Topics: Herbert vote count; AEC; electronic voting; same-sex marriage plebiscite
E&OE ……………………
PETER VAN ONSELEN:
As promised I’m joined now by the Special Minister of State Senator Scott Ryan. Welcome to the program Senator Ryan.
I want to ask you right off the bat, the electorate of Herbert, this is one that could well see a by-election, wouldn’t that be a bad look, if you guys tried to take it to the Court of Disputed Returns, have a by-election, it just looks like sour grapes? We know by-elections don’t tend to go in the government’s favour, but this could really backfire on the Turnbull Government, if that ends up being the strategy.
SCOTT RYAN:
Well Peter, I think you’ve made a couple of leaps there. The Electorate Commission has finalised counting primary votes and will be checking the distribution and preferences, so let’s wait and see what happens with the finalisation of the count before anyone gets talking about issues like that.
VAN ONSELEN:
Well Labor’s all-but claiming victory. Its candidate Cathy O’Toole has jumped on Facebook and said ‘we’ve won’ by 30-odd votes.
RYAN:
Well let’s wait and see. As I understand it, the count has not yet concluded. As you would appreciate, 30 votes out of more than 100,000 is a very, very narrow margin. I expect there to be an official … [interrupted]
VAN ONSELEN:
What might change? What is she relying on? You’re obviously talking about their scrutineers and their assumptions around preferences. In your experience, you’ve done a lot of this over the years, does that often change?
RYAN:
It has. It has actually changed in this particular seat. You’d have to ask Labor what they’re claiming or on what basis they’re claiming that. I haven’t seen that particular Facebook post. Look, I just think it is important that we let the Electoral Commission finish that particular job. It’s been a formal recount in a very close seat, it will probably only be another 24 or 36 hours, and then we can ask people what their particular views on other issues are. The Electoral Commission called the recount last week and it will get it done within the week.
VAN ONSELEN:
You’re a new minister, with responsibilities as Special Minister of State, let me ask you this: do you have full confidence in the AEC, more generally? They bungled the Senate vote back in 2013 and it had to be redone, there were problems with missing ballots in Cowan, there were problems with ballots being incorrectly done in Herbert, in fact, such a tight contest, and there were all sorts of other allegations right around the country, there is talk about electronic voting – I mean, how much faith do you have in the AEC that you’ve now got oversight of?
RYAN:
I have a lot of faith in the AEC. You quite rightly pointed out the disastrous bungle in the 2013 federal election for the Western Australian Senate vote that required, effectively, a re-run of the election. Since then the Electoral Commission has put in place a lot of changes to ensure the security of ballot papers. I might say, having visited the NSW senate counting centre on Monday with the Electoral Commissioner, the logistical operation and security measures that the Electoral Commission has put in place are extremely impressive. They now have to, effectively, scan and data-entry every single individual Senate ballot paper – as we know, in the three eastern states, they’re basically a metre long. Millions of people voted on one day. We have millions of pre-poll voters, we have more than a million postal voters.
I’ll be getting a complete report on some of the issues, as you mentioned, and any issues that arose in the campaign. There will be a standard Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters inquiry into the conduct of the election. But I think the way we conduct elections in Australia, we have a lot to be proud of and particularly since some problems arose in the 2013 election, at least everything I’ve learnt over the last eight days in this job, the AEC has put in place measures to ensure that never happens again.
VAN ONSELEN:
Are you personally predisposed towards electronic voting? Or are you more conservative and predisposed against it?
RYAN:
I think that it is always worth opening our mind to new ideas. I maintain an open mind, but I start from the point that we do need to be careful not to throw away what we have and I think you would know, as a political scientist, Peter, the pre-printed ballot form used and standardised across the country is actually an Australian innovation. In the United States it is even referred to as the ‘Australian ballot’. I think that we also need to remember that most other countries, when they count votes more quickly, are actually using a ‘first past the post’ system. There are electronic voting systems that do proportional systems but when we look at results coming more quickly in places like the UK, they’ve got a ‘first past the post’ voting system, so you only have to basically count up how many ticks and crosses in each box. Our preferential system does bring with it some complexity. Then we have the issue of technology and how you would actually facilitate a ballot paper that is effectively a metre long being on a computer screen. It is going to be something that I think the electoral matters committee will probably consider given the public comments, I think it is appropriate to consider it. But we do need to look at what we have now, its strengths, before we automatically move on to something new.
VAN ONSELEN:
One of the interesting things about electronic voting, from my perspective, is you could get rid of the informal vote because people could be warned that their vote was an invalid vote before they decide to actually lodge it, if it were done electronically, in case it was done by mistake rather than by intent, but I’ve got a lot I want to get through.
One more question, do you have a philosophical problem with having both compulsory voting and compulsory preferencing? I’ve been talking about this for weeks here on Sky News. It strikes me, simply put, that yes, great, make it compulsory to vote, in broad terms, to ensure that people aren’t disenfranchised, but then don’t have compulsory preferencing, which essentially, 99 times out of 100, is forcing people to vote for one of the two major parties.
RYAN:
Look Peter, as you know, the rationale for preferential voting was not just to try and get the most popular, but to get the most preferred candidate …
VAN ONSELEN:
But I’m talking compulsory preferential …
RYAN:
I appreciate that, compulsory preferential voting. The rationale is that it forces people to say, if you can’t have you want, this is who you would prefer because most electorates, historically, have been contests between two parties or a party and a prominent, local independent. I have written previously, when I was a member on the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, in favour of optional preferential voting, but I hasten to add, that is not something that is Government policy. That is not something that has been put forward as Government policy.
VAN ONSELEN:
That’s why I asked you about that Senator. I knew that was your position.
RYAN:
It was a while ago.
VAN ONSELEN:
Nonetheless, I’m sure you don’t just change your views the way that radicals might, you’re more conservative than that. Are you interested in trying to re-engage in that space now that you’ve got ministerial carriage?
RYAN:
As a minister, my job is to take forward proposals to the Cabinet and then a collective decision is made on behalf of the Government.
VAN ONSELEN:
Yeah, but will you do that? That’s really what I’m wondering.
RYAN:
Well look, I wrote that as a member of the committee. I didn’t outline it as a key electoral priority for the time, but it was in one of those reports where you get to range across a whole number of issues that you wouldn’t normally get to cover. It’s not a priority now. I think we’ve got a number of issues, some of the issues you mentioned earlier, as well as other issues coming forward that the Electoral Commission will be involved in and they’re my priorities for the coming months.
VAN ONSELEN:
One of those is definitely, which we are going to get to now before we run out of time, the plebiscite on same-sex marriage. A lot of debate about whether it can happen this side of the new year or not, I’ll get your thoughts on that in a moment, but firstly, you’ve got carriage, essentially, as Special Minister of State, of the functionality of this, are you even in favour of having a plebiscite? Which way did you vote inside the party room?
RYAN:
We took a position on supporting a plebiscite to the election after the party room made a clear decision on that, as well as our cabinet at the time, and I am completely committed to having a plebiscite on this issue. I think it is important that we fulfil very specific promises that we make. The real question here is whether the Labor Party is going to block the Coalition from delivering …
VAN ONSELEN:
Let’s go through some of the mechanics of that. We will get to the timing in a moment, of whether it can be done this year or not, what happens, give us the two scenarios, if Labor rejects it and you can’t get it through the Parliament. What are the terms by which you can still have a plebiscite, if you can at all, whereas is they do let it through would it ascribe to what you’d expect in a referendum: compulsory voting and those sort of elements?
RYAN:
I’m having a formal briefing from the Electoral Commissioner next week and I’m seeking some advice from him on plebiscite-related issues, as a I might call them, and that ranges across lead times necessary, as well as issues around the voter experience, as a I might call them. I don’t want to pre-empt any of that. This is a decision of Cabinet, which will then be taken to the party room and then for the Parliament to look at through legislation. As I understand it, legislation is necessary and I’ll be bringing forward a submission to the Cabinet underpinning that over the coming months.
VAN ONSELEN:
Is it not possible though, to have a plebiscite without compulsory voting, for example, if the legislation can’t be passed , the Government can make that script?
RYAN:
To be honest with you Peter, I don’t know the answer to that question.
VAN ONSELEN:
On the timing though, is it a fair point to say we don’t yet know, until you have your discussion with the head of the AEC, whether or not there is enough time to have a plebiscite in this calendar year?
RYAN:
A couple of people have asked me this over the last week. The AEC has two big jobs: facilitating people voting and then counting the votes. Those are their most important jobs, I would contend. So I think it is important that over the last week, I’ve let them get on with that job. My meeting with the Electoral Commissioner next week will be about a range of issues, including some of the issues you mentioned at the start of this interview and issues that arose during the campaign and things I need to be aware of. But I will also be seeking advice from him on necessary lead times for a plebiscite that would be akin to a referendum experience for a voter.
VAN ONSELEN:
But surely you will be telling him to make it happen, won’t you? Because both the Prime Minister and Attorney General have said they’d like to see it happen this side of the calendar year, and as you pointed out, promises matter.
RYAN:
And as George Brandis said, I believe on the weekend, that is the intention of the Government, but he also made it clear that I would be seeking advice from the Electoral Commission on necessary lead times following the passage of legislation through Parliament.
VAN ONSELEN:
What’s your gut feel, looking at the Senate, whether you can get support of whether to have a plebiscite on same-sex marriage, and I say that in the context of even if Labor opposes it. You’re Special Minister of State first, Senator as well – there are a lot of crossbenchers there, Greens have had cracks, if I can put it that way, in their willingness to, albeit begrudgingly, support a plebiscite. If you were a betting man would you bet that you would get your legislation through on this? Or are you more pessimistic than that?
RYAN:
I’m optimistic, always cautiously optimistic Peter. I’m optimistic because I think the electorate has spoken. We were very clear about this as a commitment. The Prime Minister has been clear about this as the mechanism to resolve this question and, as he has outlined, he is a supporter of change. And I think this is the best possible, and the speediest means, to resolve this important issue.
VAN ONSELEN:
Just a quick final question: why does the Government not consider Special Minister of State an important enough role to be in Cabinet, when the Opposition, with Stephen Conroy, as your shadow, has it as an important enough role to have Senator Conroy in Cabinet?
RYAN:
Senator Conroy is Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate. I attend [Cabinet] in my other role as Minister Assisting the Cabinet Secretary. I am very happy with my role, I have done a lot of work in it, I represented it in the Senate when Bronwyn Bishop was the shadow, and it is a fascinating role because it involves a lot of the mechanics of our democracy.
VAN ONSELEN:
Senator Scott Ryan, I appreciate you joining us on the program.
ENDS