A hot topic this election campaign has been political parties sending postal vote applications.

The concern is that the parties harvest data from these applications before sending them on to the Electoral Commission, and that it’s confusing to have seemingly official voting materials attached to party political matter.

Yesterday, the NSW Labor Government committed to stop this practice in state elections:

Unfortunately, we’ve seen no equivalent commitment from the federal government. A multi-party parliamentary inquiry recommended cleaning up the postal vote application practice:

· Postal vote applications no longer allowed to be bundled with other materials (like party promotional materials)

· Postal vote applications to be sent straight to the AEC, not routed through a party HQ for data harvesting.

The Albanese Government neglected these reforms in favour of an unfair and rushed deal with the Liberal Party to change the laws around Australian elections. Hopefully they are revisited after this election.