Terms of Reference

On 1 April 2009, the Electoral Matters Committee received terms of reference from the Legislative Council to inquire, consider and report no later than 28 February 2010 on -

(1) on the deliberate misleading of the electors in the 28 June 2008 Kororoit by-election, whereby a pamphlet authorised by the Secretary of the Australian Labor Party was distributed that claimed “A vote for Les Twentyman is a vote for the Liberals” contributing, in the opinion of the Victorian Electoral Commissioner, to “an undesirable trend for candidates to take advantage or build on community misunderstandings of preferential voting with confusing statements”; and
(2) as the Victorian Electoral Commissioner has suggested in his Report on the Kororoit District By-election held on 28 June 2008, whether the Electoral Act 2002 should be amended to improve the operation of the misleading provisions of the Act so that such abuses are more likely to be successfully prosecuted.