Person

Graeme Orr

Working paper

Federal voter ID laws

This working paper compiles a number of pieces by participants from a seminar to discuss the federal government’s recently announced intentions to enact new voter ID requirements for federal elections—a proposal that raises questions of constitutionality and broader democratic policy.
Article

Scott Morrison wants to outlaw boycott campaigns. But the mining industry doesn’t need protection

The focus of laws against secondary boycotts has never been against consumer groups or movements involving non-employees. There’s an obvious and good reason for this.
Article

From robo calls to spam texts: annoying campaign tricks that are legal

Spamming in texts or by robo-calls may seem perverse, but it's unlikely to disappear. Here are some things you can expect leading up to the May election, and why they're allowed.
Article

The freedom to be a hypocrite

The free speech debate has been marked by selectivity and score-settling Acres of ink and gigaloads of bytes have been spilled in recent times over “free speech.” Sadly, the debate has mostly been self-serving. Much of it has been driven by right-wing voices opposed both...
Article

Old figures on new money

ONCE a year, on the first day of February, the Australian Electoral Commission publishes, verbatim, the political finance disclosures of the political parties and of some donors and third party or lobby groups. The timeliness of this annual data dump – the figures relate to...