistribution mid-point equality of enrolments to be within a range of 3.5 per cent above or below the average, rather than the current 2 per cent. This, together with the amendment requiring Redistribution Committees to give existing boundaries less weight than other criteria such as community of interest, will allow Redistribution Committees greater flexibility in determining boundaries, especially with respect to very large rural Divisions.

The bill also contains a number of technical amendments arising from recommendations of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters' 1996 Federal Election report. These amendments include:

. allowing Australians resident overseas for career and employment reasons to remain enrolled, or to enrol and obtain eligible overseas elector status, up to 2 years after departure from Australia under similar criteria as that currently in place for itinerant electors. It will also provide that eligible overseas elector status may be granted for a period of 6 years rather than the current 3 years;

. reducing the nomination period by one day, with the declaration of nominations taking place 24 hours after the close of nominations. Very often, there are last minute nominations which, like all others, must be carefully checked. This amendment will allow the AEC more time for checking nominations and to seek any necessary legal advice without having to indefinitely delay the declaration process. This will prevent inconvenience to candidates and the media, who currently are required to wait some hours during a particularly busy period at the beginning of the election campaign for the declaration and ballot paper draw to commence;

. increasing the nomination deposits from $250 to $350 in the House of Representatives and from $500 to $750 in the Senate. Currently, nominations fees are too modest to dissuade candidates who can only acquire a handful of votes. Nomination fees have not been altered since 1983 and the increase is well below the rate of inflation since 1983;

. increasing the number of signatures required in support of a nomination from a candidate not endorsed by a registered political party from six to fifty. A registered political party nominating a candidate is required to have at least 500 members. Accordingly, potential candidates should be required to demonstrate a modest level of support at the time of nomination;

. allowing electors to vote outside, but in close proximity to, a polling place if the Presiding Officer is satisfied that, through illness or disability, the elector is unable to enter the polling place. Scrutineers will be invited to observe the process;

. allowing for the declaration of the poll to proceed for a House of Representatives election based on the result of the two candidate preferred count where, on the basis of first preferences, the exclusion of all but two candidates is inevitable. This will allow the official declaration to proceed in some Divisions earlier than is currently the case;

. removing the infamous section 329A and related provisions. This is the provision which ultimately led to the gaoling of Albert Langer during the 1996 federal election. The related amendments will remove the provision which effectively provided for optional preferential voting in House of Representatives elections; and

. removing the requirement that registered political parties submit returns of electoral expenditure, and including that they may submit audited accounts in a form approved by the AEC in place of annual returns provided that they contain the required level of detail.

The bill will greatly assist the AEC's efficiency in conducting the next election by allowing for the conduct of Senate scrutinies by a computer process. The computer process will follow the principles of the manual process. This amendment was recommended in both the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matter's 1993 and 1996 Federal Election reports.

The computerised process will allow scrutineers better access to ballot paper preference information which will be stored within the computer system. Information on the number of informal ballot papers, papers that are formal but not in accordance with party tickets, records of ballot papers notionally transferred at each count, and the progress of the count of votes will also be available.

The AEC conducted demonstrations of the proposed system for political party representatives in each state and territory, and for the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, during 1995. The AEC estimates that the use of this system will result in savings of approximately $300,000 at each Senate election.

However, the greater advantage of the proposed system is that it will reduce the time taken to distribute the preferences of Senate ballot papers.

Finally the bill makes a number of other amendments which are directed at improving operational processes with respect to enrolment and voting.

Debate (on motion by Senator Carr) adjourned.