Referendums

The Parliamentary Business Resources Act 2017 (PBR Act) does not preclude you from using public resources or claiming expenses for activities related to a referendum, subject to meeting your obligations under the PBR Act, including the parliamentary business dominant purpose and value for money tests, and any specific conditions that apply. Your obligations do not apply to your remuneration, including salary, electorate allowance, private plated vehicles, and residential internet and telephone services.

When claiming an expense, allowance or other public resource, you must ensure that you have met all conditions which apply to the resource. These are set by the Parliamentary Business Resources Regulations 2017 (PBR Regulations) and determinations of the Minister. 

Relevant conditions for claiming that apply to office expenses under the office budget

While you must ensure that claims you make for office expenses under your office budget meet the conditions for claiming, the following conditions are particularly relevant to referendum-related material.

If you contravene an obligation or condition, your claim may be rejected or have to be repaid and may attract a 25% penalty loading. Refer to further information on accountability and conditions for claiming.

Material that provides instructions on how to complete a ballot paper

Office expenses must not be used to produce, communicate or distribute material that provides instructions on how to complete a ballot paper, including for a federal, state or territory election and referendums.

Examples of referendum-related phrases that may and may not be included in material produced under the office expenses budget, including in logos or other visuals, are outlined below.

¹ ‘X’ represents the name of a political party.

You must also be careful to ensure that visual presentations and photos are not suggestive of completing a ballot paper or providing instruction (e.g. with a visual representation of a pencil, dotted line, box etc. that implies how the ballot paper is to be completed, with a “yes” or “no”, or image of a person wearing a “Vote Yes” or “Vote No” t-shirt or holding a sign).

For clarity, this condition means that you are unable to claim office expenses relating to the production, communication or distribution of the official Yes/No case pamphlet produced by the Australian Electoral Commission as it includes statements such as ‘The case for voting Yes’, ‘Vote Yes’, ‘The case for voting No’ and ‘Vote No’. However, your Commonwealth-funded office(s) may be used to distribute official Yes/No referendum pamphlets provided to you by the Australian Electoral Commission (see further below).

Material that includes barcodes, QR codes and/or links

Office expenses may be used to refer or direct your constituents to referendum-related material (for example, through hyperlinks and barcodes (such as QR codes)), provided the content of the material referred to satisfies your PBR obligations and the conditions for claiming office expenses. For example, you must ensure that material you directly refer to does not:

• provide instructions on how to complete a ballot paper, such as a website that includes statements such as ‘Vote Yes’, ‘Vote No’, ‘Write Yes’, or ‘Write No’
• solicit subscriptions or other financial support or non-financial support for any parliamentarian, political party or candidate (other than volunteering)
• solicit applications for or renewals of membership in a political party
• include an advertisement that pursues your commercial purposes or those of another person (see the section above).

Only material directly referred to in printing and communications material you are seeking to claim is considered for the purposes of the condition. For example, where a newsletter or website includes a QR code or URL-address to another website, the first landing page of the new web-address must also not contravene any of the conditions.

Please be mindful that the inclusion of weblinks, QR codes or other URLs that link directly to third party websites may have content change from time-to-time. Pre-claim assessments and assessments made at the time of a claim are only considered by MaPS at the point of time of the conducting the assessment of the claim. However, the PBR Act obligations on parliamentarians are ongoing and parliamentarians should be careful to avoid the actual or perceived use of public resources to direct individuals to material that contravenes those obligations.

Prohibition for any commercial purpose

Office expenses must not be used to produce, communicate or distribute any material that includes an advertisement that pursues your commercial purposes or those of another person (including a business). For example, material naming a for-profit business or businesses which support your position in relation to the Yes or No cases of a referendum would contravene the specific conditions applying to office expenses.

Contact MaPS for a pre-claim assessment (see further below) if you intend to produce or distribute material which mentions the name of a for-profit business, includes symbols or logos representing a business, or otherwise identifies a business.

Parliamentarians should be careful not to promote/advertise (or be seen to promote/advertise) for-profit businesses in any way. Any references to for-profit business should be incidental only.

Preclusion on soliciting votes for a person or political party

You are unable to claim office expenses that seeks the election or re-election of a person other than you or to solicit a vote for a political party.

As a vote in a referendum is not a vote for a natural person or a political party, this condition does not apply.

Mobile office signage

Signage related to mobile offices, such as at community fairs, markets and exhibitions, is available for the purpose of identifying or directing constituents to the location of the mobile office. This is similar to arrangements that apply to signage for permanent electorate offices.

As a result, you are unable to claim signage that does not meet the required purpose, including signage that contains issues-based material. This condition applies only to mobile office signage and does not apply to any other types of office expenses, including producing and distributing printed or electronic material, which could include leaflets or pamphlets distributed at a mobile office.

Postal Vote Applications (PVAs)

There is no prescribed limit on the number of PVAs and reply-paid envelopes that may be printed using the office budget, however, parliamentarians must comply with their PBR obligations. This would include consideration of the number of PVAs required for a parliamentarian’s constituents.

The delivery address for a reply-paid envelope for PVAs should be the claiming parliamentarian’s electorate office, Parliament House office, ministerial/office holder office, or a post office box associated with such offices.

The AEC has referendum specific advice around the legislative requirements and approved PVA artwork – refer Postal voting - Australian Electoral Commission.

Use of Commonwealth-funded offices to distribute the official Yes/No referendum pamphlet

Your Commonwealth-funded office(s) may be used to hand out official Yes/No referendum pamphlets provided to you by the Australian Electoral Commission.

However, as mentioned further above, you are unable to claim office expenses relating to the production, communication or distribution of the official Yes/No referendum pamphlet produced by the Australian Electoral Commission as it includes statements such as ‘The case for voting Yes’, ‘Vote Yes’, ‘The case for voting No’ and ‘Vote No’.

Use of Commonwealth-funded offices for referendum-related activities

Commonwealth-provided or funded offices must only be used for the dominant purpose of conducting your parliamentary business.

You must not use your Commonwealth-provided or funded offices to undertake referendum-related fundraising activities.

Optional pre-claim assessment

MaPS provides an optional pre-claim assessment on proposed non-travel related claims to assist you to ensure you meet your obligations under the PBR Act. You are strongly encouraged to use this service for any referendum-related material that you may claim under your office budget.

You may submit printed and electronic material for the pre-claim assessment to mpshelp@finance.gov.au. Further information on pre-claim assessments, including submission requirements, is available on MaPS’ website.

Alternatively, should you have any additional queries you may contact the MaPS Help Desk on (02) 6215 3333.