Senator REYNOLDS (Western Australia) (13:23): As a proud senator for Western Australia and having worked for many Australian and international democratic institutions over the course of my career, I’ve often had cause to reflect on the nature and the health of our democracy, and never more so than now in my role as Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters and particularly at a time when Australian confidence in all of us is in decline. Working overseas with many democratic institutions, with candidates and political parties in new democracies and troubled democracies, has helped me see our own democracy through very different and new eyes—and this was a significant motivation for me to seek election in this place as a senator for Western Australia.

Over the course of my career, and particularly over the last three years here in the Senate, I have come to believe that our democracy itself is in trouble, and my time here, as I said, is only heightening that concern. This is why I understand how important my role as Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters actually is, although I understand that chairing any committee in this place is not a solo endeavour for any single MP, member or senator. I also believe that all Australians have a role to play in the health of our democracy, just as every single one of us in this place does.

But first to the nature of democracy itself because, to engage in these discussions, we have to have some understanding of what our democracy is and then we can look at what we can do to protect it. If you look through any dictionary or any reference on the internet, you will very quickly see that ‘democracy’ defies a single definition. I’ll start with one saying about democracy that all of us in this place are familiar with—that is, Winston Churchill’s observation in 1947 that ‘democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.’ Too often that quote is used by people to explain away democracy’s shortcomings. But too few of us have stopped to really think about the implications buried within Winston Churchill’s comments.

I’ve come to see democracy as a volatile mix of at least five seemingly incompatible forces: the first is hope, external and aspirational hope—hope for a better life for one’s children, hope your voice will be heard, hope that those elected to represent you will act with your best interests at heart; the second is the ideological battle between those who fight for individual freedoms and those who fight for collective rights; the third is competing interests themselves—the competing cultures and competing religious beliefs of the majority versus the minorities within any community; the fourth is the power struggles between those who have the power and those who seek it; and the fifth is the requirement for the economy to prosper, and security—two fundamental preconditions for a stable democracy in any country.

One of the fundamental issues that JSCEM, and I believe all of us in this place, are focused on is: how do we maintain the health of our democracy itself? One of the most critical factors is that all Australians, when exercising their rights as citizens, must have confidence in the integrity of the democratic institutions that maintain our electoral systems. While voters might not like the result that the election delivers, they absolutely have to have confidence that it accurately reflects the votes cast and that the election has been conducted free of corrupting influences and also foreign influences. I also believe that we need to maintain a multipartisan agreement, which looks beyond the politics of the day, to ensure that we maintain the integrity and transparency of our electoral processes, again to maintain or regain voter confidence in the very process itself.

Another consideration for the committee, and for all of us, is the fact that disruptive technologies are resulting in very radical transformations to all aspects of our lives, including how we vote. The Electoral Act itself was enacted in 1918, in the lifetime of my grandfather, a World War II veteran. His life’s times and expectations were very different from the world I grew up in and when the last significant amendments were made to the act in 1984. It was still an analog world. We couldn’t even have imagined smartphones, internet, wi-fi and the confirmation bias that has resulted from social media.

It is also very clear that over the course of the last couple of decades public confidence in our own democracy, and confidence in ourselves as politicians to be able to accurately reflect the public’s desires and needs, is declining. Today, poll after poll demonstrates that Australians are increasingly disengaged from our political process and from us as their elected representatives. The Lowy Institute’s tracking polls on Australians’ views of democracy over the last five years demonstrate that this is actually increasing. The most recent poll found that just 52 per cent of Australians aged 18 to 29 agree that democracy is the most desirable form of government. When we stop and think about it, the implications of that are that the next generation of voters could take or leave democracy. If that does not worry every single person in this chamber and in the broader community then I don’t know what would. That figure compares to an equally dismal 60 per cent for the entire population. What that means is that just half of 18- to 30-year-olds value what many in the world still fight and die for.

This is not just a trend in Australia; it is a trend consistent with what we’re seeing right throughout Western democracies. The lack of political engagement in our society is a clear message to all of us that the health of democracies—in this case, our own democracy—can never be taken for granted. In our system of responsible government, there is an expectation in the community that once someone has—often reluctantly—gone to vote on election day, their job is done, and they have effectively outsourced or handed over responsibility to all of us in this place and in the other place to make all of the decisions on their behalf. But the fact is they still, for the health of our democracy, have a responsibility to engage in the processes: debating, discussing and making their voices heard to all of us in here so that we don’t hear just the squeaky voices of the minority. I believe that for our democracy to continue to function effectively, we have to find a way to re-engage Australians in the big discussions and debates in our community. If they don’t, under our system of responsible government, how can we as legislators know what the majority of voters nationally and in our individual constituencies actually want?

At the same time, one of the things the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters is now looking at is that our democratic systems have to be accessible to all the citizens they serve, which means that we must also adapt to changing ideas of politics and political engagement, and make better use of technology. The committee is currently examining how we can do this with donations, and I’m very hopeful that we can achieve a multipartisan consensus for change. Clearly, it’s not only in the best interests of our democracy to do so; I would say it is in the self-interest of everybody in this chamber to improve the public perception of and appreciation for what their elected representatives actually do.

There is some light at the end of the tunnel, I believe. The public debate surrounding the postal survey on marriage equality shows that younger Australians—while they may be disengaged from political processes and may have very scant regard for democracy—are not disengaged from political issues. According to the Australian Electoral Commission, an extra 90,000 Australians have added their names to the electoral roll since the announcement of the postal survey, and the AEC has received an unprecedented 800,000 requests either to join the electoral roll or to amend or update details. Regardless of what their opinion on the issue is, Australians, particularly young Australians, clearly want to have a say and have a voice, and I would say hallelujah for that.

I am very optimistic about our nation’s future, but I know how we practise democracy needs to evolve, and it won’t just happen. JSCEM is reviewing this on behalf of both chambers and finding a way forward for the process and for regaining people’s trust in the process. What I would say—and perhaps it is unexpected of me—is: let’s finds a way of keeping younger Australians engaged after this postal survey, so they can keep having their say and so we can engage them, possibly for the first time, in our electoral processes.