By Denis Bright
Immediately after the issue of election writs voters across Queensland usually receive a personalized letter from the State LNP in non-LNP seats and from LNP members in other state seats to solicit postal vote applications.
This year’s LNP efforts replaced the personalized letters with a Dear Resident format. Envelopes received by electors come in an envelope labelled as important voting information.
There is nothing very alarming about this practice if it is an accountable attempt to inform voters of their voting options.
Here is an extract from the LNP mailout in the state electorate of Moggill even prior to the issuing of the electoral writs for 2024:
In previous elections at all levels of government, I have asked the Electoral Commission of Queensland (ECQ) to check on the legality and appropriateness of this type of mailout in the context of the current Electoral Regulation 2024:
The Electoral Act 1992 (Electoral Act) governs the conduct of parliamentary elections in Queensland. It regulates various matters including electoral rolls, registration of political parties, elections, preselection ballots, election funding and financial disclosure.
This LNP marketing procedure coexists with the ECQ own mailouts to eligible voters after the issue of the election writs. Perhaps the ECQ should mailout its own reply-paid envelopes without the partisan comments like these statements from the LNP:
The enclosed reply-paid-envelope for the return of the postal vote application forms does not direct the application forms straight to the ECQ but to a Postal Vote Application (PVA) Centre which is a LNP post office box at Box 938 Spring Hill 4004. Missing in action is the LNP’s logo on both the covering mailout envelope and on the reply-paid envelope to that LNP Post Office Box.
The ECQ needs to check on the historical record of this practice to ensure that:
- a full declaration of the campaign spending on this attempt to harvest postal votes has been fully declared: this expenditure on the postal vote harvests must run into thousands of dollars for postage and administrative expenses in each electorate
- assurances must be provided by the LNP no electorate allowances are used to fund such practices by sitting LNP members
- similar assurances are needed about expenditures in targeted seats held by non-LNP members
- there needs to be complete accountability in the administrative costs of these ongoing postal vote campaigns in the returns from previous election campaigns.
Postal vote strategies certainly favour the LNP. This was particularly noticeable in the Labor electorate of Cook which extends from the Cairns Hinterland to the tip of Cape York. In this electorate, the LNP won the postal vote tally by 670 to 565 against Labor at the 2020 state election.
Professor Emeritus John Wanna of Griffith University has communicated his strong reservations of these electoral harvesting practices in previous Australian elections which are controlled under the Commonwealth Electoral Act (Griffith University News and Analysis):
On almost the same day as the government called the federal election, political parties sent campaign material via Australia Post offering residents an ‘Important Postal Vote Application Form’. At the head of the form is the message ‘With compliments’ plus the name of the sitting member or party candidate along with the seat name. Application forms cannot be sent until the election is formally announced or the writs are issued.Alongside the application form endorsed by the political party candidate was a personalised letter to the voter on party’s official letterhead promoting the party’s record and candidate’s own commitments. More worryingly, however, the ‘reply paid’ envelope included in the package was addressed back to the political party’s election centre, not the AEC.
The LNP’s indicated that the ‘reply paid’ form would go to the ‘PVA Centre’ at an address in Archerfield – with no indication that this is a political party address, leading voters to think that they are sending the form back to the AEC.
Labor also sent postal vote application forms but was a little more open in having the form sent back to an ALP reply-paid address.
This practice is not illegal under current legislation, but is it open and transparent? Does it observe the necessary proprieties of impartial electoral administration? Do electors know that their personal information is going to political parties? Many voters will not want their personal details going to political parties without their knowledge or approval, especially when they do not know what political parties will eventually do with that information.
The postal vote application form issued by the political parties has to be an AEC approved form – but a generic one is freely available on the AEC’s website. Political parties are replicating this form and sending it out uninvited to electors across the various divisions to maximise the postal vote – hoping to gain some advantage. This is not new; parties have long assisted in augmenting postal voting for their own interests.
What is new and troubling is that political parties are now re-routing an elector’s application through their own party channels to gain some additional information about the elector. The main information disclosed is that the applicant living at a given address is about to vote via post (and therefore may be receptive to a doork-nock visit), plus the party gains the email address and mobile phone number and date of birth of the elector, and possibly information gleaned from the security question.
The information voters are required to provide is intended to assist the AEC judge the eligibility of voters for a postal vote, not to provide data to political parties. The re-routing of the application form to political parties is most likely to advantage the major parties and incumbents with considerable resources to process the incoming information. It will tend to become an incumbency-benefiting measure. It does not particularly advantage minor parties or independents who might be challenging for a first time. Moreover, the re-routing through the political party is entirely unnecessary and adds a further administrative burden in processing an application form.
This interference with the postal vote application process is nudging us down the Americanisation of electoral administration. The various systems of electoral administration used across the USA are fundamentally not impartial and operated by party political officials often for partisan advantage.
Voters should be worried about the transfer of their personal information to party headquarters without their consent. The new practice of re-routing the postal vote application process in Australia reflects an objectionable drift towards the Americanisation of our electoral process. It will tend to lessen the confidence Australians have in the impartiality of the electoral system, which is all important to our trust in democracy.
The systematic harvesting of postal vote applications by the well-resourced LNP statewide campaign prior to the issue of election writs gives the LNP an advantage over less well-resourced candidates. It helps to lock electors into a partisan campaign strategy even before the election has commenced in earnest.
The LNP claims in its postal voting harvesting strategies that it will be tough on crime. I have politely informed the LNP Lord Mayor’s Office of the importance of keeping security lights turned on at the refurbished Witton Barracks adjacent to Indooroopilly Station car park as a preventative crime measure. I have contacted the company managing these facilities. The absence of any reply does suggest that the LNP’s war on crime is a cynical rhetorical exercise to scare electors.
It is also a tragedy for Brisbane, that the architectural jewel at Tighnabraigh was excised from Witton Barracks by the Howard Government and sold to a private family (Image: History-Witton Barracks):
So, Let’s Turn on the Lights about how much has been spent in previous state elections by the LNP on its traditional postal vote harvesting strategies and just who has been paying for these outrageous campaigning exercises in previous state elections.
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I have just received one of those from LNP for by-election in Hornsby, NSW.
Frankly, I was not pleased. I don’t think parties should have anything to do with electoral process.
Queenslanders remember the Campbell Newman ideological disaster when three years of NLP misgovernment virtually broke the Queensland Public Service and consequently made Queensland unworkable.
The sham ”leader” of the NLP opposition locked himself in his office and required public servants to make appointments to see him. Obviously a great boost to his personal ego, but great damage to corporate morale and government efficiency.
Now which minister in the Newman NLP misgovernment took themselves off for a vacation very early after being elected to office??
I got one this week from the state LNP member, who is missing in action until an election is called and then sends one of these things. I treated it with the same amount of respect, concern and consideration that the LNP member shows for the people of this electorate. I tore it up and threw it in the bin. I considered sending it back in pieces in the pre paid envelope but cannot be sure that the LNP is not using taxpayer funds for this purpose. I would imagine that if they can find a way to make the taxpayer pay, they will. Last election I contact the QEC and complained about it and they told me that they could do nothing about it.
Seems that guided democracy is alive in the old LNP in the Deep North
Is Queensland heading back to the Joh era with the LNP’s emphasis on law and order as well as pride in austerity to deliver balanced budgets and reduced royalties for the mining sectors?
Harvesting of postal votes is the LNP’s contribution to guided democracy. This was one of the survival strategies of those Banana Republics during the Cold War.
It is surely for the Electoral Commission to administer postal vote applications rather than the LNP or one of its marketing arms.
Queensland polling trends are not good. The LNP wants another 2012 landslide and another Campbell Newman in charge.
The Electoral Commission needs to check the LNP electoral expenses returns from previous campaigns. Have the thousands of dollars from postal vote campaigns been declared or charged to electorate allowances?
Why does the LNP want a team of robots to take it over the line on 26 October when liberalism should stand for critical thought and debate on great issues?
Postal vote campaigns from the LNP exploit emotional concerns about the extent of crime. Surely this deception is a form of political dishonesty.
Donald Trump has suggested that he may try to sue the postal service over its handling of mail-in ballots (AP)
“Now, you’ve got mail-in ballots being trusted into the hands of people that just endorsed Kamala Harris…” “How do you know this is gonna be a clean election?”
Wam made a great comment. You would have to be pretty gullible to allow the LNP to manage your postal vote applications in the Deep North. All this is occurring while there is an Electoral Commission supposedly committed to fair election processes and a Crime and Corruption Commission to check on the integrity of the CCC. Why is this situation allowed?
The loss of Tignahbraigh Mansion was a heritage disaster from the John Howard days. The new corporate managers of the little brick outhouses in the remnants of Witton Barracks seem to be too mean to turn on the lights in the car park to protect users of the car-park on what was once indigenous lands by the Brisbane River. Is the LNP really tough on crime?
I got one of those forms from one of the local Lib pollies at the last Tasmanian election. Wonder how they felt when they excitedly opened it only to find a print of a hand giving the middle finger salute along with “Get Stuffed!” 48 point bold black.
Thank you Denis, an interesting discussion paper.
I have to ask what is in this Qld election for Newscorp and SKY who have devoted their energies and resources to support an LNP win in Queensland.
Surely SKY wouldn’t have Paul Murray holding townhall style meetings (in pubs) around the state, denouncing the Labor state government if there was nothing in it for them ?
Overall, in my analysis, Labor have done a fairly decent job.
I note, for instance, that the LNP who initially opposed the fifty cent public transport fares – which by any measure have been a success, in putting money into commuter’s pockets and getting vehicles off our roads, are helping those who previously were paying around $7.50 (in my area) a day to get to and from work are now paying $1 – surely that’s as good as a tax cut ? Now the LNP have adopted this as their policy and, of course, the Greens want to have free public transport [but that’s the Greens isn’t it].
I fear that we are headed towards another election based on the Newscorp vibe as we did with ‘can do’ Campbell !
Terry’s comments are perceptive. Why is the Q Government likely to be defeated given its excellent budgetary record and a record $23 billion in capital works. In Ipswich alone, there is over one billion in new capital works yet Ipswich West fell to the LNP in a by-election earlier this year.
ES and T, great comments.
One problem we have is that voters quickly forget that sitting LNP members are on average mediocre at best, and often incompetent. This a trend in representative democracy the world over, but one that has affected the ALP the least, possibly because the ALP at least has a philosophy that resonates, but that credit is fast evaporating.
My guess is that the LNP will win, and will “do a Campbell Newman.” A one-term wonder.
I cannot watch TV news, but I get the impression that the leading lights of the Qld LNP are failures from a decade or two ago that are being recycled.
And after the win, the LNP factional wars will explode as they divvy up the spoils of victory.
The libs versus nats hatreds make ALP hatreds look like a picnic.
From way down here in Vic, I shudder at Qld’s view of itself, and the cause of its history, and what the heck they think George Street is going to do about cleaning up their acts, and providing any easy path to their obtaining of glossy RM Williams boots, a new hat, and holidays on the coast, where they might find buyers. They tried peanuts and sourness, and seem to have a bad habit of going back to peanuts and sugar in George Street, whilst putting their fortunes or misfortunes in the far reaches down to the sun, the wind, the dust or the rain and bastards.
It’s a bit different to watching Victorian politics pivot between a redundant old slow-waltz of the elite, and the other side’s hippy, hippy shake, where all parties seem to be oblivious to the fact that Oz went off the gold nearly 100 years ago.
And as for NSW, we’ve seen recently, that even God or God’s messengers can’t help them.
Clakka
The other day I was in Woolies buying a bag of roasted, salted peanuts until I looked on the label and saw that they came from China (they weren’t even salted in Australia).
It used to be that around Kingaroy they produced some of the best Peanuts in the world but evidently we can no longer compete with the Chinese imports : odd that considering the peanut industry is fully mechanised so it’s not higher wages !