tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/aec-7234/articlesAEC – The Conversation2023-06-20T02:26:42Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2080312023-06-20T02:26:42Z2023-06-20T02:26:42ZProposed spending and donations caps may at last bring genuine reform to national election rules<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532800/original/file-20230620-19-gj9ynp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Luis Ascui/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Money in electoral politics is like salt in the human body. Essential for activity – but too much imperils the heart.</p>
<p>Australia’s laws for the financing of national elections are the least developed of any comparable country. The present model marks its 40th birthday this year. In that time, other nations, and <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp2122/Quick_Guides/ElectionFundingStates">most Australian states</a>, have modernised and tightened their laws.</p>
<p>Parliamentary committee <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Electoral_Matters/2022federalelection/Interim_Report/Recommendations">recommendations</a> that have just been released – with the endorsement of Labor, Greens and crossbench members – may be the catalyst for change. </p>
<p>What is the current regime? What reforms are proposed? And what are the prospects for lasting reform?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sweeping-election-donation-and-spending-reforms-recommended-by-parliamentary-committee-208030">Sweeping election donation and spending reforms recommended by parliamentary committee</a>
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<h2>Current rules</h2>
<p>The Hawke government laid down the essentials of the present system in <a href="https://theconversation.com/follow-the-money-the-difficult-path-to-political-donation-reform-44138">1983</a>. Then, as now, they involve some public disclosure of donations, plus public funding for parties or candidates that receive over 4% of the vote.</p>
<p>Disclosure is meant to achieve transparency around sources of campaign money. Public funding is “clean money”, to defray the cost of electioneering. (It has particularly helped minor parties, which attract few corporate donations.) Together, these measures aimed for improved integrity and a modicum of political equality.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.aec.gov.au/Parties_and_Representatives/financial_disclosure/">disclosure net</a> has widened, particularly under the last Coalition government, to cover all sorts of lobby groups that electioneer. But at most it only requires annual reporting.</p>
<p>The net is also replete with holes. Parties only have to disclose “gifts” over $15,200 a year. Smaller donations, for federal electioneering, may be given anonymously to each division of a party.</p>
<p>Worse, the Liberal and Labor parties charge <a href="https://michaelwest.com.au/two-party-state-top-corporations-lobbyists-revealed-members-of-liberal-and-labor-parties/">six-figure annual sums</a> to join their business “network” or “forum”. The Australian Electoral Commission then <a href="https://insidestory.org.au/following-the-money-graeme-orr/">lets them decide</a> if that is a “gift” or a valuable purchase. This equates the undemocratic sale of access to politicians to, say, a genuine conference fee.</p>
<p>Public funding started at 30 cents per vote (quaintly, the cost of a stamp for a mailout). It is now over $3.12 per vote. Without limits on spending or donations, it has acted more like bankable seed funding than an incentive to avoid big and possibly dodgy donations.</p>
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<h2>Proposed reforms</h2>
<p>The latest recommendations aim for holistic regulation across four topics. In doing so, they approximate Canada’s system, the most comprehensively regulated of our liberal-egalitarian democratic cousins. The system would also be similar to those that have evolved, over the past 15 years, for state elections in New South Wales and Queensland.</p>
<p>The first topic is transparency. The report recommends that gifts over $1,000 a year to a party – or to a lobby group for electioneering – be disclosed. For greater timeliness, it <a href="https://insidestory.org.au/on-political-donations-queensland-sets-the-pace/">follows Queensland</a> in proposing “real-time” disclosure.</p>
<p>The second topic is spending limits. These are a must for fairness. For the last two national elections we witnessed the farce of Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party splurging <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/how-much-clive-palmer-spent-to-win-one-united-australia-party-seat-in-parliament/yfk694ie1">record amounts</a> to drown out its rivals. </p>
<p>Spending limits can rein in that <a href="https://citynews.com.au/2023/push-to-stop-arms-race-in-federal-election-spending/">arms race</a>. While the UAP had little formal success, it still distorted the agenda (and vexed many electors).</p>
<p>The third topic is donation caps. As with spending limits, no dollar amount is yet proposed. This gives wriggle room to find a “Goldilocks” figure somewhere between the Greens’ desire for a low cap and what the Liberal-National parties and Climate 200-backed teal independents would prefer.</p>
<p>By comparison, state caps range between $7,000 a year to a NSW party and just $4,320 over a four-year term in Victoria. As with spending limits, it’s important to adjust for the bigger stage of national campaigns. </p>
<p>The freedom of expression of lobby groups also must be accommodated, without letting them dominate. (Unlike parties, lobby groups are neither up for election, nor publicly accountable.)</p>
<p>The final topic is public funding. To compensate for reining in donations, public funding will rise. The report also recommends “administrative funding” for parties, to assist with compliance costs. Taxpayers struggling with the burgeoning cost of living can but hope public funding does not swell to the $8+ per vote enjoyed by ACT parties.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532805/original/file-20230620-25-71gk6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532805/original/file-20230620-25-71gk6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532805/original/file-20230620-25-71gk6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532805/original/file-20230620-25-71gk6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532805/original/file-20230620-25-71gk6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532805/original/file-20230620-25-71gk6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532805/original/file-20230620-25-71gk6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The money spent by Clive Palmer and his United Australia Party at the 2019 election did not win seats, but it did distort the outcome.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Chambers/AAP</span></span>
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<h2>Political prospects</h2>
<p>“It’s time for change”, as the old slogan goes. But change to what? The recommendations merely outline a model. It presumably enjoys in-principle government support. </p>
<p>Much needs to be thrashed out over the rest of the year. Whatever bill the government ultimately proposes to the Senate will require the Greens’ and crossbench support, or opposition backing. It is unlikely to attract the latter.</p>
<p>Liberal-National <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Electoral_Matters/2022federalelection/Interim_Report/Dissenting_report_by_Coalition_members_of_the_Committee">committee members</a> embraced greater disclosure, but at the $8,000-a-year mark, and not more than monthly. They rejected donation and spending caps “as proposed”. Not outright: Liberal MPs felt the sting of being <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/23/coalition-scrimps-on-mps-as-climate-200-backed-independents-outspend-them-in-key-seats">outspent</a> by teal independents in 2022.</p>
<p>Being in opposition, they have a point. Labor will attract extra donations while it wields power. Above all, the Coalition wants the “affiliation fees” of those unions that are part of the Labor Party to be capped like donations. It also worries about unions electioneering in ways that most businesses would not.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/stronger-laws-on-foreign-election-influence-were-rushed-through-this-week-limiting-speech-but-ignoring-our-billionaire-problem-177147">Stronger laws on 'foreign' election influence were rushed through this week – limiting speech but ignoring our billionaire problem</a>
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<p>Independent MPs Senator David Pocock and Kate Chaney broadly supported the proposals. However, they also want concessions to “recognise barriers” to independent candidates (who lack party infrastructure and nationwide branding) and new parties.</p>
<p>Politics necessarily mixes principle and pragmatics. In the law about politics, pragmatics includes self-interest. Reform, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-case-for-transparent-funding-and-better-regulation-of-political-parties-777">at last</a>, seems likely. Yet, to be lasting, reform should also attract a broad array of parties and even lobby groups.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208031/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Graeme Orr has worked on two ARC grants involving political finance issues, including one supported by the Electoral Council of Australia. He currently is an 'expert' member of the NSW Electoral Commission's iVote panel.</span></em></p>Long the subject of criticism and complaint, electoral spending laws may finally be made more open and fair as a result of a new review.Graeme Orr, Professor of Law, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1941772022-11-08T07:43:43Z2022-11-08T07:43:43ZWord from The Hill: Rush on for workplace bill; Albanese gives COP27 a miss; big-spending Teals<p>As well as her interviews with politicians and experts, Politics with Michelle Grattan includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation politics team.</p>
<p>The clock is fast running down on the parliamentary year, but the government still has lots to do before Christmas. </p>
<p>In this podcast Michelle and Amanda Dunn, the Conversation’s politics editor, discuss Labor’s struggle to hasten through its industrial relations bill. It is proffering multiple amendments to accommodate business objections, but also to persuade key Senate crossbencher David Pocock, who would like the controversial bill split, something the government won’t do. </p>
<p>Michelle & Amanda also canvass the COP27 conference under way in Egypt, which Anthony Albanese is not attending, and the release this week of election spending returns, which showed big cash splashes by successful Teals.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194177/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In this podcast Michelle and Amanda discuss Lathe government’s struggle to hasten through its industrial relations bill, he COP27 conference under way in Egypt, and the big cash splashes by successful Teals.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1890432022-08-22T20:01:44Z2022-08-22T20:01:44ZAustralians are tired of lies in political advertising. Here’s how it can be fixed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480310/original/file-20220822-53525-brd1um.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C0%2C3898%2C1994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">United Australia Party, Liberal Party, Australian Labor Party, Advance Australia Party</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Our voting choices are only authentic if our decisions are informed by truthful information. That condition is now increasingly elusive. </p>
<p>In Australia, over two-thirds of adult news consumers <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/focus-areas/inquiries-finalised/digital-platforms-inquiry-0/accc-commissioned-research/accc-commissioned-research">report</a> having seen media items they considered to be deceptive. This includes misleading commentary, doctored photographs and serious factual errors. </p>
<p>Political disinformation damages democracies. First, it manipulates voter preferences and distorts election results. This could be seen, for example, in the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07761-2">2016 US presidential election</a> and the <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-69503-3">Brexit referendum</a> that same year.</p>
<p>It also <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10584609.2019.1686095">polarises the electorate</a>, damages trust in government and democratic institutions, and triggers civic withdrawal. </p>
<p>A further harm is that it raises the costs of voting. Electoral legitimacy requires that the costs of participation are not too high; false claims cause information costs to escalate because much more work is required to sift the facts from the false information. </p>
<p>A new and corrosive form of disinformation is political conspiracies of the “stolen elections” variety. This type delegitimises election processes, generates doubt about the authenticity of the declared result and undermines the authority of the electoral victor, who may subsequently experience problems in governing. </p>
<p>It can even lead to serious social conflict such as the storming of the US Capitol in January 2021. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/three-reasons-why-disinformation-is-so-pervasive-and-what-we-can-do-about-it-188457">Three reasons why disinformation is so pervasive and what we can do about it</a>
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<h2>A global problem</h2>
<p>Election conspiracies also happen in Australia. During the 2022 federal election, the Australian Electoral Commission <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/17/aec-alarmed-at-dangerous-voter-claims-spreading-before-australian-election?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-3">sought to counter</a> a “dangerous” disinformation campaign waged by minor party candidates baselessly predicting a high degree of electoral fraud and interference with the results. </p>
<p>Examples of such baseless claims included: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>the AEC is “aligned to the Liberal Party”</p></li>
<li><p>Australians who are not vaccinated will not be able to vote</p></li>
<li><p>blank ballots and “donkey votes” are counted for the incumbent. </p></li>
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<p>The media landscape and its political economy have eroded both the media’s willingness to supply “truth” in political discourse, and the consumer’s demand for it. </p>
<p>Social media have decreased barriers to entry into the information marketplace. Meanwhile, many consumers seek out information that confirms their existing prejudices. In some countries there is now a lucrative market in the <a href="https://www.proquest.com/docview/2475761564">production of “fake news”</a> solely to meet consumer demand. </p>
<p>To make matters worse, the ability of consumers <a href="https://spia.princeton.edu/news/overconfidence-news-judgment-associated-false-news-susceptibility">to distinguish</a> between authentic and fake news is much lower than they realise.</p>
<p>So, there are perverse – and arguably ineradicable – incentives within the information market to produce disinformation. The market is not just failing; it is the source of the problem. </p>
<p>This means disinformation has become what is known as a “collective action problem”. This happens when the actions of market actors create social costs that require state action to clean up or prevent.</p>
<p>Notably, 84% of Australians <a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/report/we-can-handle-the-truth-opportunities-for-truth-in-political-advertising/">agree</a> on this need and would like to see truth in political advertising laws in place. </p>
<p>But this is easier said than done. What if, for example, votes and entire elections really are being stolen? We must ensure solutions do not do more harm than good, inadvertently obstructing the free flow of reliable information that is the lifeblood of any democracy. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-19-2123-0">our recent book</a>, Max Douglass, Ravi Baltutis and I explore how this might be achieved federally. We propose a cautious approach that draws lessons from laws that have operated successfully in South Australia since 1985.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-how-disinformation-could-disrupt-the-australian-election-177629">Here's how disinformation could disrupt the Australian election</a>
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<h2>7 ideas for reform</h2>
<ol>
<li><p>To avoid chilling political speech – and thereby violating the implied freedom of political communication under the Australian Constitution – truth in political advertising laws will only target identifiable political actors who are authors or authorisers of the material in question. Publishers are therefore exempt, for now at least. </p></li>
<li><p>Only false statements of fact (rather than opinion) will be subject to the law, as per the provisions under <a href="https://www.legislation.sa.gov.au/__legislation/lz/c/a/electoral%20act%201985/current/1985.77.auth.pdf">section 113</a> in SA.</p></li>
<li><p>To deter vexatious and trivial complaints, the legislation should be limited to false statements that could affect an election outcome to a “material extent”. </p></li>
<li><p>Laws should cover the entire period between elections, to take in preference allocations. </p></li>
<li><p>Penalties – which apply only to those who refuse to take down offending material – should be high enough to deter wrongdoing. However, because some political actors will cynically treat the penalty as a routine expense to gain a political advantage, we propose an additional penalty that bars the candidate from standing for one election cycle, as is the case under UK law. This is hardly controversial since section 386 of Australia’s Electoral Act 1918 already disqualifies those who have committed electoral offences such as bribery, undue influence, and interference with political liberty. </p></li>
<li><p>Regulators should be properly resourced.</p></li>
<li><p>Electoral candidates could be asked to sign a declaration that they have read and understood what the legislation requires of them. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>All of this is feasible, as the South Australian example has shown.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189043/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa Hill receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is affiliated with the Centre for Public Integrity, an anti-corruption watchdog, and the Electoral Regulation Research Network. </span></em></p>Disinformation damages trust in government and undermines democracy. Our research shows there are ways to tackle it – with examples from Australia and abroad.Lisa Hill, Professor of Politics, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1687502021-09-30T03:55:20Z2021-09-30T03:55:20ZHow did politicians and political parties get my mobile number? And how is that legal?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423276/original/file-20210927-45889-10mjfd7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C33%2C5607%2C3690&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Former Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly recently spammed large numbers of Australian voters by sending bulk text messages to their mobile phone numbers. </p>
<p>The spam texts, one of which promoted Kelly’s anti-vax views, struck many recipients as an invasion of privacy and triggered thousands of complaints to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). </p>
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<p>Kelly said the messages were “100% legal.” He is right.</p>
<p>Indeed, Australia’s <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2016C00614">anti-spam law</a> applies only to “commercial” messaging and specifically exempts political communication (Section 44) — including text messages like Kelly’s. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-therapeutic-goods-administration-has-the-power-to-stop-misleading-advertising-so-why-cant-it-stop-craig-kellys-texts-168083">The Therapeutic Goods Administration has the power to stop misleading advertising. So why can't it stop Craig Kelly's texts?</a>
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<p>Some have <a href="https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/sms-spam-shakeup-new-laws-could-let-aussies-unsubscribe-from-unwanted-political-text-messages/news-story/6ec6668e6e343a913277ac8487e5a556">proposed</a> changes that would allow people to unsubscribe from unwanted political text messages. </p>
<p>But it is likely in future we will see more, not less, unsolicited text messaging — and not just in politics. </p>
<h2>How did they get my number?</h2>
<p>Kelly, who joined Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party earlier this year, has said he used software to <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/united-australia-party-leader-craig-kelly-defends-spam-messages-20210829-p58mv7.html">generate random mobile numbers</a>.</p>
<p>That’s plausible: there are plenty of <a href="https://www.coolgenerator.com/phone-number-generator">sites</a> that will perform this relatively simple task. </p>
<p>But it is not cheap to upload the random numbers onto a server that can send text messages. It’s also not efficient, as many of the randomly generated numbers will not be real numbers. </p>
<p>Then again, Palmer’s <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/clive-palmer-spent-83-million-on-failed-election-bid-20200203-p53x4j">track record</a> of lavish electoral expenditure in the 2019 federal election suggests he can afford such an approach. </p>
<p>Kelly did not reveal the actual number of text messages he sent, though it is likely to be in the thousands.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-political-parties-legally-harvest-your-data-and-use-it-to-bombard-you-with-election-spam-148803">How political parties legally harvest your data and use it to bombard you with election spam</a>
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<p>There are plenty of other ways in which your mobile phone number might end up being fodder for marketing campaigns. </p>
<p>Think how many times you provide your private contact details for retail and financial transactions, social media accounts, ID checks, entertainment subscriptions. </p>
<p>Now ask yourself: how often do you read the privacy policy of the company or organisation collecting your data? </p>
<p>The reality is your private details have a commercial value. In the murky world of data harvesting, they can be transferred and bundled up into <a href="https://australiantelemarketingleads.net/shop/consumer-leads/consumer-mobile-numbers-database">large data bases</a> and rented out to <a href="https://www.directmarketinglistsaustralia.com.au/about-us">telemarketers</a> — or they can be <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_data_breaches">leaked</a> or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/apr/05/facebook-data-leak-2021-breach-check-australia-users">hacked</a>.</p>
<p>These can include your mobile phone numbers.</p>
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<h2>How is that legal?</h2>
<p>By and large Australian phone numbers, including both landline and mobile services, are well secured. Access to the Integrated Public Number Database (IPND), managed by Telstra, is <a href="https://www.acma.gov.au/accessing-ipnd#access-to-unlisted-numbers-ipnd-regulations">overseen by the Australian Communications and Media Authority</a>. </p>
<p>Phone subscribers can choose to have a “silent” (unlisted) number, and can opt out of telemarketing calls via the <a href="https://www.donotcall.gov.au/about/about-the-do-not-call-register/">do not call register</a>.</p>
<p>But even here, there are political exemptions. Researchers can be given permission to call numbers from the IPND to conduct interview-based research – including market research into “federal state and local government electoral matters.”</p>
<p>ACMA can <a href="https://www.acma.gov.au/articles/2021-06/crackdown-financial-services-marketing-kalkine-companies-pay-350000-penalty">punish</a> companies that misuse numbers for “spam” marketing purposes.</p>
<p>But both Telstra and ACMA are clear <a href="https://exchange.telstra.com.au/blocking-political-text-messages/">they can’t block political parties</a>, along with charities and some government agencies, from sending unsolicited marketing numbers.</p>
<h2>What about the electoral roll?</h2>
<p>When you enrol to vote, you provide your full name, date of birth, current residential address, phone number or numbers, email address and citizenship. You also need proof of identity such as a driver’s licence or passport. </p>
<p>These details are <a href="https://twitter.com/AusElectoralCom/status/1437181665282043905">well protected</a> and support Australia’s system of compulsory voting. Again, however, under the Electoral Act, your name and address can be provided to members of parliament, registered political parties and candidates for the House of Representatives.</p>
<p>For both major parties, ALP and Liberal, that information forms the basis of the large data bases they have assembled for targeted campaigning: making phone calls, knocking on doors, sending automated “robocalls” and texting.</p>
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<h2>Why are political parties exempt?</h2>
<p>When Kelly joined Palmer’s party, he not only accessed Palmer’s campaign war chest. Registered political parties enjoy special treatment under Australian electoral law – including entitlement to public funding for their campaign costs, and exemptions from privacy rules governing access to personal data.</p>
<p>The rationale for the exemption is that no regulator should impede the free flow of information about electoral choice. </p>
<p>The argument is that claims and counterclaims by different politicians and parties — even false claims about vaccinations — constitute the lifeblood of democracy and should be resolved, ultimately, at the ballot box, not in the courts. </p>
<p>All this is underpinned by the High Court’s finding that the constitution “implies” the <a href="https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/rights-and-freedoms/freedom-information-opinion-and-expression">freedom of political communications</a> to the extent necessary to allow the operation of democratic government.</p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/83-of-australians-want-tougher-privacy-laws-nows-your-chance-to-tell-the-government-what-you-want-149535">83% of Australians want tougher privacy laws. Now’s your chance to tell the government what you want</a>
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<p>For all these reasons, political advertising in Australia is largely unregulated. It doesn’t have to be truthful or factual. Courts and regulators would be reluctant in the midst of an election campaign to adjudicate on truth; voters are expected to have the wisdom to work it all out at the ballot box.</p>
<p>Of course, political parties are not just the beneficiaries of this lack of regulation; they are in a real sense its authors. The capacity of rival parties to collaborate in shaping laws to suit themselves forms a key pillar of the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40407077">cartel theory of parties</a>. </p>
<p>The main, virtually the sole, regulatory requirement for political ads is they are “authorised” – that is, they include the name of a person responsible for them. Authorisation provides accountability for political statements. </p>
<h2>Remember ‘Mediscare’?</h2>
<p>Back in 2016, however, SMS messages were not covered by this requirement. At the end of the 2016 federal election campaign, the Queensland Labor Party sent a bulk text message promoting its <a href="https://theconversation.com/three-reasons-why-we-should-have-seen-labors-medicare-sms-coming-62177">scare campaign about Liberal plans to “privatise Medicare”</a>. </p>
<p>The text messages were not authorised and, moreover, purported to come from “Medicare.” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"755906429681274881"}"></div></p>
<p>The law was <a href="https://twitter.com/JoshButler/status/847218189821853696">tightened</a> in 2019. Kelly’s text messages were <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/FlagPost/2019/April/Authorising_online_political_communication">authorised</a>, by himself. </p>
<h2>Is this likely to happen more often in the future?</h2>
<p>During the Black Summer bushfires, blazes ripped through Cobargo on the far south coast of New South Wales. As part of the nation’s emergency warning system, thousands of landlines and mobile phones — my own included — were <a href="https://www.emergencyalert.gov.au/frequently-asked-questions/how-will-it-work-on-my-landline.html">alerted</a> with urgent warnings to evacuate. </p>
<p>Alerts were sent to mobiles according to their registered service address and also to the “last known location of the handset at the time of the emergency.” </p>
<p>It is a far cry from Kelly, and no one envisages political parties being able to target voters by this kind of electronic geo-location. </p>
<p>But it suggests the ability to send brief, urgent and unsolicited text messages, to large numbers of people, is too valuable to ignore. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/three-reasons-why-we-should-have-seen-labors-medicare-sms-coming-62177">Three reasons why we should have seen Labor's 'Medicare SMS' coming</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168750/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Mills does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It is likely in future we will see more, not less, unsolicited text messaging — and not just in politics.Stephen Mills, Hon Senior Lecturer, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1220332019-08-19T20:02:37Z2019-08-19T20:02:37ZYes, GetUp fights for progressive causes, but it is not a political party – and is not beholden to one<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288485/original/file-20190819-123716-10ljqki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">GetUp has been in the Coalition's firing line for a number of years now, which is not surprising, given its lobbying efforts for left-wing causes.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dan Himbrechts/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the weekend, Prime Minister Scott Morrison launched a <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/getup-hits-back-at-extraordinary-attack-by-the-pm-20190817-p52i2x.html">new assault</a> on the campaigning group <a href="https://www.getup.org.au/">GetUp</a>. At the Liberal Party’s state conference in Adelaide, he <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/doorstop-adelaide-convention-centre">said</a> GetUp needed to be “accountable for what they say and do”. </p>
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<p>They want to be in the political space, fine, call yourself a political party.</p>
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<p>GetUp has been in the government’s firing line for several years now. This isn’t surprising. The campaigning group is typically described as a “<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/scott-morrison-takes-thefight-to-getup-lurking-in-the-shadows/news-story/479758a9cb8307c469eb02e572d4ba1d">left wing</a>” and “<a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/getup-s-aggressive-progressive-tactics-may-have-backfired-20190522-p51pxs">progressive</a>” organisation, and the stances it takes on <a href="https://www.getup.org.au/campaign-pillars">various issues</a> tend to be at odds with those of the Liberal and National parties. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-paul-oosting-responds-to-getups-critics-120886">Politics with Michelle Grattan: Paul Oosting responds to GetUp's critics</a>
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<p>GetUp campaigns on these issues by mobilising its membership in a number of ways. It encourages them to make donations to fund advertisements and other campaign initiatives, to directly contact their political representatives, and to operate on the ground in electorates in the run-up to elections. </p>
<p>It is perhaps this last activity that most bothers the Coalition government, as GetUp targeted a number of sitting Liberal MPs at the last election, including Peter Dutton and Tony Abbott. The group didn’t have <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/federal-election-2019/a-disastrous-campaign-getup-and-unions-claim-just-two-seats-despite-record-spend-20190519-p51oyx.html">a tremendous amount of success</a>, though, with only Abbott losing his seat.</p>
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<h2>GetUp is already heavily regulated</h2>
<p>Australia’s electoral process is not the private fiefdom of political parties. There are a variety of actors permitted to participate in our democracy and become involved in election campaigns. These include lobby groups, charities and not-for-profit campaigning groups, such as GetUp and its new “conservative” counterpart, <a href="https://www.advanceaustralia.org.au/">Advance Australia</a>. </p>
<p>And there is already a regulatory framework in place to ensure there is accountability and transparency around their electoral activities.</p>
<p>Any organisation that spends more than the “disclosure threshold” (currently A$14,000 per year) on “<a href="https://www.aec.gov.au/Parties_and_Representatives/financial_disclosure/files/electoral-matter-and-electoral-expenditure-fact-sheet-2019.pdf">electoral expenditure</a>”, for example, needs to submit an annual return to the Australian Electoral Commission. Information about these so-called “<a href="https://www.aec.gov.au/Parties_and_Representatives/financial_disclosure/guides/third-parties/index.htm">third parties</a>” is publicly available on the AEC’s <a href="https://www.aec.gov.au/Parties_and_Representatives/financial_disclosure/transparency-register/">transparency register</a>.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/getups-brand-of-in-your-face-activism-is-winning-elections-and-making-enemies-116672">GetUp's brand of in-your-face activism is winning elections – and making enemies</a>
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<p>Groups like GetUp are now subject to even more regulation than third parties, thanks to <a href="https://www.aec.gov.au/Parties_and_Representatives/index.htm">legislative changes</a> introduced by the government last year. Because of the amount they spend trying to influence elections, they fit into a new category called “<a href="https://www.aec.gov.au/Parties_and_Representatives/financial_disclosure/guides/political-campaigners.htm">political campaigner</a>”. Political campaigners are required to register with the AEC and submit a more detailed annual return than “third parties”, similar to the returns required of political parties.</p>
<p>So, when Morrison calls for GetUp to be accountable like a political party, that’s already the case. However, despite being regulated in a similar way to political parties, they don’t receive the same benefits. </p>
<p>Organisations like GetUp don’t field candidates in elections, for instance, so they can never hope to wield political power in the way that political parties do. </p>
<p>Political parties also benefit from taxpayer funding – the AEC <a href="https://www.aec.gov.au/parties_and_representatives/public_funding/index.htm">reimburses them</a> for some or all of the expenses they incur in an election, provided they reached a certain threshold of votes. GetUp doesn’t get a cent from the AEC. </p>
<p>Donations to political parties of up to A$1,500 per year from individuals are also <a href="https://www.ato.gov.au/Non-profit/Gifts-and-fundraising/In-detail/Fundraising/Claiming-political-contributions-and-gifts/">tax deductible</a>. This also doesn’t apply to GetUp’s donors.</p>
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<h2>Stripping away GetUp’s independence</h2>
<p>Morrison wants to have GetUp classified by the AEC as related to the Labor Party or the Greens, what the electoral law refers to as an “<a href="https://www.aec.gov.au/Parties_and_Representatives/financial_disclosure/guides/associated-entities/index.htm">associated entity</a>”. These organisations have some sort of formal link with a political party, or they </p>
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<p>operate wholly or to a significant extent for the benefit of one or more registered political parties. </p>
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<p>Having GetUp classified as an “associated entity” wouldn’t actually bring any extra regulation. As a “political campaigner”, GetUp is already subject to the same type of regulation as an “associated entity”.</p>
<p>But this is likely not the point. For the Coalition, labelling GetUp an “associated entity” would make it much more difficult for the group to <a href="https://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/core-member-2019/getup-independent-now-and-forever/getup-independent-now-and-forever">maintain its much-vaunted status</a> as </p>
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<p>an independent movement of everyday people</p>
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<p>This may influence how GetUp’s future campaigns are perceived by voters – and would certainly be something the government would talk up at every opportunity.</p>
<p>The AEC has looked into this question three times – in 2005, 2010, and earlier this year. It has consistently found that GetUp is not an “associated entity” because it does not operate wholly or to a significant extent for the benefit of one or more registered political parties.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-style-lobbying-how-getup-channels-australians-voices-into-politics-60625">New style lobbying: how GetUp! channels Australians' voices into politics</a>
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<p>While it’s true that the positions of GetUp often align with those of the Labor Party or the Greens, the AEC <a href="https://www.aec.gov.au/Parties_and_Representatives/compliance/files/investigation-report-2019-getup-limited.pdf">concluded</a> the organisation is primarily an issues based campaigning organisation and that:</p>
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<p>the expression of views or other conduct by an entity that broadly or closely aligns with the policy of a registered political party do not support a finding that the entity is operating wholly or to a significant extent for the benefit of one or more registered political parties</p>
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<p>If the government once again refers this matter to the AEC, it would be surprising if the AEC didn’t come back with exactly the same finding – especially given it’s only been a few months since the AEC last examined the matter.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">GetUp campaign video against fracking in Indigenous communities.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Other methods for shutting down the group</h2>
<p>There are other ways the Coalition government can try to reduce the influence of organisations like GetUp. For instance, the Liberal National Party State Convention in Queensland <a href="https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/politics/queensland/lnp-politician-warns-banning-getup-from-polling-booths-cuts-both-ways-20190712-p526pd.html">recently voted</a> in support of banning GetUp and other campaigning organisations from handing out how to vote cards and other political material at polling booths on election day. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/time-for-the-federal-government-to-catch-up-on-political-donations-reform-100822">Time for the federal government to catch up on political donations reform</a>
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<p>Such a drastic move to limit participation in our electoral process is at odds with Australia’s reputation as a free and vibrant democracy. As one Queensland Liberal National politician wisely warned, it could also cut both ways and harm conservative groups seeking to campaign on particular issues.</p>
<p>Whether one agrees or disagrees with GetUp’s positions, these types of campaigning groups reflect the diversity and vibrancy of our democracy and the different ways people can get involved in our political process. </p>
<p>If our political leaders are serious about improving the transparency and accountability of all actors in our political system, then instead of singling out GetUp, Morrison should <a href="https://theconversation.com/time-for-the-federal-government-to-catch-up-on-political-donations-reform-100822">prioritise the introduction</a> of “real time” disclosure of political donations and the lowering of the disclosure threshold for public reporting of donations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122033/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Krystian Seibert does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>GetUp is already subject to the same type of regulation as a political party. By challenging its links to left-wing parties, though, the Coalition is seeking to strip away its claim of independence.Krystian Seibert, Industry Fellow, Centre for Social Impact, Swinburne University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1213002019-08-01T07:01:01Z2019-08-01T07:01:01ZHigh Court challenge in Kooyong and Chisholm unlikely to win, but may still land a blow<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286570/original/file-20190801-169684-1eeel9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The posters in question, such as this one in the seat of Chisholm, are written in Chinese and are in the same colours used by the AEC. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Twitter/Luke Hilakari</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>High Court challenge to Liberal victories in Kooyong, Chisholm </p>
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<p>So read <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/drive/high-court-challenge-to-liberal-victories-in-kooyong,-chisholm/11371890">the headlines</a> on Wednesday. But what is the law behind these <a href="https://t.co/9kSPBW51ir?amp=1">election petitions</a>? </p>
<p>My new book, <a href="http://www.federationpress.com.au/bookstore/book.asp?isbn=9781760021917">The Law of Politics</a>, offers a detailed examination of the laws surrounding Australian elections. Here, I’ll offer a potted explanation of the substance and process at play in the challenges to the results in these two Victorian seats at the 2019 federal election.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/high-court-challenge-to-treasurer-josh-frydenberg-under-section-44-121277">High Court challenge to Treasurer Josh Frydenberg under section 44</a>
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<p>Amid all the recent concerns about online political disinformation worldwide, and about MPs’ qualifications in Australia, it is almost reassuring to be back on the terrain of old-fashioned, misleading campaign material.</p>
<p>The petitions allege that physical posters used at polling stations by the Liberal Party were likely to mislead electors <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/cth/consol_act/cea1918233/s329.html">in “casting”</a> their votes.</p>
<p>The posters were written in Chinese and used in two seats with significant proportions of Chinese immigrants. Headed “CORRECT VOTING METHOD”, the posters went on to advise electors to vote “1” for the Liberal Party, then number the other boxes. The posters were authorised, in small print at ankle height, by the Liberal Party. But their appearance aped the purple and white used by Australian Electoral Commission posters. </p>
<p>Outside South Australia, there are <a href="https://theconversation.com/time-to-tighten-the-reins-on-politicians-and-their-truths-62457">no “truth in political advertising” laws</a> in Australia. So what constitutes the offence of misleading an elector in casting a vote?</p>
<p>At its crudest, you cannot publish false addresses of how or where to vote. Nor can you claim <a href="https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/vic/VCAT/2001/1847.html">false party affiliations</a> or mimic <a href="https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/qld/QSC/1998/190.html">other parties’ how-to-vote material</a>.</p>
<p>The commission did not seek to have the posters removed on election day. It’s hard to get a court injunction in the space of a couple of hours. The commission doesn’t have copyright in its colours, but having spent public money establishing a brand, it needs to protect it. Instead, an independent candidate and another citizen have filed these petitions.</p>
<p>Election petitions go back centuries. They aren’t vehicles for purifying elections. They are tough to mount and to win.</p>
<p>The first hurdle was a tight time limit. The petitions had to be filed within 40 days of the election “writs” being finalised. That’s just 40 days to brief lawyers, assemble basic evidence and plead the claim. </p>
<p>As for winning a case – which means forcing a fresh election in either seat – it is not enough to show that the posters were likely to mislead. It must also be shown that the election outcomes were likely to have been affected.</p>
<p>In Kooyong, Josh Frydenberg’s <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal/2019/guide/kooy">margin over the Greens</a> was 11,289 votes. There is no way upwards of 6,000 electors not only read and understood the signs, but were likely to have been fooled into voting differently. </p>
<p>In Chisholm, Gladys Liu’s <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal/2019/guide/chis">majority over Labor</a> was 1,090. It’s theoretically feasible that over 550 voters were swayed, especially as Chisholm is heavily populated with Mandarin and Cantonese speakers (both groups can read Chinese script).</p>
<p>But how could this be proven? Might a psephologist like Antony Green be called? Is there any evidence of a strong and clear benefit to the Liberal vote where the posters appeared, as opposed to results at, say, early voting booths? And what is the control group for such comparisons? </p>
<p>One quirk of election petitions is uncertainty about where the onus of proof lies. On one view, the petitioner must prove their case on the balance of probabilities. It’s a big thing to unseat an MP and march the voters back to the polls.</p>
<p>On another view, elections are about public trust, so if the posters seem legally dodgy and widespread, it is up to the Liberal Party to demonstrate there was little chance the election result was affected.</p>
<p>On top of this, the law beseeches the court to act quickly. The status of parliament needs to be finalised sooner rather than later. The High Court usually does not try fact-heavy petitions, so it’s likely to refer them to the Federal Court.</p>
<p>Then there’s the question of legal costs. In civil cases, costs are routinely awarded to the winning litigant. This isn’t to punish the loser, but to indemnify the other side for the decision to keep litigating. </p>
<p>But, as we just noted, election petitions are not routine commercial litigation. There is an overarching public interest at stake. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-robo-calls-to-spam-texts-annoying-campaign-tricks-that-are-legal-109943">From robo calls to spam texts: annoying campaign tricks that are legal</a>
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<p>If the Liberal Party is found to have engaged in misleading behaviour, the court can require it to bear the costs of its defence. That happened to the Labor Party in <a href="https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/qld/QSC/1998/215.html">a Queensland case</a>.</p>
<p>It’s folly to predict the outcome of litigation without hearing the case. But it’s telling that the Labor Party, which would stand to gain most from a fresh election especially in Chisholm, has not sued.</p>
<p>From this vantage, the court may well find the Liberal Party breached the law and therefore must bear most of its own costs. </p>
<p>But there is no way Frydenberg’s win in Kooyong will be imperilled, and it would take an intuitive leap to find that Liu’s majority in Chisholm is unsafe.</p>
<p>In short, the petitioners may win the battle but lose the war.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121300/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Graeme Orr is an expert member of the NSW Electoral Commission's iVote Panel. </span></em></p>Winning the case will be difficult, because it’s not enough to show the posters were misleading – the petitioners will need to show it affected the outcome in the seat.Graeme Orr, Professor of Law, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/949122018-04-13T05:13:30Z2018-04-13T05:13:30ZLabor benefits from completed draft boundaries, plus South Australian and Tasmanian final results<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214652/original/file-20180413-566-7jhhs4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">As a result of the electoral boundary changes, Labor notionally gained two seats in Victoria and one in the ACT, and the Coalition lost two seats in Victoria.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Tony McDonough</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On April 6, the Electoral Commission announced draft boundaries for Victoria and the ACT, with both jurisdictions gaining a House seat. Victoria went from 37 to 38 seats, and the ACT from two to three.</p>
<p>As a result of these changes, Labor notionally gained two seats in Victoria and one in the ACT, and the Coalition lost two seats in Victoria.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/poll-wrap-labor-maintains-its-lead-as-voters-reject-company-tax-cuts-wins-on-redrawn-boundaries-94494">Poll wrap: Labor maintains its lead as voters reject company tax cuts; wins on redrawn boundaries</a>
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<p>On Friday, draft boundaries were <a href="https://www.aec.gov.au/Electorates/Redistributions/2017/sa/proposed-report/files/sa-proposed-redistribution-april-2018.pdf">announced for South Australia</a>, with that state dropping from 11 seats to ten. According to The <a href="https://www.pollbludger.net/2018/04/13/south-australian-draft-federal-redistribution/">Poll Bludger</a>, the safe Labor-held seat of Port Adelaide is to be abolished, but the new seat of Spence (formerly Wakefield), Adelaide and Hindmarsh become much safer for Labor.</p>
<p>Margins in Liberal-held seats were not greatly affected by the redistribution. Boothby has been reduced from a 3.5% to a 2.8% Liberal margin, and the SA-BEST-held seat of Mayo goes from a 5.4% to a 3.3% Liberal vs Labor margin. After SA-BEST performed poorly in the South Australian election, Mayo is an opportunity for either major party.</p>
<p>After the next election, there will be 151 seats in the House of Representatives, up from the current 150. The Coalition will notionally hold 74 seats (down two), Labor 71 (up two), and the five current cross-benchers notionally hold their seats. The new Victorian seat of Cox (formerly Corangamite) is too close to call on the new boundaries between the Liberals and Labor.</p>
<p>On the new boundaries, Labor requires just a five-seat gain to win a majority, while the Coalition needs to gain two seats to retain its majority.</p>
<p>The draft boundaries will go through a further consultation process before they are finalised. Final boundaries will be gazetted (become official) by July 20. If an election is called before all boundaries are gazetted, emergency redistributions are used. These emergency redistributions have never been used.</p>
<p>An election of the House and half the Senate could be called in early July, before the new boundaries are gazetted. However, according to the <a href="https://twitter.com/AntonyGreenABC/status/982764914325385217">ABC’s Antony Green</a>, the Coalition would lose from the emergency redistributions.</p>
<h2>South Australian election final result: 25 Liberals, 19 Labor, 3 Independents</h2>
<p>At the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-04/final-results-of-the-2018-south-australian-election/9612312">South Australian election</a> held on March 17, the Liberals won 25 of the 47 lower house seats (up three since the 2014 election), Labor 19 (down four) and independents three (up one).</p>
<p>The Liberals won the two party vote by a 51.9-48.1 margin, but this represented a 1.1% swing to Labor from 2014, when Labor clung to power despite losing the popular vote 53.0-47.0. </p>
<p>Primary votes were 38.0% Liberal (down 6.8%), 32.8% Labor (down 3.0%), 14.2% SA-BEST, 6.7% Greens (down 2.1%) and 3.0% Conservatives (down 3.2% from Family First’s 2014 vote).</p>
<p>In South Australia, there is a fairness clause that requires boundaries to be drawn so a party with over 50% of the two party vote should win the election. The boundaries used at this election notionally gave the Liberals 26 seats, Labor 20 and one independent (Geoff Brock in <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/sa-election-2018/guide/from/">Frome</a>).</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/xenophons-sa-best-slumps-in-a-south-australian-newspoll-while-turnbulls-better-pm-lead-narrows-92803">Xenophon's SA-BEST slumps in a South Australian Newspoll, while Turnbull's better PM lead narrows</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>On the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/sa-election-2018/results/list/?selector=changing&sort=az">new boundaries</a>, both major parties lost a seat to independents who had defected during the last parliamentary term. The Liberals gained King from Labor, but Labor gained Mawson from the Liberals. In <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/sa-election-2018/guide/maws/">Mawson</a>, sitting Labor member Leon Bignell had a 4.5% swing in his favour, just overcoming a hostile redistribution.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/liberals-win-south-australian-election-as-xenophon-crushed-while-labor-stuns-the-greens-in-batman-93355">Liberals win South Australian election as Xenophon crushed, while Labor stuns the Greens in Batman</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Conservative commentators such as <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/graham-richardson/nick-xenophons-dismal-display-the-lucky-break-liberals-needed/news-story/33b870fc72b68352ba5a552b820a72b2">Graham Richardson</a> have blamed Labor’s loss partly on its renewable energy policies. Between 2011 and 2014, Labor governments that had been in power for 14 to 16 years were smashed in New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania. In South Australia, Labor had a two party swing in its favour. Renewable energy probably helped Labor, rather than damaged it.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/sa-election-2018/results/lc/">upper house results</a> have not yet been finalised. In the race for the final seat, Labor has 3.46 quotas and the Conservatives 0.42. With preferences to come from Animal Justice, Dignity, SA-BEST and the Liberal Democrats, it is likely that Labor’s fourth candidate will defeat the Conservatives.</p>
<h2>Final Tasmanian result: 13 Liberals, ten Labor, two Greens</h2>
<p>At the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/tas-election-2018/results/">Tasmanian election</a> held on March 3, the Liberals won 13 of the 25 lower house seats (down two since the 2014 election), Labor won ten (up three) and the Greens two (down one). This is the first time a single party has had a one-seat majority at a Tasmanian election since 1978.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/liberals-romp-to-emphatic-victory-in-tasmanian-election-92180">Liberals romp to emphatic victory in Tasmanian election</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>There were two seats contested between different parties that were undecided on election night. In <a href="https://tec.tas.gov.au/House_of_Assembly_Elections/StateElection2018/Results/Franklin/index.html">Franklin</a>, the Greens won the final seat by 226 votes or 0.02 quotas against the Liberals. Labor gained a seat from the Liberals.</p>
<p>Final primary votes gave the Liberals 2.90 quotas, Labor 2.06, the Greens 0.86 and the Shooters 0.17. As expected, the Liberals greatly benefited from Shooters’ preferences, but were damaged by within-ticket leakage. With only Labor votes left (they had 2.20 quotas at this point), the final Liberal led the final Green by just 81 votes. Labor’s votes then flowed strongly to the Greens.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://tec.tas.gov.au/House_of_Assembly_Elections/StateElection2018/Results/Bass/index.html">Bass</a>, the Liberals had 3.53 quotas, Labor 1.58 and the Greens 0.56. At the three-way crunch point, the Liberals were just behind the Greens and Labor and were excluded. On Liberal preferences, Labor comfortably defeated the Greens by 801 votes or 0.07 quotas, thus gaining a seat from the Greens.</p>
<p>Final statewide vote shares were 50.3% Liberal (down 1.0% since 2014), 32.6% Labor (up 5.3%), 10.3% Greens (down 3.5%) and 3.2% Jacqui Lambie Network. This was the Greens’ lowest Tasmanian vote <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasmanian_state_election,_1998">since 1998</a>, when they received 10.2% - their vote has <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasmanian_state_election,_2010">more than halved</a> since they won 21.6% in 2010.</p>
<p>I believe the Greens’ poor result was mostly because Labor has a young left-wing leader in Rebecca White, and Labor’s anti-pokies policy attracted Greens’ voters.</p>
<p>The upper house was not up for election. The 15 members of the Tasmanian upper house are elected for rotating six-year terms in single-member electorates. Every May, two or three electorates are up. Labor has four upper house seats, and there are four left-wing independents, so the left currently controls the upper house.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dems-easily-win-virginia-and-new-jersey-governors-left-gains-control-of-tas-upper-house-86770">Dems easily win Virginia and New Jersey governors. Left gains control of Tas upper house</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>New South Wales March ReachTEL: 52-48 to Coalition</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://www.pollbludger.net/2018/03/22/reachtel-52-48-coalition-new-south-wales-2/">New South Wales ReachTEL</a> poll for The Sydney Morning Herald, conducted March 15 from a sample of 1,521, gave the Coalition a 52-48 lead, unchanged since October 2017. Excluding 6.2% undecided, primary votes were 44.7% Coalition (up 3.8%), 34.6% Labor (up 0.9%), 10.0% Greens (up 0.1%) and 5.4% One Nation (down 3.5%).</p>
<p>Incumbent Gladys Berejiklian led Opposition Leader Luke Foley 52.3-47.7 as better Premier in ReachTEL’s forced choice question. By 59-26, voters opposed the government spending $2.5 billion on constructing new stadiums.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94912/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrian Beaumont does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>On the new boundaries, Labor requires just a five-seat gain to win a majority, while the Coalition needs to gain two seats to retain its majority.Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/822452017-08-10T04:42:22Z2017-08-10T04:42:22ZUsing the ABS to conduct a same-sex marriage poll is legally shaky and lacks legitimacy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181617/original/file-20170810-32211-1jglvcd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">For the ABS, even the basic task of sending out ballot papers will not be straightforward.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Alan Porritt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://www.financeminister.gov.au/media-release/2017/08/08/commitment-national-plebiscite-same-sex-marriage">Turnbull government’s decision</a> to put the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in charge of a voluntary postal plebiscite on same-sex marriage has left many scratching their heads. It was expected the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) would run the vote, not the body responsible for the five-yearly census.</p>
<p>By giving the job to the ABS, the government has <a href="http://theconversation.com/explainer-with-no-free-vote-for-now-where-next-for-marriage-equality-82156">sidestepped questions</a> about its constitutional authority to pay for an AEC-run plebiscite. But it has opened up new avenues of legal challenge and established a process that lacks legitimacy.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><strong>Further reading: <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-with-no-free-vote-for-now-where-next-for-marriage-equality-82156">Explainer: with no free vote for now, where next for marriage equality?</a></strong></em></p>
<hr>
<h2>Legal questions</h2>
<p>On Wednesday, Treasurer Scott Morrison <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2017L01006">directed</a> the Australian Statistician to ask the ABS to collect statistical information about the proportion of electors who are for or against the law being changed to allow same-sex couples to marry. This information is to be requested on a voluntary basis.</p>
<p>The same day, independent MP Andrew Wilkie and two others <a href="http://andrewwilkie.org/high-court-challenge-marriage-equality-postal-vote/">announced</a> they would launch a High Court challenge against the ABS poll. It <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/aug/09/marriage-equality-postal-vote-to-be-challenged-in-high-court-by-andrew-wilkie-and-advocates">is likely</a> that at least two grounds of challenge will be put.</p>
<p>The first concerns the power of the ABS to run the plebiscite. Under the Census and Statistics Act, the Australian Statistician <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/casa1905241/s9.html">can</a>, if directed by the minister, collect “statistical information” on a range of <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/num_reg/casr2016201600706348/s13.html">prescribed matters</a>, including “births, deaths, marriages and divorces”, “law”, and “population and the social, economic and demographic characteristics of the population”. </p>
<p>Separately, the Australian Bureau of Statistics Act provides that <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/abosa1975337/s6.html">one of the functions</a> of the ABS is “to collect, compile, analyse and disseminate statistics and related information”.</p>
<p>The key question is whether information about Australians’ opinions on same-sex marriage is “statistical information”.</p>
<p>Surveying people on their views about marriage is very different from collecting factual data about, say, the numbers of marriages taking place in Australia.</p>
<p>And given the postal ballot will be voluntary, the views of some social groups (like those more likely to use postal services) will feature <a href="http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2017/04/postal-plebiscite-australias-biggest.html">more heavily</a> than others. Arguably, such an “unweighted” data set falls short of the rigorous standards of “statistical information”.</p>
<p>More broadly, if opinions about marriage law are considered “statistical information”, it is hard to think of what sorts of information do not fall into that category. Is it the case that any collection of data is a statistical exercise? If so, the ABS’s powers are very broad.</p>
<p>The second legal question concerns the government’s authority to spend money on an ABS-run postal vote. Finance Minister Mathias Cormann acted quickly <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2017L01005">to source</a> the A$122 million required from a little-used “advance” <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2017A00060">appropriated</a> by parliament in this year’s budget.</p>
<p>However, the minister’s advance fund is reserved for “urgent” and “unforeseen” expenditure. It is doubtful that spending on a postal plebiscite falls into either of these categories. </p>
<p>By way of comparison, in 2016 the government gave the AEC $101 million in “advance” funds to help it implement major changes to Senate voting in time for the July federal election.</p>
<p>There is no similar urgency in a vote on same-sex marriage. And, if anything, the need to spend money on same-sex marriage poll was entirely predictable. The government’s <a href="http://www.budget.gov.au/2017-18/content/bp1/html/">budget papers</a> anticipated spending $170 million for this purpose.</p>
<h2>The ABS is poorly equipped</h2>
<p>Legal questions aside, the ABS is poorly equipped to run a plebiscite on same-sex marriage. </p>
<p>It has significant expertise in collecting factual information on the economy, housing, crime and many other matters that is of immense value to governments and researchers. But it has never run a poll of this kind.</p>
<p>The closest precedent occurred more than 40 years ago. In 1974, the ABS conducted a telephone survey of 60,000 Australians, asking for their preferences on the national anthem. But that is altogether different from the massive logistical exercise of administering a postal ballot for 15 million voters on a contentious social issue. </p>
<p>The stakes are higher and the risk of mistakes is greater. And there will be little tolerance for error.</p>
<p>For the ABS, even the basic task of sending out ballot papers will not be straightforward. Unlike the AEC, it does not have direct access to the electoral roll. </p>
<p>The Commonwealth Electoral Act <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/cea1918233/s90b.html">sets down rules</a> about who can access the electoral roll and for what purpose. Under <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_reg/earr2016309/sch1.html">regulations</a>, the AEC “may” provide the ABS with information on the roll for the purpose of “collecting, compiling, analysing and disseminating statistics and related information”. It would therefore be open to the AEC to refuse the ABS access to the roll, including on the basis that a poll on marriage is not about “collecting statistics”.</p>
<p>Assuming that the ABS gains access to the roll, it is unclear whether it will be able to send ballot papers to all registered voters. The position of silent electors is particularly uncertain. </p>
<p>The addresses of <a href="http://www.aec.gov.au/Enrolling_to_vote/Special_Category/Silent_Electors.htm">silent electors</a> are not displayed on the roll: to do so would put their safety, or the safety of their family, at risk. Also, the AEC is <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/cea1918233/s90b.html">not permitted</a> to provide information about silent electors to agencies such as the ABS. As a result, silent electors may wonder if they will be able to participate in the poll.</p>
<p>The addresses of eligible overseas voters also do not appear on the roll. However, Cormann has said they will receive ballot papers provided they have “registered as an overseas voter and provided their overseas address”.</p>
<p>More generally, the ABS lacks the AEC’s institutional capacity when it comes to conducting nationwide votes. These are highly complex exercises, which involve distributing, collecting and transporting ballot papers, and then counting them quickly and securely. </p>
<p>Cormann has said AEC officers <a href="http://www.financeminister.gov.au/media-release/2017/08/08/commitment-national-plebiscite-same-sex-marriage">will be seconded</a> to the ABS to “assist” the process.</p>
<h2>Other problems</h2>
<p>ABS involvement in the plebiscite raises particular problems, but the shortcomings of a voluntary postal vote go well beyond who is administering it. </p>
<p>Even if turnout is high, we cannot be confident that the result is representative of community opinion. For example:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Young people move address more frequently than the rest of the population and are less likely to receive the ballot papers. </p></li>
<li><p>Homeless electors and grey nomads may also find it hard to participate. </p></li>
<li><p>Communities with limited access to reliable postal services (including Indigenous people living in more remote parts of Australia) may be disadvantaged.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Also worrying is that the postal vote will take place without the <a href="http://sites.thomsonreuters.com.au/journals/2016/11/29/public-law-review-update-december-2016/">usual protections</a> of election law. Campaigners will be able to circulate unauthorised material – including posters and pamphlets with harmful messages about same-sex couples and their families – without fear of legal consequences.</p>
<p>And, if the result is close, there will be no clear process for resolving claims about the formality of votes and other contentious administration issues.</p>
<h2>It should be abandoned</h2>
<p>The voluntary postal vote on same-sex marriage should be abandoned. Not only does it rest on shaky legal foundations, it risks damaging the standing of two of our most trusted national institutions. </p>
<p>The absence of standard legal protections is worrying, and the polling method is so flawed that neither side can have confidence in the outcome.</p>
<p>And, at the end of it all, the result is non-binding. The federal parliament is the only institution that can resolve the issue of same-sex marriage definitively. It should do so now, without resorting to such a flawed and expensive venture.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82245/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Kildea has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>The key question in a legal challenge to the ‘postal plebiscite’ is whether information about Australians’ opinions on same-sex marriage constitutes ‘statistical information’.Paul Kildea, Senior Lecturer, UNSW Law School; Director, Referendums Project, Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/618472016-07-03T03:50:29Z2016-07-03T03:50:29ZExplainer: why don’t we know who won the election and what happens now?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129087/original/image-20160703-18328-idffb8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Labor's better-than-expected performance has left a lot of seats still too close to call.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Mick Tsikas</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>After one of the longest election campaigns in Australian history, a winner is yet to be decided.</p>
<p>As Australia is based on <a href="http://australianpolitics.com/democracy/key-terms/westminster-system">the Westminster system</a>, government is formed by the party (or coalition of parties) that wins a majority of seats in the House of Representatives, also known as the lower house. The leader of this majority becomes prime minister.</p>
<p>There are 150 seats in this chamber, so a majority needed to form government is 76 seats. This is the magic number that the Labor Party and Liberal/National Coalition will be striving for over the coming days.</p>
<h2>The house of government</h2>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/infographic-what-we-know-so-far-about-the-results-of-election-2016-61522">As it currently stands</a>, neither major party can yet claim 76 seats. With many seats too close to call, pre-poll and postal votes (which will be counted over the coming days) will decide who is in the best position to form government.</p>
<p>If an effective campaign was run by incumbent MPs, the postal votes should favour them. Pre-polls, on the other hand, would reflect the broader trends of the electorate – so, in this case, that means the votes would be very tight on a two-party preferred basis. In such a close race, the favourite would be the candidate who was in the lead before counting postal and pre-poll votes.</p>
<p>As of today, the prospect of Australia having a <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-a-hung-parliament-and-how-will-a-government-be-formed-61963">hung parliament</a> is quite real. It means that neither major party can form a government in their own right and will depend on minor parties and independents to cobble together a majority in the lower house. If this was to occur, Australia will have its <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-09-08/labors-minority-government-explained/2253236">second minority government since 2010</a>.</p>
<p>Like a grand final ending in a draw, minority governments in Australia are unlikely but may occur. The Australian electoral system amplifies majorities, so governments may win with a small percentage of the vote but will usually have a comfortable working majority. For example, in 2013, the Coalition won 53.5% of the two-party-preferred vote, but won 60% of the seats in the lower house. </p>
<p>It’s a system that is ultimately geared towards manufacturing governments with clear majorities. But when the two-party-preferred vote is so close, as it is at the moment with the Coalition on 50.1% and Labor on 49.9%, a situation where neither party can win majority is a real possibility. </p>
<p>The 2016 result is very similar to that of the 2010 election. Back then, however, it was Labor with the slightly higher two-party-preferred vote.</p>
<h2>What do we know about the new Senate?</h2>
<p>The Senate has almost the same powers as the House of Representatives, so its composition also has implications for policy outcomes.</p>
<p>As this was a double-dissolution election, all Senate seats were up for election. This means that, unlike in a general election where six of the 12 seats from each state are up for grabs, all 12 were contested.</p>
<p>This in turn means the quota – which is the percentage of the vote needed to win a seat – was halved, making it easier for independents and minor parties to win representation. <a href="http://www.onenation.com.au/index.html">Pauline Hanson</a> and <a href="http://www.justiceparty.com.au/">Derryn Hinch</a> appear set to win seats. Prominent South Australian senator Nick Xenophon, and others from his <a href="https://nxt.org.au/">Nick Xenophon Team</a>, and the <a href="http://www.cdp.org.au/">Christian Democratic Party</a> are also looking like certainties in the new Senate.</p>
<p>In this election, <a href="https://theconversation.com/senate-voting-changes-pass-so-how-do-we-elect-the-upper-house-now-55641">a new system of voting</a> was used to elect senators. Unlike previous elections, preference wheeling-and-dealing between parties would not have the same impact. Candidates would have to win a large primary vote to stand any chance of victory. This appears to have occurred.</p>
<h2>What happens next?</h2>
<p>Following an episode in 2013 in which where <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/FlagPost/2013/November/The_disputed_2013_WA_Senate_election">some ballot papers were misplaced</a> in Western Australia, ballot security has been <a href="http://www.aec.gov.au/media/media-releases/2013/12-06a.htm">bolstered</a>.</p>
<p>As a result, counting of the votes will be undertaken in more secure settings, which will mean further delays in deciding close contests. Indeed, counting will recommence on Tuesday and it is expected that results won’t be any clearer until later this week. Counting for the Senate will continue over the coming weeks.</p>
<p>In terms of governance, the public service will continue to administer the policies that were in place prior to the election. New policies cannot be implemented and will have to wait until a new government is sworn in. The provision of government services will not be affected by the delay in the formation of a new government and will continue as usual.</p>
<p>Australian voters have once again decided that neither major party can form government on election night. Results in seats that are too close to call at present may decide who governs.</p>
<p>If neither party can get to 76 seats on their own, they will have to negotiate with the crossbenchers to manufacture a majority. The Australian system can accommodate this, as seen during the Gillard government years. Getting to that point, however, will take many more days and a lot more counting.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61847/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zareh Ghazarian does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It may be several days, or even longer, before we know the shape of our next government, but the business of government will carry on as usual.Zareh Ghazarian, Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/578802016-05-18T03:46:55Z2016-05-18T03:46:55ZElection explainer: what are the rules governing political advertising?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122691/original/image-20160516-15899-1m3vzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There has been debate in recent times around placing caps or limits on some forms of political advertising.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/why-bill-shorten-stars-in-both-sides-election-ads-59076">Negative and positive advertisements</a> were quick to hit the airwaves in the early days of the election campaign. With many more weeks to come, one might be tricked into thinking the major parties can’t keep going at this pace. They must run out of money and get tired of the ads themselves, right? </p>
<p>Political advertising in federal campaigns is governed by a set of laws. Here are some of them.</p>
<h2>What are the rules around party-political advertising?</h2>
<p>The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) and the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) govern political advertising at a federal level. The AEC covers the legalities of political advertising, such as authorisation. ACMA covers the broadcasting side. </p>
<p>They do appear to overlap. However, the AEC would take precedence over ACMA. The <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/cea1918233/">AEC legislation</a>, the Commonwealth Electoral Act, is intended to ensure a fair and free election outcome.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/bsa1992214/">Broadcasting Services Act</a> covers actual broadcast rules. This includes identifying who authorised the advertisement, enforcing blackout rules, and recording details of political advertising and even polling and telemarketing calls.</p>
<p>The blackout period starts from the end of the Wednesday before polling day (in 2016, this will be June 29) and runs until the close of the polls on polling day, or 6PM on July 2. This means that you won’t see any ads in traditional media – TV, radio, newspapers and magazines. But anything online is exempt, so expect YouTube and social media sites to be full of messaging. </p>
<h2>Are there any rules about the content of ads?</h2>
<p>Both pieces of legislation cover content. The Broadcasting Services Act ensures the authorisation is inserted at the end of every advertisement, or in the right place for print advertisements. </p>
<p>However, the AEC legislation covers the big issues of concern of political advertising. This includes truth in advertising, misleading and deceptive conduct, and defamation of other people.</p>
<p>While there have been <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/RP9697/97rp13">parliamentary research papers</a> and <a href="https://jade.io/article/66896/section/140043?asv=citation_browser">High Court cases</a>, the broad consensus right now is that truth in advertising can be legislated for, but it is incredibly problematic to enforce and prosecute. </p>
<p>Misleading and deceptive conduct in ads is enforced only when it concerns promoting informal or incorrect voting. </p>
<p>Defamation is left up to common law. However, even here it is rarely actioned due to the length of proceedings. And the high-profile nature of cases means it can do more harm than good for those involved.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vEZ8QhOKXeA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">All ads contain an ‘authorised by’ line.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Who pays for these ads?</h2>
<p>Advertisements are not taxpayer-funded, though paying for campaign expenses such as advertising is one of the purposes of funding given to political parties after elections, provided they gain 4% of primary votes in the division or Senate race they contest. </p>
<p>This is calculated on a formula of roughly A$2.60 per first-preference vote, although actual figures for this election have not yet been released. </p>
<p>In the <a href="http://www.aec.gov.au/about_aec/Publications/Reports_On_Federal_Electoral_Events/2013/fad/funding.htm#payments">2013 election this amounted</a> to $23.8 million for the Liberals, $20.7 million for Labor, $5.5 million for the Greens, $3.1 for the Nationals, $2.3 million for the Palmer United Party, $1 million for the Liberal Democrats and $642,000 for Nick Xenophon.</p>
<p>How parties decide to spend this money is up to them. However, they must put in annual returns to the AEC. It usually takes nearly a year to work out how much has been spent on election advertising, and where exactly that money came from. </p>
<p>Campaign finance is in need of reform. There are many questions on what returns stakeholders expect to receive from parties and candidates in return for funding election campaigns.</p>
<h2>Are networks obliged to give major parties equal time?</h2>
<p>No. But they are required to ensure all parties that were present in the last parliament before the current election period have a reasonable opportunity to broadcast election matter. </p>
<p>Networks can screen an extra minute of non-program matter (ads) between 6PM and midnight provided they are political ads. So, during the election campaign, ad breaks may be a little bit longer.</p>
<p>However, the ABC as the national broadcaster does allow the government and official opposition 31 minutes and 30 seconds of free time on ABC1 TV and ABC local radio. This is split into 18 minutes (12 90-second policy announcements) and 13 minutes and 30 seconds for the final pitch. </p>
<p>Minor parties can qualify for free time based on their level of electoral support at the last election and if they are contesting more than 10% of seats at the current election. This time is only two 90-second spots on ABC1 TV and two 90-second spots on ABC local radio for policy announcements. They are not given airtime for the final pitch. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Yb6iWiJXDkU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Networks are required to ensure represented parties have a reasonable opportunity to broadcast election matter.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Do we need limits?</h2>
<p>There has been debate in recent times around placing caps or limits on some forms of political advertising – especially negative advertising – due to the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1300/J199v02n01_04">perceived harm caused to democratic institutions</a> and political engagement by this type of advertising. </p>
<p>There needs to be some limits on negative advertising, such as making up only 30% of total airtime of all political advertising. Political advertising should also be restricted to adult viewing hours to minimise potential negative attitudes and harm to children. </p>
<p>Advertising on the internet should also be part of the blackout period. Voters need peace and quiet to consider each party’s policy promises.</p>
<p>Finally, Free TV Australia should report on the name of the ad, the number of times it was screened, and the markets it was screened in to enable a more transparent and accountable way of measuring the funding and use of political advertising.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57880/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Hughes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What are some of the legalities and issues around political advertising in federal campaigns?Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/534882016-02-01T03:13:51Z2016-02-01T03:13:51ZExplainer: how do seat redistributions work?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109113/original/image-20160125-417-11c8i60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some voters in New South Wales may be forced to vote in a different electorate at the next federal election following a recent redistribution.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Paul Miller</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The major parties have reportedly <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-12/federal-election-2016-majpor-parties-oppose-proposed-boundaries/7083410">strenuously objected</a> to the proposed New South Wales <a href="http://www.aec.gov.au/Electorates/Redistributions/2014/nsw/">federal electoral boundary changes</a>. These have the capacity to change the demographics and political leanings of a handful of seats.</p>
<p>So, any redistribution of electoral boundaries may significantly impact how parties are represented in the parliament. But how does Australia’s system of changing seat boundaries actually work?</p>
<h2>How it happens</h2>
<p>Electoral redistribution is the redrawing of seat boundaries to ensure, as precisely as is practicable, that each state and territory gains representation in the House of Representatives in proportion to their population, and that there is a similar number of voters in each electorate for a given state or territory at an election. </p>
<p>To achieve this, the Australian Electoral Commission’s Redistribution Committee <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/cea1918233/s66.html">is required</a> to consider four express criteria when changing an electorate’s boundaries:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>the community of interests within the proposed electorate (including economic, social and regional interests);</p></li>
<li><p>the means of communication and travel within the proposed electorate;</p></li>
<li><p>the physical features and area of the proposed electorate; and </p></li>
<li><p>the boundaries of the existing divisions in the state or territory.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The committee seeks to preserve the existing boundaries as much as possible, but that is less important than the other three criteria. It has also <a href="http://www.federationpress.com.au/bookstore/book.asp?isbn=9781862878037">been suggested</a> that an:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… unspoken criterion [provides] that redistributions ought to minimise distortion or disruption of the likely translation of votes to seats, given an essentially two-party lower house.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The public – including political parties – may make submissions to the Electoral Commissioner containing suggestions, comments and objections in advance of boundaries being decided. However, the government plays no role in amending the outcome of what the <a href="http://www.aec.gov.au/Electorates/Redistributions/2014/nsw/proposed-report/">Redistribution Committee</a> determines. The committee must <a href="http://apo.org.au/files/Resource/20071102hughesrespapredist.pdf">remain impartial</a>.</p>
<p>This impartiality was not always a feature of Australia’s electoral laws. Following Federation, the government and the parliament commonly engaged in gerrymandering, malapportionment and other overtly partisan incursions.</p>
<p>In recent decades, however, electoral redistribution has been driven less by partisan politics than by <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8497.2012.01653.x/abstract">population dynamics</a>. Successive electoral reforms have diminished the process’ discretionary nature. Federal electoral law now provides an exhaustive list of redistribution triggers that leave no room for discretionary redistributions at the behest of the government or parliament. </p>
<h2>Why do redistributions take place?</h2>
<p>Since 1901 there have been 87 federal electoral redistributions, in addition to four “pre-distributions” in 1900 ahead of the first federal election. </p>
<p>Since the introduction of the mandatory and automatic triggers for redistribution in 1983, redistributions have increased in frequency from about once a decade to about one every five years.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/cea1918233/s59.html">Five distinct events</a> can trigger redistributions: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>executive or legislative initiative;</p></li>
<li><p>changes in the legislature’s size;</p></li>
<li><p>changes in the state’s population share;</p></li>
<li><p>malapportionment; and </p></li>
<li><p>the passage of time.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>What are these? Which are still relevant today?</p>
<p><strong>Executive or legislative initiative</strong>. Between 1901 and 1975, the government either rejected or ignored 35 redistributions proposed by the redistribution commissioners, often for the sake of political advantage. While this discretionary trigger has been historically significant – resulting in 15% of all redistributions – there is no longer any room for for government or parliament to request discretionary redistributions.</p>
<p><strong>Changing size of the legislature</strong>. Federal parliament’s size was twice increased (1948 and 1983) and led to the automatic triggering of ten state-wide redistributions and three additional redistributions at the government’s discretion to accommodate the new allocations of electorates.</p>
<p><strong>Change in state population share</strong>. The constitutional principle that the number of electorates be proportional to each state’s population <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1593351">recognises that</a> populations are dynamic and that each state’s population share will change over time in response to regional variations in fertility, mortality and migration.</p>
<p>As their relative populations change, electorates will be lost from one state and gained in another. This triggers redistributions in both states. NSW is set to lose one electorate to Western Australia. Changes in the spatial distribution of populations across states and territories have accounted for about 45% of all redistributions.</p>
<p><strong>Malapportionment</strong>. Malapportionment refers to the departure from the democratic principle of “one vote, one value”, which requires single-member electoral districts to contain approximately equal numbers of voters. Australia permits a malapportionment variance of <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/cea1918233/s66.html">up to 10%</a>. It can be redressed by either expanding or contracting an electorate’s geographical boundaries to include additional or fewer voters.</p>
<p>Malapportionment has triggered about 14% of all redistributions. Redistributions have <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8497.2012.01653.x/abstract">reduced the high degree of malapportionment</a>. The number of voters enrolled in a seat frequently differed from the average state enrolment by 20% over the first seven decades of the 20th century. Over the past 30 years this has been reduced to 2-7% of the average state enrolment.</p>
<p><strong>Passage of time</strong>. It was not until the High Court <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/cth/HCA/1975/53.html?">mandated</a> that the entitlement of each state be determined prior to every federal election that the passage of time became a mandated trigger. </p>
<p>The 1983 electoral reforms refined this requirement by mandating a further redistribution if seven years had elapsed since the last redistribution in a state. This allowed three general elections to be held on one set of boundaries (unless a redistribution had been triggered another way), given the three-year parliamentary term. </p>
<p>This trigger accounts for about 15% of all redistributions. More significantly, it has accounted for nearly all redistributions since the 1983 reforms.</p>
<p>It has not been the Constitution but federal legislation that has had the most significant impact on electoral redistribution and voter equality. The most important legislative change has been the establishment of the independent electoral commission.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53488/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Juriansz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Any redistribution of electoral boundaries may significantly impact how parties are represented in the parliament. But how does Australia’s system of changing seat boundaries actually work?John Juriansz, Senior Lecturer, School of Law, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/213062013-12-10T03:30:59Z2013-12-10T03:30:59ZWA Senate ballot farce: fix the date, fix the problems<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/37278/original/gzsfgp4p-1386631423.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Are fixed term elections the answer to the AEC's problems, as identified in the report into the handling of the ballot papers in Western Australia?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The release of Mick Keelty’s <a href="http://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/Publications/Reports_On_Federal_Electoral_Events/2013/files/inquiry-into-the-2013-wa-senate-election.pdf">report</a> on the missing Western Australian Senate <a href="https://theconversation.com/missing-ballots-might-lead-to-fresh-wa-senate-poll-19736">ballot papers</a> from the 2013 federal election gives us an unusually in-depth look at how the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) handles and counts votes. </p>
<p>Unfortunately for the AEC, the former top cop’s findings aren’t pretty. Keelty identified a string of issues in how ballot papers from that state were collated, transported, labelled and secured. He found that AEC policies were either unclear or not adhered to at key points during the collection and count.</p>
<p>Because of this, Keelty ultimately ruled that it was impossible to say whether the 1375 missing ballots were deliberately removed, lost in transit or mistaken for rubbish and simply thrown away. This finding should rightly concern all Australian voters.</p>
<h2>The Keelty report</h2>
<p>The Keelty report offers 32 recommendations for the AEC to tighten its ballot management processes. Electoral Commissioner Ed Killesteyn has <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/aec-commissioner-rules-out-resignation-over-missing-ballots/5143482">already indicated</a> his agency will be accepting these in full. In the wider community, the loss of these ballot papers has sparked renewed demand for the introduction of electronic voting, as this is – <a href="http://theconversation.com/time-to-kill-paper-ballots-first-lets-look-at-the-alternatives-19767">perhaps mistakenly</a> – seen as more secure and reliable. </p>
<p>But for my money, this whole event highlights something much more problematic about the way Australia’s electoral system is structured: that our floating election dates gives the electoral authorities so little time to organise one of the country’s largest and most complex logistical exercises. </p>
<p>As the AEC itself <a href="http://www.aec.gov.au/Elections/Federal_Elections/2013/e2013-facts.htm">points out</a>, running a federal election means hiring, training and mobilising around 80,000 temporary staff to run more than 9000 polling booths in every far-flung corner of Australia. The AEC has to print and distribute 43 million ballot papers and accompanying information on how to vote in 27 different languages, and it has to do much of this work within the 33 or so days after an election is formally called. </p>
<p>In 2013, things were complicated even further by the fact that the election date was originally set for September 14 and then brought forward a week by Kevin Rudd because it suited his party’s political strategising. In these circumstances, it is hardly surprising that Keelty found an atmosphere of confusion and corner-cutting within the WA operation. What is actually astounding is how well the AEC pulls it off most of the time.</p>
<p>So, if we’re serious about reforming the electoral system to ensure its integrity into the future, the conversation we really should be having is about moving to fixed election dates.</p>
<h2>Why fix the date?</h2>
<p>As with so many other aspects of our federal electoral system, Australia is unusual in combining short parliamentary terms with floating election dates. Many of the major parliamentary democracies and comparable Westminster systems have switched to four or five-year fixed terms, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and much of continental Europe. </p>
<p>Australia’s states and territories have also been progressively moving in this direction. Only Queensland and Tasmania still allow the governing party to pick the election date. </p>
<p>Fixing parliamentary terms — and therefore election dates — is seen to have a number of <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/public-policy/UCL_expertise/Constitution_Unit/150.pdf">important benefits</a>. </p>
<p>Firstly, it removes the advantage that incumbent parties gain by being able to set the election date at a politically beneficial moment. Having longer fixed terms is also thought to encourage less short-term thinking amongst politicians as it greatly reduces the chance of snap elections.</p>
<p>Finally, and most importantly for electoral integrity, fixed terms give the electoral authorities more certainty about when an election will be held so that they can put in place rigorous processes for this. The logistics can be worked out well in advance: temporary staff can be hired to work on a specific date and fully trained ahead of this; appropriate counting facilities can be scoped and secured. </p>
<p>These are all areas where the Western Australian operation reportedly fell through. And it is only going to become harder to get these things right as Australia’s population continues to grow and spread out.</p>
<p>Introducing fixed terms is also probably the only way we will ever see the widespread introduction of electronic voting in Australia. The logistics of sourcing, installing, testing and operating more high-tech voting systems are simply too complex to manage with a floating election timetable as short as ours.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/37279/original/xhs33b2j-1386631607.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/37279/original/xhs33b2j-1386631607.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37279/original/xhs33b2j-1386631607.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37279/original/xhs33b2j-1386631607.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37279/original/xhs33b2j-1386631607.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37279/original/xhs33b2j-1386631607.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37279/original/xhs33b2j-1386631607.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">For the AEC, running a federal election means hiring, training and mobilising around 80,000 temporary staff to run more than 9000 polling booths in every far-flung corner of Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dan Peled</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What are the obstacles?</h2>
<p>There are two big obstacles apparently standing in the way of a transition to fixed terms in Australia. </p>
<p>Firstly, it is generally assumed that Australians would have to vote in favour of this change at a federal referendum. With just eight of the 44 referenda since federation succeeding, the odds of this seem pretty slim. </p>
<p>But when Canada moved to fixed terms in 2006, that country avoided a constitutional conflict by ensuring that the governor-general’s ability to dissolve parliament remained unchanged. The amended <a href="http://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/E-2.01/page-16.html#h-25">Canada Elections Act</a> simply states that elections are to be held on the third Monday in October every four years unless the governor-general says otherwise, effectively introducing fixed terms without the need for a referendum. </p>
<p>A similar approach seems feasible in Australia, given the fairly broad wording of <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/%7E/media/AC79BBA0B87A4906A6D71ACCEEF10535.ashx">Part 1, Section 5</a> of our own Constitution.</p>
<p>There is also a question about what would happen to the Senate if the House of Representatives moved to fixed four-year terms. The Parliamentary Library has taken a <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp0001/01RP04">good look</a> at different ways to manage this and the pros and cons of each, but longer Senate terms might simply be a price we have to pay to maintain the overall integrity of our electoral system. </p>
<p>There is no question that the AEC has some work to do in fixing the problems Keelty’s report identifies and rebuilding trust with the Australian public. But if we want the AEC to keep delivering reliable and rigorous election results, it’s probably time to give it the best sporting chance to do so by moving to fixed election dates. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/21306/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Rayner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The release of Mick Keelty’s report on the missing Western Australian Senate ballot papers from the 2013 federal election gives us an unusually in-depth look at how the Australian Electoral Commission…Jennifer Rayner, Doctoral Candidate, Australian Politics, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/197672013-11-04T04:03:10Z2013-11-04T04:03:10ZTime to kill paper ballots? First, let’s look at the alternatives<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34339/original/knfhx7wc-1383537197.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Before we pulp the paper ballots, we should consider whether the other options are worth the trouble</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Paul Miller</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Australian Electoral Commission’s (AEC) loss of <a href="http://www.aec.gov.au/media/media-releases/2013/e10-31.htm">1,375 ballot papers for the West Australian Senate count</a> was an unfortunate failure from an agency that already faced growing public pressure to do away with paper and pencil voting. </p>
<p>Even before the ballots disappeared, newly minted MP Clive Palmer was <a href="http://www.brw.com.au/p/leadership/vanishing_votes_clive_palmer_does_CQQX0cXHzwHx1Ymhpx3IxJ">loudly calling</a> for the introduction of US-style electronic voting machines. Meanwhile, <a href="http://www.elections.nsw.gov.au/voting/ivote">an experiment with internet voting</a> for people with disabilities in New South Wales in 2011 caused many to question why we all can’t vote from home. </p>
<p>But before we pulp the paper ballots, it’s worth considering what — if anything — is actually wrong with the system as it stands, as well as what the pros and cons of the alternatives may be.</p>
<h2>How are votes currently counted?</h2>
<p>Australia’s current procedures for recording and counting votes have essentially remained unchanged since federation. Voters are given a piece of paper and a pencil with which to record their voting preference, and the completed ballot papers are then placed in a sealed box.</p>
<p>At the close of the polls, those boxes are opened and an initial count is conducted by hand on-site at each polling booth. The AEC employs thousands of returning officers to staff each booth and manage this initial count; these officers then phone the results into AEC headquarters so they can be plugged into the commission’s central database. That’s how we get the “provisional results” that are broadcast on election night.</p>
<p>After election day, the ballot papers from individual booths are transported to a central location in each state so that a second, more formal, count can be carried out. This involves entering the preferences for each individual ballot into a computer, so a definitive distribution of preferences can be calculated electronically. </p>
<p>This counting process means that ballots are processed twice, by at least two different sets of people and in two different locations. This ensures there is a high degree of scrutiny and cross-checking. But it also creates a small risk that ballots will be lost, damaged or otherwise tampered with during the counting process.</p>
<h2>Options for reform</h2>
<p>There are a range of steps that could be taken to reduce these risks. To give just one example of an approach which was trialled in Belgium, ballot papers could be scanned on-site at polling booths using optical character recognition scanning. The electronic copy would then be transmitted to the central counting facility rather than the paper ballot. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34320/original/yb2ym3hk-1383530700.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34320/original/yb2ym3hk-1383530700.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34320/original/yb2ym3hk-1383530700.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34320/original/yb2ym3hk-1383530700.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34320/original/yb2ym3hk-1383530700.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1090&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34320/original/yb2ym3hk-1383530700.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1090&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34320/original/yb2ym3hk-1383530700.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1090&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Voting in Australia hasn’t changed much since federation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">FLICKR/Migration Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unfortunately, this would mean dispatching scanners to the 7,697-odd polling booths around Australia. Every booth would also need sufficient, secure and reliable internet connectivity to transmit the scanned documents back to AEC headquarters - making this option somewhat impractical. </p>
<p>Of course, in this tech-obsessed age there are many who would like to see a move towards either electronic or internet voting regardless of the real necessity for this. But these types of voting pose their own challenges and concerns. This may explain why <a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/upload/KRD/Prosjekter/e-valg/evaluering/Topic6_Assessment.pdf">only 11 countries</a> use electronic voting for major state or national elections. And just one country — Estonia — has successfully implemented internet voting. </p>
<h2>Electronic voting</h2>
<p>There are a range of different electronic voting machines on the market, each of which let voters push a button, pull a lever or tap a touch screen to register their voting choice. Votes are either recorded directly within the machine, or printed as a barcode which is then placed in a high-tech ballot box which “reads” and <a href="http://www.e-voting.cc/wp-content/plugins/download-monitor/download.php?id=217">logs the vote data</a> from the printed ballot. </p>
<p>While the act of voting itself might be more futuristic, the process for transferring the recorded votes from individual machines to a central database is usually anything but.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34324/original/ywbrcf4t-1383532452.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34324/original/ywbrcf4t-1383532452.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34324/original/ywbrcf4t-1383532452.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34324/original/ywbrcf4t-1383532452.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34324/original/ywbrcf4t-1383532452.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34324/original/ywbrcf4t-1383532452.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34324/original/ywbrcf4t-1383532452.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">South Korea has trialled electronic voting.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Yonhap News</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In some cases, the machines themselves must be physically transported so that they can be plugged into a central mainframe, while in other cases they download the vote data to a CD or USB so that this can be sent to the central counting facility. </p>
<p>So it’s not just a simple matter of hitting “upload” and having all the individual booth data materialise at the AEC’s headquarters. Either the counting machines themselves or a copy of the data must still be transferred, and this raises similar concerns about data being lost, damaged or interfered with. </p>
<p>What’s more, the technical nature of the machines means they can either break down, leading to long queues at polling booths, or develop bugs and glitches, which can affect the <a href="http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-10/23/e-voting-on-the-decline">accurate recording of votes</a>.</p>
<h2>Internet voting</h2>
<p>Internet voting avoids many of these problems, as voters can simply log on to a secure site and cast their vote. But there are two huge question marks hanging over this process: how do we ensure that the person casting the vote is actually who they say they are, and how do we ensure the site is not hacked or tampered with? </p>
<p>Estonia is the only country to have so far answered the first question. All Estonian citizens are issued with a national ID card which includes a smart chip recording their identity details. This has been used to verify voters for online voting at <a href="http://www.democraticaudit.com/?p=1499">national elections since 2007</a>. </p>
<p>Since the Australia Card was howled down in the 1980s, Australian governments have had no success in convincing us we should also carry national IDs. So it’s hard to see that approach catching on here - even if it did mean we could all vote without having to put on pants. </p>
<p>The issue of cyber security is more challenging, and <a href="https://www.verifiedvoting.org/report-on-the-estonian-internet-voting-system-2/">experts suggest</a> that the Estonian authorities have not comprehensively addressed this. Given recent revelations about the extent of international data snooping and penetration, is it really so hard to imagine an online group such as Anonymous choosing to disrupt the electoral process for kicks? </p>
<p>Or what about a foreign power manipulating the vote to ensure the party most sympathetic to their own interests gets elected? </p>
<p>These are serious concerns, and until we have real solutions to them (or decide that we’re just willing to take the risk) internet voting isn’t likely to play a significant role in future national elections.</p>
<h2>What’s the verdict?</h2>
<p>The loss of the West Australian ballots is a serious breach of electoral integrity, and one that must be thoroughly investigated to identify what went wrong. </p>
<p>But amidst all the party-driven hysteria, it’s important to remember that no system is entirely fail safe, and the risks posed by electronic or internet voting are potentially far more serious than this isolated incident. </p>
<p>Our paper balloting system has delivered good electoral outcomes for more than 100 years, and remains the best option available for running efficient, accessible and reliable national elections. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/19767/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Rayner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Australian Electoral Commission’s (AEC) loss of 1,375 ballot papers for the West Australian Senate count was an unfortunate failure from an agency that already faced growing public pressure to do away…Jennifer Rayner, Doctoral Candidate, Australian Politics, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/197572013-11-04T00:08:31Z2013-11-04T00:08:31ZA new Senate election looms large for WA voters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34299/original/ry6hdb6b-1383519912.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Greens senator Scott Ludlam has been successful in the full recount of the WA Senate vote. But the fight over who goes to Canberra looks like continuing for some time yet.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Alan Porritt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) will officially declare the result of the full recount of the Western Australian Senate vote today. Scott Ludlam from the Australian Greens and Wayne Dropulich from the Australian Sports Party have <a href="http://www.aec.gov.au/media/media-releases/2013/e11-02.htm">been triumphant</a> in the recount, while the ALP’s Louise Pratt and Zhenya Wang from the Palmer United Party (PUP) had their election voided.</p>
<p>The AEC’s declaration of the result from the recount is by no means the end of this saga. Over 1300 votes <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/wa-senate-recount-in-turmoil-as-1375-votes-go-missing-20131031-2wjub.html">went missing</a> during the recount and could not be located, so it now seems inevitable that the recount will be the subject of an appeal to the High Court, which is empowered to hear any such petition in its capacity as the Court of Disputed Returns.</p>
<p>While the victors were gratified by the outcome, the vanquished were understandably frustrated. Pratt said that she was <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/clive-palmer-to-launch-challenge-to-western-australia-senate-recount-20131102-2wtjj.html#ixzz2jTjW1wxJPratt">“deeply disappointed”</a> by developments, while PUP founder Clive Palmer <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-02/aec-announces-wa-senate-results-amid-missing-ballots/5065974">openly rejected</a> the result, arguing that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The original count should stand, as it is the only count where we’ve had a full count of all votes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The procedure for appealing an election result is located in the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/cea1918233/">Commonwealth Electoral Act</a>. An appeal can be lodged if there are concerns of an illegal act or practice having interfered with the election, questions about the eligibility of a candidate, or a belief that there has been a failure of compliance in relation to the act. An appeal can be brought by any of the candidates, any elector qualified to vote at that election or the AEC.</p>
<p>In this case, the basis of the appeal will likely centre on concerns about the integrity and reliability of the recount. The fact that over 1300 ballot papers were omitted from the recount will make this a fairly easy case for litigants to prosecute.</p>
<p>It is difficult to predict how the Court of Disputed Returns might find in this matter because we do not have a similar case against which to compare this situation. Appeals are not especially frequent, most are brought against divisional results in the House of Representatives and many of the petitions are ultimately dismissed. But the particular circumstances of this case increase the prospects of the Court ordering a new half senate election.</p>
<p>If it a fresh election is held, it will not be without challenges. </p>
<p>It will be important that a new election is held in a timely manner. There will be a myriad of legal and practical matters that will have to be attended to before the Senate by-election can proceed, all of which will take some time to work through. ABC electoral expert Antony Green <a href="http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2013/11/whats-going-on-with-the-wa-senate-counct.html#more">believes</a> that in order for incoming WA senators to take their seats by July 1, 2014 (when the new Senate will be sworn in), the latest possible date for a new election is late May 2014.</p>
<p>There is, of course, a fairly hefty price tag attached with holding a new election. According to <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/taxpayers-would-foot-11m-cost-of-new-senate-election-in-western-australia/story-e6frfkp9-1226751584623">one estimate</a>, a fresh election has the potential to cost upwards of $A11 million.</p>
<p>A new Senate election is also very likely to produce a much lower turnout. Most voters resent being recalled to the ballot box for a by-election and many respond by staying away on polling day.</p>
<p>The problem of electoral fatigue is likely to be particularly heightened because WA voters have faced <a href="http://www.elections.wa.gov.au/elections/state/sg2013">state</a> and <a href="http://www.elections.wa.gov.au/elections/local/e885f29a-80e4-43e0-9135-5478b128abb5">local</a> government elections this year, in addition to the federal poll.</p>
<p>To the extent that turnout at House of Representatives by-elections is any kind of reliable gauge, then expect the level of participation to plummet to around 78-80% of eligible voters on the roll, well short of the 90-95% for standard elections. A lower-than-usual turnout can provide ready ammunition for disaffected candidates to cast aspersions on the legitimacy of the outcome.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34300/original/8bqnyyfr-1383521765.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34300/original/8bqnyyfr-1383521765.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34300/original/8bqnyyfr-1383521765.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34300/original/8bqnyyfr-1383521765.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34300/original/8bqnyyfr-1383521765.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34300/original/8bqnyyfr-1383521765.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34300/original/8bqnyyfr-1383521765.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Voters in Western Australia could be forced back to the polls if a challenge to the High Court over the disputed Senate recount is successful.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is no guarantee that a fresh Senate election will not produce a similarly tight election outcome. It is possible that the publicity garnered by <a href="https://theconversation.com/micro-parties-win-on-the-big-boys-rules-18027">microparties at the 2013 election</a> might embolden even more candidates and groups to nominate for the Senate. If this were to occur, and similarly convoluted preference agreements were negotiated between parties, then Western Australia may very well find itself in much the same position as it did at the conclusion of the first count.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that the revelation of the missing ballot papers has brought unfavourable attention to the AEC. Some have suggested that the AEC is guilty of gross incompetence. Clive Palmer, in a fit of pique, went much further and accused the AEC of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/31/wa-senate-recount-investigation-launched-after-1375-ballots-lost">“trying to rig the election”</a> to prevent PUP from having the balance of power in the Senate.</p>
<p>The idea that the AEC is somehow corrupt or profoundly incompetent is a stretch. If the AEC was really afflicted by endemic corruption than it would have been most unlikely that this matter would have been exposed publicly. The AEC was, after all, very quick to admit to its mistake in losing the votes, and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/31/wa-senate-recount-investigation-launched-after-1375-ballots-lost">called in</a> former federal police chief commission Mick Keelty to investigate.</p>
<p>While Keelty’s investigation will most likely fail to uncover the whereabouts of the missing ballot papers, it will serve as a reminder that Australian elections are subject to high levels of scrutiny and rigour.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/19757/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Narelle Miragliotta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) will officially declare the result of the full recount of the Western Australian Senate vote today. Scott Ludlam from the Australian Greens and Wayne Dropulich…Narelle Miragliotta, Senior Lecturer in Australian Politics, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/183202013-09-18T05:34:02Z2013-09-18T05:34:02ZAustralia’s robust voting system deserves praise, not criticism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31555/original/254bz47z-1379480479.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Clive Palmer, who is locked in a tight battle for the seat of Fairfax, has called for another election to be held, citing improper conduct by the AEC.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dave Hunt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tony Abbott was today sworn in as Australia’s 28th prime minister. The election results, however, are yet to be formally declared, with some controversy surrounding the counting of votes in the electorate of Fairfax.</p>
<p>There were some interesting and unusual results, especially in the Senate where a new crop of minor parties appear likely to enter the chamber on July 1 next year. But it was mining magnate Clive Palmer, who contested the seat of Fairfax, who has raised <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-17/clive-palmer-slips-in-fairfax-as-indi-firms-for-mcgowan/4963680">serious questions</a> about the integrity of the voting process. In doing so, he has highlighted how effectively many intricate components work together to produce clear and legitimate electoral results in Australia.</p>
<p>As the count has progressed in the seat of Fairfax, Palmer’s majority has dipped to <a href="http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionFirstPrefs-17496-160.htm">just three votes</a> at the time of writing on Wednesday afternoon. During what is a very close contest, Palmer has requested a recount of the votes in Fairfax as he <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-16/palmer-calls-for-fresh-election-in-fairfax/4960824">believed</a> there was tampering of the ballots and discrepancies with the count. </p>
<p>Palmer has also reportedly suggested the election was <a href="http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/clive-palmers-bid-to-suspend-counting-at-two-fairfax-polling-booths-thrown-out-of-federal-court/story-fnihsrf2-1226720879198">“rigged”</a>. So what are the processes that are used to decide electoral contests and how are close elections resolved?</p>
<h2>Governing the system</h2>
<p>The electoral process in Australia is governed by the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/cea1918233/">Commonwealth Electoral Act (1918)</a>, and a range of significant reforms were made to the electoral process during the Hawke Labor government’s first term.</p>
<p>One significant reform was the introduction of the Group Ticket Vote (GTV) for the Senate. This implemented the black line on the Senate ballot paper and gave voters the option of placing a “1” for their favourite party above the line, or vote for each candidate below the line. Not withstanding debates about the transparency about preference deals, this reform has increased the rate of the formal vote for the Senate.</p>
<p>The reforms also introduced the “Inclusive Gregory Method” for counting votes for the Senate, which ensures that all ballots are now counted rather than using the old system of random sampling to decide electoral contests.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most important feature of the 1984 reforms was the establishment of the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) as a statutory authority which is responsible for the conduct of federal elections.</p>
<p>Notions of fairness are enhanced by the fact that the AEC has upheld its impartial and non-partisan approach to managing the electoral roll and the running of elections. This is in contrast to the approach used in the <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/public-service-heads-may-yet-get-to-keep-them-20130917-2tx0o.html">United States</a>, for example, which does not have such an entity overseeing elections.</p>
<h2>Past close elections</h2>
<p>The AEC is required to undertake a recount for a lower house district if the difference at the end of the count between the two leading candidates is 100 votes or fewer. There is also scope for candidates to order a recount but only if they have evidence of specific cases of errors.</p>
<p>In 2007, the AEC <a href="http://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/Media_releases/2007/12_11.htm">undertook a recount</a> of more than 100,000 ballot papers in the seat of McEwen after the incumbent MP, Liberal Fran Bailey, claimed some papers were missing or not accepted as valid. At that stage Bailey appeared to have lost the seat to Labor’s Rob Mitchell by just six votes.</p>
<p>As part of the recount, the validity of over 600 ballot papers came into question with the AEC upholding the principle of maximising franchise which ultimately resulted in <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2007-12-19/bailey-wins-mcewen-recount/993348">Bailey’s re-election</a>. Mitchell appealed the decision to the High Court of Australia in its capacity as the Court of Disputed Returns, which referred it to the Federal Court - which finally <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/national/court-confirms-bailey-win-20080702-30on.html">upheld Bailey’s win</a>, over 200 days after polling day itself.</p>
<h2>Close elections in 2013</h2>
<p>There were some very close results at this election. In a high profile case in the Victorian seat of Indi, for example, the incumbent Sophie Mirabella was in a tight race with independent Cathy McGowan. But Mirabella, having accepted the count to be fair, has <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national-affairs/election-2013/sophie-mirabella-surrenders-seat-of-indi-after-conceding-victory-to-cathy-mcgowan/story-fn9qr68y-1226721804748">conceded defeat</a> to her opponent.</p>
<p>If the margin between Clive Palmer and his LNP opponent Ted O'Brien continues to be fewer than 100 votes, the AEC will undertake a recount. Recent history suggests that the current systems in place will see the rightful candidate elected to parliament.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/18320/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zareh Ghazarian does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tony Abbott was today sworn in as Australia’s 28th prime minister. The election results, however, are yet to be formally declared, with some controversy surrounding the counting of votes in the electorate…Zareh Ghazarian, Lecturer, School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.