Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In my remarks today as Chair of the Standing Committee on Petitions, I will cover a fundamental aspect of the petitions process, and that is signatures. Early in 2014, a petition was presented with more than one million signatures. Prior to that, the petition with the greatest number of signatures was presented in the year 2000, with more than 790,000 signatures.

Whilst it is always impressive to hear about large numbers of people supporting a petition, today I would like to focus on petitions which have been presented to the House with fewer than 100 recorded signatures. Standing order 205 provides that every petition must contain the signature and full name and address of a principal petitioner on the first page of a petition; otherwise, there is no requirement relating to the number of signatures a petition must have. This reflects the longstanding principle that every Australian has the right to petition their parliament.

Of the 1,932 petitions received since the establishment of the committee in 2008, 458 petitions—or approximately one-quarter of all petitions presented in the House—had less than 100 signatures. Usually, the topics of these petitions are similar to petitions with higher signature counts. Reasons for low signature counts on petitions can include: Australia's population distribution, interest levels in the topics of petitions, knowledge of the House's petitioning requirements and neglecting to meet certain petitioning requirements. Some petitioners only intend to collect a smaller number of signatures, because the request of their petition is fairly localised or time limited or because they do not have the capacity to seek more.

Deputy Speaker Goodenough, as you know, a significant proportion of Australia's population live in regional and remote areas. That is, approximately seven million people—or 29 per cent, as of 30 June 2014—according to ABS statistics. Living in regional and remote areas can be prohibitive to collecting a large number of handwritten signatures, unless they are collected over a long period of time or there is an organised effort among several groups to distribute and collect petitions pages across the nation. Living in these areas can also bring with it very specific reasons for petitioning the House, which may not generate much support from other parts of Australia unaffected by those issues.

Increasing public knowledge of the House petitioning system may also contribute, in a roundabout way, to lower signature counts. For example: occasionally, single-signature petitions have been lodged because the principal petitioner is aware that standing order requirements are met if the petition contains their identifiable signature only. In these cases, the petitioner will often be petitioning about a personal grievance. Another reason why some petitions only have a handful of signatures is that petitioners may have neglected to meet one of the petition requirements and so certain signatures could not be counted.

Unfortunately, some petitioners may fail to note the requirement set out in standing order 204(b), which states:

The terms of the petition must not contain any alterations …

In practice, this means that the petitioner's request on subsequent pages must be the same as that on the front page. If this requirement is overlooked, it could mean that some signatures cannot be included in the signature count, resulting in a recorded signature count much lower than the actual number of signatures collected for the petition. It is regrettable that such great efforts are made by petitioners, only to have their petition found to be noncompliant due to this oversight. However, as long as the front page meets requirements, most petitions falling into this category can still be presented.

As I have done in the past, I strongly encourage all petitioners to seek advice from the secretariat with regard to correct wording and format of petitions. Whilst there may be more publicity surrounding large petitions and the topics they cover, administratively every petition received by the petitions committee is assessed in the same way. The committee considers a petition for compliance with the House's standing orders, not on the basis of its subject matter, its political viewpoints or how many signatures have been collected. Whether petitions have one signature or one million signatures, they remain an important means by which Australians can directly raise their concerns with parliament.