Narelle Miragliotta and Sarah Murray

In January 2022, the NSW Electoral Commission (NSWEC) petitioned the NSW Supreme Court to void the outcome in three local council elections held on December 4 the previous year. The basis for the petition was not one of the more familiar triggers. As the counsel for one of the defendants in the case observed: ‘This is not a case where there was rampant widespread voter fraud, or lost ballot boxes, or ballot stuffing. There were no riots [or] outbreak of warfare that suspended an election’. The problem in this instance was a system capacity issue. The basis of the petition launched by the NSWEC was a ‘defect or irregularity’ in the electronic iVote system.

Gabrielle Appelby and Prabha Nanda

In the four years since the global #MeToo movement, misconduct in the workplace – and in particular sexual harassment, bullying and discrimination – continue to dominate headlines. The last two years has seen serious allegations and findings of sexual misconduct emerge in the workplaces of the courts, and Australian Parliament House. This has led to a series of workplace reviews, including an internal High Court review that led to a new workplace conduct policy, an Independent Review into Commonwealth Parliamentary Workplaces (often referred to as the Jenkins Review, resulting in the Set the Standard Report), an ongoing Independent Review into Bullying, Harassment and Sexual Misconduct in NSW Parliament, the South Australian Equal Opportunity Commission’s Review of Harassment in the South Australian Parliament Workplace, an ongoing Tasmanian review into parliamentary practices and procedures to support workplace culture by the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Commissioner, and an independent review into sexual harassment in Victorian courts and the VCAT (Victorian Courts Review).

Margaret Thornton

The Jenkins Review into Commonwealth Parliamentary Workplaces was published on 30 November 2021: Set the Standard: Report on the Independent Review into Commonwealth Parliamentary Workplaces. This post provides the context for the report and an explanation of its findings and recommendations, together with the responses by the Australian Government to date.

Kieran Pender

A federal election is imminent. Following the Mediscare scandal of 2016 and the death tax saga of 2019, it is perhaps only a matter of time before a major mis- or dis-information campaign hits the 2022 election. Attention will inevitably turn to a regulatory response. One frequently-cited proposal is a truth in political advertising law, which would penalise false or misleading political advertising. Such laws currently exist in South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory. Last year, independent MP Zali Steggall proposed a federal equivalent via a private member’s Bill.