Australian Electoral Commission

CHAIR: I welcome Mr Tom Rogers, the Electoral Commissioner, and other officers of the Australian Electoral Commission. Mr Rogers, do you wish to make an opening statement?

Mr Rogers : No, thank you.

CHAIR: On behalf of the committee, I thank you for coming along here today when life is about to get very busy for you. I really appreciate it.

Senator PATERSON: Welcome, Mr Rogers, it's good to see you again. I have some questions about your February 2021 compliance review. It identified some discrepancies in the 2018-19 return lodged by Peninsula Independent, which was the campaign vehicle for Julia Banks's bid for Flinders. There's an interesting aspect of this which I wanted to draw out your view on further, which is a donation of $25,000 that was made by Alex Turnbull to Ms Banks's campaign. I think I am right in understanding the AEC's view that it wasn't properly disclosed because it was converted into a $12½ thousand donation and a $12½ thousand loan. Is that correct?

Mr Rogers : It's ringing bells, but I might call Ms Reid up to the table. She might have a bit more depth on that.

Senator PATERSON: Ms Reid, is my description of the AEC's concern about this transaction accurate—that a loan of $25,000 was made but wasn't properly disclosed, because it was converted into a $12½ thousand donation and a $12½ thousand loan?

Ms Reid : I have some notes here about the compliance review. We did answer a question on notice on this point from last Senate estimates. According to the information provided, the $25,000 loan was provided to Peninsula Independent and disclosed as a receipt, so it was disclosed as being received. Ms Banks would not have been required to disclose the loan on her candidate return, because it was provided to the entity, Peninsula Independent, and, yes, it was subsequently converted into a $12½ thousand donation.

Senator PATERSON: It might be a coincidence, but I suspect is wasn't a coincidence that the decision was made to split it in half—into a donation and a loan—so that it then totalled $12½ thousand and was below the relevant threshold for federal disclosures. We've discussed extensively in this committee the practice of donation splitting, but this seems to be a new innovation of loan splitting—of saying half of it was a loan and half of it was a donation, even though it came from the same person as part of the same transaction. Is that a permissible way to avoid making a declaration for a $25,000 contribution to a campaign?

Mr Rogers : We have a longstanding practice of not commenting on individual matters, particularly matters that we've examined, without giving the opportunity to the other party to talk. Perhaps I might talk generally for a moment, though, about this process.

Senator PATERSON: Please do.

Mr Rogers : There are occasionally ways that people work their way around the regulations and the law. Most of that is inadvertent, and I'm not making any particular comment on this one. What we find mostly when we talk to political parties is that amended returns are put in and these matters are cleaned up. As you know, we've had a longstanding practice of accepting amended returns from across the political spectrum.

Senator PATERSON: Of course.

Mr Rogers : It happens more often than not. What we find is that, mostly, errors are truly inadvertent and when they're pointed out they are rectified. In the specific case that we're talking about—I don't have the compliance review in front of me, but I think when we did the compliance review we pointed out what we thought was a problem. That matter was then cleaned up through an amended return, as I understand it. Ms Reid?

Ms Reid : Yes, that's correct. I also don't have the details of the review in front of me, but I believe that's correct. In the AEC's view, all the correct disclosures were made by all parties.

Senator PATERSON: In the end, after it was amended, not initially?

Ms Reid : Yes.

Senator PATERSON: So initially it was not adequate, because effectively a contribution of $25,000, however defined, was made to a campaign but not publicly declared.

Mr Rogers : That's my understanding, but I don't have that specific information in front of me and I'm loath to go too deeply into it.

Ms Reid : My understanding is that, at the time the amount was made, it was described as a loan, so it was not a donation. The entity recorded it as a receipt, as they were required to do.

Senator PATERSON: But did they declare the $25,000 loan?

Ms Reid : I don't have that detail in front of me.

Senator PATERSON: I'm interested in part because the financial controller of Peninsula Independent was a Mr Damien Hodgkinson. As I understand it, it is the same Damien Hodgkinson who also lodged returns for the Warringah Independent campaign vehicle, which is of course for Ms Zali Steggall, the member for Warringah. In that instance a $100,000 donation from the Kinghorn Family Trust—one transaction from one donor—was then split into eight amounts, also—perhaps not coincidentally—of $12½ thousand, and was not properly disclosed until the AEC brought it to the campaign's attention. Is that right?

Mr Rogers : That's broadly correct. Again, I'm going from memory here. We did discuss that in a little bit of detail at the last estimates. From memory, we did a compliance review and that matter was picked up. Hodgkinson, as I think you said, was the financial controller for more than one entity—for a number of entities.

Senator PATERSON: Yes. There does seem to be an interesting pattern here. Do we know how it is that Mr Hodgkinson came to form the view that you could split donations, either between loans and contributions or between individuals, in order to avoid the public disclosure cap?

Mr Rogers : I'm not sure we have that information.

Senator PATERSON: I am interested in part because Mr Hodgkinson is the financial controller for a number of other campaigns ahead of this federal election. I know, for example, Monique Ryan, the candidate for Kooyong, is also using him as a financial controller. Simon Holmes a Court, who runs the Climate 200 quasi political party, endorsed him recently at a National Press Club address as their go-to financial controller, even though they're not a political party. Will you be looking closely at returns lodged by Ms Hodgkinson after the upcoming federal election, given his practices in the past election?

Mr Rogers : As you know, we look closely at all those returns to make sure that they fit within the definitions of the relevant section of the act, and we will be doing exactly the same this time around. Where we see there are any breaches, we will take action accordingly.

Senator PATERSON: I would encourage you to; it's particularly important. All candidates are equally required to comply with the law, but candidates who are running on a platform of integrity and disclosure and transparency should at the very least meet the current legal thresholds when they're campaigning for even higher and more onerous legal thresholds. That's more of an editorial comment from me.

Moving on to another related topic, you might remember a previous discussion in a round of estimates with Senator Abetz about an entity called the Climate Outcomes Foundation. The discussion in a previous round of estimates was on whether it acted as a conduit for money going to Climate 200, Mr Holmes a Court's outfit. As I understand it, Climate Outcomes Foundation has given $304,000 from unknown sources to Climate 200, which has then in turn gone to independent candidates. In October 2020, when you appeared before estimates, you agreed that this could be a methodology for laundering money to independents. Do you recall that testimony?

Mr Rogers : I am not sure whether I said 'laundering'. I'd have to—

Senator PATERSON: To be fair, let me quote it exactly so I'm not putting words in your mouth. Senator Abetz said that 'it seems that this might be a methodology for laundering money to independents,' and you responded, 'That could be correct.' It was Senator Abetz's turn of phrase, and you appear to say that's a possibility.

Mr Rogers : I do remember that. As you know, this is not a cop-out, but there are so many entities and transactions that it's difficult to recall instantly down to that level of detail. I do remember that conversation. I think that what we said at the time was that the Climate Outcomes Foundation would be required to lodge some sort of return at an appropriate point, where we will get a better view of that. Ms Reid, you might remember more than I do about that particular issue.

Ms Reid : At the time, because Climate 200 was only a donor under those laws at the time, they lodged a return but were not required to. They were required to disclose immediate donations they had received, Climate Outcomes Foundation being one of them. Now Climate 200 is registered as a significant third party, different disclosure rules will apply in terms of going back a couple of steps as to where you source your funds from.

Senator PATERSON: Indeed. But this historical donation, which totals $304,000, from Climate Outcomes to Climate 200—we do not know the source of that money, do we?

Ms Reid : I am not sure of the amount you're referring to, I'm sorry.

Senator PATERSON: That is what I understand to be a cumulative total of the transfers of money from Climate Outcomes Foundation to Climate 200, but the source of that has not been disclosed. Is that right?

Mr Rogers : I would have to look at that in detail. I hate to say this: I think you might be correct, because I remember the figure of $300,000. I think it was declared in a media outlet story, and we opined on that briefly at the last event. I would have to look at the detail of that, but I think there was some sort of donor return from the Climate Outcomes Foundation, or at least a part of that money was included.

Ms Reid : It was included in Climate 200's disclosures. At that time, as I said, Climate Outcomes Foundation had no obligation to disclose its donor to a donor, but now there will be a requirement if they're donating to a significant third party.

Senator PATERSON: But only for future transactions, not historical ones?

Mr Rogers : That's correct.

Ms Reid : Since the legislation changed and since Climate 200 registered.

Senator PATERSON: So we've got this $300,000 which has come via Climate Outcomes Foundation to Climate 200. Climate 200, as you say, is now a significant donor and a third-party entity which is donating to political candidates. We have no idea where that money has come from. It could have come from overseas sources, for example, and we would have no way of knowing whether that is the case. This money is still sloshing around in our political system and will impact this election, but we don't know where it has come from.

Mr Rogers : Again, that would have been received prior to the passage of that legislation which banned those foreign donations. So, to that extent, you're correct.

Senator PATERSON: Foreign donations to political parties were banned much earlier, but this seems to be a way of potentially evading those obligations, where you can effectively funnel donations from a foreign political entity, or a foreign entity of any kind, to an Australian political candidate just by washing them through a few organisations. You're not responsible for writing a law, so that deficiency is not your fault, but it is of concern.

It's of note that Simon Holmes a Court, who runs Climate 200, is a business partner, as I understand it, of Mitchell Hopwood of the Climate Outcomes Foundation. Holmes a Court said they met through the cleantech investment community:

Mr Hopwood has provided occasional advice on investment opportunities … In January we decided to create a private investment vehicle to pursue co-investment in global decarbonisation opportunities.

That was in the Sydney Morning Herald on 17 February this year. These are not arms-length organisations; these are people intimately linked—politically, financially and in business. How can we have confidence that political candidates running on transparency, integrity and ethics are not having unknown foreign dark money funnelled to them?

Mr Rogers : My earnest hope is that everyone is adhering to the legislation in detail, and that's my expectation. We have a compliance program where we review all of those matters after the event in some detail, as you know. We publish the results of that, and we work with the parties, the candidates and others to make sure that they're aware of their obligations. Where we see that there's some sort of breach, we take action accordingly. That's where I think people can take some comfort from the fact that there is a high level of transparency in the Australian system.

You've raised a specific issue, and sometimes there will be specific issues that we deal with, but, by and large—I forget the exact figure, but I think, from something like between 2017 and now, there's been over $5 billion worth of disclosed activity through our Transparency Register, which I think is excellent. It gives people some confidence that they can track back and look at where that money comes from. So I'm very confident in the system that we are administering—noting that we don't pass those laws; we are administering the scheme that parliament's put in place.

Senator P ATERSON: I'll end on this note, Chair. The other option is that Simon Holmes a Court himself could just be transparent and open and declare where this money's come from, or the candidates that he's bankrolling, including Monique Ryan, Zali Steggall, Zoe Daniel, Allegra Spender or any of the others, could ask him—given that they've been the recipients of significant amounts of money from him—where it all ultimately came from and who those individual donors are. They could disclose it if they wished.

CHAIR: Thank you very much, Senator Paterson. Senator Roberts?

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for attending again today. Can I start with a compliment to your social media team? It has a nice balance of humour and information in what is sometimes a very hostile environment. That's reassuring and pleasing.

I'd also like to compliment Minister Morton for his voting integrity bills and for acknowledging the work that I did informing those initiatives with my integrity of elections bill, which preceded them. It's very important for people to understand, and for voters right around the country to be assured, that their vote will not be wasted and that there is no reason to not vote. There is every reason to turn up now, because we'll be having audits of the election processes.

My first question today is as a result of multiple reports from constituents who went into a booth in previous elections and were told they had already voted. This may have been human error by the poll worker, yet I think it's the only issue that Minister Morton's electoral integrity package failed to address that my bill did.

For clarity, there are two types of multiple voting: one where a person votes multiple times under their own name, and another where a person votes multiple times under different names. The first one, multiple voting under one's own name, has been well examined, and the conclusion seems to be that it does not make a tangible difference, because we've now got electronic rolls in most booths—not all, but most. So let's turn to the second one, people voting multiple times under different names. Has the AEC done any work on this issue?

Mr Rogers : We look at the entire voting process at the end of every election. We put, as you know, a submission in to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, where we raise issues that we think have been flagged during the conduct of the previous election. Many of those observations are our observations, and many of them have also been passed to us by others. The issue of multiple voting was dealt with in those submissions previously and in supplementary submissions. What you're referring to there is impersonation, and that's not something that we've had any evidence has had any sort of impact on the election at all. It's not something that was raised with us in any formal way previously. It's not something that has been put into a submission to the joint standing committee at all, to the best of my memory. So that's not something we're looking at, at all.

The other thing with impersonation is that those sorts of things do become known, because, if someone was doing impersonation on a large scale, we would get feedback from a range of different sources that that would be the case. Don't forget that many of these polling booths are actually community polling booths, where people know other people in the community as well. It's not something that's been personally raised with me. I'm not sure, Deputy Commissioner, if it's been raised with you.

Mr Pope : No, that's correct. I would add that there's another category that is what we call 'apparent multivoting', which is actually an administrative error where someone has been marked as having voted, on a paper certified list, and they have put a wrong mark against a person's name. Sometimes it can be seen as being something else, but it is simply an administrative error.

Senator ROBERTS: Is there a phone number or a way of reporting occurrences in order to further investigate the problem, if there is a problem?

Mr Rogers : On our website, there is a—

Mr Pope : fraud email reporting process—

Mr Rogers : and people are welcome to use that.

Senator ROBERTS: The AEC stopped residency checks last century, in 1995. When was the last time the AEC audited a sample of the electoral roll to get an idea of accuracy?

Mr Rogers : We use a whole range of tools to check the accuracy of the electoral role, and we conduct internal audits on that. I think the ANAO also conducted an audit of the electoral roll. I'm not sure if anyone remembers when that might have been—there are a lot of shaking heads—but we could find that out for you fairly easily. So it's been audited even by the ANAO. In fact, now that I'm warming to my theme, I think it may have been audited twice. I'd have to check that for you. If I'm wrong, I apologise to the ANAO, but I think they came back to check the results of the initial audit. I'm happy to come back to you on that.

Senator ROBERTS: Okay, if you could, please.

Mr Rogers : So there's more than one way of auditing the accuracy of the roll. The second thing is when we get data on someone's residence from more than one data source, which is what we do—we effectively triangulate that data to make sure that it's accurate—we also do, as I mentioned before, our own internal checks of the accuracy of our data entry to make sure that that is an accurate process.

Mr Pope : We do. And we match our data with a range of other data sources, and we also do an annual quality assurance process.

Senator ROBERTS: So, although you say that you haven't had any evidence or you don't see much possibility of it, this is surely a case where voter ID would stop someone from voting multiple times under different names or from voting under the names of people who are no longer voting themselves. I know what you're saying about the community, but sometimes people rock up to a booth that's not in their community.

Mr Rogers : I might perhaps repeat what we said at the last estimates. I'm loath to get involved in the issue of the voter ID process. I think that's a highly political issue. It is a matter for parliament. I'm genuinely trying to be right down the centre here. I understand the arguments on both sides of this, but it has become a very polarising debate in places where this has been implemented. So that's a matter for parliament. What we're reflecting on here is the processes that we put in place to assure the vote within the legislation that's currently valid. That bit about voter ID is something that I think I said a little flippantly last time, 'We have a definite policy not to have a policy on,' because we're going to get dragged into that process.

Senator ROBERTS: I can see that. I accept it. It is ironic, Minister, that we need an ID to get into a pub but that we don't need an ID to get in to vote. That's just a comment.

Senator Birmingham: Your comment's noted, Senator Roberts. The government would wish that there had been, or were, broader support for some of the ID measures that, as you acknowledge, Minister Morton had brought forward.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Chair.

CHAIR: Thank you very much, Senator Roberts. Senator Ayres.

Senator AYRES: However, decency then prevailed. That's what happened.

Commissioner, I see we've gone past the deadline for a 7 May election. I think that's right, isn't it?

Mr Rogers : I think that's correct. We're now on to the final two.

Senator AYRES: I won't torture you with any questions about that. I do have a couple of questions about lessons learned from the recent South Australian election. There were complaints about lengthy delays for people who voted in the ballot itself. Have you spoken with your South Australian counterpart about what went wrong and what went right in that ballot, and have you got anything you can tell the committee about the reasons for the lengthy delays?

Mr Rogers : I have spoken to him at some length. Obviously it would be wrong of me to opine or give a judgement on the South Australian election.

Senator AYRES: Sure.

Mr Rogers : But there are some lessons that we've already taken account of. For example, it did take longer to issue the votes in the polling places as a result of the COVID measures that were in place. Even the social distancing, as you know, can create issues. And then the capacity of the polling places with COVID measures also caused some of those issues, as I understand it. When you can only have a limited number of people in there, that can become complex when you are trying to get as many people through the issuing point as you possibly can. We have a process. We've worked with Deakin University and we implemented a number of queue management techniques in the 2019 election, which were very successful for us. We're adapting those for COVID, but it was interesting to listen to his perspective on that. Each state is going to be a little different with where they were with COVID and with some state attitudes to COVID and the community attitudes to COVID on the way through as well. I think he found that there was also a variation between polling places, depending on what the staff did in those polling places, how they managed the queue and how quick they were to put that in place. That would echo our own experience. You can get pretty much two identical polling places in two identical communities and you can get a very different queuing experience.

I would point out federally that, as you well know, it's hard for us to assess exactly where people are going to turn up. There are many factors that have an impact on that, including the time of the year, where people are and whether people are on holiday—I'm probably talking pre COVID here, rather than with COVID—and a range of other things. We are unpicking all of those lessons to make sure that the process is as smooth and as safe as possible.

On that, we're also doing a fairly large-scale public awareness campaign to assure people that there are sufficient COVID measures in place for people to feel safe in the polling place and safe to come out and vote physically in the polling place.

Senator AYRES: Okay. The South Australian experience with postal voting was that it doubled. Presumably that's a COVID response—or it's partly that and partly, presumably, people anticipating that there will be delays on the day. Has the South Australian experience changed the modelling that you've got, or that you've been developing, on postal ballots?

Mr Rogers : We've been doing an enormous amount of work with that over the last couple of years. We're very happy with the modelling we've put in place for this and the way in which we're doing it. I would say that we are encouraging people to vote in person, and I'm happy to talk about that because it's an important point.

S enator AYRES: I agree.

Mr Rogers : None of that is to denigrate the postal voting system in Australia, and I know that you know that sometimes there are some conspiracy theories about postal voting overseas that then wash into Australia. None of that applies. We're very confident with the postal vote process, but my view is that the act requires people to vote on the day unless there's a reason for them not to vote. We're going to have a large number of polling places, and they're COVID safe, with all the measures you would expect to see in those polling places. If they can't vote in person, they should vote by prepoll, and again we are putting measures in place in pre-poll centres to make sure that people can feel safe and that there are not a huge number of queues. We've got some modelling in place to help us with that as well. Then the third option is, of course, postal voting, which is a regular part of the Australian vote. We've been working with Australia Post, and I've personally met twice with the head of Australia Post to talk about some of those issues. We're very confident in the way that we are moving forward with a range of different options. But I'm very keen on this being as normal as it possibly can be. One of the reasons is that the fewer votes in envelopes, the quicker the result will be known and the more likely it is that we'll have a result on the night or close to on the night, depending on how many postal votes there are.

Senator AYRES: I've always thought that voting is essentially a collective experience that we do together.

Mr Rogers : It's a community event.

Senator AYRES: That's right, so making a festival of democracy on the same day, to the largest extent possible—

Mr Rogers : Is very important.

Senator AYRES: actually supports democratic institutions.

Mr Rogers : Integrity, transparency, a sense of community.

Senator AYRES: Yes, absolutely. Are you confident, in your discussions with Australia Post about managing that volume of postal votes, that you're there in terms of the approach you're going to take to that?

Mr Rogers : I am very confident that we have worked with them as best we possibly can. There's one unique thing for this election, unless it's changed because things do change. I think for the first time ever we're getting a direct data feed from Australia Post into our command centre about delivering a range of things and vice versa, which will be very helpful for us to be able to track live how it's going. We've never had that before.

Senator AYRES: Is that information going to be publicly available as well?

Mr Rogers : I don't think so. It would be too hard to that. But we'll be watching that from our command centre, working with them. Australia Post have set up a team where they're working with our staff. As I understand it, during the electoral period—and it's not just us, of course; political parties also use their services—they are at least reducing the number of other large contracts they're undertaking during that period, so they're creating more capacity. Therefore, everything's being done that could possibly be done to make sure that it's a smooth experience.

Senator AYRES: The South Australian Electoral Commission's website crashed as people were trying to register postal vote applications and, from memory, in the local government elections in New South Wales the online voting system crashed in the day leading up to the ballot. I assume you've tested the website to make sure the same thing doesn't happen to you. How confident are you about that?

Mr Rogers : We've done an enormous amount of testing, as you would imagine, on a number of different levels. Firstly, there's the security and the integrity of that process. Secondly, there's the sheer volume of users and whether we can cope with those sorts of volumetrics. We've done appropriate testing on both of those areas—the security and the integrity and the sheer volume of users—and we're very confident that that will be the case. I'm confident that we've done as much as we possibly can do to make that process as smooth as possible for Australians.

Senator AYRES: Flood affected areas: what's the impact been on the availability of polling places in places like Lismore or Toowoomba or Logan City or Murwillumbah?

Mr Rogers : There has been an impact. I might ask Ms Gleeson to talk about that.

Ms Gleeson : Yes, there's been some impact to polling facilities, particularly in the Lismore area. The impact was obviously felt from South-East Queensland now right down to Victoria, but at this stage we're fairly confident that the greatest impact will be felt in Lismore. At this stage we think there are five static polling places that we will be unlikely to use in the Lismore area, and we're working very closely with Southern Cross University on a replacement facility that could accommodate quite a large number of electors. That work is ongoing, and we're hoping to finalise it by the end of this week.

Mr Rogers : I think the vice-chancellor wrote back to me—

Ms Gleeson : Correct.

Mr Rogers : last week in a positive way with that, as well.

Senator AYRES: So, five in Lismore—

Ms Gleeson : In the Lismore area.

Senator AYRES: but no other static polling places knocked over in the rest of the country?

Ms Gleeson : We might take this on notice, if you don't mind. There are two in Queensland that were looking in doubt, but we were working with premises, contacts, on remediations, so they may be able to be used.

Senator AYRES: So the impact will be what we have just talked about but, presumably, it will also be absentee voting and people who have been forced to relocate in the short to medium term while the recovery effort is happening.

Ms Gleeson : We made contact during the process of sending final messages to people in flood and disaster impacted local government areas to advise that they're able to continue to vote for their enrolled address and that, if they've been displaced temporarily, they're able to add a postal address if they'd like and if they intend to do a postal vote. Otherwise, there is no need to update their enrolment.

Senator AYRES: So you're doing that by text, email? Presumably you're not doing it by post.

Ms Gleeson : No. We're definitely alert to the risk there. We're sending those messages by SMS and email.

Senator AYRES: The contingency powers that were legislated last year—has any consideration been given to extending the prepoll period? It's not something I'm necessarily advocating; I just want to know whether you—

Mr Rogers : I think the contingency powers will elapse on 17 April. There will be no Commonwealth declaration in force in any case. So there will be no increase to the number of days for prepoll.

Senator AYRES: If the rain doesn't stop in some parts of the eastern seaboard, if there's flooding on the day, what happens? The affected seats are Page, Richmond—which seats are affected in South-East Queensland?

Mr Rogers : I'd have to look at my map.

Ms Gleeson : There's a large number in metro Queensland. We could provide that list on notice.

Mr Rogers : As you know, Senator, there are general emergency provisions in the act in any case, which we would activate if we needed to.

Senator AYRES: Have they ever been activated, in your memory?

Mr Rogers : Yes, I think they have. But it is very specific: it's by polling place. We had floods—I can't remember which election it was, but it was in my lifetime—and we had to do some stuff. It's complex, though, as you know, if there are large-scale issues, but there are provisions in the act for us to be able to deal with them.

Senator AYRES: COVID affected voters can vote by secure telephone voting. I think there were 266,000 active cases in New South Wales as of last Sunday, 63,000 in Victoria, 61,000 in Queensland and 35,000 in South Australia. That could be a very large number of people isolated on election day. What modelling have you done about the likely numbers?

Mr Rogers : We've been working within an interdepartmental committee looking at this very issue. We're being supported by a range of issues. In fact, I'll take this opportunity to thank all of those agencies that have been participating. They've been incredibly helpful, and generous with their time. We have been doing some detailed modelling, with their assistance, about how we'll run that. I need to be up-front on this: it's an emergency measure, so this is not going to be smooth. If you're thinking, 'Great, I'd love to vote by phone,' it's not going to be a smooth experience; it is absolutely a contingent measure for those individuals who are COVID affected.

Senator AYRES: That is active cases and also close contacts?

Ms Gleeson : No, it is those who are active cases.

Senator AYRES: So what do you do if you are in a household—

Mr Rogers : If you're a close contact and you're asymptomatic, in many of the jurisdictions—were working through that at the moment—we're hoping they'll be an exemption for you. If your asymptomatic, do a RAT—

Senator AYRES: Of course, there are differences between the states in terms of the way they are managing this. I think the Prime Minister has been arguing for a particular proposition. Are you saying that, in any case, there is work being done on particular provisions for the election itself?

Mr Rogers : We are working through that with the health authorities in each state. We're at a very advanced stage of that, but we're not quite at the final bit where we can design a service offering that makes sense for everybody. I'm hoping to make sure the telephone voting option is really reserved for those who are absolutely COVID affected and need to use it. The other message for that as well, Senator—

Senator AYRES: But that could be 400,000 or 500,000 people on the day, couldn't it?

Mr Rogers : That is not our modelling.

Senator AYRES: For those numbers that I just read out for last weekend, with my rough maths, even adding the Tasmanians and a few others gets you pretty close to 400,000. We're heading into winter.

Mr Rogers : Just before Mr Pope speaks: we're also monitoring this with the health authorities. We're monitoring numbers and we're looking at where the trends are, where the peaks are and where it's likely to be more used than not. That's something we're looking at very actively.

Mr Pope : I might just point out that, unless I'm incorrect, those active cases will include active cases over the previous seven days. Telephone voting will be available for only a three-day period: on Thursday and Friday, the last two days of prepoll, and then on polling day itself. It's a 72-hour window for people who are actively—

Senator AYRES: Within their own seven-day period?

Mr Pope : That is right.

Mr Rogers : You can still access the postal vote up until Wednesday evening, so our preference would be that you access the postal vote and only then do the telephone voting option. With the interdepartmental committee, we're putting together quite a large workforce of public servants from other agencies to assist us with that. We're doing the modelling and we're very confident that the ultimate solution will work very well.

Mr Pope : But this is rapidly evolving, as you would appreciate.

Senator O'SULLIVAN: We haven't assurances yet from various state jurisdictions that there'll be flexibility around close contacts?

Mr Pope : We are almost there. It's a work in progress.

Mr Rogers : They've all got—

Senator O'SULLIVAN: I'm from Western Australia; I'm very aware of the different rules.

Mr Rogers : We've heard back from almost all of the states and we're working with the health authorities—as we have, by the way, right through this pandemic. They've all been remarkably helpful. The deputy and Ms Gleeson addressed the AHPPC, whatever that stands for—

Ms Gleeson : The Australian Health Protection Principal Committee.

Mr Rogers : On a number of occasions, the Department of Health have provided us with a pandemic adviser, so we've been working really effectively with them right the way through.

Senator O'SULLIVAN: In any case, if you are an active case or if you tested on the Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday—

Mr Rogers : Apply for a postal vote.

Senator O'SULLIVAN: you could apply for a postal vote, and the telephone system would only apply in those last 72 hours?

Mr Rogers : It would effectively be from Thursday morning to Saturday.

Senator AYRES: Just tell me how the telephone system works and how you trialled it.

Mr Rogers : We're still working with that committee right now, with all those agencies putting that together, and we'll know more in the next week when we finally land that final solution. As you know, we're already doing telephone voting in any case for blind and low-vision voters, so we're building on what we're doing with that.

Senator AYRES: So the process of verification of identity is substantially the same?

Mr Rogers : It's very similar to that. We're building on that. Again, I would thank all of the agencies that are helping us with this. Again, I'm flagging that it is an emergency measure. It will also be a declaration that you are COVID affected, so, if you're not COVID affected, don't use it. In fact, if you do try to use that because all of a sudden you decide you want to use the telephone system, it's little different from you using a disabled parking spot at a supermarket when you are not affected that way. That should be reserved for those people that need it.

Senator AYRES: Also, apart from that injunction to not do it, I think what you're saying is that it's not going to be a straightforward process for the individual, and it'd probably be easier just to jump on a pushbike and go and vote.

Mr Rogers : Go and vote.

Mr Pope : If you're allowed to do so under the health orders, yes.

Senator AYRES: Yes, indeed. I always pay attention to Antony Green. I live in a part of Sydney where he's often seen.

Mr Rogers : I thought that was the beginning of a rhyme, there, Senator!

Senator AYRES: It felt like it, didn't it!

CHAIR: Or a limerick!

Senator AYRES: I really was trying hard to get my third line, but I couldn't get there! He has published a piece today which discusses the legislation I think we passed last year. He doesn't include the name of it, but it was essentially about preventing parties from having registered names that were too similar to those of already registered parties, and one of the clear targets of the legislation was the Liberal Democratic Party. If I can just talk you through this and confirm that this is right: the Australian Electoral Commission, sitting as a commission, confirmed the original deregistration notice from November on 9 February, so the Liberal Democrats were deregistered, and on 9 March the High Court upheld the new law—that's correct, isn't it?

Mr Rogers : That's correct: as to that case that was brought, the High Court did uphold the validity of the legislation.

Senator AYRES: Perhaps if Antony Green, through the medium of me, doesn't explain it, could you tell me why it is that the Liberal Democrats are now able to contest the election under—

Mr Rogers : That name?

Senator AYRES: Yes, which I assume will be bad news for the colleagues sitting to the left of me. But can you explain why that's happening?

Mr Rogers : I won't comment on that last bit, but on the process itself. There is a series of steps in that legislation that we need to follow, which we've followed in this case, including giving the party that's the subject of that process periods of time to comment. I don't have the time line in front of me, but, on that process, I think initially they had until 24 December or something to make their initial submission, which they did, I think, on 22 December, and—I'm going off memory here; I might have to clean this up later on—relatively recently they then sought to register a new name, and, if I was to think about that new name, I want to say—

Senator AYRES: I think it's the Liberal/Liberty Democrats.

Mr Rogers : 'Liberty and Democracy Party'—something along those lines—

Senator O'SULLIVAN: Yes, which is an old name that they had, apparently.

Mr Rogers : We had to advertise that in the paper. It's a 30-day period. There were two objections to that name. We then have to provide the party with a period to comment on those objections, and what they then did was to withdraw their application to change their name. If I'm getting any of this wrong, one of my staff members will appear next to me—

Senator AYRES: No, I think it's pretty consistent.

Mr Rogers : We then issued them, I think, a section 137 notice, and they've got a 30-day period to respond to that as to why they should not be deregistered under that process.

Senator AYRES: And you were, because of the exigencies of time, required to lodge that notice on 1 April?

Mr Rogers : With all the connotations for that—

Senator AYRES: Yes!

Mr Rogers : But that's the process we had to go through.

Senator AYRES: Really, the most generous way to describe it is that they have taken advantage of a loophole that was not anticipated by the drafters of the legislation?

Mr Rogers : I'm nervous saying this, but let me meet you halfway by saying: I am aware of what the intent of parliament was with this legislation, and it doesn't seem to have been met.

Senator AYRES: As the High Court—

Mr Rogers : And the High Court upheld that legislation. I'm aware of the intent of that, and it doesn't appear to have been met in this particular case. I think there are perhaps some side roots in this legislation that maybe were a bit too generous along the way.

Mr Pope : And they've been there for a while.

Mr Rogers : Yes.

Mr Pope : This is not a recent—

Senator AYRES: It's not just a result of the recent—

Mr Pope : No.

Mr Rogers : And the section 137 process has been there for a long period of time.

Senator AYRES: I don't have any further questions, Chair.

CHAIR: I do just want to quickly prosecute this issue a little more and then move on to a couple of questions about Warringah Independent Limited. We are in a position where a political party that the AEC has said should be deregistered—and the High Court has upheld that decision—is now registered.

Mr Pope : The High Court has upheld the validity of legislation—

CHAIR: Sorry—yes; apologies.

Mr Pope : not upheld the commission's decision.

Mr Rogers : Therefore, there's a process in train, but that process will take a period of time under the legislation.

CHAIR: When is the deadline for the party now once again known as the Liberal Democrats to respond to this deregistration notice? What's D-day for them?

Mr Rogers : D-day would be in about a month, I suspect. The exact date, Ms Reid might have.

Ms Reid : That's correct. It's 30 days from the issue of a notice on 1 April. That happens in 30 days.

CHAIR: So they have until 1 May to respond. We'll be in an election period by then, I think it's fair to say. So can they be deregistered after that date?

Mr Rogers : No.

CHAIR: On what basis is that the case?

Mr Rogers : We're presuming that by then the writs will have been issued.

Ms Reid : The register is suspended during the period of the writ issue, and no action can be taken on party registration or deregistration during the writ period. It's frozen, effectively, once the writ's issued.

Mr Rogers : But after the election.

Ms Reid : After the election, it will resume.

CHAIR: This is not an ideal situation, is it? I would have thought, in a situation where there's been a clear decision on this, there should at least be some mechanism for that decision to be upheld.

Mr Rog ers : Legislatively not, I'm afraid. There's a process and we're following that process to the letter, as you would expect. As I mentioned before, just to be abundantly clear, we're aware of what the intent of parliament was with this legislation, and it doesn't appear to have been met.

Senator O'SULLIVAN: Have you explored all options that you can take as commissioner?

Mr Rogers : We have, as we do with all of these matters, to make sure that we're following the most efficient process each time we do this. Occasionally, that includes seeking legal advice. We're clear that this is the only way forward with this matter.

CHAIR: Why do you have to freeze the register?

Mr Rogers : Because it's the law for us to do that. That's part of the process.

CHAIR: A legal requirement or a policy decision?

Mr Rogers : No, a legal requirement.

Mr Pope : There's also the issue of printing of the ballot papers. Once we've pressed 'print' on those ballot papers we can't be changing party names on millions of ballot papers.

CHAIR: Yes, that's true. We've come across that issue a few times before, haven't we.

Senator O'SULLIVAN: There are situations like if a person dies after the ballot papers are printed. Does that sort of scenario come in?

Mr Pope : We don't change the ballot papers. Like at the last election, there were nearly a dozen candidates who withdrew after the—

Senator O'SULLIVAN: Yes, dozens of accounts that withdrew after learning that person—

CHAIR: I have a couple of questions about Warringah Independent. I note that it was a registered political campaigner for financial years 2018-19 and 2019-20 and, therefore, lodged a return for those years. Why didn't they lodge a return as a political campaigner for the last financial year?

Ms Reid : I'll have to take that on notice. I know they are now registered as a significant third party.

CHAIR: Yes. Can you explain to me the difference between those two things?

Ms Reid : Significant third party is the new name for 'political campaigner' as a result of the legislative changes late last year.

CHAIR: Right. The Electoral Act requires political campaigners who've spent over $500,000 in one financial year to be registered and lodge financial returns for the subsequent three years after that?

Ms Reid : Yes. The significant third party definition goes back three years, so if you are registered you are expected to remain on the register.

CHAIR: My understanding from the transparency register is that Warringah Independent spent almost a million dollars—$956-odd thousand—in financial year 2018-19. Why have they been permitted to remove themselves from the register?

Ms Reid : As I said, I will have to take that on notice.

Mr Rogers : I'm not sure. We don't have the detail of that but we'll check that for you and find out.

CHAIR: Has Warringah Independent applied to be removed from the register?

Ms Reid : Again, I would have to take that on notice. I can't recall.

CHAIR: If you can take that question on notice, I would also like to know if they applied to be removed from the register, when this happened and who made the decision to remove them from the transparency register and why.

Ms Reid : Before recent changes to the legislation, if a campaigner applied to deregister, the commission must deregister them. There was no decision point; it was a must. That was amended in the recent laws to give the commission the power to be satisfied that they should be deregistered. I'm not saying that was the case—I'll take it on notice. But that was a position that was corrected in recent legislative reform to give the commission the authority to consider whether they should be deregistered.

CHAIR: Why else would a body seek to be deregistered?

Ms Reid : We have had entities say to us: 'We're no longer doing that. We're no longer incurring electoral expenditure. We don't feel we should be on there.' That's the type of reason why they would suggest they should be deregistered.

CHAIR: It's probably not the case with Warringah Independent, though? That's a rhetorical question, Ms Reid. Last estimates you advised the committee that Warringah Independent hadn't had their financial year 2020-21 associated entity return published, as you were looking into some matters before it was published. We're obviously back here at estimates six weeks later. I was having a look, and my understanding is that the return still hasn't been published. Do you know why that's the case?

Ms Reid : We are still looking into those matters. I understand it's very close, but we are still looking into those matters to make sure the disclosures are accurate and correct.

CHAIR: Will the Australian public be advised if there are any errors in that disclosure in their application?

Ms Reid : The aim is that, when it is published, we are of the opinion that it is accurately reflecting the situation. So if it is published we are saying we are satisfied with the way they have disclosed.

CHAIR: We are getting perilously close to that event.

Mr Rogers : Yes, very close.

Ms Reid : As I said, we are working very closely with them to publish that soon.

CHAIR: Would you anticipate that that would be before the election?

Ms Reid : I would hope so. I can't give you a date, but I would hope so.

CHAIR: Thank you very much.

Senator O'SULLIVAN: I just have a follow-up question on what we were discussing before with regard to the freezing of the register. Is the register frozen for new applications? Is there a differentiation between applications and deregistration?

Ms Reid : Yes. Effectively there's—

Senator O'SULLIVAN: There is a differentiation?

Ms Reid : The chief legal officer might be able to explain the differentiation. Section 127 of the legislation says that we cannot take any action in relation to the registration of a party when a writ is issued, and that has been interpreted legally to apply to the deregistrations. If I'm incorrect, the chief legal officer will correct me. But, yes, essentially new registrations also are suspended.

Mr Pope : Chair, I have a little bit of extra information, with your concurrence, around polling places that have been affected by flooding, in response to Senator Ayres's question.

CHAIR: Yes, Mr Pope.

Mr Pope : We have three in Queensland—one in the division of Petrie and two in the division of Fisher. And we have seven in New South Wales—one in the division of Richmond, five in the division of Page and one in the division of Lyne.

CHAIR: Thank you very much, Commissioner and the rest of the AEC, for coming along this evening. That concludes the committee's examination of agencies for today. The committee will resume on Friday 8 April to examine the National Indigenous Australians Agency, other Indigenous agencies and the Department of Health. I would like to thank the ministers and the officers who have given evidence to the committee today and thank Hansard and Broadcasting for their assistance.

Committee adjourned at 17:33