Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

The government will not be supporting this amendment, and let me just advise the chamber that this amendment does not actually do what Senator Wang has just indicated. This amendment does not ask the AEC to conduct a review; this amendment requires the minister to cause an independent review of the operation of the amendments to be made, and it does not specify that that review should be conducted by the AEC at all. It does say that the review must consider various elements in relation to the AEC. But it says, for example, in clause (3), that the person who undertakes the review must give the minister a written report of the review and the minister must cause a copy of the report of the review to be tabled in each house of parliament.

Now, of course I agree that the operation of this bill at the next election should be subject to review. Of course it should be. And as a matter of course, after every election, there is a review into the conduct of the election that is undertaken by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. That was the case in 2013, and I would anticipate that the same would be the case after the 2016 election. These reviews routinely look at all aspects of an election and the way it was conducted by the Australian Electoral Commission. Such reviews provide experts, stakeholders and the broader public with an opportunity to make submissions and participate in public hearings. This process through the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters is comprehensive and transparent, and the committee's reports are indeed tabled in the parliament once completed. Therefore the government will not be supporting these amendments, as they would be duplicating the work that will already be done by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters following the election.