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ELECTORAL BILL 2004 (No. 63)

Second Reading

Mrs JACKSON (Denison - Minister for Justice and Industrial Relations - 2R) - Mr Speaker, I move -

That the bill be now read the second time.

This bill has been developed to replace the Electoral Act 1985. The act contains detailed machinery provisions for conducting elections, many of which are now outdated, duplicated throughout the act and which do not allow for the introduction of technology. There have also been difficulties in interpreting and complying with the requirements of the act, or amending the act due to the interlinking nature of the sections.

Following a request from the Chief Electoral Officer in 1999, Cabinet approved drafting a new electoral act to replace the Electoral Act 1985 with a particular view to -

utilising contemporary legislative drafting;
the adoption of modern electoral practice; and
removing detailed procedures and forms, to be approved or prescribed as appropriate.

The aim of the review was to preserve the fundamental principles inherent in Tasmania's unique electoral systems, as used for the House of Assembly and the Legislative Council, while presenting those principles in a simple, clear, precise and accessible way.

As part of the review process, discussion papers were issued by the Tasmanian Electoral Office in December of 1999 and 2000 requesting comment on a range of proposals to be incorporated into the new act. The review was suspended in 2001-02, due to preparations by the Tasmanian Electoral Office for the House of Assembly and local government elections, and recommenced during 2003.

A draft bill was completed in early 2004 and was submitted to a cross parliamentary working group for consideration, before being released for public comment during August 2004. A major feature of the Electoral Bill 2004 is the creation of an independent three-person Tasmanian Electoral Commission which will be empowered to appoint returning officers and polling places, and to approve a range of forms and procedures. The commission will have responsibility for accepting or rejecting an application to register a party, will oversee a simplified non-voter process, and have the responsibility of investigating and prosecuting breaches of electoral law. The commission will be required to report to Parliament annually.

The Tasmanian Electoral Commission will comprise a chairperson, Electoral Commissioner and one other member. All members will be appointed by the Governor, following consultation by the minister with the parliamentary leader of each party represented in the Assembly and the President of the Council. Appointment is for a period not exceeding seven years, but a person is eligible for reappointment. A person is not eligible for appointment if the person is or has been in the past five years a member of a House of parliament of the Commonwealth or a State or Territory or a member of a registered party.

Tasmania has had a joint roll arrangement with the Commonwealth to provide for a single roll in Tasmania for over 80 years. The Tasmanian electoral roll is jointly managed but maintained by the Commonwealth. Under this arrangement a single enrolment card system exists in Tasmania for Commonwealth, State and local government elections. However, the current Tasmanian Electoral Act still retains complex requirements and procedures for Tasmanian enrolment. While these are broadly in line with Commonwealth requirements and procedures, there are a number of differences, such as decision-making responsibilities and appeal mechanisms, which can make joint enrolment difficult.

Under the Electoral Bill 2004, Tasmania would adopt the Commonwealth enrolment requirements, forms and procedures. This would mean that if a person is enrolled to vote in Federal elections, they are automatically enrolled on the Tasmanian State roll and eligible to vote in State and local government elections. If in the future, the Commonwealth adopts requirements that are not acceptable to Tasmania, the Tasmanian act could be amended to provide for specific differences.

New Tasmanians will be able to enrol after living in the State for one month, instead of the six-month requirement which currently applies. Adopting the one-month residency requirement will bring Tasmania in line with other States and Territories, and mean that a new Tasmanian will not have to enrol twice - for Federal elections after one month and then for State elections after six months.

Tasmania is currently the only State in Australia in which no prisoner has an entitlement to vote. As a consequential amendment to this bill, section 14(2) of the Constitution Act 1934 will be amended to remove the ban on prisoners voting. Under a specific provision in the bill, prisoners serving a sentence of less than three years will be entitled to enrol and vote. This extension of the electoral franchise is in line with Tasmania Together's goals of an inclusive and participatory society. Further, Tasmania will be consistent with the Commonwealth which will assist in administering the State electoral roll.

Under the bill, the Tasmanian electoral roll will no longer be available for public sale. This is due to concerns about the privacy of elector information and is in line with recent legislation in the Commonwealth and other States. Modern technology now allows easy conversion of a printed electoral roll to electronic form and consequent commercial use for which it was not intended. The printed electoral roll will still be available for public inspection. The Australian Electoral Commission is offering Tasmania access to a system under the joint roll arrangement, where the public will be able to inspect an electronic version of the roll. Only name and address information is displayed and appears on a printed roll so that a person scrolls up or down to find his or her name and address. The system does not allow electors to print, save or capture data.

The bill will also allow for the commission to approve services for electors to verify their enrolment details on the internet. The bill continues the current practice of providing the electoral roll to members of parliament and to registered parties, and providing the electoral roll to any other person, body or organisation as approved. It is intended that such approval by the commission will only be given for ethically approved medical research, police, public safety or for other purposes considered to be in the public interest or in the interests of the elector.

Madam Deputy Speaker, the Electoral Bill 2004 retains all the electoral principles inherent in the Tasmanian electoral system - the mechanics of our Hare-Clark system are unchanged. Further, the bill retains all essential electoral requirements, with more detailed administrative and operational procedures being approved by the commission. Most forms required under the bill will be approved by the commission but must comply with requirements set out in the bill. This change will allow the commission to take advantage of new techniques and technology, and will allow flexibility to adapt a form to a particular situation for example, as an envelope, carbonised insert or even for use on the Internet. It will also allow flexibility in the use of language and in particular the adoption of 'plain English' wherever possible. One exception to this is the form of the writs. The writs will appear in regulations, maintaining the current position.

The approval process will be transparent. It is intended that all approvals made by the commission will be in writing and available for public inspection, and that notice of any new approvals will be published in newspapers, the Government Gazette or both.

In line with the aim of modernising Tasmanian electoral legislation, procedures for the House of Assembly and Legislative Council elections have been combined into the same sections or divisions while preserving the necessary differences. This will allow for easier reference and more clearly set out the difference between the requirements for each of the Houses. There is also clearer reference to House of Assembly by-elections. Under the bill individual candidates will now require at least 10 nominators who are electors entitled to vote at the election to which the nomination relates. Increasing the number of nominators to 10 for non-party candidates will help to avoid frivolous nominations, without being too onerous.

The system for nominating party candidates for the House of Assembly has been simplified. The registered officer, with the written consent of each candidate, is allowed to nominate the party candidates for each division. This is considered sufficient, as a registered party must have at least 100 registered members. The bill now allows for a person endorsed by a registered party to be nominated to appear on Legislative Council ballot papers together with the name of that party. Non-party groups on House of Assembly ballot papers are now required to be supported by 100 electors on a group nomination form. The recent proliferation of parties in other parts of Australia gives rise to concerns that the almost complete lack of restriction in Tasmania on unnamed group columns could lead to the ballot paper becoming unwieldy and confusing for voters.

It could also be argued that political parties have to go through a more rigorous registration process for the sole purpose of having a separate column on the ballot paper - albeit with the party name as a heading. Therefore, under this bill if two or more candidates wish to group together in a separate column they will need to lodge an approved form signed by 100 electors of the division as evidence of support for the grouping. You could easily get that many, Michael.

Mrs Napier - So that is like Steve Martin and his running mate at the last Senate election is it?

Mrs JACKSON - Yes. And remember how Brian Harradine used to always have a running mate so they would now have to get 100 - they are not a party. They are two independents; they do not have to form a party but if they want to run they can have the two names in one column -

Mrs Napier - But if you are just an independent and you are not grouped -

Mrs JACKSON - Just one person?

Mrs Napier - Yes. You do not have to get the 100?

Mrs JACKSON - No, but you have to have 10. Therefore under this bill if two or more candidates wish to group together in a separate column they will need to lodge an approved form signed by 100 electors of the division as evidence of support for the grouping. The nomination deposit has been increased from $200 to $400. This would roughly align the increase with CPI and be similar to the House of Representatives nomination deposit of $350.

Under the Electoral Bill 2004, it will be easier for Tasmanian electors to exercise their right to vote at election time, even if they are outside Tasmania at that time. The changes proposed by the bill are significant progress towards meeting the democracy goals and benchmarks of Tasmania Together.

The commission will be able to appoint ordinary, pre-poll or mobile polling places outside the division for which the election is being held, including polling places outside Tasmania such as pre-poll facilities in electoral offices in other States. Currently electors who are outside Tasmania at election time can only vote by post. The bill will also allow the commission to approve procedures for people to vote from overseas, remote areas and Antarctica; such procedures will, as far as practicable, retain secrecy and security of the vote, and may take advantage of technology where appropriate. For instance, with modern technology it is possible for a postal vote to be requested by electronic means, a ballot paper delivered to the elector electronically and then returned to the returning officer by post or by facsimile. Such a system was used at the last New Zealand election and resulted in an increase of more that 50 per cent in overseas votes.

For pre-poll and mobile voting, the bill requires a single written declaration by an elector that he or she expects to be unable to vote at a polling place on polling day. A declaration envelope will not be required, as electors' names will be marked off a certified list of voters and their ballot papers deposited directly into a ballot box. For postal voting there is no longer a requirement for a witness on a postal vote - thank goodness for that - postal vote application and postal vote declaration envelope. The requirement for a witness on postal voting at local government elections was removed in 1996 with no adverse criticism.

The commission has been given flexibility to approve reasonable and appropriate procedures for officials to assist an elector at a polling place who is unable to vote without assistance. Electors who for ongoing reasons cannot vote at polling booths - for example due to distance, disability or poor health - will be able to register as general postal voters once only for State and Federal elections and I think this is a terrific innovation too because the amount of time and effort that goes into going around chasing postal votes every election, I think would be better spent doing some thing more productive, so this is excellent. This will allow postal ballot papers to automatically be sent to them when nominations close, without completing an additional postal vote application form.

The closing time for receipt of postal votes is to be 10 a.m. - rather than midnight - on the tenth day after polling day - a Tuesday. This will save almost a full day in the election timetable, without disadvantaging postal voters, as mail is normally delivered to post office boxes well before 10 a.m. Co-operation would be sought from Australia Post to limit the chance of any unusual delay.

The process of following up apparent non-voters has been simplified. Apparent non-voters will receive a single penalty notice allowing either an immediate fine payment or the provision of a reason for not voting. If the reason is not acceptable, a further penalty notice will be issued. It is likely that telephone payment of fines by credit card will be arranged. The initial penalty for failure to vote, if accepted by the elector, will be increased from $5 to $20. The penalty if the case goes to court will be increased from $50 to $100. This increase is to allow for inflation since 1985 and also to align with the Commonwealth. To facilitate compliance with the new act and easy reference, all electoral offences have been incorporated into one part in the bill.

There are also some changes in the bill in relation to the authorisation requirements for printed and broadsheet electoral matter:

Only the name and address of the responsible person will need to appear on electoral matter, and the details of the publisher and printer will no longer be required. That is very sensible; having run up and down the Brooker Highway one day in the rain putting the printer's address on those posters in textacolour, which ran, and then be rung up and abused again by the Electoral Commission, I think this is a very good move, not that I had anything to do with it being in there of course but it makes a lot of sense. This is consistent with the requirement for local government electoral matter and acknowledges that a large amount of material is now printed 'in-house'.
In the interests of personal privacy, the bill allows non-residential addresses to be used in authorisation, provided the address is one at or through which the responsible person can be readily contacted.
The requirements for radio and television advertising have been removed as these are covered by the Commonwealth Broadcasting Services Act 1992 and the current small differences cause confusion and legal difficulties.

In addition to the current offence of using a candidate's name without their consent on advertising material, the bill prohibits the use of a photograph or a likeness of a candidate without that candidate's consent.

In relation to the scrutiny process, the only modification has been to incorporate the amalgamation of transfer values. This only applies when distributing the votes of excluded candidates. It involves the amalgamation of parcels of votes having the same transfer value into single parcels prior to distribution. These larger parcels are then distributed in order of decreasing size of transfer value - starting from 1 - rather than at present in the order each parcel was received by the candidate being excluded. This will significantly reduce the time taken to complete scrutinies, particularly when large numbers of candidates are contesting an election. Further, it will only have a very minor effect on the distribution of votes and arguably is no more or less fair than the current system. This process was adopted when the Hare-Clark system was introduced to the Australian Capital Territory some years ago and has been successfully used for local government elections in Tasmania since 1999.

The introduction of the Electoral Bill 2004 has necessitated the drafting of two consequential amendment bills. The Electoral (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2004 mainly covers changes to phrases and definitions in other Tasmanian legislation. The Referendum Procedures Bill 2004 was drafted due to the substantial number of amendments that would have been required to the provisions of the Referendum Procedures Act 1994. This bill has been drafted to remove the detailed operational provisions and simply refers to referendums being conducted in accordance with the provisions set out in the new Electoral Act, insofar as they apply.

The enactment of all these bills will be a great step towards meeting the democracy goals and benchmarks of Tasmania Together. It will enable Tasmania to have an independent Electoral Commission at the forefront of modern electoral practice and ensuring the franchise of electors. I commend the bill to the House.

[4.26 p.m.]

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN (Denison) - Mr Speaker, as Her Majesty's shadow attorney-general for the State of Tasmania I have pleasure informing the House that Her Majesty's loyal Opposition will support the bill. That is not without some criticism and on two matters it is likely we will be taking it to a division but overall we support the bill and we applaud those who have worked so hard to bring it to fruition.

It should be remembered that it was back in 1999 that the then Chief Electoral Officer for the State of Tasmania made a request to the Bacon Government as a result of which Cabinet approved the drafting of a new electoral act to replace the Electoral Act 1985. There were three main thrusts of the redraft. It was to utilise contemporary legislative drafting, it was to adopt modern electoral practice and it was to remove detailed procedures and forms to be approved or prescribed as appropriate.

I want to say on behalf of the State Liberals, who are totally committed to a parliamentary democracy under the rule of law, that we believe it is absolutely fundamental that the electoral legislation should be in such a form that ordinary men and women can fully understand it without having to go to a lawyer or someone for advice because to participate in the democratic process not only should somebody have the right to vote but they should also have the right, if they so choose, to aspire to elections.

There are two forms of involvement in the democratic process: the basic and fundamental right to vote and, of course, the right to compete. The review process commenced in 1999 and discussion papers were issued by the Tasmanian Electoral Office in December of that year and early in 2000 requesting comment on a range of proposals to be incorporated into the new act.

That review was suspended in 2001-02 due to preparations by the Tasmanian Electoral Office for the House of Assembly and local government elections, the House of Assembly election being due on 28 July 2002 and the review recommenced in 2003. The draft bill was completed in early 2004; it was submitted to a cross-party parliamentary working group for consideration and was released for public comment in August of this year.

Mr Speaker, it is an enormous bill, 247 sections and nine schedules and it comes about as a result of very hard work by a number of persons. I would like to commend the Chief Electoral Officer of the State of Tasmania, Mr Bruce Taylor, and his expert adviser, Nicole, who has been present here at Parliament House and all those at your office, sir, who have worked so hard on this bill. The Deputy Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition, my son, Mr Will Hodgman, MHA, who participated in the parliamentary working group and his colleague, Mr Nick McKim representing the Greens, took a view that their membership of the working group should in no way compromise their own party's position to take a particular view on any issue. He and Mr McKim and the other members - Allison Ritchie and Paul Harriss - worked extremely hard. They received substantial briefings from the Chief Electoral Officer and his advisers, and we have been greatly assisted in our work in the Parliamentary Liberal Party to receive a full briefing from our Deputy Leader on all the matters which have been discussed. It is fair to say that you can see by looking through the work program of that working party that they have covered in effect every single issue that has been raised, and now comes forward in the bill.

As I said before, the aim of the review was to 'preserve the fundamental principles inherent in Tasmania's unique electoral systems, as used for the House of Assembly and the Legislative Council, whilst presenting those principles in a simple, clear, precise and accessible way'. We believe that this bill does precisely that. We believe that this bill preserves the integrity of the Hare-Clark system of election to the House of Assembly and preserves the integrity of the preferential system for election to the Legislative Council.

I speak with some emotion on this because, at the risk of boring members, I recall that when I was elected to the Legislative Council of the Parliament of Tasmania on 14 May 1966, there was not yet full universal franchise in the Legislative Council. It was not far off it; you had to be 21 years of age and have some certain property qualifications, but what was most interesting was that you had to be 25 years of age to stand for the Legislative Council.

Mr McKim - Well, they haven't got universal franchise in this bill.

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - Just hold on a minute, I know where you are heading. You have been reading the words of Edward Gough Whitlam; I know where you are heading.

I just want to say that in 1966 when I stood for the Legislative Council, I had to wait until I turned 25 years of age, and you, Mr Speaker, wished to run for the Legislative Council but you could not because you were not old enough. In 1971 you were the very first to stand for the Legislative Council under the new provisions; that is right.

Members interjecting.

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - I am trying to speak above the Attorney and the talkative Greens' justice spokesperson. I do not blame the Attorney; you just missed a little bit of history. Michael Polley MHA, Speaker of the House of Assembly - the longest serving Speaker of any parliament in the Commonwealth of Australia - was the very first candidate to stand in 1971 for the Legislative Council when the age for candidates had been reduced to 21. As I said, I was elected in 1966, when you had to be 25. So we are satisfied that the bill does preserve the fundamental principles inherent in Tasmania's unique electoral system.

Might I just say that our party stands firmly committed to the bicameral system of parliamentary democracy in this State, and I hope that during this debate we do not hear any of this poppycock about some unicameral system. I notice the Deputy Premier is out of the State, but he, from time to time, blabbed about a unicameral system. I know he also has a position as a member of the Synod of the Anglican Church, and there of course they have three houses. It is tricameral; they have bishops, they have clergy and they have laity.

Mr Sturges - You've got to wait for a while to get to the top house.

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - Indeed, indeed.

So we are of the view that the bill does satisfy the criteria for which it was originally commissioned, and I guess, without any contradiction, the major feature of the Electoral Bill 2004 is the creation of an independent, three-person Tasmanian Electoral Commission, which we point out has very wide powers and which will be required to report annually to the Parliament.

Members will be appointed by the Governor - the Government - following consultation by the minister with the Parliamentary Leader of each party represented in the House of Assembly and with the President of the Legislative Council. It is a curious fact of life that a lot of people do not realise, but the electoral system in this State is under the control ministerially of Her Majesty's Attorney-General and Minister for Justice. That is why people often look in the budget and say, 'Where do you find the appropriation for the electoral office and for elections?'. You will find it in the budget estimates of the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice and Industrial Relations.

I think it is very proper that that should be so. It means that every four years the Attorney-General can say with an absolutely straight face that there has been quite a substantial increase in expenditure in the area of Attorney-General and Justice because it takes into account the appropriation for the election which is about to come up, and where we have fixed four-year terms it means there is a nice little boost.

I remember on one occasion the previous Attorney-General, Dr Peter Patmore, actually boasted to a group of law students that he had obtained a very substantial increase in funding in his portfolio. That was quite true but the reason for that was the State election which was then coming up. In fact, it came up in 2002, which was the last year that he was there as Attorney-General.

It is absolutely important, and I do not need to stress the point more, that the appointees put forward by the Attorney-General must be people of absolute integrity and people in whom all sides of the political spectrum can have confidence. That does not mean that every single small group in the community has to say, 'I agree' or 'We agree', but can I say that I recall the appointment by the Hawke Government of the electoral commissioners who did the redistribution of boundaries for the House of Representatives.

One of the very first things that Robert James Lee Hawke did when he was appointed and became Prime Minister of Australia was to appoint Michael Jerome Young, otherwise known as Mick Young, as his Special Minister for State. I remember saying to Mick Young, 'What does that actually mean, Special Minister of State?'. He said, 'Well, I am the minister whose job it is to keep the Hawke Government in office'. I said, 'Oh, yes', and he said, 'I'm in charge of electoral boundaries' and he said, 'As a matter of interest by the time I've finished with you in Denison, you won't even live in your electorate'.

Well, you know, they appointed a commission. I did not know the chair of that commission but Steele Hall, the Liberal Party spokesperson on electoral matters, was actually quite a good friend of mine and he assured us all that the commission they were appointing was very fair and impartial. I thought, 'Oh well, I'd better read up'. I went and read the biography in Who's Who - after the appointments had gone through, I might add - and the chair of the Electoral Commission had written two books, one of which was Prelude to Power , the story of the Whitlam Government's rise to power.

The second book was Mister Prime Minister , a tribute to the Honourable Edward Gough Whitlam, QC, MP. I started to think then, 'I wonder what is going to happen here?' Well, I did not have to wait very long because the commission went right around Australia and took evidence. I actually went to give evidence before the commission in Hobart, basically to say that there did not seem to be any real reason to change the boundaries of Denison, but if they had to be changed at all perhaps Denison should move a bit south because Kingborough was developing so rapidly. Well, I did not get very far with my submission, did I? When the report came out, Denison had miraculously moved 15 kilometres to the north and I no longer lived in it. Taroona, Kingston, Kingston Beach, Blackmans Bay - my strongholds - were all part of the electorate of Franklin. Nick McKim's parents used to vote for me. They were good supporters of mine. And not only did I not live in my electorate -

Greens members interjecting.

Mr SPEAKER - Order.

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - my electorate had miraculously moved north and my late wife, Marian, said to me, 'What are you going to do?' I said, 'I am going to run again. Do you think we ought to live in the electorate?' She said, 'They've moved the electorate north. It will come back south again at some time.' Frankly it has a little bit, but not that much, and I am still in the electorate of Franklin.

Mr McKim - You're voting for me now, Michael.

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - As a matter of fact, you do quite well. My son gets the number one vote, for obvious reasons, but you poll quite well, actually; you would be quite surprised.

Mrs Jackson - Denison never went down to Kingston.

Mr McKim - Yes, it did.

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - Yes, it did. It actually went down to the North-West Bay Golf Club, virtually down to Howden. Yes, it did, definitely.

Mrs Jackson - It must have been when I lived out at Glenorchy, because Glenorchy used to be Franklin.

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - No.

Mrs Jackson - Yes, Glenorchy used to be Franklin.

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - Yes, it was, that is right. I can assure you I represented Kingborough in an unbroken line, because of course the Huon electorate went up to the boundary of Taroona and Hobart in those days, to Grange, and then when I was elected to the House of Representatives in 1975 I can assure you that Denison had continued right down to south of Blackmans Bay, and then in got changed in the 1983 redistribution. I would have lost in 1983 had the Labor Party endorsed a good candidate, but fortunately for me they did not -

Mrs Jackson - Who was the Labor candidate?

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - It was a person of the feminine gender. There was a Miss Smith or a Ms Smith and then there was Kay Spurr. But I knew that the moment they endorsed a candidate of some quality I was in difficulty, and in fact they did. They then endorsed Duncan Kerr who ran in 1987 and he defeated me, and the electorate of Denison from a Federal point of view is still rock-solid Labor. But I must put on record my admiration for Erik Pastoor and the magnificent campaign he ran which I was so proud to be associated with. At the Claremont polling booth where I was on duty the swing to the Liberal Party on a two-party preferred basis was 7.2 per cent. If we had that right throughout the electorate it would have been very interesting. However -

Mr McKim - It still wouldn't have knocked Duncan off.

Mrs Jackson - No, you wouldn't have won.

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - The Electoral Commission must be beyond question. Attorney, I have looked at the program and you will be nominating these people. Your bill will be proclaimed in 2005 and you will be then nominating these people and you will be conferring with the Leader of the Opposition, Rene Hidding, the next Premier of Tasmania, with Ms Putt, the Leader of the Tasmanian Greens, and Donald Wing, the President of the Legislative Council. You four should get it right and hopefully you will, because they have broad powers. The commission does have very broad powers; we acknowledge that, and there is a good reason for that. The Electoral Act of 1985 had only been operating effectively for less than 15 years when this review became necessary. This House and this Parliament made a decision to reduce the size of the House of Assembly from 35 to 25 -

Mr McKim - A shameful decision. A gutting of the democratic system in this State.

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - and I have no doubt at all before any of us is much older that there will be further debate about it. It would take persons of great courage to run a campaign that the size of the House of Assembly should be increased but to those who are genuinely interested in parliamentary democracy in this State I ask this simple question: can this House of Assembly operate properly as a part of a bicameral system of parliament when there are only 25 members?

Mr McKim - Clearly the answer is no.

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - I have heard exactly what you said and I do not personally dissent from what you are saying. I have got to say to the Attorney that our dream run at agreeing on things has just got a couple of little hiccups.

Mrs Jackson - Has come to an end?

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - I will deal with the first, first. The Attorney has announced that the law is to be amended and her Government in this bill proposes to give prisoners serving a sentence of less than three years the right to enrol and vote. I have to say, Attorney, that the Opposition will not be supporting that provision. Our position has been made quite clear - we will not be supporting that provision. The justice spokesman for the Greens, Mr McKim, has indicated to me an amendment that he is proposing and I have to say we will not be supporting that either. Before anybody is mischievous enough to ask whether I have a conflict of interest in this matter, can I say that I have only one former client at Risdon Prison. Only one, and he in fact would be in your electorate, Mr Speaker, the electorate of Lyons.

I have not spoken to the said person but I must say we will not be supporting that provision. However, we will be supporting the very important amendment for the establishment of polling booths outside Tasmania and Attorney, I can totally agree with you, why should not Tasmanians in Melbourne and Sydney be able to go to an electoral office or the Melbourne Town Hall or wherever is designated and cast a vote instead of this stupid procedure whereby you get a frantic phone call, 'My wife and I are in Surfers Paradise. We want to get a postal vote.' To be quite blunt I went and voted on the Thursday before the election in the AMP building. Why? Because I was on the polling booth in Denison out at Claremont all day.

Mrs Jackson - All day?

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - All day.

Mr Sturges - Eleven-hour day.

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - I got out there at 7.20 a.m.; I left at 6.20 p.m. I got the best spot. First up, best dressed and I was there all day. If you are there all day, you know the job has been done.

Mrs Jackson - Haven't the Liberals got enough people to cover the booths?

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - Yes, we had other people but I was the booth captain. I wasn't going to be in the electorate of Franklin so I went to the AMP building on the ground floor and explained that I would be out of the electorate all day. I was given a vote and I voted. I commend the Government and Mr Taylor -

Mr Sturges - You gave Harry number 1, didn't you?

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - No, I am sorry, I did not. I like Harry but I have to be blunt, I did not give him number 1. I gave Henry number 1, but Harry did not do badly.

Mr McKim - Harry won.

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - Yes, he won. He did not need my vote but I just thought at the time really this is a sensible thing. Also, it will mean, Attorney, that, in relation to polling down at Antarctica as opposed to Macquarie Island, you no doubt will have a polling booth at Casey, Davis and Mawson. You might even get a free visit down there. You never know. But the point is 20 000 people voted in the Federal election at Australia House and I said - because I am a bit thick - to Mr Alex Stanelos, how is it they are able to vote over there? How do they get the ballot paper for Denison or the ballot paper for Kooyong or Herbert or whatever. He said, 'Michael, it is all electronic.' You would go in and say, 'My name is Graham Sturges, I'm on the roll in Denison'. You are ticked off and they print up electronically the ballot paper there and then and you record your vote. That is what we should be doing in the State House of Assembly elections and for the Legislative Council.

So the Liberals strongly support the procedures for overseas voting and simplified postal pre-poll and mobile voting. Again, I agree with the Attorney, I reckon one of the worst aspects of election campaigning in the old days were those vultures who went into the nursing homes and stood over the semi-comatose, the elderly, the disabled and the dying, and witnessed their application for a postal vote and then came back later with the dashed thing and stood over them while they filled it in. I just think that is absolutely outrageous, and I would not be involved in it, and I know, Mr Speaker, you would not either.

Members laughing .

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - The Labor Party suddenly became very sanctimonious, but I remember when Tim Kelly, a prominent Hobart lawyer, went up to Sydney and joined the Labor Party and he said to me, 'Michael, there's a couple of good slogans up here. " Vote early and vote often" ' - that was the Labor Party slogan in New South Wales, vote early and vote often. And he said, 'Dead men do vote'. I might put on the record that a somewhat over-enthusiastic gentleman from Poland decided he would vote for me for Denison when I stood in 1975, and he did - 27 times. He got onto the Zybrowka and he went from polling booth to the next, to the next, to the next and he voted '1 Michael Hodgman'.

Mrs Napier - Did they find out?

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - Yes, they caught him at the finish. They asked, 'How many times did you vote'?, and he said, 'Twenty-seven times I voted for him'. You cannot do it now, of course, but in those days there was no tick-tacking between the polling booths, so you could go around the traps and do it. I approve and the Liberal Party approves the move that these people, Attorney, only had to register once. You apply to become a permanent postal voter.

Now we have our second disagreement. The bill provides that the Tasmanian electoral roll will no longer be available for public sale because of 'concerns about the privacy of elector information'. What absolute poppycock! We are going to oppose this provision and we will be opposing the additional provision we have been told is coming, that if you make a printed hard copy electoral roll available, suddenly you can be prosecuted. I am sick and tired of people saying, 'You can get it on the Internet'; 43 per cent of Tasmanians do not have access to an Internet or cannot use it. If you can get it on the Internet, why can't you have a hard copy? Look, there is a bit of a softener here, a bit of a sweetener. Members of parliament will get one free of charge, political parties will get one free of charge. But the ordinary members of the public will not be allowed to buy one because of 'concerns about the privacy of elector information'.

Attorney, I am not having a shot at you because this recommendation in fact came from -

Mrs Jackson - The Commonwealth.

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - It came from the Commonwealth and from the parliamentary -

Mrs Jackson - John Howard.

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - Hang on a minute - parliamentary working party, but your Government was weak and supine in going along with it. We are going to vote against that, we actually think it is a matter of principle, we really do, and we are simply not persuaded by this Sir Humphrey or, should I say, Lady Humphrey -

Mrs Jackson - Kerry Packer gets it and sends it out -

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - I know, I know, I have heard about that. We got a very fair briefing from the experts and from Mr Taylor in particular, but we are not persuaded.

As a matter of interest, and I said the bill continues the current practice of providing the electoral roll to members of parliament and to registered parties, and to any other person, body or organisation as approved - listen to this - provided it is for 'ethically approved medical research, police, public safety or public interest, or in the interests of the elector', whatever that means. What does it mean - 'in the interests of the elector'? Really, that is Sir Humphrey par excellence. Now in a sweeping move the Lennon Labor Government is quadrupling penalties. Failure to vote penalties will be increased from $5 to $20. Whoopee. Have a go. They are really having a lash here. But if the case goes to court, the penalty will increase from $50 to $100. Why don't you go the whole hog and bring in the death penalty. Fail to vote, you are executed - you will not offend again.

There are changes in the bill in relation to authorisation requirements of broadcast electoral matter. We had a tad of concern that the ban now will be on using the photograph, a likeness or a caricature of your opponent but that is actually just during the time of the election, so we will still see photographs of the Tasmanian equivalents of John Howard and Mark Latham and so on. I do know one thing: I was not aware of this but I am told that they can do things on the web screen now and distort faces and make you look as if you have just done a period of 20 years in prison or committed 28 rapes or something horrible. I think that we would all agree in the Chamber that some of us do not look all that crash hot with a normal photograph so none of us should go around fiddling with the photographs of our opponent. Although I must say I have seen photographs of some of my opponents in which they look considerably younger than I know them to be. Having said that, having had some -

Mr McKim - What are you looking at me for?

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - I was not looking at you. I have no problem with you. You have never been dollied or doctored up.

Mr McKim - Don't speak about Mr Llewellyn like that, Michael.

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - I was not speaking about him. Anyway that is another matter; I will come back to him later.

Mrs Jackson - What about that guy who used the dog? What was his name?

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - That was Peter Benson Walker - the watch dog? Funny thing that. I did not get a chance to ask Mr Taylor.

Mrs Jackson - Are you going to do that now?

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - That is not ruled out. You can have the photo of the dog. But just as a matter of interest, I was a Federal member and he came into my office and he said, 'I am running for Denison, do you think I should have photographs of myself?' I said, 'Do you want a direct answer?' and he said, 'Yes'. I said, 'No'. 'Oh', he said. He said, 'What am I going to do?' I said, 'What is your main thing?' He said, 'I am going to be the tax watchdog'. I said. 'Right, get a dog'. 'What dog?' With great respect to Her Majesty, we picked a corgi and by gosh it was very successful. Peter Benson Walker had these pamphlets with this little corgi dog, you know 'Your tax watchdog' and he bolted in. Absolutely bolted in.

Anyway there are changes in the bill in relation to the authorisation requirements of printed and broadcast electoral matter. I agree. Why do you have to put your residential address? I mean it is sensible to put Parliament House. It reminds people that you are a member of the Parliament.

I agree that the name and address of a responsible person must appear on the electoral matter but why should there be details of the publisher and the printer? You do not need them anymore. Interestingly, the committee said a lot of the stuff is done in-house. Well, I know that in the last State election the printing presses over in the Executive Building in Murray Street were running all hours of the day and night and I bet they were up in Launceston too.

Most of the stuff was written, authorised and printed by my dear friend James Alexander Bacon. I suppose we would do the same, I do not know. In the interests of personal privacy, the bill will allow non-residential addresses to be used in authorisation. Radio and television requirements are dropped because they are now covered by the Commonwealth Broadcasting Services Act 1992. I do not know that they had to be because the Commonwealth act overrode the State act to the extent of any inconsistency but it probably makes it neater.

I am sorry my friend, Mr Whiteley, is not present because I have a note here that the current capital offence of using a candidate's name without their consent remains -

Mrs Jackson - I could put that in as an amendment.

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - but now also includes a photograph or likeness of a candidate without that candidate's consent. Now the question that I ask is about - I cannot find it but I will bring it up - that famous Steve Kons election pamphlet and advertisement where he, on behalf of the Braddon Labor team, appeared with a smiling face surrounded by four gorillas. Apart from the fact that I imagined Mr Brenton Best, Mr Bryan Green and a couple of others were not very chuffed about that, I wonder. I am not going to put my friend, Mr Taylor, on this one but I wonder whether a gorilla could constitute a likeness of an endorsed Labor candidate. It is very interesting. How the hell he got away with it, I do not think he was prosecuted. I do not think his colleagues were terribly happy but Mr Kons got elected, the other gorillas also got elected and the others did not get elected.

Finally, in relation to the scrutiny process, the only modification has been to incorporate the amalgamation of transfer values. But this only applies of course when distributing the votes of excluded candidates. It said this would significantly reduce the time taken to complete scrutiny, particularly when a large number of candidates are contesting an election. It is further claimed it will only have a very minor effect on the distribution of votes and arguably is 'no more or less fair than the current system.'

I had my doubts about this but again - and I am grateful to Mr Taylor for the briefing - it has been explained that in some tests they have done, it might affect a handful of votes - I think he said five or six votes. In the interests of efficiency I cannot see that five or six votes matter, but I know what is going to happen - it will come back to haunt us. Some person will get beaten by one vote or something.

Mrs Jackson - Someone did once, didn't they? Ken Lowry or someone. Not on the final vote but who got cut up or not.

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - Yes, that's quite right. My late grandfather, Horace Walsh, ran for the Legislative Council in 1929 and he was defeated by one vote. That was my mother's father. After the election, his beloved wife, my beloved grandmother, said that in the rush of things she had forgotten to vote. If she had voted, the vote would have been even. When that happens Mr Taylor has to do the casting vote. That is quite true. It is still there in black and white. That is the position - Mr Taylor. If there is an equality of votes Mr Taylor or the electoral office for the division, I am not quite sure which, has in fact to draw it out.

There is one other matter which I want to speak on because we are going to oppose it. We are going along with most of your changes in relation to the ungrouped and the 100 electors and all that. But we think that the nomination deposit should not be raised from $200 to $400. To be quite blunt, we think that $200 is enough. It said in the explanatory notes that this would roughly align the increase with the CPI and be similar to the House of Representatives nomination deposit of $350. I am one of the old school - for many years the tradition in our family was that when I received the electoral deposit refund I gave it to my late wife, Marian. So when she was alive she would not have minded if the deposit had gone up and up because in the old days they used to give you back your deposit cheque at the declaration of the poll. I do not know whether they still -

Mrs Jackson - You still get it back.

Mr MICHAEL HODGMAN - Yes. Anyway she knew it was coming back at the declaration of the poll and she would grab it very quickly. But having said that, we think $400 is too high and we are going to stick to the status quo, Attorney, we are going to stick with the $200. Sue Napier made the same comment: we do believe in democracy and we think $400 is too much. So we will simply vote against that but we will support the rest of the bill, apart from the prisoners' vote and cutting out the free electoral rolls.

[5.04 p.m.]

Mr McKIM (Franklin) - Mr Speaker, the Greens regard this as one of the most important pieces of legislation that we have debated in this sitting of the House because how elections work and how parties are required to function is absolutely fundamental to our system of democracy. Democracy is not a perfect system but, as was said by someone a lot wiser than I am, if anyone has any better ideas they should let us all know.

Mr Michael Hodgman - Churchill said that.

Mr McKIM - Mr Churchill, was it? Thank you.

Mr Speaker, if I could thank those people who worked so hard on this bill, they have already been thanked by the honourable Michael Hodgman but to reiterate: Bruce Taylor and Nicole Luck from the Electoral Office, I thank them for their work and for their briefings in relation to this matter, and also Allison Ritchie MLC and Paul Harriss MLC, along with Will Hodgman from the House of Assembly, who participated with me in the parliamentary working group. It was a constructive process because I think I am right in saying that it resulted in a couple of matters being included. My recollection is that the name of the party on the Legislative Council ballot papers came out of the parliamentary working group, as did the section relating to the prohibition of photographs or likenesses of a candidate.

It is good to see when a consultative process like that, across all political parties and both House of Parliament, results in some constructive progress. The Greens are very pleased with this bill and we will be supporting it, although we have an amendment that we will be moving which has already been flagged by Michael Hodgman in his contribution. I will speak to it now briefly but I will speak to it in more detail when we are Committee stage.

The Greens are very disappointed with the position that the Liberal Party has taken in relation to their stance that no prisoners ought to be entitled to vote. The shadow attorney-general has spent a lot of time advocating better conditions for prisoners and on behalf of prisoners in a range of matters publicly in this House and yet one of the most fundamental rights in a democracy is now going to be opposed by the Liberal Party and that is the right to vote. I will listen closely when we come to this clause in the committee but I am still waiting for somebody to give me a valid reason why all prisoners ought not be allowed to vote.

So we are disappointed in the position that the Liberal Party has taken and we are disappointed with the position that the Government has chosen to put into this bill, to be quite frank. If you are at all serious about rehabilitating prisoners, Attorney - and you have talked about rehabilitation of prisoners a number of times - why are you cutting off the fundamental democratic right to vote of prisoners who have been sentenced to a term of longer than three years. I look forward to the debate on this clause. We will be tabling an amendment and dividing on it; as Michael Hodgman has indicated that he will most probably be dividing on the clause as it stands, as is his right. We are very disappointed with the position that the Government has taken on this bill and we are very disappointed with the comments made by the honourable Michael Hodgman, the shadow attorney-general.

Mr Speaker, the Greens understand that this bill will result in the creation of the Tasmanian Electoral Commission which will be empowered to do a range of things. We think that it is appropriate that the members of the commission will be appointed by the Governor and particularly we are happy that the relevant minister will be required to consult with the parliamentary leader of each party represented in this House, along with the President of the Legislative Council. I just want to be clear about consultation in this context; consultation between the minister and the other people I have just mentioned ought to be just that - consultation. It should not be the minister informing the Leader of each party and the President of the Legislative Council of a fait accompli. It needs to be proper consultation, and inherent in the word 'consultation' is not just that you will listen to the input from the parliamentary leader of the parties in the House of Assembly and the President of the Council, but you will actually factor that input into your decision. We have seen this Government on a number of other issues take a particular matter to the public and go through what I would regard as a sham consultation process. It has happened time and time again, even in my short time in this House, where the Government has gone out, taken on a load of input from various people and organisations, and then proceeded to ignore it and do whatever they wanted to do in the first place.

Mr Sturges - What a nonsense claim.

Mrs Jackson - What rubbish. Tell me one thing.

Mr McKIM - Mr Speaker, I have arced up the member for Denison. I thought it was too good to be true -

Mr Sturges - You've arced up both members for Denison. It's a nonsense claim.

Mr McKIM - I have been on my feet for about seven or eight minutes and I was thinking that is pretty much the longest I have ever managed to go while the member for Denison, Mr Sturges, has been in the Chamber -

Mrs Jackson - And then you got nasty.

Mr Bacon - Hans Christian Anderson used to do that -

Mr McKIM - I have the Minister for Parks going as well, Mr Speaker, the Minister for Parks who cannot bring himself to say the words 'national parks are for nature conservation'. Dear me. Mr Speaker, it is a wonder they do this to themselves.

The member for Denison, Mr Hodgman, raised a couple of matters in his -

Mrs Jackson - It is Christine's day today.

Mr McKIM - By interjection, the Attorney says it is Christine's day, and I am glad that she is as happy as we are that Christine Milne has been elected to the Senate. She will be a fantastic senator for this State. She is a passionate and committed Tasmanian. She is one of the island's most eminent futurists.

Mr STURGES - Point of order, Mr Speaker. I would suggest that member for Franklin, who is making a second reading contribution to the electoral bill, order of the day 20, is making irrelevant comments and I would ask in accordance with the Standing Orders that he maintain a degree of relevance.

Mr SPEAKER - I do not uphold the point of order, as an election to the Senate as an overview of a national election relates to State elections and therefore it is in order.

Members interjecting.

Mr McKIM - Thank you, Mr Speaker. You very wisely pre-empted the response I would have made to Mr Sturges, which is that of course we are debating the electoral bill, which is about elections and, as you would be aware, today the button was pressed and Christine Milne was elected to the Senate despite the despicable attempts by your party to cut the Greens out of the Senate by preferencing Family First, the religious right fundamentalist party, above the Greens. Believe me, Mr Sturges, we have had a few phone calls from Labor Party members recently who are absolutely ashamed of the preferencing decisions made by your party. So I think you would be better off just to simmer down over there; be quiet, just listen and learn.

Mr Speaker, the member for Denison, Mr Hodgman, raised a couple of matters in his contribution that I want to briefly address. The first was his, I guess, rhetorical question as to whether this House can function properly or adequately after the cut in numbers, and I said by interjection that the answer was clearly no. I just want to place it firmly on the record that it is my belief that democracy was gutted by the decision to cut the numbers in this House. It has effectively removed the back bench, the Government's back bench which, under the Westminster system, ought to be a crucial part of holding the Government to account. It has effectively been holding the Government to account and it has effectively gutted the backbench. Of course, we are in the position in the first couple of years of this Government where the only backbencher was the member who has just been sat down by the Speaker - Mr Sturges - who has now actually been promoted to Chair of Committees - more a sideways shuffle than an actual promotion. But of course, the cutting of numbers also has had further ramifications for democracy and that is a gutting of the committee system in this House, and the efficiency of the committee system, and the amount of time and focus that members, who are now spread far more thinly, can actually devote to the committee system.

Another matter I was unaware of which came up during Mr Hodgman's contribution was the fact that, in the event of a tied vote, the person who is currently the Chief Electoral Officer would have the casting vote. I actually find that a bit of an anachronism and I understand -

Mr Sturges - It is drawn out of a hat, isn't it?

Mr McKIM - I understand that a name will be drawn out of a hat by the Chief Electoral Officer. I thank you for that clarification, but I also have to say that that seems to me to be a bit of anachronism and I just wonder why you would not go again.

Mr Cox - The Leader of the Liberal Opposition lost the mayoral duties of Launceston out of a hat to Graeme Burgess.

Mr McKIM - Yes, but that does not make it right and I do wonder, in that case, why you would not go again and say to the people, 'Well, we have been to you and you did not give us a verdict and I think you should try again'. You could be almost certain that there would be a clear verdict the second time; it is like extra time in a game of soccer. I know the Minister for Parks will be just as happy as I was that Manchester United knocked off Arsenal after 49 games - the mighty Red Devils - a really good effort. But I do wonder why you would not go again and it does seem to be an anachronism. The Member for Bass, Mr Booth, is quite right in relation to a tied vote between the Labor and Liberal Parties that there would not be a great deal of difference.

There is one other matter which I did want to raise. I acknowledge that I did not raise this during the parliamentary working group, but another matter for wider debate which may come at some time in the future - along with the debate about the numbers in the House of Assembly - is the possibility of truly optional preferential voting in this State where it would be possible to have only a number-one vote. That matter has been raised with me recently by a constituent who believes that people ought to have the chance to vote only for the candidate they want to get elected.

I do need to place on the record that, in relation to the Greens, it is our practice to run five candidates in each House of Assembly division so that Greens supporters actually can vote Green only and then stop. Of course, members will be aware that you need to vote one to five but it is a matter that ought to be debated on a regular basis and that is the matter of how elections are run and how the voting works in this State because, as I said at the beginning of my contribution, it is fundamental to our democratic system.

It is not my intention to go right through the Attorney's second reading speech because she has already done that and it has effectively also been done by the member for Denison, Mr Hodgman, but as I said, with the particular issue that I have already raised in relation to prisoners' rights to vote, the Greens will be supporting this bill. We will be raising a number of issues in the committee stage, but I cannot see that anything that may occur in the clauses would preclude the Greens from continuing their support.

[5.20 p.m.]

Mrs NAPIER (Bass) - I would like to make a few brief comments, as I found it valuable as part of the party meetings we have been having, looking through at some of the reforms and changes that have been made to the Electoral Act. I welcome a number of the reforms that have been introduced to make the Electoral Act more effective and more efficient to operate. In particular, it has always seemed really strange to me that in a sense you had to enrol separately for both the State and the Commonwealth elections. Recently at my house we received communication in relation to one person in the family; they were enrolled at the Commonwealth level but the question was being raised as to whether they were enrolled at the State level, which they were as it turned out, but it just seemed to me that it would be so much easier, seeing as the areas overlap, that it should be one and the same, so I certainly very much welcome that.

The other point that I certainly welcome is that new Tasmanians can now enrol after living in the State for one month. Apparently in other States and Territories that has been so, yet for some reason we have maintained the need to be resident here for six months. I always thought that a little strange that we should be so different. It was brought to my attention as a consequence of people who have actually moved here from other States and raised it as a question mark, particularly as it affects their 18-year-old when they decide to enrol.

As has been indicated by other members, I certainly welcome the ability to be able to set up polling places outside Tasmania, including overseas, and also for people to be able to register, as I understand it, as postal voters, which will reduce the need hopefully for people to have to go around, as indicated by our shadow minister on this issue, to encourage persons who are aged, frail or otherwise to fill out the form appropriately. I remember the year when Warwick Smith lost the election. One of the most disgraceful scams that was going on was a number of workers going around and basically saying, 'You have to vote for Labor because the Federal Liberal Party is going to cut off your pensions'. That is what they were being told and I thought it was absolutely disgraceful.

Mr Booth - Vote early and vote often.

Mrs NAPIER - Probably a bit of that but no, this particular aspect I ran into -

Mrs JACKSON - It's about the same as telling people their interest rates were going to rise under Labor.

Mrs NAPIER - Absolutely nothing like it. This suggestion that pensions were going to be cut was just a blatant lie. I was absolutely disgusted, not only with a couple of people I knew - not well - who were doing it but also that it was even being condoned. So I think this will be a significant reform to make sure that people should not have to go through the process of having to apply for postal votes every time an election comes up. If they are unwell, if they live at a considerable distance, if they have a particular disability that makes it fairly difficult to get in to be able to vote, instead of having to apply each time to register as a postal voter they should have access to it as of right.

I support the comments made by our shadow minister in relation to access to being able to buy a printed version of the electoral roll. I see no reason why people should not be able to buy a printed version. I actually support the move, however, not to make it available as a downloaded version because I think it could be more easily abused beyond what was originally intended. You could quickly turn it into a mail-merge. However, it takes a fair bit of -

Mrs Jackson - That's what happens. They buy it, they scan it and then they download it.

Mrs NAPIER - I know. You can scan it and go through the process of being able to do it, but it would be just as easy to use the other systems that are available through the real estate agents where you can do it according to address, or names or telephone zones and postcodes and all that kind of thing. There are systems much more comprehensive than the electoral roll by which people are able to access streets, names, addresses and so on. I just think it should be any person's right to be able to gain access to a printed copy of the electoral roll, so I will certainly be supporting this side of the House on that aspect.

I also support the shadow minister's comments in relation to his opposition to extending the vote to prisoners who are serving less than three years. Really, to be sent to prison in the modern day and age means there has been a significant transgression and part of that penalty, I think, is losing rights such as the ability to vote. I know it is being argued in the bill that they can vote in the Commonwealth elections, so what we are trying to do is mirror what happens at the Commonwealth level. Well, I would rather see the change made the other way, because I think it sends all the wrong messages, as much as we might also try to find more effective ways by which lesser crimes might be punished other than necessarily putting them in jail. One of the real difficulties we have is that unfortunately we are holding people in secure facilities. I must admit that there are no 18-year-olds at Ashley now, but the irony there that I am increasingly finding is that people are ending up spending 18 months or so in a secure facility without even having got their case to court, and it is partly because they cannot get access to a lawyer, let alone anything else. So I think those kinds of issues are the things we should be addressing, not necessarily extending the vote to a prisoner who is required to serve a prison term. I think that point has been well argued, and I certainly indicate my opposition to that particular initiative.

In relation to a couple of the other reforms, I note interestingly that the nomination deposit for the House of Representatives apparently is $350, whereas it is being suggested that the nomination deposit for the House of Assembly - I am not sure if it is the Council as well - is $400. Why would you make it more expensive to nominate for the House of Assembly, particularly in the context that our salaries are 85 per cent of what the Federal House of Representatives members get, let alone the significant additional benefits that they have - electoral allowances, access to cars, postage allowances, printing allowances, you name it? I just think that is totally inequitable, this move to $400. I would keep it at $200 because I think that is just totally out of balance, particularly if you compare it with the Federal scene.

It is a cost that is in addition to, I suppose, the levy that you pay when you even nominate for a party as well, which I know is within control of the parties, but it makes you poor at the very time that you try to save up enough dollars to pay for your own election, given that in State elections, at least in Tasmania, members of the Liberal Party who stand for State Parliament get no financial assistance from the party. We fund our own campaigns beyond, of course, the more centrally-run campaign that is basically about key messages, and I suppose that is the nature of the Hare-Clark system. That is just the way it is, and in fact I do not necessarily want to change that. I am quite happy with that.

Mr Michael Hodgman - You are doing very well with it. You topped the polls.

Mrs NAPIER - I think eventually within a Hare-Clark system everyone at some stage or other has the chance of topping polls. I am realist about whether I will stay on top of the poll. All I want is to be able to continue on as a member of Parliament. New people always come through at some stage. I am sure Mr Bartlett, who is smiling over there, at some stage will be coming through and topping the poll in his electorate as well - on his side at least. I have to say, to be fair, Mr Sturges is out and about and he is really working that northern suburbs area. He is out there almost as much as the member for Denison, Mr Hodgman, who has significant support out in the area.

Mr Hidding - They are both out there. Both have got fully taxpayers' funded offices. No-one else has.

Mrs NAPIER - That is true, there is a highly iniquitous situation compared to what is happening with opposition members, but I guess the other side needs to take that into account. When the wheel goes around, and the wheel does go round eventually - and certainly we are looking at the next election - whatever additional resources you approve for yourselves when in government, and if you decide to place the Opposition in a relatively poor situation, then I hope you have judged it fairly because if you have made that fair judgment then it would not be inappropriate for us to continue with that fair judgment.

I think that covers most of the issues, but I just wanted to get up and note that I think there are significant improvements on this. There are two other points I wanted to pick up. One is not having to put the details of the publisher and printer on your electoral material; I think that is very sensible. There are times when you did not even intend material to be electoral material and you suddenly get caught because you have not put the printer and the place of printing on it. You can quite innocently get caught by that and of course some printing addresses and names of printers are quite large and of course that takes up resources as well. I actually do not mind using my personal residential address because I am one of the few people around here who actually lives in my electorate so I am quite happy to identify that, but I think there are instances where -

Mr Michael Hodgman - I did until the Labor Party rigged the boundaries.

Mr Hidding - Don't talk about David Llewellyn like that. He is out of the State.

Mrs NAPIER - That is true.

Mr Michael Hodgman - David Llewellyn lives in Franklin.

Mrs NAPIER - Absolutely. In fact it is only recently I believe that Mr Lennon has moved into his electorate, out at Brighton.

Mr Hidding - No, he's moved into mine.

Mrs NAPIER - He has actually moved into Lyons? He has not got it right, yet.

Government members interjecting .

Mrs NAPIER - He has moved out to the manor and the new horse property. I think it should be an option for people not to use their residential addresses because you are not putting your family up as a candidate. I am particularly conscious that when you have younger children it is open to abuse. I have had a few cans of paint thrown onto my front lawn, just little things that make me conscious that though I might be able to handle that - although I obviously am not happy about my family's personal privacy being invaded - I am certainly not at all happy about my children and my partner's privacy being potentially targeted. In the days of where we are becoming more concerned about personal security, I think that is a good move.

The only question I originally had was about section 197. We had some discussion about it. When you read 197 and 198, technically you could not do anything other than just talk about what you were going to do. You could not actually say anything about anyone else. You could not even, technically, refer to the Lennon Labor Government. You could not refer to John Howard; you could not refer, almost, to the Labor Party. It would make it fairly hard to have a full debate about the strengths and weaknesses of the opponent's policies, as well as being able to make comments on your own policies, which quite clearly we need to do.

I just wondered if the minister could give her interpretation of 197 and 198 because, if you read that, it would seem that, technically, you are not supposed to have the name or a photograph or a likeness of a candidate or an intending candidate at that election without the written consent of the candidate. Well, I could think of many instances. I remember when Christine Milne used my name in an advertisement - it is just that she did not put my full quote in there. In this House I had said that I regarded her as being a very confident politician but sometimes she was a bit loose with the truth, because every so often you would find a missing decimal point when you were dealing with debates on pulpmills and things like that. Now, she ran the first bit but she did not run the second. So she was just a bit loose with the truth in the way she used that so-called quote that she took out of a sentence one time as I was talking to this Parliament.

Mr BOOTH - Point of order, Mr Speaker. It is extremely disorderly for the member to refer to somebody who is not in the chamber to defend themselves and accuse them of dishonesty. I think it is quite unparliamentary and I ask that you order it to be withdrawn.

Mrs NAPIER - It is in print.

Mr SPEAKER - The member is claiming that the honourable member for Bass has defamed some member who is not in the house. I do not uphold the point of order on the basis of parliamentary privilege. I did not hear it but if you deem it to be offensive I would ask the member to relate what was actually said to me.

Mrs NAPIER - On the point of order, Mr Speaker, I indicated that in relation to section 197, there had been an instance in this Parliament, recorded on Hansard , where I indicated that I regarded Ms Milne as a very competent politician but that she was just a bit loose with the truth. Ms Milne used the first part of the quote that I had that she was a competent politician, but she was loose with the truth because she did not use the second part of the quote. I do not think that is being offensive at all.

Mr Booth - Well, I think it is.

Mrs NAPIER - Well, I regarded it, frankly, as highly offensive that Ms Milne had, in fact, not asked. She knows about this because I have talked to her about it. She had not asked for my consent for the use of my name. She certainly had not asked for consent to use just the first part of my quote and not the second part. If you find it offensive I will withdraw it because all I was doing was stating fact, not opinion.

Mr Booth - If you could withdraw the 'loose with the truth' bit, I would appreciate that.

Mr Michael Hodgman - You are very truthful as usual, Sue.

Mrs NAPIER - The fact is that the second part of my quote was not used.

Mrs Jackson - That is being loose with the truth.

Mr Hidding - That is, in fact, a sleazy use of someone's words.

Mrs NAPIER - What I was doing was asking, technically, whether you could use sections 197 and 198 of the act to close down the debate on the relative strength or weakness of an opponent's policies or actions. Take Mr Kons' advertisement of the monkeys - 'No see, no hear, no speak'. By inference, we thought that you were saying some terrible things about Mr Best and Bryan Green and by inference some people might think it was a good likeness of the candidate. Technically, that could have been appealed to the Electoral Commissioner for a determination. Can I not talk about the Minister for Health, David Llewellyn's, health policy? Can I not talk about that? Can I not talk about the Lennon Labor Government and so on? That is really what I am asking. If I use a photograph of the Minister for Health, is that technically in breach of section 197?

Mrs Jackson - But that's the case now, though; it's not changed.

Mrs NAPIER - But it never happens. I am questioning why we keep it there like that because it does not get applied - it never happens. I can relate to the name, probably, but beyond a photograph or likeness I do not see that as dealing with reality, with the kind of debates that you need to use as part of an electoral debate.

Mr Michael Hodgman - The gorillas did not apply for the Labor candidate for Braddon.

Mrs NAPIER - That is true. Beyond that, there are some improvements to the bill. I thank the committee for the work that they did in trying to pull that together. Beyond those amendments that we are going to put forward, I will support the bill.

[5.41 p.m.]

Mrs JACKSON (Denison - Minister for Justice and Industrial Relations) - I thank everybody in the House for their support in principle of this legislation. I, too, would like to put on the record my appreciation of Bruce Taylor and Nicole for the work that they have done. Yes, it has been a long process - not their fault but because of intervening matters. Hopefully with this Electoral Commission that we have set up some of these chores can be taken on by other people. That will help because Bruce and his staff have a big job at all times, but particularly during elections. If there are two elections in one year it is an exceptionally big job.

We are not going to accept Mr McKim's amendment. I suppose we could say we are half-way - the Liberals do not want any.

Opposition members interjecting.

Mrs JACKSON - What we are proposing here is an improvement, I suppose you would say, on the situation before where people did not have to vote at all. Three years is a starting point. Also, of course, it is consistent with the Federal Government - the Federal situation - and therefore it makes the administration of the legislation easier. That is something in our jurisdiction that we have to be aware of because we do not have unlimited resources; if there is anything we can do that is similar to the Commonwealth, that is of course an advantage for us.

The other thing is that we are not like 'the greatest democracy on earth', as they call themselves. They preclude people from voting forever in many of the states if they have ever been in jail. Florida is one of the classic cases. I believe there are more than two million people there - some huge number - who cannot ever enrol again. So at least we are a long way from that.

Mr McKim - But what is your reason for not allowing our prisoners to vote?

Mrs JACKSON - This will actually cover most prisoners - 90 per cent. It was a compromise between the Liberals who wanted no change, us who wanted some change, and you people who wanted it free and open. So it is a compromise. We will look at it again, but it is consistent with the Commonwealth.

Mr McKim - Have you been rolled in Cabinet again? I reckon you have. I think you have rolled again by the conservative cabal in Cabinet.

Mrs JACKSON - That is not true. I have to say, and I want to put on the record, that my cabinet colleagues - and in fact my caucus colleagues - supported 99.9 per cent of the things that I support. We do not have those -

Mr McKim - Yes, but not some of the Relationships Bill stuff and not on this matter.

Mr SPEAKER - Order, order. The member should cease his interjections.

Mrs JACKSON - If you wish to make this allegation, it is just not true. This conspiracy theory, that somehow there are certain people in the Labor Party who think one way and are out there somewhere and another lot who are out there, is just not true.

Mr McKim - Of course it is.

Mr Booth - Are you admitting to becoming incredibly conservative, Judy?

Mrs JACKSON - You were not there and I am telling you it is just not true.

Mr Booth - So it's all your idea, Judy?

Mr SPEAKER - Order. The member should cease interjecting.

Mrs JACKSON - If three years are imposed they will miss one election. The fact is that a lot of -

Mr Michael Hodgman - It will get the majority of prisoners; you are quite right. The majority of prisoners are serving less than three years.

Mrs JACKSON - Some of those people who are in there for a lot longer rightly or wrongly do not really feel that they are part of this society. That is the terrible thing about being in prison a long time. If you are in prison 16 or 20 years, your chances of ever coming back and feeling part of a society are pretty well damaged.

Mr McKim - That's why you want to keep as many links as you can - for example, the right to vote.

Mrs JACKSON - All right. Of course they can take an interest. It is great improvement and it would be very interesting to know how many would be interested in voting. As we are going into Committee I will not necessarily go through every single comment that has been made. In fact most people have agreed with the bill. We have some amendments to the legislation that I have circulated. There is also one thing here which I am not sure how to incorporate into the legislation. It is not an amendment it is a change to the head note of clause 196. The head note of clause 196 is currently 'Advertorials', whatever they are. I did not notice that before. I will get some advice from the clerks on how I incorporate that in a reprinting.

Mr McKim - Can I just indicate by interjection that we don't have a problem with it. It has been explained in brief to us and we don't have a problem with it.

Mrs JACKSON - No, okay, but I don't know how to get it into the bill.

Bill read the second time.