Determining Political Futures in Queensland: An Early LNP Postal Vote Harvest in 2024

The AIM Network

5 months ago

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):

**Architectural Heritage in Private Hands at Tighnabraigh at Indooroopilly, Brisbane**

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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Denis Bright (pictured) is a financial member of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA). Denis is committed to consensus-building in these difficult times. Your feedback from readers advances the cause of citizens’ journalism. Full names are not required when making comments. However, a valid email must be submitted if you decide to hit the Replies Button.