Hansard debates

Lee TARLAMIS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:42): Pursuant to section 35 of the Parliamentary Committees Act 2003, I table a report on the inquiry into the conduct of the 2022 Victorian state election, including appendices, extracts of proceedings and minority reports from the Electoral Matters Committee, and I present the transcripts of evidence. I move:

That the transcripts of evidence be tabled and that the report be published.

Motion agreed to.

Lee TARLAMIS: I move:

That the Council take note of the report.

Our democratic system relies on elections being conducted fairly, securely and accurately. This is not an easy task as elections in Victoria are large and complex events involving millions of people. It is important to acknowledge that the 2022 election was the largest in the state’s history, with record numbers of voters and candidates. With this increasing scale came increasing complexity for the Victorian Electoral Commission and others. The VEC needs to manage time pressures, thousands of temporary workers and some very passionate participants, which is not without its challenges.

This inquiry looked specifically at the conduct of the 2022 Victorian election, including the experiences of voters, candidates, parties and other stakeholders. In presenting this report it is important to state from the outset that there is much to be proud of in Victoria’s electoral system and, further, that the VEC has an excellent reputation for the way in which it delivers elections. The committee considers the 2022 election was generally conducted fairly and democratically, with all legislative requirements being met, and the committee was not presented with any evidence indicating that the election result was not correct. However, there were some areas where problems occurred and where improvements need to be made for future elections. These are outlined in detail in the report, along with 98 recommendations and 141 findings that will assist with addressing these issues.

Before I go into more detail about the report, I would like to thank the many people who contributed through written submissions, by meeting with the committee at public hearings, attending the community round tables and completing surveys. The committee received written submissions from 114 people, groups and organisations and held 27 public hearings with 52 witnesses. The information provided was crucial for us to understand what occurred at the 2022 election and how elections can be improved.

This report is divided into two volumes. Volume 1 explores the following four key areas where the committee would like to see changes: improving the election timeline, equipping the VEC with the staff it needs, managing poor behaviour by candidates and campaigners and reforming the upper house. Volume 2 explores the evidence received by the committee in detail and considers matters not covered in volume 1, assessing the 2022 election based on four fundamental questions: was the election inclusive, was the election trustworthy and transparent, did the VEC meet its obligations and was the election fair? There is a lot to unpack in this report and limited time to cover the aspects, so I will just touch on a few points.

The committee was pleased to see a higher proportion of people enrolled and fewer people voting informally than at previous elections. However, the number of people actually turning out to vote has dropped over the last two elections. In addition, although the overall rate of informal voting has reduced, there is an increased number of districts with particularly high informality. Further research is needed to understand what is driving these changes, and the VEC has already begun that process.

The committee would also like to see more done to support the participation of people with disability, including the development of a framework for improving the inclusion of people with intellectual and cognitive disability. We also recommended that the VEC return to its previous practice of mailing hard copies of the easy vote guide to households, and there are improvements that can be made to the VEC’s communications with electors from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

Ensuring that all people can trust the VEC and its processes is critical to robust democracy, and the VEC increased its efforts to tackle inaccurate rumours online in 2022, which the committee supports. However, there was also published some inaccurate information about problems at voting centres, and the VEC will need to review its processes to ensure that this sort of thing does not occur in future.

Scrutineers also play a role in ensuring that vote counting is correct, and there is scope for the VEC’s communication with scrutineers to be improved so that they can be present whenever counting is taking place.

Multiple stakeholders raised concerns about the way the VEC enforced rules at the 2022 election, especially with voting centres. In some cases the committee considers that legislative change to adjust some rules would be appropriate. These include rules around behaviour at voting centres, changes to certain timelines, the authorisation of electoral matter, what is permitted on how-to-vote cards and the timelines for sending out data about postal votes to parties and candidates. Unfortunately, ballot paper shortages were an issue in 2022, with a number of voting centres running out of ballot papers on election day and at least one voting centre closing early. Processes must be implemented to prevent this occurring again. The VEC has also indicated that it plans to implement electronic roll mark-off at future elections, which we welcome.

There are also structural changes proposed that are complex and require careful consideration prior to their implementation. To that end, we have recommended additional inquiries to specifically consider these changes in a more detailed way. While some of these changes would be able to be implemented in a timely manner, others may require a phased approach.

In concluding, I would like to recognise and thank the many parliamentary officers who assisted with this inquiry, including the committee’s executive officer Christopher Gribbin along with Joel Hallinan, Sarah Catherall and Chiara De Lazzari, as well as the Hansard staff, the community engagement team, the graphic design team and the publishing team. In addition, I would like to thank Scope Australia and Inclusion Melbourne for their input to the surveys and Tarang Chawla from the Victorian Multicultural Commission for facilitating the committee’s community round table. Finally, I would like to thank my fellow committee members for their contributions and for their collegiate approach during this inquiry. Whilst we did not always agree, we respected each other’s views and compiled a comprehensive report. I commend the report to the house.