Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

The hope of the government is that this referendum will be conducted in a civil fashion—that each side will have an opportunity to progress its arguments through civil society. Our expectation is that people will abide by that sense of civility in the processes and that we won't find people doing things that are inappropriate or, for that matter, illegal.

If we find that issues arise in that regard, and I hope we don't find that those sorts of issues arise, then I guess we'll have to deal with them. But we're working on the basis that people are going to behave appropriately throughout the course of the referendum and that we won't get into a situation where, for instance, people are illegally taking money on false pretences. But I guess there are other laws which might come into play. If somebody set themselves up as an organisation receiving money for the 'yes' or 'no' case and we discovered that in fact they were a bogus organisation, I imagine there are laws in place that deal with those sorts of things quite independently of the referendum.

I think we have to work on the basis of a degree of trust in the Australian people and trust that this will be a civil campaign and that, at the end of the day, whether it's a 'yes' case or a 'no' case, people are satisfied that the Australian people have had appropriate opportunity to express their view on a Voice to Parliament.