Controversial outfit Fuji Xerox Document Management System (FXDMS) is printing the same sex marriage postal vote, with 64 million items being produced for the 16 million enrolled Australians who will receive a ballot slip. Posting to voters begins next Tuesday and will take two weeks.

Budget for the whole process is $122m, with the print and mail likely a major part of this. FXDMS declined to comment. 

The ABS says, ‘The ABS has engaged Fuji Xerox Document Management for the provision of Mail House services. They are an existing contractor with the ABS and have the capacity and capability, as a single provider, to complete this project. The printing process will be undertaken as high-speed digital inkjet printing.’

[Related: Fuji Xerox DMS wins $27m toll contract]

In the posted package voters will get includes a survey form, a reply paid envelope and instructions on how to complete the survey form.

FXDMS is a sister company of digital print engine supplier Fuji Xerox, a situation which incurs the wrath of some printers, who see the print equipment supplier selling print systems to companies, then effectively competing with them for the same print business.

FXDMS is the essential mail business that Fuji Xerox bought from Salmat in 2012. Two years later it expanded into print management for the country’s biggest businesses, to compete directly with Stream, Ergo and BPA.

The postal vote is costing taxpayers $122m and it will be posted out September 12. Voting slips are to be sent back by 6pm on November 7 with the final verdict of the postal vote will be released on November 15.

Today, the High Court has dismissed an appeal by MP Andrew Wilkie and Greens senator Janet Rice to stop the postal vote.

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