ELECTORAL (MISCELLANEOUS) AMENDMENT BILL

Committee Stage

In committee.

(Continued from 16 May 2013.)

New clauses 15A and 15B.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I move:

Page 7, after line 11—Insert:

15A—Amendment of section 71—Manner of voting

(1) Section 71(1)—delete 'An' and substitute 'Subject to subsection (2), an'

(2) Section 71(1)(b)—delete 'in the case of an elector entitled to do so by virtue of subsection (2)—'

(3) Section 71(2)(b) and (ba)—delete paragraphs (b) and (ba)

(4) Section 71(2)—before 'entitled' insert 'only'

(5) Section 71(3)—delete 'In addition, a' and substitute 'A'

15B—Amendment of section 73—Issue of voting papers

Section 73(2)—delete 'ground of the applicant's entitlement to make a declaration vote' and substitute 'prescribed kind'

This is the first of two sets of amendments addressing postal votes. One set proposes to make postal voting more broadly available. The other set seeks to ensure that, as the Electoral Commission takes over the exclusive right to distribute postal vote applications, the commissioner should maintain distributions of postal vote applications. I want to be clear that they are two separate issues. A member could support one but not the other, although the opposition would welcome members' support on both.

This amendment relates to broadening the availability of postal votes. All the members in this chamber are democratic activists. We campaign, we represent, we encourage others to exercise their democratic rights and we, like other Australians, vote. Unlike many democracies, our democracy does not just give Australians the opportunity to vote, we compel them to do so. Voting is not merely a right: it is a duty. Some people object to compulsory voting and think people's votes are only worth counting if they take the initiative to go and vote. This restrictive approach says that a voter should only be able to have their say if they overcome all the barriers that are put in the way, that a person has somehow earned their vote by virtue of having to run the gauntlet.

In the opposition's view this same restrictive approach is evident in the arguments for narrow eligibility for postal voting. The government seems to think that people only deserve a postal vote if they go through the trial by ordeal first to be qualified to get a postal vote and, second, to go to the inconvenience to get one. On both counts the opposition differs.

When we compel people to exercise a right, it is incumbent on us to make it as easy as possible for citizens to fulfil their duty. We say that everyone should have the best possible opportunity to cast their vote. Barriers to a person exercising their democratic vote should be removed as far as is practicable so that a free, unhindered choice can be made.

The government's attitude is that voters should be forced to vote at a polling booth on a specific day within a specific window of time. We think the focus should be on the voting, not the manner of the vote. Let us remember that many voters lead busy lives, juggling work, family and other commitments, and they are often starved for time. Many voters live unpredictable lives. With increased casualisation of labour, many workers only have hours notice of whether or not they are required to work. Many voters with significant disability and mobility issues live independently. Often they are coping with minimal support. On most days they would be able to get to a polling booth; on a bad day or when their support fails, they would not. None of these groups are eligible for a postal vote.

In the modern world it makes sense to increase opportunities for people to vote at a time and in a manner of their convenience. Currently, without certainty, a person is not eligible for a postal vote. No-one should have to hope that they will be able to vote. This amendment proposes to remove the restrictive criteria that are in place as a barrier for postal voting. This amendment will provide an assurance that, despite the unpredictability of life, people's democratic lives will be assured.

Another attitude often expressed is that postal voting should be discouraged, that voters should be forced to endure the entirety of an election campaign before they make up their mind. This is the equivalent of an audience in a theatre being kept captive and only let out of the auditorium when the performance is finished, despite the fact that they were well and truly capable of deciding what they thought of the performance soon after it started. It also potentially reduces the number of people that will attend.

The local government experience in South Australia shows that that postal voting facilitates participation. In 1995 voter turnout at local government elections was at its lowest ebb. The overall turnout in metropolitan areas was only 13.8 per cent. Statewide it was an average of 18.8 per cent. When all but 11 councils opted for all-out all-mail ballots at the following election in 1997, overall turnout rates increased to 34 per cent in metropolitan areas. Voter turnout increased from 13.8 per cent to 28.8 per cent. In country areas voter turnout increased from 28.6 per cent to 49.8 per cent. At the following election in 2000, only postal votes were used. Turnout rates again increased from the average of 34.4 per cent to 40.1 per cent.

The opposition is not suggesting that all ballots should have to be cast by post. I suspect that booth voting will still be available in state elections. Where they are not available in local government elections, there would be fewer than 40 per cent of voters who would choose a postal vote. However, there is a clear link between the provision of voting services by mail and more voter engagement.

The amendment we are proposing is similar to the no-excuse postal vote system used in 27 states in the United States of America and in the District of Columbia. It is also used in Canada. If anything, providing options for voters to vote by post reduces the impact of polling day skulduggery, as we saw displayed by the Labor Party at the last election. The effect of dubious last minute announcements that do not leave time for an opponent's response is reduced, the impact of questionable material at polling booths is reduced, and the risk of administrative problems affecting a large number of voters on polling day is reduced. Removing the strict eligibility requirements on voting by post may increase the number of postal votes cast, but this does not necessarily mean a greater administrative burden on government to process them.

One of the Electoral Commissioner's concerns at the last election was about the administrative burden on determining whether a postal vote met the criteria required by section 71. We suggest that our amendment addresses this burden by removing the hoops voters have to jump through to cast a postal vote. Given the declaration vote module technology available to the commission, processing postal vote ballots is also now easier and less onerous than in the past, but easing the process of voting should not be our primary consideration—assisting voters to vote should be. The opposition amendments help us to do that, and I commend them to the committee.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: The government opposes this amendment. I want to ask the Hon. Stephen Wade whether he consulted, discussed or sought advice from the Electoral Commissioner, and who else did he consult with in putting these amendments together?

The Hon. S.G. WADE: This reminds me of a letter I received from the Attorney where he posed a similar question. It was about the distribution of postal vote applications. He said:

I wonder if you have discussed these with the Electoral Commissioner. If so, could you please see her comments before the debate in the Legislative Council...'

I found this rather curious. We are constantly told by bureaucrats and officers that we should seek briefings through the minister, but in this case I do not think it is particularly relevant. With all due respect to the Electoral Commissioner and the minister's comments in relation to her, her duty is to implement the Electoral Act as put forward by this parliament. Is the minister really suggesting that we should let the Electoral Commissioner dictate to us the shape of our democracy? I find that extraordinary. I did not see the need to consult the Electoral Commissioner. In fact, as I have said in my comments, if anything it would make it easier for the Electoral Commissioner, not harder.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I am gobsmacked, absolutely gobsmacked. The Electoral Commissioner has expressed serious concerns about the Hon. Stephen Wade's amendment in its current form. The Electoral Commissioner is a fairly independent authority, is responsible for the administration of the act and is a technical expert when it comes to the act, particularly in understanding the issues around security concerns, which she has raised in relation to this amendment. I am gobsmacked that the opposition would put forward an amendment that has such serious implications for our electoral system, and he has consulted with nobody, not even the administrative and technical independent expert in relation to this legislation, who will be required to administer the amendments put forward by the Hon. Stephen Wade. Again, I challenge him to outline who on earth he did consult with. If it is not the Electoral Commissioner, who did he consult with?

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I would like to ask the minister what security concerns the Electoral Commissioner expressed in relation to this matter—what security concerns?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I am happy to outline those, and I will be doing so in outlining the reasons for my opposition, but it begs the question before I start. The fact that he has no idea about the concerns, including the security concerns, the Electoral Commissioner has raised is irresponsible and incredibly alarming. In response to his amendment, once it has already been tabled and, no doubt, he has already lobbied, he is wanting me to outline the issues that an independent, technical, administrative expert has raised.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Two points. The main reason I asked the question about the minister's concerns is that I suspect that she is reading the notes for the wrong clause. That is the main reason for asking the question. My second reason is that, if the minister is suggesting that the Electoral Commissioner has significant concerns, as a statutory officer, you would expect that she would raise them with members. Apparently, the minister claims that the Electoral Commissioner has raised significant concerns. If that is the case, let the Electoral Commissioner contact the opposition, or let the government table the advice it has been given.

We have seen, time and time again, assertions by this government that statutory officers have made claims in relation to our amendments, and they are proved wrong. Let me remind honourable members of the case of the correctional services parole legislation. We were told by the government that the police insisted on it—time and time again, we were told that they insisted on it. So, in the deadlock conference context, we adjourned so that we could meet with the police commissioner and senior police, and they told us that the government's amendment would not work. So, with all due respect, until the minister tables the advice she has received, I do not believe a word of it.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I do not think I have ever seen such unprofessional conduct in this chamber before. I am completely astounded that the honourable member believes that the onus is on the commissioner to get on the phone and ring him when he is proposing an amendment that potentially has this significant impact, and he has failed to consult with anybody, not the commissioner, not with anybody. He was awake one night, probably with insomnia, and thought, 'Gee whiz! Whiz bang, this is a good idea. I think I've got an amendment here. I won't consult with anyone. I won't talk to anyone at all who might have any other expertise in this area but here goes this fabulous amendment.' Anyway, I can see that this is not going to get anywhere, and we have a lot of work to do tonight.

The government is extremely concerned by this amendment. This proposal seeks to fundamentally change the nature of elections in this state. South Australia and, indeed, Australia as a whole, has a very proud tradition when it comes to elections. Elections are an attendance ballot. In consultation with the minister, the commissioner has raised significant concerns in relation to this amendment, particularly around the lack of clarity in terms of what is intended. The commissioner has advised that, if it is parliament's intention to move away from an attendance ballot, it should exercise caution and consider the full implications of such a move and how it will address those implications, for example, in relation to the identity of electors, security of ballots, logistical requirements for the commissioner, etc.

If there are concerns meaning that there is a need to relax the criteria because the Hon Stephen Wade has identified a group, for instance, that is not adequately being captured, he should raise that with the commissioner and seek to address that directly, not in the way in which he is doing it. Apart from the fact that this amendment is incomplete and poorly thought through, if the intention is to remove the eligibility criteria to fundamentally change the nature of the ballot away from an attendance ballot, the government is opposed to that measure.

Elections should, as much as possible, be a snapshot of the population on the day, not a moving feast over the last two weeks of the campaign. One of the great strengths of the political process in Australia is that we have our elections on a single day, with votes cast in polling places where they can be actively scrutinised. This scrutiny is a key strength to our electoral process. Marked ballots are not moved before they are counted, and there is cross-checking to account for every ballot. They are then moved once to a division returning office, where all ballots cast for a district can then be tallied together. There is minimal handling and maximum accountability for the marked papers.

This proposal seeks to fundamentally weaken our electoral process by allowing people to vote by post out of convenience alone and, basically, however many people—for instance, you could have everyone voting by postal vote. The government believes that requiring electors to attend at a polling booth once every four years is entirely reasonable. We recognise and completely support that many people have a legitimate need to vote by post or to attend pre-polling locations to vote early. The government completely supports the continued need for postal voting and would obviously never move to disenfranchise people, particularly the vulnerable.

This amendment has a significant cost associated with it, a cost to the quality of one of the world's best electoral systems, and it is easy to take that quality of our system for granted, and this amendment clearly does that. It marks a fundamental and detrimental shift in the way elections in this state would be carried out. Further, it fails to recognise and address the major implications arising from such a shift. It is for those reasons that the government strongly opposes this and also the next amendment.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I would like to address the issue the minister has raised in relation to the integrity of the election. I really doubt whether the government had its heart in that one. This is the government that shifted towards postal votes for local government. Are we seriously saying that local government elections in this state have been fundamentally compromised?

Let me explain why I believe that this proposal, particularly lifting the eligibility criteria, will improve the security of this voting system. Voting by post will usually have as much integrity as voting in person. To vote in person, a person must only answer the questions put to them at the booth, which are, under section 72:

(a) such questions as are necessary to establish the identity and address of the principal place of residence of the claimant; and

(b) the following question: Have you voted before in this election? or Have you voted before in these elections?

I refer the government to the report, time and time again, of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters in the federal parliament, which has constantly raised concerns about identity at polling booths. We all know the stories about Labor Party voters registered at vacant blocks—I think that was in the Rostrevor/Newton area. Then, of course, we had reports of multiple voting. These claims to vote can only be rejected if they refuse to fully answer the questions or if they answer in a way that indicates that they are not entitled to vote.

The polling booth officer does not have the power to request any sort of formal ID from the voter or to ask them to produce substantiating information; it is purely verbal. The officer only needs to ask enough questions to satisfy themselves that the person is who they say they are; they only have the elector's name, the date of birth and the address on the roll to make that assessment.

The reason why a person was able to allege that they had voted around 150 times at the 2010 election was that they could go around to every polling booth in the electorate and vote under the same name multiple times and, subsequently, under different names without producing any ID and without producing any substantiating documentation.

That simply could not happen with postal votes because they are processed one at a time. This is the key point: you have a person running around and voting 150 times with no way to stop them, but with a postal vote application they have to be processed one at a time; no further votes can be lodged against that person's name. There is only one active electoral roll at any one time with postal voting.

In contrast to the low-level identification process used for election day voting, postal vote applications must be signed by the applicant and must provide all those details plus a contact number and the signature of the person. The signature can be checked against their electoral registration form. That is significantly enhanced security compared with a polling booth.

Secondly, you have to have an authorised witness there. You do not have a person turning up at the polling booth vouching for your identity, but you do with a postal vote. This argument about a lack of security is a weak squib from this government against reform. This information is also required for the declaration ballot papers themselves. You do not have to go through that process once, you have to go through it twice. This is double security.

The Hon. K.J. Maher interjecting:

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Excuse me, they can choose not to do it. You are saying you cannot have the choice unless you have no choice. We say people should have the choice, and I agree with you. If I had the choice, I would go every day to a polling booth, but why should people be denied the choice? The Hon. Kyam Maher can vote with the government. I appreciate that is what his obligation is as a whip, but I will be standing up with a Liberal position which I believe is strongly democratic and has strong integrity.

While we acknowledge there is a risk of voter fraud with postal votes, we think there is more risk of fraud through an over-investment in polling booths, particularly for people with disabilities. I constantly have people with disabilities raising concerns. In fact, it came up in the joint select committee on electoral matters. People were constantly concerned about the security of their votes when they go to a polling booth. You cannot be guaranteed that you will get an electoral system of your choice.

With postal voting, you have control. You can decide when and where you will fill in your ballot paper, and if you are not comfortable that you are going to have your anonymity, your security, protected, you will not vote. You will keep the ballot paper in your pocket. In our view, voting by post provides more integrity and more security to the system than in-person voting on election day.

The person must have first applied to vote by post and provided their name, their address, their date of birth and their phone number. As I said, it also needs to be signed by an authorised witness. It must provide all the person's details and then must again be signed by an authorised witness. In our view, this is a significant enhancement in security, not the degradation the minister is postulating.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: The honourable member is unable to really demonstrate in any genuine way how the current system does fail voters. Our voting system is considered all around the world as having one of the highest levels of integrity and security of any voting system, so we are right up there, but if the honourable member is genuine and believes that the system needs even greater integrity, such as voter ID, let him move an amendment to say that voters should take their ID to the polling booths with them and have their ID identified on polling day—if he was genuine, but of course he is not, and that is why he has not moved an amendment of that type.

The Hon. S.G. Wade: I am happy to report progress to do that one.

The CHAIR: Order!

The Hon. S.G. Wade: No, she has dared me to. I am very happy to do it.

The CHAIR: Order!

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: Also the honourable member talks about people with disabilities. As I have said, this government has no intention of changing the current provisions that allow for those people who believe that they have a genuine and good reason to receive a postal vote to do so, and that includes a lot of people with disabilities. The honourable member mentions people with disability. They are already covered by their ability to access postal votes.

The comparison with local government is just bizarre. The local government elections are completely different provisions from those our state system involves. The local government elections involve voluntary elections for a start—they are not compulsory—and they have a number of classes of different types of voters, some of whom, such as businesses, have to register to get onto a roll, etc. It is a completely different voting system, and I have to say that if you look at the participation rate it is appalling, absolutely appalling, in local government. You would not want to go there. We have a system of incredibly high integrity with a high participation rate compared with a system that has very poor voter turnout.

I just wanted to outline the list of services that the Electoral Commission does provide, particularly for those people with disabilities. They provide a teletypewriter number that is available and advertised on material published by the commission. All election television advertisements are text captioned. Election information and provisions for the vision impaired at polling booths were promoted by the RSB newsletter. Election advertising is aired on 5RPH, in addition to all major ethnic metropolitan and regional radio stations across the state. Letters are sent in large print (22 point) to all vision impaired electors who were registered, etc. A braille version is sent to registered braille users, an audio CD is sent to registered audio clients, and the Electoral Commission websites contain an audio file of a letter to electors. The radio advertisements are made available on audio files and the Electoral Commission website text could be enlarged by using certain provisions on the keyboard.

Polling places with full or assisted wheelchair access are indicated in information material on polling locations. The Electoral Act allows the manager of a polling place to provide an elector with papers outside the polling location if required. Each polling place is issued with a desktop voting compartment, allowing electors to vote while seated. Electoral visitor teams visit declared institutions, including hospitals, nursing homes and aged care. That is not a complete list. These are just some of the services provided to people with disabilities by the commission.

The CHAIR: The Hon. Mr Maher.

The Hon. S.G. Wade interjecting:

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: It might be easier if I ask a question. You might be able to answer this as well as responding to the minister.

The Hon. S.G. Wade interjecting:

The CHAIR: The Hon. Mr Maher, you have the call.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: One of the main reasons the Hon. Stephen Wade gave for his amendments was the ease of voting reducing the barriers and getting more people to vote. I am wondering if he can perhaps answer whether he is in favour then of online voting or voting by SMS. If this is really your reason, are you in favour of moving to ways that might make it even easier than this?

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Can I suggest that the honourable member might want to report progress, because I am very attracted to the voter ID suggestion that the minister made. I am even happy to have a joint party room meeting to seek that amendment, because we have been arguing as a Liberal Party year after year for that at the federal level, so if the government is open to that, that would be great. Could I now turn to the real issues rather than—

The Hon. K.J. Maher interjecting:

The Hon. S.G. WADE: He can play games.

The Hon. K.J. Maher interjecting:

The CHAIR: The Hon. Mr Wade has the call.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I am not obliged to move amendments on the whim of some Labor hack!

The CHAIR: You have the call; just relax. Continue on.

Members interjecting:

The CHAIR: Order! The Hon. Mr Wade, you have the call.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Thank you, Mr Chair, and I am glad to see that the Liberal opposition can show more respect for your position than the government.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. S.G. WADE: No; they were doing it by their actions, Mr Chair.

The CHAIR: The Hon. Mr Wade, will you get on with it?

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I am going to focus on people with a disability, because clearly this government and the electoral administration of this state do not appreciate the challenges that people with disability face. Section 71(2) of the Electoral Act states:

An elector…

(b) who…

(iii) is, by reason of illness, infirmity or disability, precluded from voting at a polling booth…

is entitled to make a declaration vote.

What this government does not seem to appreciate is that people with disability are different one from the other. A person with a disability might have a severe disability. I can remember when I was on the board of Julia Farr Services, we had four people who were in constant need of care and could not do anything for themselves in a ward of their own. That is high dependency at one end of the spectrum. There are other people who are experiencing psychiatric disability that might be extremely episodic. They do not know if they are going to have a bipolar related incident on election day, but people like that want security. What this government is saying is, 'Unless you can show that you are precluded, you are not entitled to a declaration vote.' What we say is that those people, together with a whole range of other South Australians, would benefit from flexibility.

As mentioned in my comments earlier, we have a huge diversity of living situations for South Australians. I highlighted particularly voters with significant disability and mobility issues living independently. Often they are coping with minimal support and on most days they would be able to get to a polling booth. On a bad day, or when their support fails, they would have no hope of getting to a polling booth. Why should those people not have a bit of assurance? Why should they not be able to say, 'Well, okay, I do not want to take the risk. I'd like to have a postal vote. Okay, I'm not precluded from voting on polling day. I'm living independently and my disability hardly ever gets in the way; but why should I have to take the risk?' We, as a party, are saying that people should have choice, that is all; but the government says 'No; unless you are so severely disabled that you can be sure you cannot get there, we are not going to give you that choice.'

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: I will just chime in very quickly to, I guess unsurprisingly, support the Hon. Mr Wade in this amendment. As he has already said, this is absolutely about choice. Dignity for Disability's mantra is, of course, dignity through choice, and I do not think it is a dignified attitude for this government to take towards people with disabilities, to say that they do not deserve the right to choose to vote in the way they want to, unless they are disabled enough. This is the government, yet again, waiting for people to get to crisis point before they can have access to what should be a basic and simple service.

The other point I will make is that to say people are already covered by postal votes is, in itself, a very concerning attitude, because at the end of the day this is about choice. People should be able to use a postal vote if that is the choice that suits them, whether that is because on a particular day they are suffering exacerbated symptoms or whether it is just their choice. If we say that people are covered by postal votes we are basically saying, 'Don't worry about people with disabilities having the opportunity to leave their house, to get out into the community, to go to a polling booth if that is what they want.' This is absolutely about choice. It is a very simple amendment that enables a bit more choice for people who have, quite frankly, gone without it for long enough.

Whether this is relevant to the amendment or not, one thing I will flag is that we have a long way to go when it comes to accessibility to voting in this state for people with a disability. It does not start and end with postal voting. We have many people with intellectual disabilities who are of adult age who would like to vote, but they are not even enrolled; they have not been given the support they need to fill out the forms because, in the view of a family member or a support worker and so on, they do not have the capacity, yet you can tell by talking to them that they have just as much capacity to vote as anyone else in this state or country. Are we really going to pretend that everyone in this country who goes to vote on election day really understands, exactly and to the letter, what they are doing? I think the short answer is no.

So while this is an important issue, I guess what I am trying to flag is that it does not start and end with the issue of postal voting. Having said that, we absolutely do support the issue of choice when it comes to postal voting.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: I appreciate the Hon. Kelly Vincent's contribution. She is absolutely right: we do not want to discourage people from voting. I was not really going to participate in this debate, but I want to say a couple of words now. I think the Hon. Stephen Wade's silence on my last question is most instructive. He regularly talks about other people and the arrogance of not answering things, but I think the fact that he refused to—or more likely could not—answer that question shows that he has not really thought through the nature and the effect of what he is proposing.

The system we have in Australia for voting on a particular Saturday, and the way we do it, is one of the world's best systems. It has stood the test of time and I am absolutely convinced that we do it better than nearly any other voting system. You turn up to a particular place on a Saturday to vote, you secretly mark a ballot paper, and these ballot papers are securely stored in the original ballot boxes at the polling booth. At the conclusion of the day the ballot boxes are opened at that polling booth, in front of other scrutineers, in a very transparent way. These ballot papers, at the polling booth, once the doors have been locked, are then counted in front of scrutineers and an initial tally done. After that the boxes are sealed, but they can be rescrutinised booth by booth over the coming weeks.

This system has stood the test of time and it is a very secure and certain way to protect the integrity of our system. There are many other systems around the world, and in the US many states differ in the way they allow elections to be conducted. There is full postal voting in some US states, other states have computerised voting (which I think has some dangers) and some have punch cards, with chads, that you have to use. I still maintain that, compared to nearly all of these, our system is exceptionally transparent in the way you do it. It is scrutinised on the day and afterwards, to have a look at votes.

One thing I want to mention is the rules we have for postal voting. I would like to quote part of a speech made by the member for Bragg at the end of last year on a bill from the member for Fisher on optional preferential voting. This is what the member for Bragg said, the person who is the possible alternative attorney-general in the Liberal government, and on this one she makes a lot more sense, frankly:

I think it is important that we have a civic duty to make sure that we take advantage of this opportunity we have for democracy to be able to vote for our elected representatives, a right which many around the world fight for and which, frankly, too often we take for granted. So I am not into having an electoral system just to make it easy or to cover for those who are just too ill informed or will not deal with the fact of what the rules are in relation to voting. It is not that difficult.

I do not think I would use that language that the member for Bragg used in talking about this but I think it is instructive. I assume there are differences of opinion. I assume from that language that the member for Bragg would want to maintain the integrity and the ease of scrutiny of our system.

What this highlights for me in a very good example is that at the last federal election people from right around the state voted in their federal electorates. In the federal seat of Boothby at the 2010 election, there were 2,977 votes excluded. Good people had gone along to cast their vote whose votes were not counted on the day.

For the benefit of the Hon. Stephen Wade, I was going to ask him does he know why they were excluded but, given he does not understand questions and I am pretty sure would not know the answer to the question, I will give him the answer without waiting for it. These were declaration votes that were not handled properly. These votes would have counted had they been at a polling booth on the day. I am sure that as someone who has a law degree, the chain of custody is an important principle in criminal trials. The simpler and the less handling of votes, the easier it is to maintain their integrity, and these declaration votes (nearly 3,000) from the Boothby election were not handled properly. Had they been voted on the day, there would not have been the problems with the chain of custody. I am giving the Hon. Stephen Wade the benefit of the doubt. I will assume that he does not really believe in this but has been put up to this amendment.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: The Hon. Kyam Maher, you just wonder if he is my employ. In my comments in supporting this amendment, I said the government seems to have this view that people have to earn the right to vote by postal vote because it is some sort of trial by ordeal, that people have to earn the right to vote because it is some sort of trial by ordeal, and that is basically what he has just argued. He is basically saying why we should not be forced to the inconvenience every four years to go to a postal vote.

The Hon. K.J. Maher: That would be the member for Bragg you would be disparaging here.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: No, excuse me. I have the call. I will just remind you that I have the call.

The CHAIR: Order!

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Because apparently you do not seem to understand how this house works. If I could just go back to the point when the Hon. Kyam Maher said that I was somehow not willing to explain my amendment because I was not willing to answer his questions on SMS and online voting. Give me a break. What is the connection? I do not mention SMS once, I do not mention any use of computers. I have indicated that I am going to be risking the wrath of my party room by embracing the suggestion of the honourable Leader of the Government that we would be willing to support the introduction of identification at polling booths.

But I am sorry, I will actually discuss SMS and online voting with other people, but what I do know is that time and time again academics and political operatives have shown that there is fraudulent identification at polling booths. It has been a recurring theme in the federal parliament. So, the Hon. Kyam Maher says Chris Pyne, let me send you a pile of press releases. There for one, the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, both majority reports and minority reports, the member needs to read more widely.

In relation to the beautiful sanctity of the polling booth that the honourable member reminds us of, where was that when an elector claimed they voted 150 times at the last election? The member is honestly telling us that a person turning up, saying their name and address, answering a question as to whether they have voted before is a highly secure environment. I would be much more comfortable with a person who on two occasions has had to sign a form which is in the form of a statutory declaration. You actually commit an offence if you incorrectly claim a declaration vote. I am actually very confident in my assertion. I believe that a postal vote system would actually improve the integrity of the electoral system, but even if I am wrong, people should have a choice. We actually force people to vote; we should not be forcing the manner in which they vote.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: The debate on this clause started off as a fairly simple choice and it has become more complicated as the debate has progressed. The choice, as it first appeared, was whether or not the preferred and overwhelming default position should be one of attending at polling places versus an arrangement that I think is inherent in the Hon. Stephen Wade's amendment, where I think over time the default position would become one of postal voting.

The Hon. Stephen Wade does not agree because a person would still have the ability to go to a polling place or the ability to fill out a postal vote form, but the removal of eligibility criteria would mean that you no longer have to have a reason other than your own convenience. That could be regarded as an exercise in simple free choice, but it does seem to me that it is quite a significant change from the culture of voting in Australia to move overwhelmingly from attending a polling booth to postal voting, because I think that would be the inevitable consequence.

I have had a quick look at the changes to the numbers of people who have voted by post over the years and it has gone up considerably in recent years. I think a big part of that has been the involvement of political parties in the distribution of postal vote application forms and, through this bill, we are removing that. I would have thought that if we did not do anything else, the number of people postal voting might probably fall.

I want to address some of the points the Hon. Kelly Vincent made, because I think they are good points. When we look at the eligibility criteria in section 71 of the act, I think it is clear that the criterion, 'A person by reason of illness, infirmity or disability is precluded from voting at a polling booth' probably could do with some work, especially in the situation where a person may not know whether or not they are going to be fit and able, as it were, to attend a polling booth. The minister might have a comment on this, but I think part of the answer to that is that it seems from the statistics that a lot of people who apply for postal votes are approved by the commissioner and ultimately do not end up using them.

I had a quick look at the statistics for the 2010 election—and I stand to be corrected if I am wrong—and my recollection is that there were 20,000 fewer people who cast a postal vote than people who were given permission, as it were, to vote by post. What that means is that the 20,000 people who ultimately did not vote at all, or the 20,000 people who changed their mind, as it were, turned up at a polling booth and voted in person. It may well be that that is part of the answer: that a person can have a fallback position of a postal vote but, if they are fit and able and want to exercise their democratic right in a more communal way, they might want to attend at the polling place.

The arguments about security I think are interesting, and certainly where there is a will, there is a way. If people want to rort a system, whether it is a face-to-face system or a postal system, there are ways of doing it. It is possibly a bigger debate that we can have today, but I do see that under both systems—postal voting and face-to-face voting—there probably is room for reform.

The position that the Greens have settled on is that we support the ability of people to vote by post when they cannot attend a polling booth, and that includes support for the current system, where you need to provide a reason. If there was something before us which was a change to the eligibility criteria, a change to the list of reasons, then we would consider that.

My understanding is that it is effectively a self-selecting process. I do not have a current postal vote application form in front of me, but I think you have to declare your reason for being eligible to lodge a postal vote. In some ways it reminds me of when I was a solicitor very many years ago and my firm had the job of prosecuting people who failed to vote in compulsory local council elections. The letter would go out:

Dear Madam, you have failed to vote; unless you provide a good reason, we're going to fine you $25—please turn over for list of good reasons.

The number of men who were heavily pregnant on polling day was remarkable. I do not think too many people were fined—it was a self-selected process.

As the Hon. Stephen Wade said, it is an important process, it is part of the democratic process, and you need to declare your eligibility, but it seems to me that it is not that onerous, and maybe we can come back and fix up some of the eligibility criteria. The Greens' position is that we do not support a de facto shift away from voting in person to voting by post, and we think that that is the likely outcome of the Hon. Stephen Wade's amendments, so we are not inclined to support them.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I will be very brief because I would not want members to be left with the assumption the Hon. Mark Parnell has had. He is assuming that, if we made postal votes more generally available, they would become the default position. I do not believe that is the case—27 states of the United States of America have 'no excuse' postal vote systems. I am not aware of anywhere that it is seen as a default.

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD: I rise briefly to indicate that Family First will support the amendments. I indicate for members' interest that we would support amendments, if they were so tabled, that insisted on identification being produced when one attends a polling booth to vote.

The Hon. J.A. DARLEY: I indicate that I will support the amendments.

The Hon. A. BRESSINGTON: Yes, I am supporting the amendments.

New clauses inserted.

Clause 16.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I move:

Page 7, after line 13—Before subclause (1) insert:

(a1) Section 74—before subsection (1) insert:

(a1) The Electoral Commissioner must, in respect of an election, send a form for the application by an elector for the issue of declaration voting papers to every address on the electoral roll for the electoral district, or districts, to which the election relates.

I suggest to honourable members that this is a good example of the fact that the Liberal Party does consult. We have consulted extensively with the government and crossbenches. We have drawn heavily on the joint select committee on electoral matters report. Our original proposals did not receive support; we have come back with alternative proposals. Let me just outline that for honourable members.

As members would be aware, the Liberal Party was originally proposing that the Legislative Council support amendments to implement the sixth recommendation of the Select Committee on Electoral Matters Related to the General Election of 20 March 2010. Let me pause there to remind the committee that those recommendations were supported by all members. The Hon. Bernard Finnigan and the Hon. Russell Wortley, representing the Australian Labor Party, were supportive of that recommendation. I would have looked forward to the support of the honourable member in this place, but that was not to be because in our consultation with the crossbenches that particular recommendation was not supported. Let me remind members what the recommendation said. It said that postal votes—

The CHAIR: Mr Wade, when you say 'the joint select committee', are you talking about the select committee of this place?

The Hon. S.G. WADE: The joint Select Committee on Electoral Matters Related to the General Election of 20 March 2010.

The CHAIR: A select committee of this place?

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Did I say 'joint'? Sorry, I did not mean to say 'joint'.

The CHAIR: Yes, we were not joint with them.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Yes, sorry. I appreciate that the Victorian parliament and the commonwealth parliament have joint select committees on electoral matters. If the minister would like to taunt me about moving for a joint select committee on electoral matters, I am also happy to be taunted there as well.

The CHAIR: I am seeking clarification—

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Thank you, Mr Chair. You are quite right; I did mean the Select Committee on Electoral Matters Related to the General Election of 20 March 2010. For those who want to be more precise, I am referring to the interim report, not the final report, because, as the Hon. John Darley knows as a member of that committee, we dealt with a range of electoral matters, both state and local government. So, having clarified that I am talking about the select committee, I remind members of recommendation No. 6, which states:

That postal vote applications (but not accompanying material) distributed by entities other than the Electoral Commission should be subject to content and process requirements specified by regulation, including clearly indicating which entity is providing the application and which entity holds the return address for the application.

Of course, the mischief that this recommendation was focusing on was, again, the behaviour of the Labor Party at the 2010 election, which was seen by a number of electors as being misleading. People felt that the postal vote application material they were getting was not being honest and frank about where it came from and where it was going. This recommendation responded to that by saying that, if political parties wanted to distribute material, they should comply with content and process requirements. I seem to recall that we were stimulated by the practice of the Queensland electoral system.

As members know, that particular recommendation was not picked up by the Labor government. The government has chosen instead to move to ban party involvement in the distribution of postal vote applications, and they are doing that without any guarantee that the Electoral Commission will assume that responsibility. The provision proposed in the government's bill is said to reduce the number of postal votes being cast. The government wants to discourage the number of people casting votes by post to hinder thousands of voters from exercising their democratic rights.

I would suggest to this committee that we have just had an important vote which says that postal voting is okay—it is actually okay to exercise your democratic rights through a postal vote. That being the case, why should we be discouraging people from using a postal vote by making sure that they do not dare get a postal vote application in their hand unless they go to the bother of going to the Electoral Commission or a post office to get hold of it?

We had and continue to have serious reservations about a proposal that aims to limit voter choice to services that facilitate their democratic choice, so we proposed an amendment consistent with the select committee recommendation. As I said, the clear feedback from the crossbenchers was that, as long as democratic choice was maintained, they would support a ban on party political involvement. We accept that position. We have withdrawn that amendment; I am not moving it.

What I am moving is that we say that, whilst we are not opposed to removing political parties from the process of a postal vote, we insist that they have a guarantee that they are at least offered an application for a postal vote. We are not prepared simply to remove the service that was being provided by political parties without some guarantee that voters will not be disadvantaged by that change. To achieve this, we are proposing that applications to vote by post are sent to every household by the Electoral Commission.

I understand that members have received a letter from the Electoral Commissioner, through the Attorney-General, saying that the cost of doing such a mail-out would be around $650,000. The costing, however, is not a costing of the opposition proposal. The commissioner's figures are based on direct mail pieces being sent to every person on the electoral roll. That is not our proposal. Our proposal was, and only ever was, that the form should be sent to each household by unaddressed household delivery.

We have sought a prudent estimate of the cost of doing the mail-out to each household. The quotes we have received amount to a total of $168,000, including printing, envelopes and distribution. That is also based on a distribution of 800,000 households, even though we understand that there are presently only 751,000 delivery points on Australia Post SA's address list. So, it is a very prudent estimate. I suggest to honourable members that it is probably the budget blowout you have when you inadvertently employ a public servant you did not budget for. From my point of view—

The Hon. A. Bressington: That hasn't happened.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: That has not happened, not that I can recall, certainly not since the budget was brought down. We think that $168,000 is a very affordable investment in the strength of our electoral process to provide every reasonable opportunity for South Australians to cast their vote. We also think it is reasonable and fair to ensure that voters will not experience a loss of service as a result of political parties being excluded. Our first and foremost concern is ensuring that those who want to participate in our democracy can in a form of their choosing, and I commend the amendment to the committee.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: The government opposes this amendment as indicated by the Hon. Stephen Wade. The commission has identified a cost of more than $650,000 for a statewide mail-out alone. It is worth noting that as at 1 July Australia Post will be increasing fees meaning that the figure initially provided by the commissioner and distributed to members is likely to underestimate the cost. I note that there has been a number of questions led by the Hon. Stephen Wade about this being a high estimate and that there may be less costly ways to distribute the forms. I find it highly presumptuous that the Hon. Stephen Wade would question or even direct how the commissioner should comply with legislation.

In consultation with the commissioner, the government has been advised that the commissioner has philosophical objections to general mail-outs addressed only to 'the householder' for this end. The commissioner considers it appropriate to engage and address electors directly, reflecting their entitlement as reflected on the electoral roll.

As the commission is a statutory office independent from government, the government believes that it is highly inappropriate to direct the commissioner otherwise. It would also result in assumptions of entitlement where those electors who are either not on the roll or whose details have not been updated will reasonably assume that they are entitled to vote, or to vote in a particular district. There are then costs associated with posting the ballots that have been requested. There is also potential for additional work and associated cost, and I would remind members that at the last election the proportion was already more than 10 per cent of the population due to the involvement of major parties in the postal vote process.

If members are concerned that people may not be provided with the information about services available during elections, I would draw their attention to section 8 of the Electoral Act, which outlines the responsibilities and obligations of the Electoral Commissioner. Section 8(1)(c) specifically provides that the commissioner is responsible for the carrying out of appropriate programs of publicity and public education in order to ensure that the public is adequately informed of their democratic rights and obligations under the act.

I am more than happy to report back to the Attorney-General if anyone would like to report specific concerns or would like to engage with the commissioner on other specific electoral matters. For the reasons stated, the amendment is opposed.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Again, I am amazed that the government is putting forward these arguments. We had the furphy that it is inappropriate to direct a statutory officer. Let me refer you to the Electoral Act, section 8(1)(a) which states that the Electoral Commissioner is 'responsible to the Minister for the administration of this Act'; section 26(2) states that the Electoral Commissioner must, on request, provide a member of the House of Assembly with an up-to-date copy of the electoral roll; section 31(8) states, 'If an application under this section is rejected, the Electoral Commissioner must take reasonable steps to notify the applicant in writing'; section 38, Register of Political Parties, subsection (1) 'the Electoral Commissioner must establish and maintain a register'—and we could go on.

The fact of the matter is that the Electoral Commissioner is not the chief controller of the electoral system. They are the custodian of the Electoral Act. It is the responsibility of this parliament to craft our electoral system, not that of an independent statutory officer.

In relation to the suggestion from the minister that the Electoral Commissioner has philosophical objections about unaddressed mail, again, I would love the minister to table the correspondence she is referring to. I would say to the government: is the government serious in that suggestion?

At the last election the select committee on electoral matters was told about the electoral kit that was distributed. I think it had a green young man with a hood on it, but I might be confusing myself with a poster. Still, there was electoral material distributed. There is a lot of electoral material that is distributed unaddressed. To suggest that somehow the Electoral Commissioner has a philosophical objection to an application form being distributed unaddressed, I find hard to understand. It is not a prerequisite for a vote; it is an opportunity. Political parties have been doing it for decades. The government is suggesting that the political parties should stop and that somehow it is philosophically inappropriate for it to be done by the Electoral Commissioner.

In relation to the proposal to ban the distribution by political parties, I would ask members to reflect on what would happen if this were done but not done at the federal level. This coming September or October, whenever Kevin Rudd has the courage to go to the people, electors will get a postal vote application from the Liberal Party, Labor Party and a number of other parties. Some of them will choose to use it, some of them will not. When the next election comes around, they will expect the same again. Some of them will actually wait for that postal vote application to arrive.

The government is saying, 'We are going to stop you doing it, but do not expect us to do it,' so people are going to have a different service between federal and state elections. I would urge members to support this proposal. At $168,000 it is cheap. If the government would actually listen to my contribution, they would realise that we have never—and I reiterate never—suggested a fully addressed mailing. We believe that unaddressed mailing of general electoral material is relevant. It is not a prerequisite for their vote; it is an offer of a service.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I just remind the Hon. Stephen Wade that section 8(1) outlines the powers and functions of the Electoral Commissioner. It outlines what her functions are and basically what her obligations are, and paragraph (b) states that she 'is responsible for the proper conduct of elections in accordance with this Act' and (c) 'is responsible for the carrying out of appropriate programmes of publicity and public education in order to ensure that the public is adequately informed of their democratic rights and obligations'. These are the responsibilities, these are the obligations—

The Hon. S.G. Wade: No, we give her the act.

The CHAIR: Order!

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: —that the commissioner is obliged to do under the act, and she is well aware of those and has been acting in accordance with those. If the honourable member wants the details of her concerns about the filling out of householder postal votes, then I refer the honourable member to the Hansard of Thursday 27 June, Estimates Committee A, at page 100, where she outlines these in considerable detail.

The Hon. B.V. FINNIGAN: I am with the Hon. Mr Wade in the sense that it is up to this parliament to decide what our electoral law is and it is up to the Electoral Commissioner to administer it, so I do not think parliament should be hesitant in setting down how things have to be under the Electoral Act.

I take issue with his assertion that people will be expecting to get postal vote applications. If they live in a marginal seat, they can expect to receive three or four. Increasingly Labor and Liberal, at least, have been pioneering the two-hit postal vote applications—one direct mail and one householder, so if you live in a seat with a 2 per cent margin, you may well be inundated with postal vote applications, but if you live in a safe seat you will almost certainly not receive any, depending on whether the local member decides to send one out. I do not think the people necessarily are expecting them from their political parties because that may well depend on where they live.

I think it does make sense that everybody receive a postal vote application, but the way the Hon. Mr Wade (and I hope I have the right amendment here because there are quite a few on file) has worded his amendment it says that the commissioner must send a postal vote application to every address on the electoral roll. I do not see how that can be achieved without direct mail because an unaddressed Australia Post householder is not necessarily going to tally up with the electoral roll; in fact, it almost certainly will not.

In order to meet that legislative requirement to send papers to every address on the electoral roll, that does not mean an Australia Post unaddressed mail service will do it. You would have to send it direct mail to every address on the electoral roll, so I think in respect of the way that clause is worded I cannot agree with his submission that a householder would do it. It does not say 'as far as reasonably practicable'. It does not say that the commissioner will take steps to ensure that every household, inasmuch as it is possible, receives an application. It says that the sending out of applications has to match addresses on the electoral roll, and I do not see how that can be done, apart from direct mail.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I thank the honourable member for his comments in terms of the role of this parliament in relation to the Electoral Commissioner. He clearly does understand section 8(1)(b), which the minister has quoted, that is, the Electoral Commissioner 'is responsible for the proper conduct of elections in accordance with this Act'. I have already highlighted a number of cases where not merely have we given the Electoral Commissioner an act to implement but we have given the Electoral Commissioner duties to fulfil in implementing the act. I think the point is well made by the honourable member.

I certainly take the member's point in terms of the fact that the amendment could be better drafted, and I am happy for that to be done by way of reporting progress, if that was the wish of the government or, alternatively, to consider it as an alternative amendment when it goes to the house. In any event, I think it is very clear to honourable members and to the government what is intended here. It is not a direct mail. It is not a $650,000 direct mail; it is $168,000 unaddressed. We have a range of electoral material that goes out in the unaddressed form; that is all that the Liberal Party would assert is needed to make sure that people do not have a diminution in service.

The Hon. Bernard Finnigan raises a good point, that there is a disparity in distribution. I do not welcome that. I think that even people in safe seats have democratic rights. In defence of my party, I would make the point that, in some elections at least, the Liberal Party has done statewide distribution of postal vote applications. I would also make the point that under this government local members are entitled to use their global allowance to distribute postal applications. If it is such a sin, why is the government doing that?

I think the government is hypocritical. I believe that this is actually a partisan attempt to try to discourage older voters, voters with disability, voters in rural and regional areas, and we strongly assert that if we want to ban political parties and strengthen the integrity of the electoral system this may well be a way of doing it, but to maintain the service, to maintain choice for people with disability, people in rural and remote areas and older South Australians, $168,000 ain't a bad investment in maintaining quality of the electoral system.

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: Just very briefly, Dignity for Disability will be supporting this amendment in principle. The Hon. Mr Wade and I have had many conversations about this bill, of course, and he is well aware that my support for some of his amendments is at this time somewhat tenuous, I suppose. I guess this is one of those arguments where I can see both sides. I am completely on side with the principle of what the Hon. Mr Wade is trying to achieve, but I can also quite easily see that there may be some complications in its implementation. At this point, we are happy to let the amendment pass in principle and work to make it better. My office is currently undertaking research and consultation into how to do that. If we can make it better, let's do that.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: I want to make a brief observation on the mechanics and then talk about the general principle. In relation to the mechanics, some of the issues that have already come out—especially the Hon. Bernard Finnigan's contribution and the Hon. Stephen Wade's reply—are that if you are to guarantee that the form will go to every address on the electoral roll, and you are not going to do it by personally addressed mail, you effectively have to send it to every address in South Australia knowing that the people at No. 5 are not eligible, that the people at No. 7 are not eligible; they will not be on the roll.

Presumably you would possibly still save money, even though some of the applications for postal voting would fall on fallow ground because they would be people who do not want them, do not need them, or are not eligible to vote. So that is your choice: you either just send it to addresses on the electoral roll, in which case it is addressed and there is a stamp on each one and it costs more money, or you blanket the whole state.

The second technical point I will make is that I know that at one stage my household had five eligible voters registered at the one address: we had three adults and two kids who were able to vote. If it was a form that was sent to each address, then it is not impossible for that form to have multiple spaces for the different electors registered at that address to put in their names. But you have to get that right, otherwise the first person to get the mail would be the one who got the information. So there are some technical aspects.

The more general point—and I concede that this is very consistent with the amendment that the committee previously passed in relation to postal voting, and I think the Hon. Stephen Wade and I will continue to disagree on this—is whether the cumulative effect of these amendments is to transition the voting system in this state away from an attending a polling booth system to a postal vote system. I have no doubt that if this amendment gets up, the government ultimately accepts it, and it goes through, the Electoral Commissioner will write neutral letters. The Electoral Commissioner will not say, 'Never queue again! Don't run the gauntlet on polling day! Here's the form. Fill it out. We'll even pay the postage for you!', but that will be the subtext. That will ultimately be the tradition that develops, and, from 10 per cent of people voting by post, under this arrangement we will get to 20 or 30 or 40 per cent.

The Hon. Stephen Wade says that there is no evidence of that, and he cites voluntary voting regimes in America. I am not aware of any compulsory voting regime that has open eligibility for postal voting that would not ultimately move in that direction. I could see a stage where only half of voters turned up on polling day and the other half voted by post. Obviously that has implications for Independents and minor parties because the only way they are going to reach those people is by letterboxing them or posting to them. In fact, letterboxing is not much good because you will not know who they are; you would have to blanket letterbox.

Certainly, the ability of a small Independent, running in one seat, to get friends and family out on polling day at the polling booth to reach most of voters is gone under this arrangement.

The Hon. S.G. Wade interjecting:

The Hon. M. PARNELL: The Hon. Stephen Wade is itching to counter it, but it seems to me that in that situation an Independent running in a lower house seat who just needs to get 20 or 30 friends to cover all the polling booths on the morning, who will therefore reach voters with their material in a fairly inexpensive way, will have to use other methods to try to guarantee that they reach every person—for example, by letterboxing every house in the electorate. That is certainly possible, but it would be beyond the scope of many Independents contesting just one seat.

I maintain that the cumulative effect of these amendments is that the culture of voting will change—not forever, but for as long as these amendments survive—and that we will find that vastly increased numbers of people go down the postal voting path because it will be seen as the easiest method of voting. I am not convinced that is the right message we want to send.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: The Hon. Mark Parnell respectfully says that we are likely to continue to differ, and I suspect he is right. I simply say that I do not expect to be voting by postal vote. If I have to get an application form for a postal vote, fill it in, get a witness, post it in, wait for the postal vote to come back, fill it in and get a witness both times, I am going to drop into a polling booth—particularly when I am likely to be there from before dawn until after scrutineering anyway.

If I could pick up the point about the value of this mail-out, I fully expect that the Electoral Commissioner—if the commissioner is given this duty under this amendment to the act—will not simply send out the form. The great benefit of the unaddressed mail-out being proposed by the opposition is that with the fixed date for the elections that we put in the bill earlier, the Electoral Commissioner knows exactly the first postal day in the electoral period.

So I expect that they will have bagged up first-day material—let us call it first-day material, because I think that might help clarify it—lodged with Australia Post a week or two before polling. It hits the mailboxes on day one. On day one it could not only say, 'By the way, you can vote by postal vote at this election', but it might do other things. It might tell them what day it is. It might actually be a good opportunity to remind people that on 15 March 2014 they have an opportunity to get rid of this rancid Labor government. It might also take the opportunity to say—

The Hon. M. Parnell: I don't think the Electoral Commissioner would say that.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Sorry; words to that effect, I am sure. It might also take the opportunity to say, 'Okay, on this date, I think in 10 days' time, the rolls close. You might like to take the opportunity to update the electoral roll.' Considering the Greens claim that they are keen to involve young people in the electoral process, why not have an unaddressed mailing on day one that offers you a postal vote application?

The honourable member is suggesting that it is wasteful to send that to people who are not already enrolled on the electoral roll. No, I think it is of great benefit. You would pick up lots of people who should be enrolled, lots of people who have failed to update their contact material. The $650,000 Rolls-Royce will actually be less efficient than my $168,000 Morris Minor, because my Morris Minor will encourage people to update their electoral enrolments, perhaps get on the roll for the first time. I would have thought that the Greens would be rejoicing at the opportunity for increased participation.

The Hon. M. Parnell: Just leave the postal vote bit out of it; do all the other stuff.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Do all the other stuff, he says. In terms of multiple electors at the one address, let us remember that there is nothing sacred about this form. People can get a postal vote by ringing up the Electoral Commission. Nobody in the Parnell household will be fighting to get that blessed postal vote application form. Mark Parnell, of course, will already have told the Electoral Commissioner not to send him one because he finds them morally offensive, but the other members in the Parnell household will not need to fight over them because the form will no doubt tell them that they can download this from the Electoral Commission.

Remember that most of the people who got a postal vote application form at the last election did not get it from their Labor member using their global allowance; they actually downloaded it from the Electoral Commission website. I expect that more and more of that will happen. There might only be one form, but it might also say, 'If you need more, photocopy it. If you don't want to photocopy it, download it from the Electoral Commission website.'

This is all about growing our democracy. We did not become one of the best electoral systems in the world by sticking with a bill that was passed by the colonial legislature last century. We have incrementally improved and fine-tuned our electoral system. I believe that an unaddressed mailing going to those wretched people who have not enrolled in the first place, failed to update their contact details, actually strengthens our democracy, and it is $168,000 well spent.

The Hon. B.V. FINNIGAN: It is a bit odd to hear a member of the Liberal Party encouraging greater enfranchisement since they are normally very keen not to have people update their enrolment details before an election. In response to the Hon. Mr Parnell's point, I think the measures that are in this bill will discourage, or at least make less likely, people taking up postal votes because—

The Hon. M. Parnell: Less likely to take them up?

The Hon. B.V. FINNIGAN: Less likely, I believe, because if they are not receiving these constant mail-outs from political parties or from their local member, then I think that is less likely. Certainly they are less likely to want a postal vote if they are not being encouraged, in a sense, by their political party. You may say that that is at odds with the idea of sending everybody an application, but I think the fact that, at the moment, if people are in a marginal seat they may be getting multiple postal vote application forms in ways that certainly can be characterised as encouraging a postal vote. I know from chatting to electoral officials certainly there are those who view the increase in postal votes as very much because of the political parties, whether overtly intending it or not, encouraging postal voting by constantly blanketing electorates with the form.

I am not sure that just receiving a communication from the Electoral Commissioner, whether it be the actual forms or whatever, would necessarily increase the number of people wanting to postal vote. I again raise the issue of the way the clause is worded but, as the honourable member has indicated, that can be fixed relatively easily.

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD: Family First supports the amendment.

The committee divided on the amendment:

Majority of 3 for the ayes.

Amendment thus carried.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Considering that we are moving to the provision of registering information, I wonder whether I can ask some questions in relation to the government bill.

The CHAIR: The Hon. Mr Wade.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Thank you, Mr Chair. In relation to section 16(2) of the bill, can the minister inform the committee how often the Electoral Commissioner intends to provide the information to parties about electors who have requested a postal vote?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I am advised that, during the election period, on a daily basis.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: What information about an elector will be provided to the parties?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I am advised the information that is outlined in the act.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I take it from that answer that is all information in the registry, so can you explain what information will be in the registry?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I have been advised their name, address, postal address if that is different and, if they are going to be away, a nominated address and the district where they are residing.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: The minister has given an assurance that the updates will be daily, but can the minister give us an assurance how timely they will be? How soon after a postal vote application has been received will the parties be advised that the person has been granted a postal vote?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I am advised that all the applications processed that day and the information gained through that will be available that evening.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: In what format does the commissioner intend to provide the lists?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I have been advised that at present the commissioner has costed making it available on a website. People can then log onto that website and access the material. A number of options have been costed and attempts made to make the format as convenient as possible.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: In that context, so that we are not just talking about a major political party that has the time and money to invest in significant IT infrastructure, is one of those formats Microsoft Excel?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: Sorry, I could not hear that.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I understand that you said it could be downloaded in a whole range of formats; would one of those be Microsoft Excel?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I have been advised that it is a format designed to be compatible with the systems that are currently already in use.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I will not pursue that any further. I would just like to put on the record that we are not interested, as a party, in a cosy arrangement that locks out minor parties and Independents because of using inappropriate software. We would expect that it would be available in commonly available formats so that Independents and minor parties could have access to it. In relation to the data that is provided, will it be segmented between new applicants and those who are on the standing register of postal voters?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I am advised that the standard register is already available under the act.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Yes, I appreciate that, minister; that is why the act says that there shall be one. I was asking: will the data be segmented between the new applicants, the ones who are not on the standing register, and those who are?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: You are asking about temporary applicants, are you?

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Ones who are not on the standing register. There are ones who were registered before the election.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I am advised that there are permanent and temporary applicants. I am just trying to understand your question in respect of that. The government's bill relates to temporary applicants.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: To the extent that I am anticipating [Wade-1] 4, I had assumed that the government was intending to provide the register of voters as well. I would make the point, and this is probably an appropriate point for me to move [Wade-1] 4.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Sorry, another member has indicated they have a question, so I will desist and address that issue when I move my amendment.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: I want to pursue a little bit further the line of questioning about the format in which the information will be provided because, if we are going to get down to it, the whole purpose of making this information available, as to people who are going to be or likely to be postal voters, is because candidates and parties know that the only way they are going to reach those people is if they write to them. We are not going to see them at the polling booth on polling day.

So, if you have a big budget and you think you can reach everyone through other advertising that is fine but, for those who do not have a big budget, if you want to reach a postal voter with material suggesting how they might want to vote, you are going to have to do it by post. I know the minister's answer previously said that the material would be provided in a form that is currently used.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. M. PARNELL: Yes, certainly I understand Liberal and Labor parties would have systems that they currently use; most other parties do not, and that comes back to the Hon. Stephen Wade's point that if the information were provided in some sort of readily accessible way, something that could be opened by a Microsoft product or, even better, by an open source software, some form of database program, that would be useful. Can the minister just clarify how they envisage this material will be provided?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: The intent is certainly to make it conveniently available to as many people as possible; that is the intent behind it. In terms of further detail, I have been advised that after logging into the system an applicant may retrieve a single report in CSV format which contains data relating to all postal applications, up to and including the previous day of processing.

The Hon. B.V. FINNIGAN: I am tempted to ask what font it will be in, as it is about the only thing we have not covered. Forgive me if this has been covered elsewhere, but is there any capacity for an elector to opt out of having their information provided? I know there are penalties for misuse, but I could understand if someone were going overseas, for example, why they would not necessarily want bundles of mail turning up at their address, even though the other address would be provided. What provisions are there, I suppose, if any, to address potential privacy concerns?

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Another member has suggested that all they need to do is stop their Australia Post mail. I think that is a big party/Greens approach. The fact of the matter is that I expect there will be a lot of small Independents who will actually ask their volunteers to do a postal run, to get on a bike and deliver a whole series of postal vote related how-to-votes. I think the honourable member does raise a good point even if someone has got an Australia Post stop on their postbox.

The ACTING CHAIR (Hon. G.A. Kandelaars): Minister, were you going to answer the Hon. Mr Finnigan and the Hon. Mr Wade's questions?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: Sorry, I thought I already had.

The ACTING CHAIR (Hon. G.A. Kandelaars): The question was in relation to whether people can opt out.

The Hon. B.V. FINNIGAN: Just to repeat, I asked if there were any provisions for opting out of having your information provided to candidates. Has there been any consideration of privacy concerns?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I have been advised yes.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Could the minister outline where people will be able to opt out?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I am advised that your name is not included on the register if you elect to suppress your address.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: With all due respect, I think the minister is missing the broader point that I understand the Hon. Bernard Finnigan was making, and he will indicate if I, in turn, am missing the point. A person may not actually be eligible to be a silent elector but still might not want their letterbox overflowing with 10 candidates' material leading up to election day. I do not think it is just silent electors that might want that option.

The ACTING CHAIR (Hon. G.A. Kandelaars): You are seeking a clarification?

The Hon. B.V. FINNIGAN: I was not really referring to silent electors. This is going to be available to all the candidates, including all the Legislative Council candidates, so we could be talking 50 different people, and a person may not wish those candidates to know that they have applied for a postal vote and potentially an alternative address. Now, they may be concerned about that number of people, despite the penalties for misuse, knowing that they are away or whatever it is. They do not particularly want that information to be shared with candidates. Is that something they can opt out of, or is that just the price of democracy?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I am advised no, there is nothing in the bill that would enable opting out in those circumstances.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Obviously, there will be a discussion between the houses on this bill and perhaps that is an issue that could be addressed in that context. It may well be something that could be addressed by regulation; it would be worth looking at. I wonder, Mr Acting Chair, whether it is an appropriate time for me to move my amendment.

The Hon. M. Parnell interjecting:

The Hon. S.G. WADE: No, sorry, it is quite inappropriate, in fact.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: This took me a bit by surprise, this idea of opting out. I know the minister said there is nothing currently in the bill, but it would seem to me that, if we are going to a system where you no longer need to provide a reason for postal voting—it is your choice, it is your convenience—and you can say to the Electoral Commissioner, 'And by the way, don't tell anyone my address,' then all of a sudden we have a potentially huge swag of people who are unreachable through the normal political process.

I think that would be a worry, because if it was made a default option, when people signed that form and were accepted as a postal voter, if there was a box to tick 'Would you like your address suppressed?' they would think 'They are all going to start writing to me if I don't tick that box,' and they tick the box, and all of a sudden we would have people less able to be contacted by candidates and by parties. I think that is a worry.

I know the bill currently does not have that in it. The Hon. Stephen Wade suggested that maybe regulations could allow that, but it seems to me this slippery slope is getting even slipperier. Not only are we going to a default postal voting system, but if we start suppressing all the addresses as well, then the ability for people to engage with electors is very much diminished, and I think that is bad for democracy.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Whenever a conservative stands up to speak on bills like this, I expect the slippery slope argument to come out, and sure enough it has. I take the Hon. Mark Parnell's point. I was not suggesting the Liberal Party was moving that tonight. I was suggesting that between the houses it would be an issue worth discussing. Considering that there is not an opt-out provision in the bill, or in any amendment before us, would the minister be able to show us what would prevent a silent elector's materials not being provided under proposed section 74(6a)(a)?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I have been advised to refer the honourable member to section 21—Suppression of elector's address, which provides:

Where an electoral registrar is satisfied that the inclusion on a roll of the address of an elector's place of residence would place at risk the personal safety of the elector, a member of the elector's family or any other person, he or she may suppress the address from the roll.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: That does not provide me with any reassurance. I am not talking about the roll; I am talking about the register of postal voters under section 74(6a)(a). Nonetheless, that is another matter that we can talk about between the houses. Third time lucky, Mr Acting Chair; would now be an appropriate time for me to move my amendment?

The ACTING CHAIR (Hon. G.A. Kandelaars): I think that might well be the case.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: That being the case, I move:

Page 7, lines 18 and 19 [clause 16(1), inserted subparagraph (ii)]—Delete:

who has applied for the issue of declaration voting papers under subsection (1)(b)

The discussion we just had actually highlights that this may be needed more than I thought it was needed. The amendment seeks to authorise what is, I understand, current practice, but it may not be. I thought that parties could receive the name and address, including the postal address, of all people issued with a postal vote at a given election.

My understanding is that that has occurred in practice for those on the registry of declaration voters, but the amendment makes it clear that the parties will be notified of all persons included with declaration postal votes whether from the permanent registry or for that election alone. Notification of who has been issued with a postal vote allows political parties to ensure that voters are presented with information to cast an informed vote, as the Hon. Mark Parnell recently reminded us.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I rise to oppose this amendment. Before I do that, though, I will just finish off the answer to the previous question relating to the suppression of information from the register. If the honourable member goes to section 74(4)(c), it then makes a fit between those in section 21 and the postal vote. It provides that the Electoral Commissioner must maintain a register of electors who are declaration voters containing the following information in relation to each elector 'other than in the case of an elector whose address has been suppressed from publication'.

In relation to the amendment before us, as I said the government opposes this amendment. It introduces unnecessary duplication through the existing provision of the electoral roll to members of parliament and candidates. There is already access to registered postal votes. This amendment will mean that these registered postal votes will be included in the list of election-specific postal vote applications. This is an unnecessary duplication and is opposed.

Further, though not directly related to this amendment, there are implications arising from this provision. The commissioner has communicated potential concerns to government. The government bill provided that information would be provided to ensure that candidates and political parties would still have an opportunity to provide campaign material to electors in exchange for removal of political parties from the process of procuring a vote.

The policy justification was that the Electoral Commissioner would provide details of postal vote applicants because political parties were being removed from the process. Consequently the provision sought to provide a level playing field so that all parties, big and small, could access the same information. The opposition seems intent on retaining the advantage afforded to parties with greater financial capacity by insisting that party involvement is maintained, despite this being contrary to the recommendations made by every Electoral Commission report since 1997. To conclude, returning specifically to the amendment before us, this is an unnecessary duplication and is opposed.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I suppose one question you could ask if you are encountering duplication is: where is the best place for it to be? If I understand the minister correctly, what she is suggesting is that for people on the registry, it is already provided, it is on one list. We shouldn't provide it on the second list because that is duplicating what is on list one. For the humble candidate or party, that means you have to mail merge two lists. Why not provide them as part of the one distribution? I do not think that this is unnecessary duplication. Perhaps we should stop sending list one.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I am advised that currently information about permanents are already provided. That information is already provided and the Hon. Stephen Wade's amendment would duplicate that.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: If we are going to restate our positions, cancel list one. Go with list two.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I did not understand that, sorry.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: The point I was making was that the government is suggesting that the provision of the registry of declaration votes is already happening.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: For permanent.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Yes, and the people who are applying for an election specific involvement, they will be provided on the second list. What we are proposing is: why can't they be provided on the one list? It would be particularly important for individual candidates and small parties instead of having to manage two lists for mail merge purposes, they will only manage one.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: I might just ask the Hon. Stephen Wade. What I do not understand about what he is saying is that he is talking about the advantage of having a single list, yet earlier he was asking about whether we could get the new additions separately from the permanents.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: If I could remind the member what the question was, the question was at that point at clause 16(2): will the data be segmented? The candidate may well want to ask: is this person just a oncer, for want of a better word, or is this person an established? We believe the data in what I call list two should be segmented but to be honest with you I am a bit surprised that this amendment is so difficult. I thought that it would be efficient for both the Electoral Commissioner and for the parties for it to be one list so that you get one list. It will have all the details that were mentioned in response to the earlier questions and you will know whether they are a registry postal vote, declaration vote or a non-registered postal voter.

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD: Family First supports it.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: The minister has pointed out that if the Electoral Commissioner sees some difficulty with it but if the recipients of the information are going to get segmented information which shows people who are permanent postal voters, for want of a better term, and you can segregate those from the once-off postal voters, then if there are technical difficulties with the honourable member's amendment that the Electoral Commissioner has identified then we will not support the amendment.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I am advised that what will be gained from the bill is that people will be provided with information that is not currently available to them. The amendment simply duplicates that.

The Hon. B.V. FINNIGAN: Nothing exercises a bunch of politicians like electoral laws. I think this amendment is far too micro-managerial and I oppose it.

Amendment carried.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I move:

Page 7—

Lines 28 and 29 [clause 16(2), inserted subsection (6a)(a)]—Delete 'who have applied for the issue of declaration voting papers under subsection (1)(b)'

Lines 32 and 33 [clause 16(2), inserted subsection (6a)(b)]—Delete 'who have applied for the issue of declaration voting papers under subsection (1)(b)'

These amendments are consequential to [Wade-1] 4, the one we just passed.

Amendments carried; clause as amended passed.

Clause 17.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I move:

Page 8—

Line 15 [clause 17, inserted section 74A(1)]—After '(an application form)' insert 'except in accordance with subsection (1a)'

After line 16—After inserted subsection (1) insert:

(1a) Despite subsection (1), a person may, on receipt of a written request for an application form from another person (an applicant), distribute, or cause or permit to be distributed, an application form to the applicant.

The clause in the bill aims to stop non-authorised persons from distributing postal vote applications to any other person. As I have raised previously, the Liberal Party is concerned about maximising the opportunity for individuals to vote. At the same time, we have cooperated with the removal of political parties from the broad distribution of postal vote applications; however, some commonsense needs to be applied in implementing such a blanket ban.

The clause as it is worded prohibits any distribution of a postal vote application by anyone not authorised by the commissioner. There is no discretion, no exemptions, no reasonable cause excuses. It is the opposition's view that there are plenty of examples where on a case-by-case, individual-by-individual basis it would be quite reasonable for a person to provide another person with a postal vote application form and not undermine the principle of commission-directed distribution. A lot of people go to their local parliamentarian's office in an election period seeking a postal vote form. Under this bill it is a sin to give them one.

We do not think it is reasonable to impose a maximum $5,000 fine on a carer who might be passing on an application to the person in their care. We do not think that a $5,000 fine is reasonable for a person who may seek a form on behalf of an elderly relative or a person who downloads it and emails it to a colleague. These situations are not the kind of mischief the bill is aimed to prevent and, as such, we think there should be an exemption to cover these kinds of circumstances so that where a person is requested by another to provide a postal vote application form and the person provides it to them, they will not be committing an offence.

To avoid any misunderstanding that this could circumvent the ban of distributing postal vote applications, we have included a requirement that the request be made in writing from one individual to another. If questions are raised as to whether a person had requested a form, the request can be substantiated. We think it is a simple, common-sense amendment, and I commend it to the committee.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: The government rises to oppose this amendment, which we see as linked with the next amendment, (1a), which seeks to introduce a provision that can allow the continued involvement of political parties in the procurement of postal votes by stealth. Let me provide an example of what could happen: a political party could provide a mass mail-out of little cards which have written on them, 'Please provide me with a postal vote application form, along with other election material. Just write your name here and stick it in a letterbox,' or, using the roll, the party could make it so that all they need to do is tick a box.

The Hon. Mr Wade will obviously play innocent on this one but, while he may not have come up with this, and he may believe that it is legitimate, I would wager that someone in his party has already come up with this scheme, and Mr Wade can try to sell it with his best efforts of righteous indignation. The government opposes this amendment and calls on other members to think twice about these two amendments and what will be their actual effect because it is not in line with what Mr Wade has likely told people.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: This is interesting. This clause appears to be the key operative clause that gets political parties out of the equation when it comes to distribution of postal vote application forms. When we superimpose this onto the Liberal amendment that was passed earlier, where we are having unaddressed Electoral Commission application forms being sent to households, if you like, but not to individuals, if the next-door neighbour says, 'We got a form from the Electoral Commissioner. We've got three voters in our house, but they only sent me one form. You've got a photocopier,' you say to the neighbour, 'photocopy a form and give it to us'. Then you have to sign an application form that it was a request. It seems that this is starting to get a little bit out of control.

I take the minister's point that, if we are serious about getting political parties out of the distribution process, we have to get them out, and you have to create an offence if they try to get back in, which I think is what this clause does. If we look at the Hon. Stephen Wade's amendment [Wade-6] 4, it requires a person to put in a written request for an application form. He gave the example of carers, and you could think of plenty—

The Hon. S.G. Wade: Next-door neighbours.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: —next-door neighbours—plenty of examples, but with the combination of all the amendments passed so far today we will have a bit of a dog's breakfast that will have to be sorted out probably between the houses because it strikes me that you would not want to make it an offence for the next-door neighbour who owns the photocopier. I can see that it is a problem with what the government has, but it is a problem that has now been compounded by other amendments that have been passed.

I am not convinced that this is necessarily the way to go. It may well be that an alternative form of amendment that specifically referred to political parties or associated entities might be the way to go to specifically preclude those people from distributing it, but ingenuity knows no bounds, and I can imagine that all of a sudden there would be not third parties but fourth and fifth parties that get in on the distribution bandwagon and start delivering material. This is quite a dilemma we have created for ourselves; I just make that observation for now.

The Hon. B.V. FINNIGAN: I agree with what the Hon. Mr Parnell has said, and I urge members not to accept this amendment in its current form because I think it certainly would be a Trojan horse (or a Greek horse, actually) for political parties to get back into postal votes. In fact, I can recall an election (I cannot remember whether it was state or federal), where the parties were told, 'You can't distribute postal vote forms. You can tell people how to get one, but you can't distribute the forms.'

There was a bit of argy-bargy about that, and I certainly recall that the parties, nonetheless, sent out lots of letters saying, 'Do you want a postal vote? Send this back, and then we'll send you the application,' and there was a two-tier process. The wording of this clause would certainly make that legitimate. It would be okay to send people a letter saying, 'Do you need a postal vote? Sign this request, and we'll sort it for you.' You may question why a party would want to do that since they are getting the list anyway of people who have applied for one perhaps.

I do, however, share honourable members' concern at the breadth of the existing clause—that if you were to ask a neighbour, because your printer was on the blink, whether they would go to the website and print one off or whatever, or you called your local MP, and for those people to be committing an offence by assisting would seem to be a little bit much. In particular, I would have a concern with new section 74A(2), which provides that distribution includes making the form available in electronic form. So, putting the postal vote form on a website would be an offence, and I think that would be far too broad.

At the very least, you should be able to put information saying, 'Here's how you obtain a postal vote,' perhaps with a link to the Electoral Commission website if necessary. It would seem to me to be overly restrictive to say that political parties or candidates cannot even provide any postal vote information on their website without committing an offence. I do have a concern about the breadth of the clause, and I think that does need to be addressed, but I certainly would not support the wording that is being put forward by the Hon. Mr Wade.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I would respectfully put it to honourable members who see the flaws in the government's bill to support my amendment, even if they do not think it is a perfect one. Let us be clear about this: if this clause gets through unamended, the government is not going to bring it back; the government is going to cash the money and run. In that respect, we do not get another bite of the cherry. If they do not suggest an alternative in the other place, we cannot reopen the matter when it comes here.

So, with all due respect to Mr Parnell and Mr Finnigan, if you are of that view that what you have seen in this bill in relation to the breadth are flaws, you should support the amendment. As the Hon. Kelly Vincent said earlier, a lot of members have supported amendments in relation to this bill to make sure that the principle that it espouses is kept before this parliament.

I dispute the interpretation of the Hon. Mark Parnell. The Hon. Mark Parnell suggests that we have somehow come up with a dog's breakfast through these amendments. That might have been the case if we meddled with different sets of amendments. The fact of the matter is that the committee has consistently committed itself today to make postal votes more available and to make postal vote applications more available, and to be consistent with that, we have to be realistic to know that, under the amendments we have made to this bill, there will be a lot more postal vote applications around.

If it is being delivered to every household, the imaginary next-door neighbour you are talking about is likely to have a postal vote application, they are likely to be in a position to provide a copy to next door. That is why it is doubly dangerous to let the government bill stand. So, if we want to be consistent, we need to be consistent in recognising that an increase in the distribution of postal vote applications will increase the risk that ordinary South Australians trying to do a mate a favour by giving them a form will be subject to an offence under this government's bill, at a cost, potentially, of $5,000. You actually do not get that much for some criminal offences, under the current regime. I would urge honourable members, even if they think that there could be a better way of expressing this—if they think the current bill is too broad—to vote for this amendment.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I think that is a very irresponsible position the honourable member is putting. He stands up and says, 'Vote for this amendment even though it's not going to work. It's imperfect. We've created all of these odd bibs and bobs that have come out of a series of amendments. This isn't perfect, it's not really going to work, but vote for it anyway because, heck, we're being consistent.' It is irresponsible.

I think the Hon. Mark Parnell summed it up very succinctly, so I do not need to do it again. Considerable further work needs to be done on this bill. Given that we know that this section is going to be extremely problematic, I urge members to oppose it at this point in time; as I said, further work will need to be done at a later stage.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: There may well be opportunities to improve my amendment, but let's be clear: the bill as it stands is more problematic.

The Hon. G.E. Gago: It would be more problematic with your amendments.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: No, you just do not understand. Just listen to your adviser.

The CHAIR: Order! The Hon. Mr Parnell.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: I see this as an unfortunate choice: we have to choose the lesser of two evils. It seems to me that under the government's amendment as it stands there is that potential liability on innocent people who are not really doing anything wrong. I accept that. I think there is a problem with the government amendment. The Liberal amendment opens the door to parties getting back in holus-bolus. The mechanism the minister outlined is exactly what would be used.

Here we are, we have one section—the government, if we leave it unamended there is the potential to catch people who do not deserve to be caught; if we support the Liberal amendment, it opens the door for parties to come back in. I will put it to the minister like this: if this committee were to reject the Hon. Stephen Wade's amendment now, what assurance would we have that the government would reconsider the potential problems with the new section 74A as drafted?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I think we have identified a number of problems within this current bill. Further work will need to be done, and I think what we need to do is progress the bill, complete it, and then come back and work on those sections that need further consideration. The government is willing to give further consideration to parts of this bill that we have identified as being problematic.

The Hon. B.V. FINNIGAN: I cannot accept as a principle that you should support a bad amendment as a bargaining chip, 'We will just sort of put a post-it note on it and that way we can discuss it further.' That is not really the way we should go about passing legislation. I think honourable members have indicated that they have a problem with the breadth of it. There are quite a number of issues that are going to have to be discussed between the houses before this bill can come to the point of getting through both houses. I cannot see that it is necessary to pass a bad amendment for the sake of creating a bargaining chip.

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: I will be very brief. At the beginning of the debate I did have the intention of supporting this particular amendment. As I have said several times throughout this debate, there are many occasions when I have at least understood the principle about which Mr Wade has spoken—and this is, indeed, one of them. However, I am concerned that there may be some unintended ramifications of this amendment that I do not feel I can support.

I recognise that earlier this evening I supported an amendment in principle, in terms of making it better down the track, but I want to make it clear that that is not an approach I would take holus-bolus. The ramifications of this particular amendment I see as being too severe to allow at this point. Again, I certainly appreciate the principle, the idea of what Mr Wade is trying to achieve here, particularly with the idea of a family carer perhaps getting an application for someone who is unable to do it themselves, but we need to make sure that access does not come at too heavy a cost in terms of ramifications down the track.

As I said earlier, we are still very much consulting and debating this issue. If there is a better way to do this idea, let's do it down the track, but at this point I do not think I can support this amendment. Let's move on and come back to this issue when we are all clearer, and perhaps a little less tired, and make a better amendment.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: On the point made by the Hon. Bernard Finnigan, I appreciate that as a member of the government he, shall we say, is not as involved in the amendment process, but it is actually very common practice in this chamber to make sure that an issue stays alive by supporting an amendment knowing that more work needs to be done. After all, that is exactly what we did in relation to the earlier amendment which dealt with whether or not the unaddressed mail went to every address on the electoral roll or all Australia Post positions.

I understand that the government has given an undertaking and if I have misunderstood the minister then I would appreciate clarification. I understand the government has given an undertaking that this clause will be recommitted, or whatever mechanism it might be, that there will be work done—

The Hon. G.E. Gago: Further consideration.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Further consideration, and the government will facilitate the council considering this amendment again in whatever form that takes—recommittal, or whatever. If that undertaking has been given, then that makes it slightly different from the normal, shall we say, post-it note situation that the Hon. Bernard Finnigan characterised it as. I certainly do not believe it is bad practice: it is the standard practice of this chamber. It is actually the only way that this chamber has kept so many issues alive to give South Australians better laws.

Amendments negatived; clause passed.

Progress reported; committee to sit again.