I think what I said was that it would change voter turnout.
You're right that no voting system is going to change the problem of voter turnout, because the key thing to increase voter turnout is to increase direct contact between the political class and the individual. We know from studying voter turnout that if you have someone who is not already committed to vote, the key predictor of their turning out to vote is some sort of personal contact.
The old enumeration system was very good for putting people on the road and knocking on doors and alerting people that an election was coming. What I said about proportional systems was that there's evidence they will change voter turnout. In New Zealand, for instance, they discovered that the composition of the electorate changed, even though the rate didn't. People who were only motivated by “the ship is sinking; we could lose by one vote” weren't as motivated under PR, but those who felt under-represented—the less privileged voters, those who had traditionally been left out of our political system and by extension their political system—were more likely to turn out under PR.
From the point of view of equity—and I think this committee is very interested in that—there is evidence that a PR system would move significantly towards addressing some of those equity concerns about who is influencing what happens in our Parliament.