Legal matters

A look at a proposed electoral law overhaul that focuses largely on issues of specific concern to the Coalition.

The government introduced four electoral reform bills to parliament yesterday. Antony Green offers a good overview that notes what’s missing from the recommendations of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters’ inquiry into the 2019 election: the particularly contentions measures of voter identification and optional preferential voting, and arrangements for handling an election during the pandemic, which will presumably have to follow at a later time.

To summarise:

• The most striking is a bill to triple the number of members required of a registered political party to 1500 and to disallow the registration of parties whose names contain, with limited exceptions, words already used in the name of a pre-existing party. The former requirement does not affect the significant exception that exists for parties with seats in parliament, as applies to Katter’s Australian Party, the Centre Alliance and the Jacqui Lambie Network (Antony Green notes it also helped Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party to both register and blag free ABC air time before the last election, not that this proved notably helpful to them). Parties will have three months after the passage of the bill to either pass muster or face deregistration, in which case they will not be identified on ballot papers or eligible for public funding. This would appear to be one in the eye for the Liberal Democrats, who this week confirmed Campbell Newman as their Senate candidate in Queensland.

• A bill encompassing “counting, scrutiny and operational efficiencies” gives effect to JSCEM’s recommendation that the pre-poll voting period should be cut from three weeks to two, which the Coalition, Labor and Greens members were all on board with. It also allows for pre-poll votes to be pre-processed in the two hours before polls close so the actual counting of the votes can begin without delay, which should address an issue of recent election nights in which election day booths are mostly in by 8pm but pre-poll voting centres often aren’t until 11pm to midnight. Similarly, the bill allows for postal votes to be pre-processed so more of them can be counted on Sunday.

• An “electoral offences and preventing multiple voting” bill includes a measure to prevent those suspected of multiple voting from persisting in doing so, and one to target behaviour the Liberal Party has complained of being subjected to by GetUp! activists, specifically “violence, obscene or discriminatory abuse, property damage and harassment or stalking”. Former electoral administrator Michael Maley wonders if the latter measure might capture heckling or asking difficult questions; electoral law expert Graham Orr notes it brings the activities of FriendlyJordies to mind.

• A bill to lower the threshold for which third parties campaigning at elections will have to register as political campaigners, requiring them to file annual financial disclosure returns. The current six-figure threshold does seem on the high side, but the cause of “public confidence in Australia’s political processes” would surely be better served by lowering the threshold for declaring donations to political parties.

Other news:

• The Australian Electoral Commission has published the full panoply of reports and data relevant to the now finalised federal redistributions of Victoria and Western Australia. Antony Green has worked his estimated margins into a finalised 2022 federal election pendulum.

• Rachel Siewert, Greens Senator for Western Australia, announced on social media this week that she will resign her position in the Senate next month. This will allow the party’s preselected lead Senate candidate, Dorinda Cox, to build her profile ahead of next year’s election, a common practice for the Greens.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

3,209 comments on “Legal matters”

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  1. yabba @ #3023 Tuesday, August 17th, 2021 – 6:57 pm

    By the way, have you managed to research why i matters in relation to electricity distribution?

    We’ve done that joke once already. Don’t you have anything original to offer?

    It is not now, nor ever was, a joke. Simply a demonstration that, most of the time, you have little real understanding of that about which you prattle. It is an absolutely serious question. You just do not know what the question means, it seems.

  4. yabba @ #3151 Tuesday, August 17th, 2021 – 9:24 pm

    yabba @ #3023 Tuesday, August 17th, 2021 – 6:57 pm

    By the way, have you managed to research why i matters in relation to electricity distribution?

    We’ve done that joke once already. Don’t you have anything original to offer?

    It is not now, nor ever was, a joke. Simply a demonstration that, most of the time, you have little real understanding of that about which you prattle. It is an absolutely serious question. You just do not know what the question means, it seems.

    Sorry, I will admit to many faults, but I cannot be held responsible for your lack of a sense of humour.

  5. Mavis @ #3144 Tuesday, August 17th, 2021 – 9:13 pm

    C@tmomma:

    Tuesday, August 17, 2021 at 8:56 pm

    [‘But keep putting Player One front and centre, Mavis. You know you wanna. Just to be perverse.’]

    That’s not the case at all. As I said to dear GG, I don’t like bullying, groupthink. I think P1 has been singled out for mounting a counter-argument, however misguided it is from time to time – but it’s P1’s view. Argue against P1’s view but don’t attack P1 personally, as so many do.

    If you were at all a recorder of the blog, as you style yourself to be, you would have noted that, too many times people have attempted to do just that, only to be confronted with characteristic gobshite behaviour from Player One, in return. Or, in other words, a personal attack. have you not read any of the slimy ripostes Player One directs at me, knowing that only others can see them? I fail to understand why you never mentioned that side of the equation.

    Not to mention that no one is under any obligation to debate with Player One, as you seem to be suggesting be the case. Possibly this has to do with the predictably bizarre nature of the positions Player One takes and which are beyond reason.

    So, no Mavis, I won’t be taking up your suggestion. Although I admit, I can’t stop you wasting your days away doing same.

  6. “ Sorry, I will admit to many faults, but I cannot be held responsible for your lack of a sense of humour.”

    Riddle me this, P1: who exactly do you think is laughing along with you and your sense of … humour?

  8. Andrew_Earlwood @ #3156 Tuesday, August 17th, 2021 – 9:29 pm

    “ Sorry, I will admit to many faults, but I cannot be held responsible for your lack of a sense of humour.”

    Riddle me this, P1: who exactly do you think is laughing along with you and your sense of … humour?

    And I’m buggered if I can remember Player One ever admitting to any faults either?

  10. This was alluded to earlier today..

    NSW Health has decided to stop publishing Covid exposure sites in greater Sydney, unless they are high risk, after the list ballooned to thousands of locations over the past week.

    The La Trobe University school of psychology and public health Associate Prof Hassan Vally said the decision was a marked departure from what the public had come to expect – and was “surprising”….
    “There is a concern that you erode confidence and people believe that there’s some ulterior motive. It is better in this sort of crisis situation to give people all the information ….

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/17/nsw-stops-publishing-low-risk-sydney-covid-exposure-sites-due-to-high-volume

    It’s just Gladys just improving the mushroom farm

  11. “ You know what is really difficult? Explaining what ‘a sense of humour’ is to those who don’t have one.”

    like the rest of humanity, you mean.

    Poor ole’ P1 – no one else really measures up to your standards do they. What a hoot you would be to meet in person. I’m sure you keep your eco tourist clients in stitches, regaling them with how you sent poor old Trog to an early grave. Over gas peakers! Lols.

    Not to mention just how droll you are with your ‘the gibbons’ and ‘elevators’ little jokes. Everybody on the board was in stitches over those ones. Such wit.

  12. Regarding Hitler, World War II and what might have been.
    I doubt Hitler wanted the French to move into the German Rhineland after the German army re-occupied it, against the terms of the hated Treaty of Versailles. The German army wasn’t yet up to fighting a protracted war and Hitler suddenly backing down and withdrawing troops from German territory, would have been a terrible loss of face.
    It might have crippled his support among his generals and the German public to the point where further military moves would have been out of the question.
    Hitler gambled, wanting propaganda victories, then real military conquests in Austria and Czechoslovakia before waging a wider war of conquest across Europe.
    Hitler more than likely could have been stopped earlier; in the Rhineland and at Munich.
    Had that happened, would historians today laud the western powers for standing up to fascism, or would they accuse them of over-reacting to a dictator who probably only wanted to shore up his country’s wounded pride?

  13. Are people suggesting that they wouldn’t go somewhere that was an exposure site?

    If you weren’t there at the time of the exposure, then it would pose no more risk than any other similar venue.

    The information is only relevant in regards to contract tracing and potential cases.

  14. C@tmomma:

    Tuesday, August 17, 2021 at 9:29 pm

    Whatever, as the young tend to say. If that’s not to you’re liking, sobeit. But let it be known that you don’t sit on the fence, and I respect you for said quality.

  15. That is something I’ve wondered about Exposure Sites. How long are they ‘radioactive’ with the Delta Variant for after someone has visited the site?

  17. Sir Henry Parkes:

    Tuesday, August 17, 2021 at 9:46 pm

    I trust not an invocation of Godwin? By the way, are you familiar with ol’ Clem Lloyd, Gough’s press secretary, latterly a professor of journalism (1994) – surely a contradiction of terms? In point of fact, dear old Clem used to say, “Mavis, you’re verbosity is only exceeded by your verbosity.

  18. Almost three years after famously declaring he has no ambitions to run the country, Scott Morrison says nothing has changed.

    “I was very clear back in August 2018 that I had no intention to lead this country, and that is still my position today. I’m a man of my word,” Mr Morrison told journalists today. “I said it then, and I’ll say it again now – I’ll leave the running of the country to others. I’m happy in my current position”.
    Sources within the Liberal Party confirm Mr Morrison has been true to his promise. “There have been rumours that he’s been working behind the scenes, but that’s simply not the case. He’s done nothing,” one senior Liberal MP said.

    Another said he had seen no signs that Morrison wanted the job. “He’s had plenty of opportunities over the past three years to take control, but he’s been content not to. He’s been good to his word”.

    Asked if he may have ambitions to lead the country in the future, Mr Morrison said, “Absolutely none”.

    Courtesy of the Shovel

  19. Jaeger @ #3166 Tuesday, August 17th, 2021 – 8:01 pm

    Creator and ‘godfather’ of Sudoku dies aged 69

    Maki Kaji, the creator of the popular numbers puzzle Sudoku whose life’s work was spreading the joy of puzzles, has died, his Japanese company said on Tuesday.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-17/sudoku-creator-dies/100385554

    I’ve always loved number puzzles like sudoku and one of the great discoveries of the pandemic is a YouTube channel called Cracking the Cryptic. Hours of enjoyment watching two Pommie guys solve some amazing sudokus.

    Many are blindingly difficult, some videos are more than an hour long, but the logic of the solves is a beauty to behold and there is great satisfaction where on occasions you solve a puzzle before watching the video for a hint.

    They even have their own software where you can to try solve them as well.

    Vale Maki, you left your mark.

  20. I am not surprised that Victoria is ahead of the pack with indigenous vaccinations purely because of the size of the state. They don’t have to deal with the tyranny of distance.

  21. Yep.

    Scott Morrison has heeded the calls, and the polls, demanding he step up and take a stab at some leadership rhetoric – though just how much of that rhetoric has been focus-grouped and opinion-tested remains questionable. Appearing this afternoon to address both the situation in Afghanistan and here at home, the prime minister tried speaking directly to the devastated veteran community, whose repeated calls for the evacuation of our Afghan allies were ignored, until it was too late. “I know the overriding concern of the veterans I have spoken to has been for us to protect those who worked alongside us in Afghanistan,” he said. The PM talked up how many people the government had helped, rather than the hundreds it had left to their fates – many of whom have just been locked out of the airport amid reports the Taliban have already begun hunting them down. Morrison insisted he would continue to do everything he could to help our Afghan allies, before acknowledging the obvious: it is now almost impossible for Australia to rescue everyone that it should. (He wished things could be “different,” as if there was nothing he could have done.)

    https://www.themonthly.com.au/today/rachel-withers/2021/17/2021/1629179827/empty-words

    Scott Morrison. The Master of the Empty Gesture.

  24. Barney in Tanjung Bunga says:
    Tuesday, August 17, 2021 at 10:17 pm

    Vale Maki, you left your mark.

    Ditto, and thanks for the heads up re the youtube channel.

    Sudoku is so relaxing, for me. Every night (or every day after a sleepless night) when I get into bed, I can’t help myself, I have to do Sudoku. It doesn’t matter how tired I am, I have to solve a puzzle. Often I awake to find a pencil in one hand and a sudoku booklet in the other. And I’m immediately back into it.

    My younger son has become concerned with my obsession. His OH’s aunt, a retired biology teacher, also has this affliction. She recently bought a property and now has an almond plantation to prevent her continuing in this manner.

    I’m seriously trying to wean myself.

  25. Someone’s been leaving these cards in letterboxes around here (business card size):

    There’s nothing on the back, no identification. Just a message that it’s going to be OK and an origami bird.

  26. C@t

    “That is something I’ve wondered about Exposure Sites. How long are they ‘radioactive’ with the Delta Variant for after someone has visited the site?”

    Not that long really. Ignoring for the moment the possibility of viable virus sitting on surfaces, a few minutes in a well ventilated environment. Half an hour or so in a really dodgy unventilated place. As for surfaces, they usually get a “deep clean”, but of course that might be days later when someone finally figures out where someone has been. At which point the virus has long gone.

    The whole process has become a bit of a farce really.

    And did I hear that today, NSW Health is giving up on issuing exposure site warnings for big public places like shops because they just can’t handle the workload and prefer to focus on homes/workplaces?

  27. Thanks for that, Cudly. 🙂

    Yes, you are correct in thinking that the NSW government will no longer be listing every exposure site. There’s just too many now. I believe there’s an interactive map that lists them for your local area. I’m only going on short term memory from comments made earlier today here though.

  28. Wow, that’s amazing, Steve777! I want one! However, it’s given me an idea. I have chalk and I might surreptitiously put the same message on the ground somewhere around here. 🙂

  29. It’s a moot point whether or not we should ever have been in Afghanistan in the first place. I supported our involvement at the start. But our Government’s failure to evacuate so many Afghani nationals who worked with our forces, abandoning them to the Taliban, is shameful.

  30. Katy Gallagher just posted on Facebook that her young daughter Evie tested positive to Covid in Canberra today (one of the 17) and is feeling unwell. Katy and the rest of the family tested negative but are in quarantine.

    Very sad 🙁

  31. Old Clem also used to emphasise, “Mavis, check your grammar, syntax, spelling, punctuation but above all, the veracity of your sources”.

  33. Steve777 @ #3179 Tuesday, August 17th, 2021 – 10:45 pm

    But our Government’s failure to evacuate so many Afghani nationals who worked with our forces, abandoning them to the Taliban, is shameful.

    Australia has form when it comes to hating on migrants and refugees. Especially when they come from the Middle East. Or are we changing that now? I think you’ve got the wrong party in charge Federally if you’re looking for change.

  34. I’ve been musing/thinking about this all last night and most of today.

    Different sides of the same coin.

    In the West, women are (mostly) still regarded as sex objects. The solution in the West is to maximise the titillation, and thereby reduce status. Just check your nearest billboard.

    In Afghanistan, women are (mostly) still regarded as sex objects. The solution in Afghanistan is to minimise the titillation, and thereby reduce status. Just check the public stonings.

    On both sides of the coin, women’s achievements are minimised.

    And FFS, men, on here, don’t take offence. I’m merely thinking out loud. I’m not talking about you, I’m thinking of the likes of incel, etc.

    And I’m thinking about the women who were never given recognition for their achievements, but of the men who took the accolade for a woman’s discovery, like Irishwoman Jocelyn Bell Burnell, the woman who discovered pulsars.

    Like this: I Changed Astronomy Forever. He Won the Nobel Prize for It. | ‘Almost Famous’ by Op-Docs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDW9zKqvPJI&ab_channel=TheNewYorkTimes

    And I’m wondering, what’s so different now.

  35. Re my post earlier on the Dirty War

    There is some harrowing footage there..

    I had to stop watching.. I will get back to it.. I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. I feel compelled … their suffering has to be acknowledged. Sorry

    I shouldn’t have posted link without a warning.

    All I can say is fuck them all Biden, Obama, Clinton, Bush.. all of them.

  36. ” Australia has form when it comes to hating on migrants and refugees. Especially when they come from the Middle East. Or are we changing that now? I think you’ve got the wrong party in charge Federally if you’re looking for change.”

    You’ve said aloud what I was thinking… that maybe it’s not just another instance of incompetence.

  37. kezza2:

    Tuesday, August 17, 2021 at 11:04 pm

    [‘I’ve been musing/thinking about this all last night and most of today.

    Different sides of the same coin.

    In the West, women are (mostly) still regarded as sex objects. The solution in the West is to maximise the titillation, and thereby reduce status. Just check your nearest billboard.’]

    I find your post sexist.

  38. Sceptic

    Obama was such a disappointment. I don’t think he was a great orator, at all. When pressed, he can barely get two words together in a fairly coherent fashion. I think he only got there because he was a good looking dude. But, he kept to the status quo, and that’s all that matters to the prodigious American diet for continual patriotic-flag campaigning.

  40. Like this: I Changed Astronomy Forever. He Won the Nobel Prize for It. I heard her being interviewed on the ABC during a long drive (The Science Show?). An impressive lady.

  41. kezza2:

    Tuesday, August 17, 2021 at 11:25 pm

    [‘Mavis says:

    I find your post sexist.’]

    kezza2 says:

    [‘That’s why I took pains to relieve your inevitable findings.’]

    I still consider your first post sexist – call me old-fashioned if you will. Pepys.

  42. Whatever, Mavis,

    You obviously don’t want to think about what I’ve argued. You just want to cling on to the first sentence. And take your angst from there. And that’s what I pre-empted. That’s your prerogative.

    Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.

  43. Mavis

    Have a look at yourself.

    You, who laughs at a nephew for being so naive as to not want to be yelled at, in joining one of the armed forces. Your nephew obviously wants some respect. You seem to think that respect is a repellent aim.

    And that’s probably what happened to you. You don’t get to think for yourself when you are obeying commands at all times.

  44. P1 sees himself as a maverick, as being cleverer than the rest, as being an ‘individual’. I bet he has one of those really stupid modern christian names too, probably Maverick, or Ace or some such. In reality he’s just a twit!

  45. I haven’t been here for many months…….

    But., i read this:

    “kezza2

    Different sides of the same coin.

    In the West, women are (mostly) still regarded as sex objects. The solution in the West is to maximise the titillation, and thereby reduce status. Just check your nearest billboard.

    In Afghanistan, women are (mostly) still regarded as sex objects. The solution in Afghanistan is to minimise the titillation, and thereby reduce status. Just check the public stonings.”

    —–

    The same coin? a picture on a billboard and the stoning to death of a real woman is the same???

    What obscene moral turpitude.

    All the best, I may catch up in a few months. Maybe by then the coins will have different sides.

    P.S. I always thought kezza was a woman, but maybe ‘wokeness’ overrides “sex”.

  46. The Army strips you of humanity. It wants to turn you into a killer (kill or be killed).

    I have first hand knowledge of this. My best friend’s fiance was called up in the death throes of the Vietman War. From a warm, loving person, he turned into a tyrant, from his training at Puckapunyal.

    And he didn’t get to Vietnam, thankfully Whitlam put a stop to it.

    But he abused my friend, badly. She loved him. Had four kids before she could no longer take the abuse.

    Those kids are pretty much f*d, but slowly making a go of it. She’s re-married to a wonderful guy. However, those kids are forever scarred.

    I have absolutely no sympathy for warmongers, or those who extol the virtues of the armed forces.

  47. kezza2
    Incel types are not representative of men and are the sort of men that women should stay clear off but saying western women and women in Afghanistan are treated the same is silly.

  48. yabba @ #3023 Tuesday, August 17th, 2021 – 6:57 pm

    By the way, have you managed to research why i matters in relation to electricity distribution?

    i imagine i know, although an electrical engineer would probably call me j. It’s possibly too complex for P1

  49. Rakali says:
    Wednesday, August 18, 2021 at 12:23 am

    a picture on a billboard and the stoning to death of a real woman is the same???

    What obscene moral turpitude.

    All the best, I may catch up in a few months. Maybe by then the coins will have different sides.

    P.S. I always thought kezza was a woman, but maybe ‘wokeness’ overrides “sex”.

    Ah Rakali,

    How thoughtless of you. Did I say that the stoning of a woman in Afghanistan is the same as a picture of a sexualised woman on a western billboard?

    NO. If you have something to say, say it.

    But, don’t fucking dare mis-represent what I was saying.

  50. There’s something seriously wrong when I’m accused of saying that “western women and women in Afghanistan are treated the same”.

    They’re not.

    Otherwise there wouldn’t be fame on the one hand, and death on the other.

    I’m beginning to think men aren’t as smart as they think they are.

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