While Australia's electoral institutions are among the best in the world – like an independent electoral commission, Saturday voting, full preferential voting and compulsory voting – they are not perfect.
Lies in advertising and text spamming are among six key problems identified by The Australia Institute from the campaign, which suggests reforms to fix these areas of concern to safeguard Australia's democracy.
A poll of 1500 voters was conducted by YouGov in the final week of the election campaign, asking Australians whether they'd seen misleading advertisements.
Key findings:
- New polling research from the Australia Institute shows that seven in 10 voters (72%) came across political ads they knew to be misleading during the election campaign, while only 4% said they did not.
- Two in five (42%) saw misleading ads daily during the election campaign.
- A further one in four (24%) didn't know how often they came across misleading political ads.
- This year's federal election was marred by lies in political advertising; political parties inserting themselves in the postal vote process; mass text message spam; an unfair playing field for independents and minor party candidates and confusion about how the electoral system works.
- Six reforms would fix these problems:
- Truth in political advertising laws, like those in South Australia and the ACT
- A ban on postal vote forms being bundled with partisan material and routed through party headquarters
- Making political parties subject to the Privacy Act and Spam Act
- More senators for the ACT and NT, if not all states and territories
- Fair political finance reform
- Better education of children and adults on how the Australian political system works
"Australia is a democratic innovator. By some counts, the first liberal democracy in the world, Australia was distinctive for its secret ballot, voting on the weekend and independent electoral commission," said Bill Browne, Director of the Australia Institute's Democracy & Accountability Program.
"With democracy in decline around the world, it is more important than ever that Australian democracy is safeguarded.
"Disturbingly, most Australians report that they came across misleading political advertising during the election campaign, including 42% who came across such content daily.
"The election was marred by misleading political advertising, political parties inserting themselves in the postal vote process and spam messages on an industrial scale - but solutions exist.
"Truth in political advertising laws have worked for 40 years in South Australia, a multi-party committee has proposed getting parties out of the postal vote process, and it would be simple to make privacy and spam laws apply to political parties as they do everyone else."
