Wednesday, 13 November 2024

Electoral Matters Committee

Inquiry into the Conduct of the 2022 Victorian State Election

Josh BULL (Sunbury) (10:30): I am pleased to have the opportunity to continue on from a previous sitting week and make a contribution on the report by the Electoral Matters Committee on the conduct of the 2022 Victorian state election. As I mentioned in a previous sitting week, the report goes to many significant and important matters of the election in terms of an overview, the election timelines, the equipping of the commission with various staff and the management of candidates and campaigners.

In my previous contribution on these matters I made the point around the importance of what has now become the lion’s share of voting being conducted by pre-poll. Understanding the context of the report and the findings that relate to the behaviour that we saw right across the state and matters related to such behaviour, certainly for me as a local member running for what was a third time, and from what I can see in the report and from other contributions and conversations across the house, there is no doubt that the election was by far the most hotly contested – and that is saying something, because they are always hotly contested – in terms of behaviour from a whole range of people who, frankly, should have known better.

What chapter 5 in the report looks at is the registering of campaigners. I reference finding 9, recommendation 11 and recommendation 12, which go to the effective management of poor behaviour of candidates and/or campaigners and look to have both an enforcement regime and an education regime but also in a practical sense an opportunity for some sort of registration and some sort of code of conduct. Without that, my sense – and I dare say this is shared quite widely across this house and the other place – is that matters will only, as we move forward in time, get worse.

What the report does is outline a range of recommendations, and I referenced those in my previous contribution, to make sure that there is the process for the ability for a local community to come and cast their votes in what is a safe manner and in a place where they are free from intimidation, any sort of threats, and frankly, in many instances, the bit of a circus that revolves around local polling booths, particularly at pre-poll. The report certainly goes into these matters in some detail, and I make the observation and put on record my thanks to all members that worked on this report. Critically, what we now of course need to do is take these recommendations forward and to look at what options we have to ensure that, at the heart of all of this work, people’s democratic rights are protected and people, both candidates and campaigners, have an opportunity to put forward values, views and positions of respective parties in a fair and reasonable manner.

The report provides a range of opportunities and recommendations to be able to do this. It is certainly my view that these matters need to be very closely looked at and will be very closely looked at by the government, because what we need to do is keep ensuring, as I mentioned earlier, that people’s opportunity to vote in free and fair elections is always maintained in a safe and proper manner. I will leave my remarks there.