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Referendum
(Machinery Provisions) Amendment Bill 2013
Introduced into the House of
Representatives on 21 March 2013
Portfolio: Special Minister of State
Overview
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This bill amends
the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Act 1984:
- to require the
Australian Electoral Commission to only send a Yes/No referendum pamphlet to
each residential address on the electoral roll rather than to each elector; and
- to temporarily
suspend the limit on Commonwealth spending on referendum proposals for the
period from when the amendment commences until midnight of polling day for the
general election of the House of Representatives in 2013.
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The bill
implements the government's response to particular recommendations in the
December 2009 report of the then House of Representatives Standing Committee on
Legal and Constitutional Affairs' on the machinery of referendums entitled ‘A
Time for Change: Yes/No?’.
Compatibility with human
rights
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The bill is
accompanied by a self-contained statement of compatibility which concludes that
the bill is compatible with the right to take part in public affairs in article
25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
Right
to take part in public affairs
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Article 25 of
ICCPR guarantees the right of citizens to participate in government directly or
through their elected representatives. The UN Human Rights Committee has said
that citizens not only directly participate in the conduct of public affairs
when they are elected or hold executive office:
Citizens
also participate directly in the conduct of public affairs when they choose or
change their constitution or decide public issues through a referendum or other
electoral process conducted...[1]
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The statement of
compatibility argues that the proposed change from every elector being sent a
Yes/No referendum pamphlet to providing only one pamphlet for each residential
address is compatible with article 25 of the ICCPR:
[T]he
amendments in this Bill which change the approach for sending Yes/No pamphlets
to Australian citizens do not impact on any human rights. Each Australian
citizen will be able to read the arguments for and against changing the
constitution as before, except instead of a pamphlet being addressed to each
“elector” it will be sent to an address.
It is also
important to note that, as allowed for by subsection 11(4) of the Referendum
Act, the Australian Electoral Commission will translate the Yes/No pamphlet
into languages other than English and prepare the pamphlet in accessible
formats on the Commission’s website. Further, the Australian Electoral
Commission has the capacity to identify addresses where numerous electors are
enrolled, such as nursing homes, and provide multiple copies of the Yes/No
pamphlet to these facilities.
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In light
of the justificatory material provided in the statement of compatibility, the
committee considers that these measures do not appear to be inconsistent with
article 25 of the ICCPR.
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