Attachment 1

Electronic Petitions

At the request of Senator McEwen, the President has referred to the committee a number of matters relating to electronic petitions.

Background

The Senate began accepting electronic petitions from the mid-1990s under existing standing orders 69, 70 and 71 which were interpreted as encompassing electronic petitions. Those that fail to meet the requirements set out in the standing orders are treated as non-conforming petitions in the same manner as any non-conforming paper document.

As the number of electronic petitions received by senators is increasing, concerns have been raised about the terms of the standing orders in relation to the lodgement of petitions, particularly petitions that are prepared using online platforms.

Application of standing orders

Standing orders 69 and 71, relating to the presentation and content of petitions, are broadly applicable to electronic petitions and therefore do not require any further consideration.

Standing order 70 relates to the form of petitions and provides as follows:

70 Form of petitions

(1)       A petition shall be fairly written, typed, or printed without interlineation or erasure.

(2)       A petition shall contain a request for action by the Senate or the Parliament.

(3)       A petition shall be in the English language, or be accompanied by a translation, certified by the senator who presents it to be correct.

(4)       Every signature shall be written on a page bearing the petition, and shall not be pasted upon or otherwise transferred to it.

(5)       A petition shall be signed by the petitioners with their names, but may be signed by a person for another in case of incapacity by sickness. A person not able to write may make a mark in the presence of a witness, who shall sign as such.

(6)       Petitions of corporations may be made under their common seal.

(7)       No letters, affidavits, or other documents shall be attached to a petition.

The requirements of standing orders 70(1), (2) and (3) are generally met by electronic petitions and 70(6) relating to corporations’ common seals is not relevant in this discussion. However, the provisions of standing orders 70(4), 70(5) and 70(7) are being challenged in this age of rapidly developing communication systems.

Signatures

Current practice establishes that the Senate accepts a print-out of a petition that has been posted on an internet page and that people have signed by submitting their names and email addresses. The senator presenting the petition ‘certifies’ that it has been duly posted with the text available to the signatories, thus meeting the objectives of standing order 70(4) to assure the Senate that all signatories know exactly what they are signing . But when current online systems (websites, email and blogs) are used to collect signatures, questions arise:

• how is this requirement to be met and regulated?
• should petitions prepared on all such platforms be accepted, or is one platform preferred?

Standing Order 70(5) requires that petitions be ‘signed’. For electronic petitions, an email address and name are regarded as a signature. However, the majority of electronic petitions received are prepared using external web-platforms such as Get-up and Community Run. A common issue arising from these petitions is the reluctance on the part of the organisations to release the email addresses, presumably on privacy grounds. When this information is not made available, the document is assessed as not conforming with the standing orders and is presented as a non-conforming petition or petitioning document by leave. Consequently, the number of non-conforming petitions that are being tabled is increasing.

What types of electronic petition are assessed as conforming with the standing orders?

• The use of blogs to collect signatures has been successful in meeting the Senate’s requirements. The blog entry functions as the text of the petition and the comments as the signatures.
• The use of emails, where individuals sign a petition by sending an email containing the petitioning text to a central organising body, also results in a petition that conforms with standing orders, as the printed emails are compiled as the petition document.
• Alternatively, a single petitioner may send an email to a senator using the wording of their petition, which is then presented as the document.

These last two formats succeed as electronic petitions because the email addresses are taken to be the signature for the purpose of standing order 70.

Petitions hosted on external websites

In terms of standing order 70(5) the main problems stem from those petitions that are hosted on an external website, the owners of which refuse to provide the information required by the Senate’s standing orders. The two main possible options for addressing the issue are as follows:

• reinterpreting the current standing order to allow, in assessing electronic petitions, an identifier for signatories other than email addresses;
• alternatively, those operating the external platforms can be required to find a way to comply with the standing orders.

Attachments

Standing order 70(7) states that ‘no letters, affidavits, or other documents shall be attached to a petition’. There is a question whether this should be applied to explanatory, descriptive, pictorial or other material frequently provided with, and often inextricable from, electronic petitions (including hyperlinks to other extraneous or external information).

Non-resident signatories

Current Senate practice, established by President’s ruling, is that there is nothing to prevent foreign nationals, resident outside of Australia, from signing and presenting a paper petition. With electronic petitions available online and therefore easily circulated beyond geographical boundaries, they are likely to attract more non-residents as signatories than a paper document. The question arises whether current practice should continue to apply to electronic petitions (and, if not, how it would be enforceable).

Other jurisdictions

The Queensland Parliament has accepted e-petitions via its website since 2003. Explicit provision has been made for electronic petitions in their standing orders. To start an e-petition, the sponsorship of an MP or the Clerk must first be sought. Individuals sign the petition using their name, address and email address, and while only the name and address of the Principal Petitioner is made public online, once presented the complete document is available from the Table Office.
By hosting petitions on the parliament’s own website, formal conformity is ensured from the outset. Further, unlike current Senate practice, a petition may be circulated via both paper and electronic processes simultaneously in order to reach the widest audience. The ACT Legislative Assembly and Tasmanian Legislative Council also accept e-petitions via a very similar process, including modifications to their relevant standing/sessional orders. The Northern Territory Legislative Assembly accepts electronic petitions; however no amendment has been made to include provision for electronic petitions in its standing orders.

The UK Parliament and the United States Congress also accept e-petitions. Both host e-petitions on their websites enabling earlier formal regulation, and greater ability to track and document petitions. Both systems have also incorporated quotas requiring a response from the relevant department/Minister upon reaching a certain number of signatures. The House of Commons’ Select Committee on Procedure considered the Senate’s system in its 2008 Report on the subject, before proposing a number of options to be pursued by that House to transition to e-petitions.

The Australian House of Representatives (HoR) does not accept electronic petitions. However, the Petitions Committee has previously recommended that ‘the Standing Orders be amended to enable electronic petitions.’ The HoR also places a number of further restrictions on the petitions process, such as restricting the length of the text of petitions.

Possible changes to standing orders and practices

Currently, the application of standing order 70(4) places the onus of verification on the senator who, when lodging the petition, certifies that the text has been available to all signatories. This works when a senator is involved with the petition or knows the organisation sponsoring the petition. However, if the petition is received directly by the Table Office, it is often difficult to get a senator to sponsor and lodge it, as they cannot certify whether this standing order has been complied with. One possible way to ensure that verification can occur is to amend the standing orders to require that the organiser of the petition provides contact details. Any questions that may arise in assessing the petition’s conformity with standing orders can be addressed to that person or organisation.

(1) What is a ‘signature’?

The difficulty in satisfying standing order 70(5) arises with third party sponsorship of online petitions, particularly when the third party makes decisions as to the information that it will provide on the electronic petition and that information does not include an email address which has been interpreted as the ‘signature’ on an electronic petition. The committee may consider that the right of any organisation to petition Parliament on behalf of others outweighs the need of the Parliament to authenticate the petitioners by requiring a form of identification or ‘signature’. If that view is taken then standing order 70(5) will require amendment. If the standing order is to stand then a clear statement of what constitutes a ‘signature’ to meet the standing order would assist those organisations sponsoring the petitions.

(2) Are hyperlinks attachments (resulting in non-conformity)?

Standing order 70(7) clearly states that documents ‘ …shall not be attached to a petition’ but are hyperlinks embedded in the text of the petition to be regarded as an attachment? Clarification is needed as to how the standing order should be applied to material that is inextricably linked to the petition but is not the text of the petition.

(3) Is there any need to change the interpretation on non-resident signatories?

Finally, given the increased potential for foreign residents to sign electronically hosted submissions should the President’s ruling relating to the foreign nationals and residents living outside Australia stand.

 

Senate Table Office
February 2013

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