In this interview, Morgan Begg appeared on Breakfast ABC Radio Perth to discuss the IPA’s research on how to reinvigorate Australia’s democracy.
All media appearances posted onto the IPA website are directly related to the promotion and dissemination of IPA research.
Below is a transcript of the interview.
Mark Gibson:
Well, the fallout from our state election continues. The liberal party will elect a new leader tomorrow. The state electoral commission is still under pressure over long queues, not enough ballot papers, and the lengthy counting of votes. Well, aren’t we lucky, because as those controversies drag on, we also have a federal election looming. The Institute of Public Affairs has done some research into our political system, finding out what people want, and I’d love to hear from you, 1-300-222-720. Tell me what you think about any of these ideas. The Institute’s Director of Research, Morgan Begg, good morning.
Morgan Begg:
Morning, Mark. Thanks for having me.
Mark Gibson:
No problem. The first one we’ll tackle, why don’t we have to show ID when we go along to cast our vote?
Morgan Begg:
Oh, that’s a terrific question, Mark. By international standards, Australia is very lax when it comes to things like election security, election integrity. Most comparable countries around the world do require photo ID in order to obtain a ballot at the voting booth, but Australia, for whatever reason, has resisted going down that path. I think it’s a no-brainer. In order to participate in modern society, in any other part of life, you need a photo ID, whether it’s to drive a car or buy a mobile phone, do almost anything, and it should be the same for participating in an election.
Mark Gibson:
I’ve always thought it’s a little bit quaint when you walk up, and they’ve got the little bit to mark your name off, and they go, “Have you voted in this election before?” and you just say no. They go, “Okay.” It’s all based on trust, isn’t it?
Morgan Begg:
Well, that’s right. Of course, a voter is perfectly at their liberty to go around booth by booth and to vote as many times as they like. Yeah, there’s clearly a lot of flaws. There’s a lot of vulnerabilities in our system that we’d like to see amended.
Mark Gibson:
All right. Well, that forms one recommendation from the Institute of Public Affairs. I’m keen for your views. 1-300-222-720. Another one you’re recommending, abolish full preferential voting, so explain the difference here with optional preferential voting.
Morgan Begg:
Yeah, sure. In Australia, in most states and at the federal level in Australia, we have full preferential voting. That means, in order to lodge a valid vote at an election, you have to list your preference of candidates from first to the very last. Now, the problem with that system is you may not have a preference for many candidates. Under the current system, eventually, your vote will flow to one of the major parties. However, you, as an elector, may actually strenuously disagree with the direction both parties are taking. But in order to participate in the process, you have to, in effect, endorse one of the major parties. What we’d like to see is the system that’s used in New South Wales, which is optional preferential voting. That just means if you only want to vote for one candidate, you can do that. If you want to vote for two candidates, you can do that, but you don’t have to fill out the entire ballot.
Mark Gibson:
Right, okay. Okay. That’s a good one to float as well and see what people think. The other one, of course, when we’re talking about the technological type changes, is, surely, one day, goodness knows when that will be, we will move to some form of online voting, won’t we, instead of this rocking up and marking it off an electoral roll?
Morgan Begg:
I think there’s a couple of major challenges associated with things like electronic voting or internet voting. The primary consideration that a government will want to keep is maintaining the trust in the election process and keeping the faith, that the outcome of an election is fair dinkum. Now, the problem with things like electronic voting or internet voting is you have to overcome the challenge of privacy and you also have to overcome the challenge of security. Now, naturally, people will be very concerned about things like whether a system gets hacked or whether it’s vulnerable to external interference or even internal interference, so I think there’s a fair few hurdles to go before we get to that.
Mark Gibson:
Yeah, agree. Until we get the concerns ironed out, we don’t want to leap in too soon with anything like that. Absolutely agree. But it’s worth discussing, because you think the technology we have these days and the things we can do, you would think there might be a way, at some point, where we can iron those things out. Let me just move on to some other ones then, some findings from your research, which is interesting because we discussed these things about compulsory voting. What did I learn recently? We’re the only English-speaking country that has compulsory voting in the world? My mind was a little bit blown by that. You found 66% of Australians, so two-thirds, believe in it, remaining compulsory. Yeah?
Morgan Begg:
Yeah, exactly right. It’s one of the very peculiarity about Australia, and Australians, and their attitudes to our democracy, which is we take, as articles of faith, these ideas that aren’t really practised anywhere else in the world. We’re one of the very few countries that enforces compulsory voting, and also, preferential voting itself is hardly practised anywhere else in the world, but we accept those perfectly normal. Now, the thing about compulsory voting is it actually ties into some concerns about the WA State Election, is just how our system puts excessive strain on the election process. Because you are forcing voters, every single person on the electoral role to essentially turn up and vote, you cannot resource that over time. It’s just a strain on the ability to, not only facilitate an election, but also to count the number of ballots that come in afterwards. That’s where you see all these delays afterwards.
Mark Gibson:
That’s what we’re seeing. That’s exactly what we’ve seen here in WA. Hey, I’m out of time, Morgan. Thank you so much for chatting to me about all of that. I’ve snookered myself here up against the news because I want to get to your call, so I’ll do that straight after the news. 1-300-222-720, what are your thoughts on any of that we’ve been discussing? Do we need to change the way we vote and the way we run elections?
This transcript of Morgan Begg speaking on Breakfast ABC Radio Perth from 24 March 2025 has been edited for clarity.
