Voting card printers should be on the lookout for new amendments to electoral advertising regulations, which, according to the Printing Industries Association of Australia, have seen some Federal Election candidates hurriedly reprinting their how-to-vote cards before the big day. Amendments to the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 passed in 2010 and applied for the first time in 2013 mean that authorisation details (the name of the political party or candidate and their address) must now be clearly printed on either the top or bottom of each surface of the cards.
However, Bill Healey, CEO of Printing Industries, said that what is meant by each surface is as yet unclear. “When you talk to the [Australian Electoral Commission’s] legal officer it’s unclear whether that relates to a page, or if it’s folded, whether its each printed surface. He said to me that each particular document would be assessed on its merits, which is not all that helpful,” Healey told Australian Printer. “If it’s an A4 page with printing on both sides, it would appear to us that it would be on both sides of that piece of paper,” he added. While the responsibility of complying with the new rules rests with the politicians, Healey says it will pay for printers to also be on the ball. “It just reflects how hard it is to keep abreast of changes in regulation. We’ve been fortunate that one of our members alerted us to it and we’ve now been in contact with the electoral office to advise printers across the country. “I understand that a couple of the major political parties have been caught out, and in some cases have had to have printing redone because of their failure to comply with the new rules. “We hope by bringing it to the attention of the industry and being still several weeks out from the day of the elections that possible problems have been avoided,” he said. Not adequately advertising the new rules of how-to-vote cards could have consequences, Healey says, if it leads to a challenge by candidates questioning whether the election has been run according to the new rules. Further amendments applied in 2013 include the removal of obligations in relation to font size and eliminating the inclusion of the printer’s name on the document. The changes are the result of a Parliamentary Inquiry designed to stamp out misleading electoral advertising.
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