❓ Opposition questions the urgency and motivation behind the government's proposed Electoral Act amendment, suggesting it may be for political gain. The Premier defends the reform as necessary for electoral integrity and transparency, citing similar federal legislation.
AnsweredQoN 755Legislative Assembly
QuestionView source ↗
ELECTORAL ACT — REFORM
755. Mr R.S. LOVE to the Premier:
(1) With only six
weeks left in the parliamentary term, why is the government pushing through an
amendment to the Electoral Act as a matter of urgency?
(2) Is this
last-minute decision really in the interests of everyday Western Australians or
is the government looking to secure its own political interests?
755. Mr R.S. LOVE to the Premier:
(1) With only six
weeks left in the parliamentary term, why is the government pushing through an
amendment to the Electoral Act as a matter of urgency?
(2) Is this
last-minute decision really in the interests of everyday Western Australians or
is the government looking to secure its own political interests?
AnswerView source ↗
(1)–(2) I thank the member for the question. Some of these
issues were of course canvassed earlier today during the suspension motion.
This is about the integrity of our electoral processes. This is about making
sure that we have absolute transparency when it comes to our electoral
processes. We have seen what happens around the world when the democratic
process is undermined by those who seek to distort it, use it, game it or rort
it for their own political purposes. When we decided to put these laws before
Parliament, we should perhaps have anticipated that there would be some
underhanded behaviour by some who would seek to benefit from this process of
gaming the election by trying to misrepresent themselves on the ballot paper in
an effort to confuse or swindle the WA public into giving them votes that they
would otherwise not have enjoyed. One of the key ways in which we have seen
people do this over the years is by utilising the branding or name of a specific
political party with which they have no affiliation. They wish to use that name
on the ballot paper, particularly through the abbreviation process, to try to
attract votes that would otherwise not come to them. We have seen it in the past.
We saw it with the Liberals for Forests. We saw it with a party called the
Liberal Democrats. There was nothing less Liberal or democratic than the
Liberal Democrats. Hon Aaron Stonehouse had views that were in no way
representative of the Liberal principles of our blue friends on the other side.
It is interesting that Hon Aaron Stonehouse now works for Hon Wilson Tucker , another person who sought to represent a particular point of view on
the ballot paper simply because he thought that it would garner him a few extra
votes. Of course, we saw what happened when vote whisperers came into this
place and tried to rort the system.
We made a decision that we would
return integrity to the process to make sure that that does not happen. We
sought the opportunity to improve the legislation and went to none other than
the Scott Morrison Liberal government, which brought in changes to the
Commonwealth Electoral Act to achieve the exact same outcome.
Of course, that legislation was
brought in by a representative of the Scott Morrison government with whom we are all very familiar, Ben Morton, who
championed those changes through the federal Parliament . When the then Assistant Minister for Electoral
Matters, Hon Ben Morton, put forward those changes, he said —
''These provisions will
enhance the integrity of the electoral process by reducing the likelihood of voters inadvertently associating or confusing
political parties with similar sounding names,'' �
This
is not about protecting the interests of the Australian Labor Party; this is
about protecting the interests of democracy. In doing so, it will
protect the registered political names of the Liberal Party and the Nationals
WA, should someone be so misguided as to want to use that name in their own
title! In this case, I refer to the Democratic Labour Party. As the Leader of
the House observed in the previous debate, this has nothing to do with the
Democratic Labour Party; it is not even registered. As a result, we can see
that this is just someone trying to rort the system. The Democratic Labour
Party does not even want to be named as the Democratic Labour Party on the
ballot paper; it wants to be named as Labour DLP. We know what it is trying to
do; it is trying to basically garner votes by simply creating an opportunity
for misunderstanding at the ballot box and encouraging someone to give them a vote
when they of course wanted to vote for the Australian Labor Party. This is
party agnostic. This is not about defending the interests of Labor; this is about defending the interests of democracy
and making sure that we do everything we can to ensure that we maintain
the confidence of the Western Australian people in our democratic processes.
The way we do that is by identifying those who are trying to rort the system
under the current laws and amending the current laws to improve the integrity
of the overall process.
issues were of course canvassed earlier today during the suspension motion.
This is about the integrity of our electoral processes. This is about making
sure that we have absolute transparency when it comes to our electoral
processes. We have seen what happens around the world when the democratic
process is undermined by those who seek to distort it, use it, game it or rort
it for their own political purposes. When we decided to put these laws before
Parliament, we should perhaps have anticipated that there would be some
underhanded behaviour by some who would seek to benefit from this process of
gaming the election by trying to misrepresent themselves on the ballot paper in
an effort to confuse or swindle the WA public into giving them votes that they
would otherwise not have enjoyed. One of the key ways in which we have seen
people do this over the years is by utilising the branding or name of a specific
political party with which they have no affiliation. They wish to use that name
on the ballot paper, particularly through the abbreviation process, to try to
attract votes that would otherwise not come to them. We have seen it in the past.
We saw it with the Liberals for Forests. We saw it with a party called the
Liberal Democrats. There was nothing less Liberal or democratic than the
Liberal Democrats. Hon Aaron Stonehouse had views that were in no way
representative of the Liberal principles of our blue friends on the other side.
It is interesting that Hon Aaron Stonehouse now works for Hon Wilson Tucker , another person who sought to represent a particular point of view on
the ballot paper simply because he thought that it would garner him a few extra
votes. Of course, we saw what happened when vote whisperers came into this
place and tried to rort the system.
We made a decision that we would
return integrity to the process to make sure that that does not happen. We
sought the opportunity to improve the legislation and went to none other than
the Scott Morrison Liberal government, which brought in changes to the
Commonwealth Electoral Act to achieve the exact same outcome.
Of course, that legislation was
brought in by a representative of the Scott Morrison government with whom we are all very familiar, Ben Morton, who
championed those changes through the federal Parliament . When the then Assistant Minister for Electoral
Matters, Hon Ben Morton, put forward those changes, he said —
''These provisions will
enhance the integrity of the electoral process by reducing the likelihood of voters inadvertently associating or confusing
political parties with similar sounding names,'' �
This
is not about protecting the interests of the Australian Labor Party; this is
about protecting the interests of democracy. In doing so, it will
protect the registered political names of the Liberal Party and the Nationals
WA, should someone be so misguided as to want to use that name in their own
title! In this case, I refer to the Democratic Labour Party. As the Leader of
the House observed in the previous debate, this has nothing to do with the
Democratic Labour Party; it is not even registered. As a result, we can see
that this is just someone trying to rort the system. The Democratic Labour
Party does not even want to be named as the Democratic Labour Party on the
ballot paper; it wants to be named as Labour DLP. We know what it is trying to
do; it is trying to basically garner votes by simply creating an opportunity
for misunderstanding at the ballot box and encouraging someone to give them a vote
when they of course wanted to vote for the Australian Labor Party. This is
party agnostic. This is not about defending the interests of Labor; this is about defending the interests of democracy
and making sure that we do everything we can to ensure that we maintain
the confidence of the Western Australian people in our democratic processes.
The way we do that is by identifying those who are trying to rort the system
under the current laws and amending the current laws to improve the integrity
of the overall process.
Explore WA Government Data
Search the full archive in the free dashboard, or query programmatically via API.
Explore more
Government Gazette
Appointments, regulatory notices, planning changes.
Hansard
Debates, questions, speeches and sentiment.
Tabled Papers
Reports and documents tabled in Parliament.
Committees
Committee profiles and recent reports.
Regulations
Subsidiary legislation with filters and summaries.
Bills
Proposed laws and parliamentary progress.
Acts
Current WA legislation and summaries.
Explanatory Memoranda
Bills with EMs (text/PDF) available.
Members
MP profiles, party breakdown and rankings.
Pollie Rankings
Data-driven rankings across 19 categories.
Amendment Chains
Track how schemes and regulations evolve over time.