Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

Now that there have been a number of amendments moved I thought I should put the opposition's position on each of them. I'll start with your amendment, Senator David Pocock. The opposition notes the views of Senator David Pocock on the blackout, but the opposition believes that the blackout period as imposed by the government amendment on sheet ZB195 should apply, as it does to other electoral events, such as federal elections. To expand the application of this would set a precedent that has not yet been fully investigated, as Minister Farrell explained. Any expansion of the blackout period should be subject to the proper processes, including consideration by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, before the parliament can consider it effectively. So the opposition will be opposing this amendment.

I turn to the government's other amendments. The amendment on sheet PX149 is around the number of scrutineers. The opposition's position is to support that amendment because of the need to ensure that an appropriate number of scrutineers can be appointed to provide the additional assurance that referenda can be conducted with the appropriate level of integrity. We would note, however, that this does not address the issue of how scrutineers will be appointed by formal or informal 'yes' and 'no' campaign organisations and how to ensure each side has the adequate number of scrutineers or indeed how scrutineers behave and report back the information that they are seeing at voting places.

The opposition will be supporting the government's amendment around pausing the indexation event for the donation disclosure amount for the period of the referendum. It's a sensible step to ensure that participants who may be caught by donation activity prior to the referendum will have the same regulatory amount regardless of when they donate.

We'll be supporting too the government's amendment that creates an advertising blackout for the referendum, in line with the blackout that applies during Commonwealth elections. We've said that this referendum should be similar—as close as possible—to other electoral events so that participants have some familiarity with the way that it will be conducted. This is a good addition to the bill—to ensure that the blackout period which applies to federal elections also applies to the referendum.

Finally, the opposition will be supporting the government's amendment to allow for the extension of remote area mobile polling activities—RAMP activities, as the AEC refers to them—for the purposes of referendums, with the pre-poll locations, in addition to remote area mobile polling locations, operating earlier than the prescribed pre-poll period. We think this, too, is a sensible measure that will take into account the potential for adverse weather events, particularly during the wet season, which may delay the access of those RAMP teams to remote communities. We are very conscious that the RAMP teams service many remote and many Indigenous communities, and every effort should be made for those communities to be provided with the opportunity to cast their ballots in a referendum.

Those are the opposition's positions on both the government's amendments and Senator David Pocock's amendments. I do want to ask a question, though, of the minister regarding some questions that were asked by Senator Thorpe about the provision for limits on expenditure for meetings of the government's referendum groups: the Constitutional Expert Group, the Referendum Engagement Group and the Referendum Working Group. Can I just confirm that the expenditure is limited to meetings of those groups.

I also have a couple of questions around AEC resourcing. This is going to be a referendum which, unusually, is—I think the phrase that you've used, Minister Farrell, and also that the Prime Minister has used—going to be driven by civil society. Civil society is going to be able to run and manage their own campaigns, whether they be for 'yes' or whether they be for 'no'. From the opposition's perspective, this creates some risks. While it sounds like a terrific proposition, it is very different from the way we run federal elections, with registered political parties that are responsible for maintaining the integrity structure around those elections—for instance, around foreign donation laws, donation caps and foreign interference laws. All of that is run within the sphere of registered political parties.

When you turn a referendum over to civil society, you are going to be dealing with a whole new raft of organisations that have never, potentially, dealt with the political process before, and that opens up the system, the referendum and the electoral process to some risks. The opposition would like some assurances from the government as to how those risks will be managed. Is the government going to resource, for instance, the Australian Electoral Commission in order for them to provide education to referendum participants around things like the donations and disclosure regimes that are contained in this bill?