The Australian Government has narrowly avoided shelling out millions in printing costs after the contentious same-sex marriage plebiscite was blocked from the Senate yesterday.
According to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), if the plebiscite was to go ahead, printing and posting ballot papers and electoral rolls across the nation would have come at an enormous cost.
The AEC warned the Government after Abbott’s 2015 proposal that a plebiscite would require complex and expensive printing, including the production of a six-page pamphlet slated to be posted to some ten million Australian households.
[Related: Printer refuses anti same-sex marriage book]
Total cost for the controversial referendum was set to top $175m – a price many Aussies were reluctant to shell out when simply passing the bill in parliament appeared to be the easier route.
ProPrint spoke to the AEC about the potential costs of printing a nation-wide plebiscite, and the Commission compared the costs to the 1999 referendum and the 2013 Federal election.
Production of the compulsory 12 million referendum pamphlets took nine high-speed presses in three different locations, with ten full days of work to print.
In the 2013 election a total of $7,228,728 was spent on printing and publications, 43 million ballot papers were produced and the AEC operated 9,146 polling places, says the AEC.
Printing of the pamphlets was also slated to be outsourced to the AEC’s regular print company in Melbourne. Six weeks would have also been required for consultation with Australia Post and appropriate time for posting to ten million homes.
[Related: Govt plans for print in 2016 election]
The electoral commission last year said the gay-marriage plebiscite pamphlet would have required weeks of preparation, as well as costs for paper imports as it believed Australia would not have sufficient paper stock for production.
Labor formally blocked Turnbull’s proposal for a same-sex plebiscite yesterday, effectively killing the referendum.
The opposition argues same-sex marriage can become a reality in Australia through a parliamentary vote instead of a plebiscite with a $175m price tag.
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