Topics: SMOS role; electronic voting; vote count in Herbert; four-year terms.
E&OE…
DAVID SPEERS:
Joining us today is the newly appointed and sworn-in Special Minister of State, he’s also the Assistant Cabinet Secretary, Scott Ryan. Minister thanks for joining us. Congratulations on your new role. Special Minister of State – people often wonder what that involves, it involves electoral matters and some public service oversight, but I might get you to explain what you see the role as.
SCOTT RYAN:
Well the first thing I’ll say is that my four year-old was very impressed that I was a Special Minister.
DAVID SPEERS:
Not just any Minister?
SCOTT RYAN:
He liked that the other day and he asked the same question. The Special Minister of State oversees independently of course, the electoral commission. That’s arms-length independent organisation, but also has oversight over electoral law. That’s one of the pieces of legislation I’m responsible for, and also a lot of the expenses that are incurred in running a democracy – parliamentary expenses, overseeing even little things, like where MPs locate their offices and assistance to those with larger electorates. I also will be taking on some responsibilities for the Finance Minister around active-grace payments which are an administrative measure the Commonwealth takes over, and I’ll be working with Arthur Sinodinos as his assistant as well (inaudible, interrupted)…
DAVID SPEERS:
(interrupts) Well the electoral matters – it’s timely that you’re here because this story this afternoon that we’ve just been airing about the seat of Herbert and whether there were some missing defence votes there, maybe up to 85. That would make the difference between winning and losing potentially. What do you make of all of that? Could we well be headed for a fresh election there?
SCOTT RYAN:
I think we just need to take a step back. The Commissioner – there is a recount been ordered by the authorities within the Commission; that commenced today. That’s not uncommon in a seat with a margin this close, and that will be a full recount of every ballot paper and a full re-scrutineer of every ballot paper for formality and preferences. And that’s likely to take a week, or maybe a touch longer, so it’s as if we start counting again and I think it’s important that we let that process go through. There are scrutineers there from all Parties, I know that Ewen Jones has scrutineers, and then the Electoral Commission will make a determination.
DAVID SPEERS:
Is it normal though for defence personnel if they’re on a military exercise to just not be able to vote at all?
SCOTT RYAN:
We do go to a lot of trouble – I should say the Electoral Commission, this is something they do-
DAVID SPEERS:
Yeah.
SCOTT RYAN:
They go to a lot of trouble to ensure that those who are travelling, not just defence personnel but particularly those because they are often in remote locations or overseas, are able to vote. In past years, I don’t think it was operating this time, there was a sort of electronic voting experience that I know a friend of mine when he was in the Solomons had to use in 2007. So, I haven’t pressed the Electoral Commission for a briefing yet on the conduct of this election because they have got other things to do.
DAVID SPEERS:
This isn’t the Electoral Commission, Defence…well I don’t know who is to blame here, but Defence has confirmed that 628 soldiers, most of them from Darwin, weren’t able to vote because they were on this exercise Hamel in South Australia. Does that raise a concern for you?
SCOTT RYAN:
It raises a concern if any Australian can’t exercise a right to vote, or indeed they cannot fulfil their obligation to attend a ballot box or attempt to vote. It is one of the things I will chase up with the Commission after they get through both the Senate count, which has a couple more weeks to run, and also the recount in Herbert. I haven’t, and I don’t intend to put pressure on them over this couple of days while their primary function, which is counting votes, is their main mission.
DAVID SPEERS:
What about the time it take to count votes and to do recounts? I mean it could be, from election day, 6 weeks until we know the outcome in Herbert, that’s if there isn’t a fresh election there. What do you think? Is that reasonable?
SCOTT RYAN:
I think, to be fair, we’ll know the result in Herbert in a couple of weeks and that would be effectively, you know three to four weeks. I’m a big believer in getting in right rather than speed, but I think there are some interesting lessons that we can learn from the Senate system. They are now using a mechanism of electronic scanning of ballot papers to speed up the count in the Senate because the new senate voting system requires every ballot paper to be considered in a different way than was previously the case.
DAVID SPEERS:
What does the electronic scanning do?
SCOTT RYAN:
I’m actually inspecting it Monday. I can’t go to the Victorian Senate count because I’m a candidate and candidates aren’t allowed, but I’m going with the Commissioner next week to actually look at the Senate count in Sydney for New South Wales. As I understand the operation of it, it involves the scanning of a ballot paper and then a manual data entry to ensure that a person enters it and the scan is the same, and this is all done in front of scrutineers, because before the changes to Senate voting system, in most states more than 95 percent of ballot papers were able to be counted as just a number one above the line and they were entered in the computer as a number. There were so many numbers… (interrupted)
DAVID SPEERS:
(interrupts) What do you think about electronic voting? We did do it I’m pretty sure it was the last ACT election here. You go into the booth and you – it’s not done at home – but you go into the booth and you press a button.
SCOTT RYAN:
That’s something that I know the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition have commented upon. We have to distinguish between what I’ll call three different ways of doing it. There’s one where you can have electronic counting of ballot papers, which we’re using in the Senate; there’s the full-scale voting by internet, which I don’t was what most people are talking about; and then there’s the voting on an electronic machine that allows instant tabulation. So I think we should actually be proud of the system that we do get right. We have a very good electoral system in this country. We get a very high turnout, we do count a lot of votes on the night, and unlike a lot of countries we actually need to do preferences. Most other countries just do a first past the post count, which is who got the most votes. We don’t distribute preferences between minor parties and major parties. So I think we focus on what we do well, and then say how can we use technology to actually speed up the process, and in some cases to get more accuracy as well. I’m very confident about the accuracy of our elections. But electronic measures can be used to assist that as well.
DAVID SPEERS:
So, that’s a maybe?
SCOTT RYAN:
The Electoral Matters Committee will get a reference from the Government to look into matters pertaining to this election, that is under consideration at the moment.
DAVID SPEERS:
Now, what do you think about the idea of four-year terms? One of your colleagues, David Coleman, has put this out there as an idea – it is not a new one. At the moment we have a three-year term in the House, a six-year term in the Senate. What do you think? A four-year term…a lot of the states, I think all of the states now do it. Should we have one federally as well?
SCOTT RYAN:
Firstly, I have to say this, I am a Senator so Members of the House of Reps, they put their names individually on ballot papers and have to face election more often than Senators in the usual course of events. I am not necessarily convinced of four-year terms myself. I understand the arguments for them, and maybe things have changed and they need to be reconsidered. It was put to a referendum in 1988 and it didn’t manage to get a third of the population’s support. They have, however, done it in more states ever since. But, that said, when I look at the Commonwealth level and some of the most successful governments we have had in our history, major economic reforms in the 80s, the GST after the 1998 election, even significant issues that caused a lot of political difficulty like national gun laws brought in by John Howard, these were all done with three-year parliaments. So, I don’t think three-year parliaments themselves are a barrier to government delivering reform.
DAVID SPEERS:
We haven’t had much major reform though, since then. This is more than a decade ago.
SCOTT RYAN:
I think that, to me the success of reform is defined by how well we convince the public of its need. Not necessarily being able to do it and then sort of hope it works and then get support for it after we do it before the next election. When I look back at the GST implementation, I actually think imminent elections, and the fact that an election was coming, ensures politicians mount their argument every single day and seek to generate consent and support for the measures they put in place.
DAVID SPEERS:
And with all due respect Senator, you couldn’t give Senators eight years as a term, could you? That would be far too long.
SCOTT RYAN:
That is one of the significant issues. I like the idea that half of the Senate is elected at each election, I do like the fact that there is a sort of break on…or counter-majoritarian measure that says you have sort of extended mandates for the Upper House. It is a House of review. I encourage all of my colleagues to express their views on it, I don’t dismiss that in anyway. But, I do think three-year terms and winning the argument every day, convincing people of the need for the change you are implementing – I think that is also a path to reform. We have had some bad governments survive for four years – I can think of the Kirner government, I can think of what happened in New South Wales where governments were just counting down the days. But I can’t yet point at a good government that has lost because of a three-year term.
DAVID SPEERS:
Will you as Special Minister of State also have some oversight role of the plebiscite, if it happens, on same-sex marriage?
SCOTT RYAN:
I have had a brief discussion with Senator Brandis the Attorney-General, and that is something that I plan to seek information on over the coming days and weeks. That is a matter that the Government is strongly committed to, and it is a matter that I and George Brandis will have to bring forward.
DAVID SPEERS:
Presumably it would be run by the AEC?
SCOTT RYAN:
That has been the history of plebiscites, I can’t remember how the 1998 constitutional convention ballot was run, or who ran it – I understand it was a postal ballot, but that is not something I have any particular interest in at the moment. But I will be seeking advice from the Electoral Commission specifically about the conduct of a plebiscite in the coming weeks.
DAVID SPEERS:
Just away from all of that, a final one. Here today we have had the AMA boss meeting the Health Minister. Clearly the AMA doctors’ groups, generally, want you to unfreeze that Medicare rebate for doctors. Should they be holding their breath?
SCOTT RYAN:
I think it is great that the Minister met with the AMA today. From what I gather it was a very productive meeting, they both made it clear that occasionally they will disagree but the basis of strong health policy is ongoing discussion and dialogue, because they both have a common interest in ensuring that we get the best use of every health dollar. But I think the head of the AMA, Dr Gannon, also said that this is a significant budgetary measure and I think he said that no one was going to find $2 billion behind a pot plant.
DAVID SPEERS:
No, certainly not at the moment it would seem. Scott Ryan, I know you would probably like to stick around and talk about American politics but I better let you go. Minister, thank you very much for joining us this afternoon.
SCOTT RYAN:
Thanks David.
(ENDS)