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Key inquiry question 2: How are different communities represented in decision making in Australia? 

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Key inquiry question 2: How are different communities represented in decision making in Australia? 

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Key inquiry question 1: Should voting in a democratic society be compulsory? 

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Key inquiry question 1: Should voting in a democratic society be compulsory? 

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January 2006

Introduction

After each federal election, the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (JSCEM) conducts an inquiry into the election and considers public submissions. A report, with recommendations for improvement to Australia's electoral system, is subsequently published.

The 1996 JSCEM report recommended that compulsory voting should be repealed. The ALP and Democrat members of the committee did not support the recommendation, and the government rejected the recommendation, saying that voluntary voting should not be considered at this time.

The 1998 and 2001 JSCEMs received submissions on voluntary voting, but chose not to pursue the issue.

The 2004 JSCEM recommended that a full and separate inquiry be held into voluntary and compulsory voting.

Compulsory voting is an issue for the federal parliament. The AEC does not have an official view. Its role is to conduct elections according to the electoral law in force at the time.

If there is to be a public debate on voluntary and compulsory voting, the AEC does have a role to ensure that the community is informed about all matters relevant to the debate.

What I propose to do today is to provide you with some background information on compulsory voting in Australia, and then discuss some of the more significant arguments about compulsory voting.

Background

Voting is Compulsory

The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, under section 245(1), states: "It shall be the duty of every elector to vote at each election".

Under the Electoral Act, the actual duty of the elector is to attend a polling place, have their name marked off the certified list, receive a ballot paper and take it to an individual voting booth, mark it, fold the ballot paper and place it in the ballot box.

It is not the case, as some people have claimed, that it is only compulsory to attend the polling place and have your name marked off, and this has been upheld by a number of legal decisions:

High Court 1926 - Judd v McKeon (1926) 38 CLR 380

Supreme Court of Victoria 1970 - Lubcke v Little [1970] VR 807

High Court 1971 - Faderson v Bridger (1971) 126 CLR 271

Supreme Court of Queensland 1974 - Krosch v Springbell; ex parte

Krosch [1974] QdR 107

ACT Supreme Court 1981 - O'Brien v Warden (1981) 37 ACTR 13

On a related matter, it is also an offence under the Electoral Act to remove a ballot paper from a polling place.

As voting is compulsory, electors are given a number of ways to cast their vote at an election, including postal voting, pre-poll voting, absent voting, voting at Australian overseas missions and voting at mobile teams at hospitals and nursing homes and in remote localities, as well as ordinary voting at a polling place in their electorate.

Because of the secrecy of the ballot, it is not possible to determine whether a person has completed their ballot paper prior to placing it in the ballot box. It is therefore not possible to determine whether all electors have met their legislated duty to vote. It is, however, possible to determine that an elector has attended a polling place or mobile polling team (or applied for a postal vote, pre-poll vote or absent vote) and been issued with a ballot paper.

History

Compulsory voting was first advocated by Alfred Deakin at the turn of the 20th century. Voting was voluntary at the first 9 federal elections.

Compulsory enrolment for federal elections was introduced in 1911.

In 1915, consideration was given to introducing compulsory voting for a proposed referendum. As the referendum was never held the idea wasn't pursued.

Also in 1915, compulsory voting was introduced in Queensland by the Liberal Government of Digby Denham, apparently concerned that ALP shop stewards were more effective in "getting out the vote", and that compulsory voting would restore a level playing ground (ironically, Denham went on to lose the 1915 election).

The significant impetus for compulsory voting at federal elections appears to have been a decline in turnout from more than 71% at the 1919 election to less than 60% at the 1922 election. The Bruce-Page government (a conservative coalition of the Nationalist and Country parties) was reluctant to be too closely identified to such a proposal.

In 1924, a private member's bill to amend the Electoral Act was introduced in the Senate by Senator H. J. M. Payne (Nat. Tas) sponsored in the House of Representatives by Edward Martin (Nat. Perth). It was only the third private member's bill passed into law since 1901.

The impact was immediate, with turnout at the 1925 election rising to over 91%.

Victoria introduced compulsory voting in 1926, NSW and Tasmania in 1928, WA in 1936 and SA in 1942.

When enrolment and voting at federal elections was introduced for Indigenous Australians in 1949 it was voluntary, and continued to be so until 1984 when enrolment and voting became compulsory for all eligible electors.

Compulsory Voting in Other Countries

When Queensland introduced compulsory voting in 1915, it became the first place in the then British Empire to do so.

There are currently 32 countries with compulsory voting, of which 19 (including Australia) pursue it through enforcement.

10 of the 30 members of the OECD have compulsory voting.

Table 1 provides details:

Note: OECD countries are in bold.

It could be argued that Australia is out of step with the world, or at least the industrialised world.

Participation Rates

One of the initial reasons for introducing compulsory voting in Australia, and one of the arguments frequently advanced for maintaining it, is that it maintains a high level of participation in elections.

The turnout at Australian elections has never fallen below 90% since the introduction of compulsory voting in 1924.

Table 2 compares turnout at selected House of Representative elections, including the election held immediately before the introduction of compulsory voting, with House of Commons elections held in the United Kingdom at around the same time. The UK has voluntary voting:

* Note: there were two UK elections in 1974. Fig. in table is for October election.

It is also useful to compare turnout with enrolment. In Table 3, I have compared enrolment and turnout at the last parliamentary elections for Australia (compulsory enrolment and compulsory voting), New Zealand (compulsory enrolment and voluntary voting) and the UK (voluntary enrolment and voluntary voting). For Australia and New Zealand I have also expressed enrolment as a percentage of the estimated eligible population. As this figure is not known with confidence for the whole of the UK, I have also shown the figures for Northern Ireland, where there is an estimate of the eligible population, for the same election.

The turnout figure for the Oct 2004 election in Australia is for the House of Representatives (not the Senate). The turnout figure for the Sept 2005 election in New Zealand is for the electorate votes (not the party list votes).

Note: figs for UK include figs for Northern Ireland.

Discussion

Engaging the Electorate

Proponents of compulsory voting argue that it teaches the benefits of political participation.

Opponents argue that it may increase the number of "donkey votes" (ballot papers numbered from 1, 2 and so on down the ballot paper - the "reverse donkey" goes from 1, 2 and so on up the ballot paper) and the number of informal votes and so diminishes the quality of the vote.

Donkey votes are a correctly completed vote. There is no way of knowing whether or not the preference order indicated accurately reflects the elector's considered opinion, or is a manifestation of ignorance or exasperation.

Votes are informal if they are not completed correctly. Table 4 shows informal voting at the last five elections:

The link between informal voting and compulsory voting is difficult to prove.

Of the informal House of Representatives votes cast at the 2001 election, 34% had only the number 1, 17% did not complete the full sequence of numbers required and 13% used ticks and crosses. These informal votes are likely to result from a misunderstanding of electoral laws rather than a deliberate act of civil disobedience.

22% were blank and 6% had a slogan or some other mark, but no numbers (or else the numbers were obscured). It is possible that these are protest votes, although not all protests will be against compulsory voting. Blanks may merely be mistakes.

There is evidence of strong popular support for compulsory voting. The first Australian Election Study, after the 1996 election, showed 74% of respondents supported compulsory voting at federal elections.

The Australian Election Study after the 2004 election was still showing 74% in support. A Morgan poll in 2005 showed 71% support, and an Ipsos-Mackay Study, also in 2005, showed 74%.

Considering the Full Electorate

Proponents of compulsory voting argue that government and opposition parties must consider the total electorate in policy formulation.

Compulsory voting is claimed to encourage policies which collectively address the full spectrum of elector values, because all voters have to be appealed to by government and opposition parties in order to win, and maintain, a majority in Parliament.

Opponents argue that it increases the number of safe electorates and clearly identifies the marginal electorates on which government and opposition parties need to concentrate.

At its most extreme this could lead to "pork barrelling" with increased government expenditure in marginal electorates and less in safer electorates.

Legitimacy

Proponents of compulsory voting argue that a parliament elected by a compulsory vote more accurately reflects the will of the electorate.

As electorates have nearly as practicable the same number of electors, each Member of Parliament is elected by the majority decision of the same number of electors as any other MP.

In a voluntary system, the turnout could vary significantly from electorate to electorate.

In the UK elections in May 2005, turnout varied from 74.6% in Dorset West to 41.5% in Liverpool Riverside.

By contrast, the turnout of all but 2 electorates in the Australian elections in October 2004 was over 90% (the exceptions were Kalgoorlie with 83.53% and Lingiari with 77.71%, both covering remote areas with transient populations).

The legitimacy of a government formed by a voluntary turnout could also be questioned. In the UK in May 2005, Labour won 55% of the seats with 35% of the vote after a turnout of 61.4% (in other words, 21% of the total possible electorate delivered 55% of the seats in the House of Commons).

Voting as a Civic Duty

Proponents of compulsory voting argue that voting is a civic duty comparable to other duties citizens perform, such as taxation, compulsory education and jury duty.

Opponents argue that it is an infringement of liberty to force people to vote, and that the ill informed and those with little interest in politics are forced to the polls.

One argument against compulsory voting is that voting can be an onerous imposition on some citizens. Against this it has been stated by Mr Christopher Bayliss, in a submission to JSCEM, that: "All our voting system requires is for a voter to attend a polling booth and mark some papers as they wish, approximately once every three years. This does not seem to be an insurmountable burden to be part of a democracy".

Another argument is that both the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights refer to people's rights to "freely chosen representatives". It is then claimed that a "right" is something that a person possesses and chooses to use, not something produced on demand.

Article 29 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, however, states that "rights and freedoms" are subject to "duties to the community", including the "just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society".

The Public Interest Advocacy Centre has stated, in a submission to JSCEM, that:

"There are many things that people do not wish to do and which they would not do if they were able to exercise 'individual freedoms', but which parliament has legislated to require. The role of parliament in a parliamentary democracy includes passing laws to ensure the effectiveness of that democratic system".

For opponents of compulsory voting, the question is about the nature and extent of the obligations that it is acceptable for the parliament to impose.

Resource Implications

Proponents of compulsory voting argue that candidates can concentrate their campaigning energies on issues rather than encouraging voters to attend a polling place and vote.

Opponents see this as wealth transfer, to the advantage of political parties, while proponents see it as a wealth transfer to the advantage of the democratic process.

Opponents also argue that resources must be allocated for the enforcement of compulsory voting - determining whether those who failed to vote have "valid and sufficient reasons" and penalising those who do not.

Parties would be anxious to maximise turnout at an election, not only for the obvious need to secure sufficient votes, but also for the access to public funding.

If a candidate secures 4% of the formal vote cast in the electorate for which they are a candidate, they are funded $1.95 for each formal vote. At the October 2004 election, the total amount of public funding paid was $41 926 158.91.

Partisan Advantage

Given that any public debate about compulsory voting will be a political debate, one of the issues that will be canvassed is whether voluntary voting produces a partisan advantage.

Modelling of voluntary voting at elections has been hampered by inadequate data. Views vary from the Liberal Party increasing its share of the two-party preferred vote by about 5%, thereby gaining a significant advantage, to more modest increases for the Liberal Party and the Greens and decreases for independents, the Nationals and, to a lesser extent, the ALP.

There appears to be a consensus that there would have been the same result at each of the last four elections if they had been held under a voluntary regime.

Parties would behave differently in a voluntary voting regime, so it is difficult to form conclusions derived from existing data. On balance, there is no empirical evidence that a move to voluntary voting would advantage one major party over another.

Conclusion

Any change to compulsory voting or enrolment is a matter for the federal parliament.

The Prime Minister has stated that the abolition of compulsory voting will not occur before the next federal election, and there are a number of members of the government who are in favour of the status quo.

On the other hand, influential ministers, such as Senator Nick Minchin, and backbenchers, such as Tony Smith, are on the public record in favour of voluntary voting.

Given the high degree of public support for, and acceptance of, compulsory voting any move for its abolition would need to be underpinned by a high degree of public acceptance and support. In order to obtain this, it is likely that the government will seek to engage the public in a debate about the relative merits of the current system. This will also provide supporters of compulsory voting with their best opportunity to advance their cause.

The debate should focus on which arrangements deliver the best reflection of the electorate's wishes, and the implications of each arrangement for the legitimacy of a government's mandate.

Hopefully, this has helped to focus your own contributions to this debate.

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January 2006 After each federal election, the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (JSCEM) conducts an inquiry into the election and considers public submissions. A report, with recommendations for improvement to Australia's electoral system, is subsequently published. The 1996 JSCEM report recommended that compulsory voting should be repealed.

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Link to HG: suffragette movement, First Nations voting rights, minority representation, female Prime Minister

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Link to HG: suffragette movement, First Nations voting rights, minority representation, female Prime Minister

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Should voting be a right or an obligation? Debate topic

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Should voting be a right or an obligation? Debate topic

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Most democratic governments consider participating in national elections a right of citizenship. Some consider that participation at elections is also a citizen’s civic responsibility. In some countries, where voting is considered a duty, voting at elections has been made compulsory and has been regulated in the national constitutions and electoral laws. Some countries go as far as to impose sanctions on non-voters.

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Julia Gillard misogyny speech voted most unforgettable Australian TV moment: watch in full

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Julia Gillard misogyny speech voted most unforgettable Australian TV moment: watch in full

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Assessment: Preparation and presentation in a debate

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Assessment: Preparation and presentation in a debate

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Assessment: fact finding/research skills/ 

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Assessment: fact finding/research skills/ 

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Key inquiry questions 3: How are laws created? What say does the citizenry have in major political decisions? 

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Key inquiry questions 3: How are laws created? What say does the citizenry have in major political decisions? 

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Link with HG: A history of referendums in Australia

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Link with HG: A history of referendums in Australia

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Assessment: research and round table discussions. power point presentations on successful and unsuccessful attempts to change the constitution of Australia. Ability to source pertinent information from reliable sources. 

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Assessment: research and round table discussions. power point presentations on successful and unsuccessful attempts to change the constitution of Australia. Ability to source pertinent information from reliable sources. 

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Key inquiry question 4: In what ways can outside forces affect the governence of a mature democracy? 

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Key inquiry question 4: In what ways can outside forces affect the governence of a mature democracy? 

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Link with HG: The role of the British monarchy in Australia. 

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Link with HG: The role of the British monarchy in Australia. 

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Assessment: Report on the constitutional crisis and the firing of Australia(s Prime Minister Gough Whitlam by the Governor General. An explanation provided in writing of the role of the Governor General. 

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Assessment: Report on the constitutional crisis and the firing of Australia(s Prime Minister Gough Whitlam by the Governor General. An explanation provided in writing of the role of the Governor General. 

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Key inquiry question 5: What are different examples of different forms of democratic governments? Is there an ideal example? 

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Key inquiry question 5: What are different examples of different forms of democratic governments? Is there an ideal example? 

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Assessment: case studies presented in small groups of examples of governance in various countries, including Vanuatu. 

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Assessment: case studies presented in small groups of examples of governance in various countries, including Vanuatu. 

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For Indigenous Australians who supported an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, the comprehensive loss of the 2023 referendum - its defeat in every state as well as nationally - is so much more than just a political loss.

As the Uluru Statement from the Heart said, it was an invitation to the rest of us for a better future: a coherent articulation by First Nations people, one which had been embraced and considered by more of them than anything said previously, of a view to the future which swallowed everything that had happened in the past, and asked for very little.

And we rejected it. The reckoning of why that happened will go on for a long time. Politics will move quickly to shape and blame the reckoning: largely a brawl between white people.

But pause briefly before that happens to consider the pain of that rejection.

A vote against 'activists'

It took very little time before not only the idea of the Voice was being consigned to history but the people behind it were being diminished by opponents.

The former prime minister Tony Abbott was one of the first to say this was not a vote against Aboriginal people but against "activists" - a line taken up repeatedly by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and his Indigenous Affairs spokeswoman Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.

It is a term designed to not just delegitimise the people - and particularly Indigenous leaders - who advocated for the Voice but to somehow suggest they were outsiders from the start with no clear mandate.

In fact, those people now being dismissed as "activists" - and the work they produced at Uluru - were part of a process that had been set up by the then prime minister and opposition leader in 2015 to "advise the government on steps towards a referendum".

While the Uluru Statement had a rough path from the start, it produced a new generation of Indigenous leaders who have advocated its cause with dignity and grace, in the face of increasing appalling abuse and racism.

Dutton's fast pivot to busy as usual

Dutton and Price on Saturday night told people who had voted Yes that the Coalition had their "best interests at heart", and were protecting the country from a prime minister who was deliberately misleading them and "academics and activists from the inner city".

Indigenous people, Price said, have to "step away from grievance".

In the space of a few short sentences, Dutton morphed the discussion about where we go from from here from one that was his version of what might be done about improving Indigenous disadvantage to one about white grievance: from promising a royal commission into allegations of Indigenous child sexual abuse and an audit of indigenous funding to the cost of living, helping people buy their own homes, "the mess of energy policy", supporting - not opposing - small business and national security.

There was notably no talk of having a second referendum purely about Indigenous recognition if the Coalition won government.

Dutton's Indigenous agenda was law and order and child sex abuse, and the suggestion that things might be fixed by an audit of funding a system that his government designed and watched over for a decade and which the Productivity Commission recently found had failed to meet even its own goals.

Trend doesn't bode well for the Coalition

There is much weirdness in the relationship between this referendum and politics.

Despite the comprehensive loss of the referendum, voters were repeatedly telling focus groups that they mark Peter Dutton down for the way he has conducted himself.

Voice referendum essentials:

More significantly, the very clear trends in voting do not bode well for the Coalition at the next election.

It has to win back the seats it lost to Independents at last year's election, yet they recorded the strongest votes in the country in support of the referendum - often in the 60 and 70 per cent range. Such levels of support suggest the voters in those seats will not forget the events of the last few months.

Labor saw much of its heartland in the outer suburbs vote against the Voice. Yet it is not at all clear that that will count against it at the next election in the same way.

The prime minister and the government have lost standing because of the Voice. But more because voters think their concerns about other issues have been ignored. If Anthony Albanese can now regroup to be seen to address those issues - most notably the cost of living - they will be appeased.

But his party will note his incapacity to be a powerful advocate for a referendum to which he was deeply committed.

No simple message from Yes campaign

The brutal truth of the referendum campaign is that the Yes case could not cut through, could not articulate simply enough why something which was said to be just an advisory committee was so important that it should be put in the constitution.

There was no simple take home message from the Yes side, no clear figurehead.

The prime minister prevaricated and deferred taking the lead, believing that it should be the community and Indigenous leaders who ran the argument - believing that his presence would make the debate a brutal political one.

But it was always going to be a brutal political contest. And he guaranteed that by making the referendum his first commitment the night he became prime minister. That ensured that, regardless of arguments about the Voice itself, it became a target for political opponents who know a crucial step in the path back to government is denying a prime minister his agenda and his apparent effectiveness.

Albanese's position put an absolutely unfair pressure on his Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney to lead the debate from a relatively junior position in the government, and helped scatter the sense of who was leading the debate at a time when there were already diverse groups and spokespeople arguing a range of propositions in support of the case.

The result was a disaster.

The No case had at most a couple of simple messages and a clear spokeswoman and, where he did appear, deadly messages from Peter Dutton.

The Voice proposition was up against an electorate that is notoriously historically conservative about any change in the constitution, which has little knowledge of Indigenous people and, as Noel Pearson said last year, little empathy with them.

Add a vicious disinformation campaign making wild assertions about the Voice threatening people's houses, higher taxes, a UN takeover, and most other conspiracy theories you can name, and we have seen a Dante-esque descent into the political inferno in the last year, much of it driven with the undeniable poisonous fuel of racism.

Indigenous leaders were vowing to stay strong on Saturday night; to acknowledge the considerable support they had got from the rest of the country during the referendum; the 80,000 volunteers they say were supporting them, the 200,000 people who marched across the country.

Many called for a Week of Silence to grieve the outcome, saying now was not the time to dissect the reasons for the outcome.

White politics, however, will be making no such pause. With federal parliament returning this week, the race to shape the story of what has happened will quickly bury all the passion that its advocates put into the Voice.
Laura Tingle is 7.30's chief political correspondent.

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The brutal truth of a referendum campaign that descended into a political inferno

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For Indigenous Australians who supported a Voice to Parliament, this comprehensive loss is so much more than just a political loss, writes Laura Tingle.

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article on the failed referendum to become a republic

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article on the failed referendum to become a republic

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CBC News · Posted: Nov 06, 2019 8:30 AM EST | Last Updated: November 6, 2023

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When Australia held a referendum on the monarchy | CBC

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A majority of Australians weren’t ready to give the Royal Family the heave-ho to become a republic in 1999.