The Hon Mr Tony Smith MP Chair, Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters PO Box 6021 PARLIAMENT HOUSE ACT 2600

7 April 2014

Dear Mr Smith

Inquiry into and report on all aspects of the conduct of the 2013 Federal Election and matters related thereto

A healthy political philosophy reflects a balanced view across many social issues.

There once was a time whereby parliaments using the Westminster system consisted of progressive local representatives with a broad gamut of individual special interests. Today this type of representative is labelled as ‘single issue’ or ‘independent’ and big parties have become dominate for convenience of getting laws passed.

I was a senate candidate for a micro party in the federal election on 7 September 2013. The party I represented was not a front party, not aligned with any existing political party or Member of Parliament. We were a member of the Minor Party Alliance and lodged a Group Voting Ticket.

Political parties are responsible for social and national development. Misinformed and misguided choices at the ballot box can produce hazardous consequences for our society and we all then have to live with those consequences, at least for a period of time.

Many millions of Australians have never been a member of any political party. The membership numbers for the major parties is said to be around 80,000 Liberal and 35,000 Labor. Yet in elections around 10 million people vote for these two parties. This situation needs to be challenged. Voters over generations have been trained to vote for one of two camps. Misguided intergenerational loyalties and psychological propaganda are not good enough reasons to have existing players re-elected time and time again.

It has been reported by the ABC that the “7.30 report has been told this inquiry will recommend changes to electoral law in order to prevent the micro parties using preference trading to guarantee Senate seats.” This accusation may be truth or rumour. This inquiry has a responsibility to the Australian people to ensure that the Major Party Alliance does not change our electoral laws in order to secure power.

Australia’s electoral and parliamentary system needs to be swept clean and ordinary people need to understand that they can intervene in a system that is being hijacked by big party elitism politics.

With 68.72% of the votes counted in the rerun of the WA senate election we can see that 25.55% of voters chose not to vote 1 for the Major Party Alliance, and 2.88% (29,332 people) voted informal. Liberal / National received a quota of 2.5769 and Labor / Greens received a quota of 2.6349. Five out of six senate seats are earmarked for the Major Party Alliance.

After the distribution of preferences from the minor parties to the major parties, the experts are predicting the Liberals are the likely winner, dominating with three of the six seats, in spite of a 7.46% swing against the . Without Clive Palmer’s efforts the duopoly would most likely have won all six seats.

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There is no possible way that every voter will get their candidate choice elected into the parliament. Yet the chatter I have been listening to has contention that getting as close to this as possible is what the committee should be working towards, the assumption is everyone should be a Major Party Alliance voter.

The Palmer United Party (PUP) almost obtained a full quota in their own right as did the aggregate of minor parties and independents. PUP received preferences from four minor parties to secure a senate seat.

The last seat anticipated to be won by the Liberal Party is reliant on preferences from the National Party and PUP and 18 minor parties. This indicates that minor party voters will miss out on authentic representation in the senate with the Liberal Party claiming a mandate from voters to do as they please.

The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) has said in it’s submission to this committee, “The glue that holds the system together is trust”. There is no place in our electoral system for a glue which merely beats a drum of hope and faith to innocent believers. Trust and election results are mutually exclusive. Electors want certainty that the system does what it is supposed to do, that is to accurately give effect to voters’ intention to reveal the will of the people and give them decent governance.

Australia is no longer a nation of colonies, yet our electoral and political system treats us as if we were. Addendum “A” titled ‘Political Madness’, is a breakdown of some of the differences Australian voters are subjected to through elected governments protecting their own patch, with a will to end up with fewer parties contesting in elections and keeping themselves in power longer.

Australians deserve a simply structured, efficient electoral and parliamentary system in which no degrees of honesty are tolerated and one where fairness and accountability are highly valued.

Most political parties set up as ‘voluntary’ groups and do not obtain legal status as a political party until registered by the one of nine electoral commissions around the country.

Political movements exist without evolving into political parties. Some movements, such as Get Up, are set up and funded to support existing political parties. Membership is regarded as a healthy sign of engagement with citizens. Movements that evolve into political parties do not need to be registered. Registration brings entitlement to a host of benefits, such as, the name of the party appearing on ballot papers, possible receipt of electoral funding, and the right to accept tax concession contributions from the public and income tax exemptions on their income.

Political parties form freely, without authorisation or interference to peruse their democratic purposes publicly, so it is not a surprise that due to so many Australians being disillusioned, disenchanted and disengaged with the elitist politics, many thousands took grassroots action and formed new political parties before the last federal election. Some new parties made the AEC registration cut-off date for the 2013 election and others missed out.

It is easy to see that the ‘will of the people’ is being manipulated one way by one parliament and at the same time another way by other parliaments and executive dominance around the country.

We are one country and we would be better served with one electoral system whether the election is federal, state, territory or local government. If a party is registered federally that should provide an automatic state and local government election registration and the state election acts should mirror each other under a federal model.

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Smoke and mirrors. The Major Party Alliance parliamentary politicians sell to the average punter a single or coalition identity, but they are in fact complicated structures with states and territories having a party of their own with different set of rules of engagement for themselves, their candidates, and their members. Members are bound by two sets of rules; the federal rules and the state rules.

It appears from recent press that one of the Labor party’s federal rule is members and candidates must be a union member, yet the same is not required for membership according to the Victorian branch. If the federal party overrides the rules of the state party then it would be fair to assume that the Victorian branch would have a heap of non-members being counted as members on their data base.

We have a candidate based electoral system, yet in practice, our democracy is built upon a party system. Elections are contested on an extensively publicised two-party mantra with little emphasis on the individual candidates. Many two party preferred voters would not have a clue who their party candidates were as they are trained to vote for the “leader” and the “brand”. The agenda of the media is to squarely promote the leaders of the two major parties and to ridicule all other parties who dare to attempt to challenge the status quo.

Voters cannot make an informed decision at the ballot box if the media is allowed to continue to make candidates from ‘successful’, as in the two major camps, the only serious contenders. Government sponsored media outlets should be required to provide equal air time to all parties so that the voter has an opportunity to know and understand what options are available to them.

Whether a Registered Political Party has elected candidates or not they are a non-government public body dealing with public issues. We need to clear the mismatch of where and how political parties are classified, recognised, registered, and operate.

For example the Liberal party runs seven “autonomous” Divisions with individual constitutions. On top they have parliamentary parties. Is the Liberal Party a political party, an association or a big business or all three? A search on ASIC’s organisation and business names register reveals the following:

 A Non-Registered Entity (Liberal Party)  Two Australian Proprietary Companies (Liberal Party of Tasmania Pty Ltd, Liberal Party of Pty Ltd)  A registered business name (Liberal Party of Australia [SA Division])  Two associations (Liberal Party of Australia [Australian Capital Territory], The Liberal Party of Australia [Western Australia])  No mention of  No mention of Liberal National Party of Queensland, (Liberal Party of Australia (QLD) Pty Ltd deregistered)

Northern Territory Liberal party, describes itself as a NT party independent of any other political party, though it is associated with the Liberal Party and National Party of Australia.

The AEC maintains a register of federal political parties. This register lists those parties which are eligible to have their party affiliation next to their endorsed candidates printed on ballot papers for federal elections. The state and territory electoral commissions have separate registers for political parties who are registered in their realm.

The AEC website displays the following information about the Liberal Party of Australia.

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Liberal Party of Australia (including)

 Liberal Party of Australia, NSW Division  Liberal Party of Australia (Victorian Division)  Liberal National Party of Queensland  Liberal Party (W.A. Division) Inc.  Liberal Party of Australia (S.A. Division)  Liberal Party of Australia – Tasmanian Division  Liberal Party of Australia – ACT Division

The AEC website displays information about the with three additional branches, The Greens NSW, Queensland Greens and The Greens (WA) INC. without any mention of the Tasmanian Greens, or The Australian Greens – , or Australian Greens SA

What a confused mess! Who is really who in the ZOO! Who are Australians really voting for?

Australia needs a broader range of community opinion in both houses of parliament if we are not to have the many ineffectual and frustrating laws we have today. The current electoral and parliamentary system lacks integrity and favours large political parties and these large political parties operate jointly in an oligopoly political state.

The powerful duopoly through an abundance of media coverage dominate the political scene and receive lavish legal and financial privileges which includes vast amounts of public money based on the number of compulsory votes they obtain. Then without conscious they solicit donations from the public by portraying their organisations and therefore the country would fall apart without more financial assistance to keep them in power.

For generations, Liberal and Labor, have controlled the political scene. They lessen competition by making changes to electoral acts with the intent to eliminate and deter new entrants and minor party candidates. We all live with the success of their efforts. The beckoning question… Is this the best thing for Australians?

Without interference the status quo will keep changing electoral laws to enshrine their ‘mandated’ dominance and muck the system up even more.

Any Upper House can be a redundant echo chamber for an elected majority government of the day or it can provide authentic debate and deliberation in a forum for the airing of more representative views, regional, and minority interest.

Whether federal or state parliament the upper house is the house of review and for it to operate in the best interest of constituents it has to demonstrate a diverse range of community persona and opinion to fine tune intentions. Otherwise, there is no effective check on the elected government of the day and important sectors of society will not be adequately represented.

Queensland does not have an upper house, nor do our two territories. In the case of Queensland the upper house disappeared in 1921 after the secure majority of the decided it had to go. A referendum of the people clearly displayed it should stay. 14 additional ALP members were appointed, by the ALP government to the Legislative Council giving them a majority for the first time and with this majority they did away with the upper house. In 1934 the ALP introduced legislation so that the upper house could not be reintroduced without the approval of the Queensland electors at a referendum.

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It has been reported that the current Premier of Queensland, in July 2010, when Lord Mayor of Brisbane, supported a reinstatement of the Upper House, but in November 2013, the premier dismissed calls for the Upper House to be reinstated saying the last thing Queenslanders wanted was more politicians.

Does this situation represent a case of an arrogant attitude of unchecked power over the people? The Queensland state government is free of the kind of scrutiny and criticism that an upper house of parliament can provide. They can pass all their bills without hindrances and make outrageous claims of “mandate from the electorate”. They are not required to act responsibly as no one reviews the activities of the executive arm of government.

I believe that the just allow increases of annual salary to its politicians, which are more than the average yearly Australian wage. What self-interest policy will be next on their agenda?

Many voters want more choice, they are sick of the old worn two party preferred chants. The reality is new entrant and minor parties are not given a fair chance to establish their message to voters. The labelling of new, and minor parties, as single issue or no policy parties or only there because they can buy votes amongst other things, can be the source of much misinterpretation and dishonest communication to voters.

Ford and Holden as Aussie icons have had their day and the two-party preferred chant has also had its day as it places the well-established parties into a better position than they should be in. The continual chant leads voters to an assumption that they have no other real voting alternative but to vote for one of the Major Party Alliance or opt out in protest via an informal vote.

In Australia senators are elected by a preferential voting system known as proportional representation. The preference system is understood by not many people. Nominations are publicly declared 24 hours after nominations close. Political Parties who want to utilise a Group Voting Ticket have less than 24 hours to set out a preference order of all candidates in the Senate election for the state/territory in which they have nominated and return it to AEC. These statements then dictate the distribution of preferences if an elector votes for that group ‘above the line’.

If a party fails to provide a Group Voting Ticket within this 24 hours their party name is not included ‘above the line’ on the ballot paper and their supporters are required to vote in one of three ways; ‘below the line’, informally or for another party who did provide a Group Voting Ticket.

There is a lot of nonsense being touted about harvesting and back room deals. The preference system is used by major parties to stop minor parties from gaining ground and winning seats. The majors often rely on it to produce an anticipated outcome and cry foul when any ‘unimpeded maverick’ looks to be a threat. To dare challenge the status quo is to be publicly damned.

It is factual that it is only after the close off of the Group Vote Ticket lodgements, that people can see which party has preferenced who, where. This can and does result in many surprises and reveals the personal integrity of the deal makers.

All the senate preference flows are available for viewing on the AEC website, for a period of time, prior to the election. There are websites that allow people to prepare ‘below the line’ preference choice, with this a voter can take their pre-prepared preference choice to the polling booth and transcribe the allocated numbers onto the ballot paper.

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Through preferences candidates from a number of small parties have been elected and voters have been told by big party representatives, a well-known independent, and media commentators that this is a horrible thing and should be stopped.

The integrity, the reputation, the intelligence and the ability of non-Major Party Alliance candidates elected has been slurred because of nothing more than an arrogant self-belief that only candidates of ‘the club’ have the right credentials to represent the people.

Communities, the voting public, and political parties contain people with diverse beliefs, backgrounds and views. Voting is more than just an expression of personal preferences. Voting facilitates a decision about how the voter and other people in our society will live.

Minor parties have the same right and obligation, as major parties, to allocate preferences in a manner that provides their candidates with the best opportunity of becoming an elected member of the parliament. There is nothing wrong with any political party using preferences in the best interest of their Party, their members, and supporting communities.

Voters and candidates of political parties do not necessarily have knowledge of where their preferences flow. Most accept the judgement of the party they are prepared to represent or support. To not allow a minor party candidate to be ‘in the same race’ unless they obtain a minimum percentage of first preference votes is self-centred, short sighted, undemocratic, and discriminatory.

The Minor Party Alliance is a good thing for Australian politics as it supports a multi-party democracy. It is a way that opposing political parties can meet and become familiar with the philosophy and management of opponents. For the 2013 federal election every party within the alliance was encouraged to use the democratic process in the manner in which it was designed. Integrity and strategic alliances for mutual benefit were key concepts.

In a deliberate attempt to bring balance to the Senate, through minor party representation, the approach was to work with like-minded parties and put the Major Party Alliance last. Not all minor parties did as there was no binding tie. The flow of individual party preferences was a free will choice.

It is important to consider why the minor party alliance was formed. The route to obtaining one of the available seats in the senate is to obtain approx. 1/7th of the formal vote cast in each state.

Most of the seats in the senate automatically go the Major Party Alliance so for smaller parties to have any real chance of being elected they need to work together. By doing deals with small parties for high preference positions a non-Major Party Alliance party can increase its chances of staying in the count when another small party is eliminated from the count. The eliminated party’s preferences increase the other non-Major Party Alliance party’s position against the remaining parties in the count. This process continues until the non-Major Party Alliance party is either eliminated from the count or picks up a seat.

It is true that voters who vote ‘1’ above the line for the Major Party Alliance allow the major party to decide where their preferences flow. It is also true that the second or third person on the ticket for a Major Party Alliance party could also be elected with a very low percentage of the vote and get their seat through preferences. Yet if a non-Major Party Alliance does this it seen by major party representatives and the media commentators to be an “outrageous fiddling of the electoral system”.

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Deal or no deal, until the Group Voting Tickets are closed off by the AEC one party cannot be sure of another party’s preference flow. Although suggested otherwise a Group Voting Ticket with a preference order of all candidates in a Senate election is never a guarantee of a victorious win.

Until election votes have been cast and counted no one can be sure of the election outcome. If the electoral system is secure and integral the voters will always decide the result.

The preference system should not be changed to accommodate the whim of career politicians who are “outraged by” someone offering constituents a different political way forward.

The electoral system should not be changed to ensure the Major Party Alliance stay in power if a huge number of people decide not to vote for them. A fair dinkum political system would not allow the politicians of the day change electoral laws to protect their personal interest of staying in power.

Before the last election we saw examples of self-interest politics; like when the major parties announced a joint deal in which they agreed to double the nomination fees for candidates contesting at the September, federal election. At the same time the Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus announced an agreement by Labor and the Coalition to rearrange the funding and disclosure mechanisms concerning donations to political parties in Australia… and they tried to give each other an extra dollar a vote to give “successful parties” a huge allowance for so-called "administrative support".

Political Party funding needs to be put under the spotlight. It is not often mentioned that millions of dollars in political funding does not come from direct payments to political parties, but via ‘receipts’ from so- called associated foundations, businesses, companies, superannuation funds or unions. More subterfuge, smoke and mirrors. A person or business can donate to one of these entities and the name of the donor will only be declared by the associated entity and not by the political party. There is no restriction of foreign donations either.

In 2012-13 year Liberal Party receipts were $73,099,789. On top came September 2013, taxpayer electoral bonus of $23,884,673. In 2012-13 Labor Party receipts were $54,777,408. On top came September 2013, taxpayer electoral bonus of $20,774,691.

The doubling of the nomination deposit was shrugged off by most media commentators as irrelevant. The reality was that it cost a minimum of $32,000- to run a national senate card, $150,000- to run a candidate in each House of Reps seat. Minimum funds required $182,000 before a party hits the campaign trail. This tactic did reduce the number of minor party candidates in the September 2013 election. Many minor parties stand candidates knowing they are unlikely to receive any electoral funding and do so as they believe the Australian people need more than what is currently being offered by the Major Party Alliance.

The same financial burden does not apply to the Major Party Alliance as they have all their deposits covered from the generous public money they receive. The Major Party Alliance has created enormous financial inequities in the electoral funding process to financial advantage themselves and to deliberately disadvantage smaller players. Wealthy parties such as the two major parties should not be entitled to a per compulsory vote taxpayer funding at all or it should be restricted to the number of legitimate paid up members they have on their data base.

To make a point let’s cogitate. Rather than paying an after the election taxpayer bonus per compulsory vote cast why not implement a fee of $2.50 per vote cast for political parties who obtained more than 20% of the formal vote at the previous election and a zero fee for other candidates. The fee would be due and payable at the polling booth by the voter. This system would not only make the

Page 7 of 11 voter realise who is paying for the electoral bonuses but would also make voters think about who they are voting for and what other options were available to them.

The procedure to create and register a political party with the an Electoral Commission is supposed to be a rigorous process with only legitimate political parties being given registered status, so why is public funding only available to some.

The process to register a political party in Australia needs to be tested for reliability, authenticity and validity and all registered political party endorsed candidates, whether elected or not, should be funded by the public purse.

The right to vote in is more than a civic privilege of living in a democracy, is it is a legal duty. The assembly of citizens to cast a ballot on Election Day is an important act of community and citizenship yet, it appears that pre-poll and postal voting is becoming a lifestyle choice.

The civil significance of Election Day is losing its meaning and voters are being encouraged to make an important decision before they have all relative information in front of them. This could be changed by insisting pre-poll and postal votes be cast within the seven days prior to Election Day.

At the National Press Club on 12 February 2014, Clive Palmer, MP spoke about his concerns in relation to the Australian Electoral Commission and the current election process in Australia. The table on pages 10 and 11 presents a summary. I support the suggested practical solutions he has articulated.

I think I will now go and smell the roses.

Maria Rigoni

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AEC and Election Processes – Problems and Solutions

Problems Solutions

The names of dead people remain on electoral rolls The AEC needs to monitor death notices and the allowing groups to organise to vote using these notifications from State Offices of Births, Deaths names. and Marriages to remove the names of all deceased people from the rolls prior to elections.

Not many Australians are members of political Members of registered political parties must be parties but many temporary AEC employees are in excluded from permanent and temporary fact members of political parties. employment with the AEC to remove any conflict of interest and support the independence of our democracy.

Prior to the election the AEC writes to all officers in Legislation must be amended to cease this practice charge of polling booths around Australia to direct entirely. The AEC must not be involved in them to award preferences between the top two predicting election results and preferences must be candidates as predicted by the AEC. distributed in accordance with the results of ballot counting only.

Election results or predictions by the AEC are The AEC must not publish predictions or results for published for eastern States electorates before voting the eastern States before voting in Western in Western Australia and has been Australia and South Australia has been completed. completed.

No personal identification (ID) is required to vote in All potential voters must produce positive Australia - so how do we know who votes? The identification before they are permitted to cast a production of ID is required for the purchase of vote. medicines and a range of other activities in Australia.

Currently when a person votes at a polling booth All booths in each electorate should be linked by their name is crossed off the roll in that booth computer or the internet to ensure a person cannot only. However, this does not stop people from vote multiple times at different booths. voting in all other booths in their electorate.

When the AEC officer issues an elector with a ballot All ballots must initialled by polling booth officials paper in the polling booth, he or she must initial the and all un-initialled ballot papers must be ruled ballot, giving the impression that only votes with informal. initials can be accepted by the AEC as genuine.

But this is not the case, as all ballot papers initialled or not can be counted if they are properly filled out.

Currently, party scrutineers are not provided with a The AEC must provide all party scrutineers with a list of the names of polling booth officials and their list of the names of polling booth officials and their corresponding initials, to enable verification of corresponding initials, to enable verification of officials’ initials on ballot papers. officials’ initials on ballot papers.

All polling booths still use pencils for voters to fill Legislation needs to be amended to ban the use of in their ballot paper. Why, because a mark made by pencils, or better still, electronic voting needs to be a pen can’t be rubbed out while a pencil mark can. introduced before the next election.

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The AEC use cardboard boxes with flimsy seals to The use of sturdy metal boxes which can be properly store ballot papers with plastic wrapped around secured and not tampered with should be re- them. instated.

Currently there is no way of knowing where a ballot All ballots need to be colour-coded for each booth has been cast so it is easy to move votes from one and accounted for and reconciled to the number of booth to another or add votes. ballots issued.

Pre-polling starts up to 19 days prior to the election Pre-poll votes can only be cast by those with a and the votes are not counted until the day after the genuine need to vote early. election - 20 % or more of all votes cast were pre- poll votes. All pre-poll votes need to be counted with scrutineers present, if not announced, on the day they are cast.

Pre-polled votes are left in unguarded rented Security at all premises where pre-poll votes are premises which provides the opportunity of stored must be significantly upgraded. interfering with the ballot boxes or removing them as was done in Western Australia.

In Western Australia, 1,370 two metre long votes All recommendations in the report by Mick Keelty disappeared. Was it because, with the election of AO (former head of the Australian Federal Police), Senator Dio Wang, the Palmer United Party would which exposed the AEC’s lack of security and faulty hold the balance of power in Australia? handling of the election in Western Australia, must be implemented.

The electoral act allows political parties or Political parties or candidates should not be candidates to mail postal vote applications to voters permitted to mail election campaign material to along with candidate and political party election votes with applications for postal votes. campaign material.

Postal vote applications can be completed on-line Postal vote applications should not be permitted to and either mailed, emailed or faxed to the be completed on-line. AEC. This process can be manipulated as some parties have created websites which resemble the AEC site and the same process as outlined above can be undertaken.

Postal vote application forms sent to voters by a All postal vote application forms must be sent by the political party can be completed by the voter and applicant/voter directly to the AEC and ballot then returned to the party or the candidate, rather papers must be sent from the AEC directly to the than the AEC. (The party must forward the form to applicant/voter. the AEC for processing). Once the application is processed, the AEC is then required to send the Completed ballot papers must be sent by the voter ballot papers to the address on the application form, directly to the AEC and not to a party or candidate which can be the address of the party rather than the address. voter’s address. What happens to the ballot paper from there is anyone’s guess. This process is open to all manner of manipulation.

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