I spoke with the Tom Rogers of the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) about the recent referendum and how the same shade of purple was used by the ‘Yes’ campaign.
One Nation calls on the Special Minister of State, Senator Farrell to introduce legislation to grant the AEC control over their own colourway, to prevent attempts to confuse voters in the next election or referendum.
I also asked about the failure to include the entire proposed change to the Constitution on the ballot paper, as required by S128 of the Constitution. Mr Rogers’ answer was not acceptable.
I call on the Minister to clarify this Constitutional provision by enacting legislation to require the full text of the amendment to be included on future referendum voting papers.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Firstly, Mr Rogers, thank you very much and congratulations on a successful referendum. You produced an accurate result and very quickly. I want to pass on comments from a
friend of mine who is fairly fussy and interested in accuracy. He volunteered to be one of your workers. He said the process of training and running the booth was first class. He had no problems, and he’s a fussy bugger. We do question the format of the ballot paper, but that’s history now. I wouldn’t take it personally about getting some nice messages. I think, after the last three years of the COVID response and the confusion around some of the Voice campaign, people are sick and tired of governments, so it wasn’t directed at you. I also noticed that ticks and crosses weren’t a thing. A Queanbeyan booth had 1,281 votes. Only one of those was a cross, and there were no ticks. However, in forms completed at the booth for declaration voting, I believe the elector was required to indicate their answer with a cross.
Chair: So no cause for conspiracy theory, then, but I’m interjecting.
Senator ROBERTS: Not at all. But please consider eliminating ticks and crosses from your own paperwork as a way of ensuring they are not used on polling day. That’s just a suggestion from one of the constituents. In the referendum, the Australian Electoral Commission allowed the use of AEC purple by the ‘yes’ campaign. That decision was correct in law, but let’s review that for the next time. Is that possible?
Mr Rogers: I might just talk about the purple signs issue because it’s a complex matter. We don’t own the colour purple. Legislatively, the AEC does not own the colour purple. I wish we did. I’d be very happy—
Senator ROBERTS: Despite the tie!
Mr Rogers: Indeed. There are only limited circumstances in which we can intervene with the use of the colour purple. In a lot of commentary that we saw both online and in the media, there’s this sort of thing about,
‘Oh my god, there are purple signs, and the AEC’s not doing anything about it.’ When you’re doing something like a short-form radio interview or a TV interview, it’s very hard to say, ‘Let us take you through the half hour of complexity of case law and legislation about this issue and why we don’t have power to do it.’ People just want to know about purple signs. Before the referendum, in fact I think before the last election, we’d made clear we would prefer that campaigners and parties do not use the colour purple. But that’s a legislative matter, and that would be a matter for parliament rather than for the AEC. But I can tell you that, wherever purple signs were deployed in those circumstances where we thought they would breach the legislation, we asked for those signs to be moved. By and large they were and in a fairly timely manner. We are satisfied with that, but again I make a plea to parties and campaigners in the future: please avoid the colour purple with white writing.
Senator ROBERTS: Was there a ruling regarding Josh Frydenberg’s campaign using purple with Chinese people?
Mr Rogers: There was a court case—Garbett v Liu—and, from memory, it found in very limited circumstances where the sign is indeed in purple with white writing, where that sign is placed in very close proximity to an ACC sign, almost next to it, and, as the third element, where it contains a message which says, ‘The right way to vote is X,’ it may breach the legislation. It’s that specific.
Senator ROBERTS: It is fairly specific. Thank you. Simon Frost worked for the ‘yes’ campaign in the area that created those deliberately misleading purple signs. Those signs did not pass the pub test, as I think you are implying. I also understand that Simon Frost worked for former treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s campaign. He was a senior adviser. Is there any comment there? It’s difficult.
Mr Rogers: No. As I’ve said, where those signs popped up, where we thought they were at risk of breaching the legislation, we took action. But we don’t own the colour purple and have no mandate over it.
Senator ROBERTS: So you’d support it if we put forward legislation on that?
Mr Rogers: Whatever bill passes through parliament is legislation I support in any case.
Mr Pope: We’d certainly welcome further clarification and widening of section 329, which I think is at the heart of your questioning.
Senator ROBERTS: The ballot paper, as I said a little while ago—we disagreed on that—did not include a full reproduction of the proposed change to the Constitution, as required by section 128 of the Constitution. I
understand that you don’t agree it has to be presented accurately in full and that the short description is sufficient. Is that still your position?
Mr Rogers: I understand that the argument was put by a legal academic in South Australia. I point out that this is absolutely a matter for the Attorney-General’s Department, not the AEC, but for the record I also note that a large number of other scholars dismissed that particular interpretation. For the record so that people understand: the form of the ballot paper followed exactly the form of the ballot paper in the legislation. The matter you are talking about is more of a constitutional and legal issue to be resolved by others, not by us.
Senator ROBERTS: Yes. As I understand—but I’m not a legal expert—the Constitution takes precedence over any legislation. Have you sought legal advice on that issue?
Mr Rogers: No, because that’s not my issue.
Senator ROBERTS: Attorney-General.
Mr Rogers: I have a number of other issues. I don’t need that one as well. But that would be the Attorney-General’s.
Senator ROBERTS: The Kennedy prepoll voting centre in Cairns was located in a shop in a shopping centre. Centre management initially refused both sides permission to hand out how-to-vote cards and display signage, instead offering a location off their property and down the street. As owners of the property, this is their prerogative, except the point of doing that was to set stalls in front of the voting centre for the bargain price of $250 a day, so they made a deal out of it. ‘Yes’ took up the offer, allowing them to position copious signage and poll workers in front of the prepoll voting centre. ‘No’ didn’t have the money and were prevented from handing out. Is it okay to have that operation of poll workers controlled by a private shopping centre management company?
Mr Rogers: It’s not actually unusual for this sort of thing to occur. I was saying before to Senator Liddle, we get four weeks notice to find whatever venues they can. They have to meet certain criteria as well, as you know. You have to have a number that have access for disabled Australians, and there are a range of other requirements such as security, so the number of venues that we get to choose from is quite small. Occasionally it comes down to either taking that one or there being no polling premises in that area. Occasionally, we’ve noticed before in certain large shopping centres and in airports when we’ve used those, there’s no ability for political parties to hand out material. We do try to advocate on behalf of the parties. As I said at the very start of my opening statement, we think scrutineers and campaigners play an important part in the process, but there will always be the odd event where the parties are unable to gain access rather than us arranging it. That was one of those very unfortunate circumstances. Of the over 7,000 polling places, there may have been only one or two that were like that.
Senator ROBERTS: Surely there’s a benefit for the shopping centre because your voting booth becomes a draw card for them. Can there be something written into the contract?
Mr Rogers: Sadly, I know that shopping centre—in fact, I think I visited that place last week, and I know Mr Pope has found some other issues up there as well and tried to secure polling premises, but it was difficult.
Chair: Can you write that into the contract?
Mr Rogers: Some of them will not write that into the contract. They say, ‘Either you sign the contract that we’re providing you or you or go somewhere else.’ I know that’s complex—
Mr Pope: I think we could suggest.
Mr Rogers: And we do suggest. With that particular one, I understand, we did try to work with the centre management, and they flat-out refused.
Chair: Can you perhaps write it into their legal obligations?
Mr Rogers: They won’t sign it.
Senator ROBERTS: It’s a free world. Finally, the AEC has been criticised for responding to a question from a voter with regard to what happens to a voter if he votes twice? The response was accurate: that, well, you just count them. Could that have been more sensitively done in the sense of, ‘Well, we have to count them, but have precautions to make sure people don’t vote twice’? In hindsight it’s always easy.
Mr Rogers: Actually, I do have a view of this. I’m conscious of time, but I think I mentioned before that we were tagged in 145,000 comments in social media in the middle of delivering a referendum. We were trying to serve information to the community as quickly as possible. As you yourself said, that was highly accurate. But it was picked up by a few individuals and weaponised deliberately to try and denigrate Australia’s electoral system. I don’t understand why you’d do that. The electoral system isn’t owned by the AEC; it’s owned by all Australians. I was reflecting the other day on a section of the act—I think it’s 365—which contains a piece of information that, effectively, immaterial errors shouldn’t vitiate an election outcome. It was put in there by smart people. It says, effectively, elections are complex and minor issues shouldn’t be used in any way to denigrate election outcomes. What we’ve seen is that there are a few dedicated individuals online who want to pick up the most minor of issues and create it as a huge event to try to undercut citizens’ trust in electoral outcomes. Let me tell you that, going back in time, we’d do exactly the same thing because it was an accurate answer. What I can’t control is the manner in which people react. As I read out earlier—and I’ve read out two per cent of some of the nutty stuff that barrels down at us, where people seize on the most minor of issues. The whole thing we’ve said before about Dominion voting machines, which emerged again at this—we even had groups of people standing outside at least one polling place in Melbourne in an organised way, handing out pens to voters who were going in, saying, ‘The AEC are going to rub your votes out.’ It’s insane. I don’t know where this comes from. I never thought I’d see this sort of thing in Australia where these minor issues about one comment on a social media page are then used to weaponise such a ridiculous thing.
I’m sorry for the long answer, but I’m very proud of the work that our social media team did in serving up information to Australians in such a timely and informative fashion. I read out some statistics before about our
overarching awareness campaign. It was the biggest campaign we’ve run. I’m very proud of that. I’m proud of the work that our individuals do. I know you know this, but our social media team and the AEC in particular have copped a torrent of abuse from idiots online who should know better, including threats to our staff, including death threats to our staff. It is utterly ridiculous. I’m sorry for using that as a vehicle to point out that our staff do a great job, our social media team do a great job and I’m extraordinarily proud of the work that they do.
Senator ROBERTS: Fortunately, the number of people who do that is very small. Sometimes they get magnified. It’s just that some people latch on to what you didn’t say, which was that we have adequate precautions
to make sure people don’t vote twice. That’s all I’m suggesting.
Mr Rogers: That actually was put there; but, again, I am just pointing out that these minor issues are occasionally blown out of all proportion. I’m also just using that—and I know you won’t mind, because our staff
are so good—to thank our staff who put up with some of that abuse that they get on a very regular basis.
