Walker Holly: Electoral Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWalker Holly: Electoral Amendment Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee[Sitting date: 11 March 2014. Volume:697;Page:16491. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]HOLLY WALKER (Green):Apologies to my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway but I also would like to take a call on Part 2 to address some of the contributions made by Alfred Ngaro. Like him I have been involved in the Justice and Electoral Committee on this particular matter for some time starting with the inquiry into the 2011 general election. As Mr Ngaro will recall we spent a long time on that inquiry—some would say perhaps too long. There was at one point a question mark over whether there would even be time for this Electoral Amendment Bill to come before the House and be passed in time to put its provisions in place for this year’s election because we took so long over the 2011 general election inquiry. But I am not ashamed of the fact that we took a long time on that inquiry because it was a very robust process we reached consensus and we worked very hard to do that. I was proud of my work on that inquiry. It was my first experience of real genuine cross-party collaboration on a select committee item of business where I think we got a really positive result.One of the outcomes of that process was the recommendation that changes be made to the use of the EasyVote card to include on it a scannable code so that it could be used as a record that a vote had been cast in the election. That was what we went round in circles actually about for a while during the general election inquiry because there was concern about the potential for voter fraud. We heard from submitters who had that concern we heard from members of the committee who had that concern and we heard from the Electoral Commission which gave us evidence about why that concern was unfounded. We listened and we concluded that it was an unfounded concern and that we could include a recommendation to allow the EasyVote card to be used in this way. So we did and that is what appeared in the first draft of this legislation. So as we now debate Part 2 and the consequential amendments to what has just passed by a very slim majority in Part 1 I think it is important that we consider why it is that we have departed so far from the original draft of the bill which was what the Minister of Justice brought to this House and was what the Justice and Electoral Committee recommended after its inquiry into the 2011 election.I was not present for the select committee discussions on this bill. I would venture to say that if I had been I might have made these arguments in person in the discussions. Unfortunately I was on parental leave and I could not do that but the same arguments that applied when we were talking about the election inquiry and about the EasyVote card apply to this bill. Those concerns which may well have been raised by members of the committee during the discussion of this bill about the potential for increased electoral fraud are simply unfounded. From a user perspective—from a voter perspective—going along to cast their vote in the 2014 election on 20 September this year there would be no difference if the bill as originally drafted were to pass. Their use of the EasyVote card would not change. It would not make it easier for them to use the card. It would not make them more likely to commit fraud. It would not make them less likely to commit fraud. There would be no difference. They would simply take the EasyVote card along to the polling booth present it to the polling place staff member and get their voting papers. So those concerns that somehow there is an increased chance of fraud taking place from this are simply unfounded. From the user perspective there is no difference. You get the card in the mail; you take it to the polling booth.Where the difference comes is that after the vote has been cast the scannable code on the EasyVote card allows the Electoral Commission staff to scan it so that the casting of a vote is electronically recorded against the electoral roll. That is the difference and that is what we have inexplicably deleted from this bill which has broken down the consensus that was achieved over a very long period of time when the committee originally considered these items in its 2011 election inquiry. I think that that is a real shame because all it is doing is making it more difficult for the Electoral Commission to do its job on election day and it is missing the opportunity to streamline electoral processes and to actually continue to modernise and update our electoral law.There are a number of consequential amendments in Part 2 that stem from what we have debated in Part 1. Again we will support those because we do generally support the tenor of this legislation. We supported all of the recommendations that originally prompted this bill. We were very excited about modernising our electoral law and it is a great shame that some unfounded concern about voter fraud which if you take a cynical view as my colleague Mr Lees-Galloway has—