Inquiry Into Civics and Electoral Participation in Victorian State Parliamentary Elections

PARLIAMENT OF VICTORIA Electoral Matters Committee Inquiry into civics and electoral participation in Victorian state parliamentary elections Parliament of Victoria Electoral Matters Committee Ordered to be published VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT PRINTER August 2018 PP No 427, Session 2014‑18 ISBN 978 1 925703 58 0 (print version) 978 1 925703 59 7 (PDF version) Committee functions The Electoral Matters Committee is constituted under section 9A of the Parliamentary Committees Act 2003. The committee’s functions are to inquire into, consider and report to the Parliament on any proposal, matter or thing concerned with: a. the conduct of parliamentary elections and referendums in Victoria; b. the conduct of elections of Councillors under the Local Government Act 1989; and c. the administration of, or practices associated with, the Electoral Act 2002 and any other law relating to electoral matters. ii Electoral Matters Committee Committee membership Hon Louise Asher MP Ms Ros Spence MP Chair Deputy Chair Brighton Yuroke Ms Melina Bath MLC Ms Lizzie Blandthorn MP Hon Martin Dixon MP Eastern Victoria Pascoe Vale Nepean (from 7 September 2017) Hon Russell Northe MP Ms Fiona Patten MLC Hon Adem Somyurek MLC Morwell Northern Metropolitan South‑Eastern Metropolitan (until 28 August 2017) Inquiry into civics and electoral participation in Victorian state parliamentary elections iii Committee secretariat Staff Mark Roberts, Executive Officer Dr Nathaniel Reader, Research Officer Bernadette Pendergast, Committee Administrative Officer, Mondays and Tuesdays Maria Marasco, Committee Administrative Officer, Wednesdays and Thursdays Committee contact details Address Electoral Matters Committee Parliament of Victoria, Spring Street EAST MELBOURNE VIC 3002 Phone 61 3 8682 2885 Email [email protected] Web https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/emc This report is available on the Committee’s website. iv Electoral Matters Committee Contents Preliminaries Committee functions ii Committee membership iii Committee secretariat iv Terms of reference ix Chair’s foreword xi Recommendations xiii 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Terms of reference – Inquiry into civics and electoral participation 1 1.2 Responsibilities of the Electoral Matters Committee 1 1.3 The Electoral Matters Committee’s previous inquiries 2 1.4 Inquiry process 3 1.4.1 Submissions 3 1.4.2 Public hearings 5 1.4.3 Site visits 5 1.5 Data analysis 6 1.6 Report outline 6 2 Background to the inquiry 9 2.1 Definitions 10 2.1.1 Civics and electoral education 10 2.1.2 Informal voting 11 2.1.3 Election staffing 12 2.1.4 Community engagement in electoral participation and parliamentary processes 12 2.2 Civics and electoral education 13 2.2.1 Civics in Victoria 13 2.3 Informal voting 19 2.3.1 Background 19 2.3.2 Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council – types of informal ballots 21 2.4 Election staffing 23 2.4.1 Casual election officials 24 2.4.2 Senior Election Official pool 24 2.5 Electoral participation, and community engagement with parliamentary processes 25 Inquiry into civics and electoral participation in Victorian state parliamentary elections v Contents 3 Civics and electoral education in Victoria and other jurisdictions 27 3.1 Definition of ‘young people’ 27 3.1.1 Youth electoral participation – contextualising the problem 27 3.1.2 Theory – age and electoral participation 33 3.2 Why are young people underrepresented in the electoral process? 34 3.3 Evidence from other Australian jurisdictions about civics and electoral education 36 3.3.1 Commonwealth 37 3.3.2 New South Wales 38 3.3.3 Queensland 39 3.4 Evidence from New Zealand and Canada about civics and electoral education 40 3.4.1 New Zealand 40 3.4.2 Canada 42 3.5 Evidence from Victoria about civics and electoral education 48 3.5.1 Evidence about Passport to Democracy 48 3.5.2 Potential improvements to Victoria’s civics curriculum 50 3.5.3 Engaging young people through civics and electoral education 51 3.5.4 Professional resources for civics teachers 53 3.5.5 Proposal to allow students to vote in Victorian schools 54 4 Non‑systemic methods to reduce informal voting in Victorian state parliamentary elections 55 4.1 Definition of informal voting 56 4.2 Incidence of informal voting at Victorian state elections 56 4.2.1 Legislative Assembly 56 4.2.2 Legislative Council 57 4.3 Trends in informal voting – findings from Victoria and other Australian jurisdictions 57 4.3.1 Victoria 57 4.3.2 Potential causes of informality in Victoria 58 4.3.3 Federal elections, Australian Electoral Commission 60 4.3.4 New South Wales 62 4.3.5 Queensland 63 4.4 Evidence and proposals from inquiry participants focusing on non‑systemic methods to reduce informal voting 64 4.4.1 Intentional informal voting 64 4.4.2 Unintentional informal voting 66 5 Election staffing for Victorian state parliamentary elections 69 5.1 Types of election officials in Victoria 69 5.1.1 Casual election staff and election officials 70 5.1.2 Senior Election Officials 74 5.1.3 Election Support 75 vi Electoral Matters Committee Contents 5.2 Evidence received from inquiry participants about election staffing 75 5.2.1 Recruitment of election officials and Senior Election Officials 76 5.3 Training and performance for election staff 86 5.3.1 The VEC’s current staff training programs 86 5.3.2 In person compared to online training 90 6 Electoral participation, and community engagement with parliamentary processes 93 6.1 Electoral participation 94 6.1.1 Definition 94 6.2 The VEC and electoral engagement 94 6.2.1 Priority community groups for electoral participation 95 6.3 Community engagement with parliamentary processes 109 6.3.1 Parliament of Victoria’s community engagement and education programs 110 6.3.2 Parliament of Victoria’s education programs 112 6.4 Evidence from interstate and overseas parliaments about community engagement and education 113 6.4.1 Strategies to encourage young people to develop their knowledge of the work of Parliament, civic engagement and electoral processes 114 6.4.2 Providing resources about parliamentary democracy, civics and elections to teachers and educators under the auspices of parliament’s education work, and providing professional development for teachers related to elections 118 6.4.3 Having the parliament take a more active role in providing information about elections, enrolment and voting 120 Appendices 1 List of submissions 123 2 Public hearings 125 3 List of site visits 127 4 Electoral Matters Committee reports and publications 131 Inquiry into civics and electoral participation in Victorian state parliamentary elections vii Terms of reference Inquiry into civics and electoral participation in Victorian state parliamentary elections Received from the Legislative Assembly on 21 February 2017: That, under section 33 of the Parliamentary Committees Act 2003, an inquiry into civics and electoral participation in Victorian state parliamentary elections be referred to the Electoral Matters Committee for consideration and report no later than 31 August 2018 and the Committee should specifically examine: 1. electoral and civics education, the Victorian Electoral Commission’s (VEC’s) community engagement programs and other best practice approaches used by the VEC, other Australian electoral commissions, the United Kingdom and New Zealand, to ensure that Victorian citizens are adequately informed and able to participate effectively in elections; 2. strategies to reduce informal voting at Victorian state elections which are not related to the voting system; 3. how the VEC employs and trains casual staff for Victorian state elections, this should involve discussion about methods to attract people to join the VEC’s casual staffing roster for Victorian elections, the Committee should also examine the roles and responsibilities of the VEC’s casual election staff in light of changing technological and societal demands; and 4. strategies to increase electoral participation amongst community groups that traditionally experience barriers to electoral participation, such as Victorians aged 18 to 24, Victorians from multicultural backgrounds, as well as Victorians who have recently become Australian citizens and are not familiar with Australia’s electoral system. Inquiry into civics and electoral participation in Victorian state parliamentary elections ix Chair’s foreword On behalf of the Electoral Matters Committee, I am pleased to present to the Parliament of Victoria its report, Inquiry into Civics and Electoral Participation in Victorian State Parliamentary Elections. The committee received the Terms of Reference for this enquiry from the Government, advertised them, called for submissions and held public hearings to further discuss the material that we received. I wish to thank all of those who made submissions and who appeared at the public hearings. I also wish to thank the members of the committee, Deputy Chair, Ros Spence, Martin Dixon, Lizzie Blandthorn, Fiona Patten, Melina Bath and Adem Somyurek for their engagement and interest in this reference. I also wish to acknowledge the excellent work of the staff, the Executive Officer, Mark Roberts, the Research Officer, Dr Nathaniel Reader, and the administrative staff, Bernadette Pendergast and Maria Marasco and to thank them for their support of the committee. In the state of Victoria, there is a role for both the education system and for the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) in the teaching and awareness of civics. Indeed the VEC has a significant role in raising public awareness, specified under the Electoral Act, which is substantially delivered through its Passport to Democracy program. Whilst the Committee believes that civics and public understanding of the way our democracy works is a significant issue, unfortunately there is not wide public awareness of how our political system actually works. The Committee spent considerable time discussing the importance of civics, the extent of unintentional informal votes and how this could be rectified and the difficulties faced by the VEC and like bodies to recruit election staff.

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