Page 961 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 April 1994
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MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (5.24): I move:
7. Page 15, line 34 to page 16, line 3, proposed new paragraph 57(2)(c), omit the paragraph, substitute the following paragraphs:
"(c) in relation to an MLA or the registered officer of a registered party -
(i) a purpose connected with an election; or
(ii) monitoring the accuracy of information contained in the roll;
(d) in relation to any person - a prescribed purpose.".
The purpose of this amendment is to remove the possibility that any person could obtain personal electoral roll information in printed or electronic form for a purpose related to an election or monitoring the accuracy of the electoral roll. This amendment is intended to ensure that only MLAs and registered parties will have automatic access to enrolment information for election and enrolment related purposes. Under this amendment persons other than MLAs and political parties will be able to obtain information only for a prescribed purpose.
The amendment will close a potential loophole in the scheme contained in the Electoral (Amendment) Bill which is intended to tightly control the uses to which personal electoral roll information is put. As it stands, new paragraph 57(2)(c) could allow persons with no legitimate interest in the electoral process to obtain personal roll information for purposes that might not be in the public interest. The amendment will ensure that access to enrolment information will be granted only for specific purposes. It is intended that specific prescribed purposes will carry appropriate end-use limitations to ensure that personal information is not misused. I commend this amendment to the Assembly.
MR HUMPHRIES (5.26): Madam Speaker, I am a little bit uncomfortable with the Government's amendment. What it does, in effect, is change the basis on which people other than MLAs can use electoral rolls. As I understand it, this provision makes no change effectively to the position of an MLA or the registered officer of a political party. They can still have access to that information for purposes connected with an election, for monitoring the accuracy of information contained in the roll, or for prescribed purposes. All three of those heads are available to an MLA or an officer of a registered political party.
What this amendment does is change the existing provision. The capacity of an individual, not being one of those two previous people, to use the roll for that purpose is now removed. That person now has only one criterion for using an electoral roll, and that is a prescribed purpose. The Chief Minister said this in the explanatory memorandum, and I thought it was a misprint when I read it:
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