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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 5 Hansard (8 May) . . Page.. 1679 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

will be able to be listed in groups on ballot papers. All non-party candidates will be listed in "ungrouped"columns on the ballot papers.

The Electoral Commission noted in its report that in its original conception, dating back to the days when political party affiliations were not listed on ballot papers, a non-party group was seen as a collection of like-minded candidates campaigning on a common platform. These days a non-party group is commonly used as a vehicle for two or more candidates to distinguish themselves on the ballot paper by being listed in a separate column. There is no expectation that candidates in a non-party group have any connection with each other beyond a desire to be listed in a separate column.

Removing non-party groups would give voters a clearer picture of the backgrounds of candidates by more clearly delineating independent and non-party candidates from candidates representing registered political parties or ballot groups. It would also reduce the opportunity for persons to mischievously frustrate the electoral process by causing ballot papers to be unnecessarily large through a proliferation of non-party groups.

The bill provides that postal vote applications from electors who are overseas must be received before the last mail delivery on the Friday eight days before polling day. This will allow for the time needed for mail to be delivered to and from overseas locations and should serve to increase the probability that an overseas postal vote will be received in time to be included in the count. At the 2001 election all postal votes sent to overseas locations in the week before polling day were not able to be returned in time to be counted.

The bill also provides that postal votes must be issued for the electorate for which the elector is enrolled. Or, if the issuing officer cannot determine whether the elector is currently enrolled, the vote is to be issued for the electorate in which the elector claims to be entitled to vote.

This will ensure that postal voters will be treated on the same basis as voters at a polling place and will increase the probability that a postal vote will be included in the count. At present, electoral officers are obliged to issue postal votes for the electorate a person claims to be enrolled for, even when the officer knows the person is enrolled for a different electorate and that therefore the postal vote will have to be rejected at the count.

Under this bill the Electoral Commissioner will not be permitted to be present during any deliberation of the commission in relation to a review of a decision of the commissioner not to conduct a recount. The commissioner will not be permitted to take part in making any such decisions unless the original decision had been made by a delegate of the commissioner. This will bring this process into line with the principle that a person should not consider appeals of the person's own decisions.

The bill provides that the thresholds related to the disclosure of identities of donors to candidates and submission of disclosure returns by persons incurring electoral expenditure, which currently specify $200, will be increased to $1,500. The bill also increases the threshold at which anonymous gifts may not be received by candidates, MLAs, parties, ballot groups and associated entities to $1,500.

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