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Speaker 1: And we know the Australian Electoral Commission figures showed just

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Speaker 1: two and three people in the seat of Lingiari, which

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Speaker 1: blankets all of the Northern Territory outside of Darwin, cast

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Speaker 1: a ballot in the recent federal election. Now Anthony Albanezi,

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Speaker 1: the Prime Minister, yesterday labeled the figure an outrage and

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Speaker 1: blamed it directly on cuts to the Commission resources under

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Speaker 1: the former coalition government. The voter turnout in Lingiari has

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Speaker 1: been described by the Australian Electoral Commission as disappointing and

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Speaker 1: as I said, only two out of three voters casting

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Speaker 1: that vote, but despite what was a huge effort by

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Speaker 1: the Australian Electoral Commission. Now joining me on the line

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Speaker 1: to talk a little bit more about the situation is

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Speaker 1: Jeff Bloom, the Australian Electoral Officer for the Northern Territory.

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Speaker 1: Good morning to you.

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Speaker 2: Jeff, Good morning Katie.

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Speaker 1: Jeff. What are those official numbers when it comes to

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Speaker 1: the voter turnout for Lingiari.

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Speaker 2: Yes, so, as you just said, the turnout in Lingyari

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Speaker 2: is a little bit down on what it was in

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Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, so it's sitting around sixty seven percent. It

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Speaker 2: was around seventy three percent in twenty nineteen, so there

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Speaker 2: has been a drop off also a small decrease in

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Speaker 2: the division of Solomon as well, seventy three percent in

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Speaker 2: twenty nineteen down to seventy percent or thereabout for this election.

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Speaker 1: And Jeff, what do you attribute that drop too?

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Speaker 2: Well, I think there's a few things in play here.

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Speaker 2: And notwithstanding that, it appears provisionally, at least anyway, the

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Speaker 2: national turnout is down somewhere in the order of two

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Speaker 2: to three percent as well, so it looks like it's

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Speaker 2: more widespread. But certainly, in terms of these COVID times

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Speaker 2: that we live in now, the unpredictability about people being

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Speaker 2: able to in this particular case get to a polling place,

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Speaker 2: not that there weren't the same number of polling places

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Speaker 2: and the same service offering for this election as we

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Speaker 2: had in twenty nineteen. We certainly had all of those

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Speaker 2: polling venues open, all of those services available, including postal

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Speaker 2: votes and so on. But the uncertainty I think as

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Speaker 2: perhaps perhaps kept people away, including people becoming all themselves

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Speaker 2: through COVID or being close contacts. So there's a few

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Speaker 2: unknowns in there, but certainly it has affected the turnout,

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Speaker 2: and that's as you mentioned earlier. I've already stated that

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Speaker 2: is disappointing for us because we've put in a huge effort.

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Speaker 1: Jeff, is it a situation where there are some locations

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Speaker 1: where there was lower voter turnout than others? Ie? Is it?

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Speaker 1: You know? Is it remote voters that didn't turn out

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Speaker 1: in the volumes that we're expecting or hoping for.

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Speaker 2: It's not. No, the numbers there, the differences are not

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Speaker 2: contained exclusively in the remote area mobile polling. So in

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Speaker 2: the remote communities we are within ten percent of the

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Speaker 2: number of votes issued in twenty nineteen across the remote

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Speaker 2: community one hundred and seventy locations thereabouts, so within ten

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Speaker 2: percent of the votes, and that in itself was really pleasing,

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Speaker 2: because if we think back to the start of the

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Speaker 2: journey and delivering our service to those remote locations is

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Speaker 2: very difficult, very challenging, and of course with COVID in communities,

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Speaker 2: we weren't even sure if we were going to go

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Speaker 2: to the vast majority of those locations. So to get

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Speaker 2: that outcome and come within ten percent of the votes

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Speaker 2: issued in twenty nineteen was pleasing. What we did see

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Speaker 2: is a drop off in people attending polling places on

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Speaker 2: polling day, so the static polling places that as we

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Speaker 2: call them. So we were hoping that because we could

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Speaker 2: see that the numbers were already a little bit down.

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Speaker 2: So through the early voting and the number of postal

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Speaker 2: votes that we issued as well, we could see that

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Speaker 2: the numbers were not looking all that great and we

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Speaker 2: were hoping for that turnout on polling day. That didn't occur.

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Speaker 2: So the assumption is that for some reason or other

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Speaker 2: people just couldn't get to a polling place. And again

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Speaker 2: there may be something to do with health issues. We

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Speaker 2: don't know, but yeah, certainly with the effort that we

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Speaker 2: put in significant as it was, we would have hoped

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Speaker 2: for more people casting their both we know that.

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Speaker 1: You know the Prime Minister yesterday weighed in on that

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Speaker 1: debate and felt as though, you know there was a

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Speaker 1: situation where cuts to the Australian Electoral Commission had had

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Speaker 1: an impact. Is that the case.

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Speaker 2: Well, those cuts to the Northern Territory Office were in

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Speaker 2: twenty seventeen and they certainly had an impact at that

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Speaker 2: time in terms of continuity of some of the services,

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Speaker 2: including services to remote community. So our Indigenous electric participation program.

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Speaker 2: That is true. We've since recruited a team, an indigenous

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Speaker 2: team here, but that was in twenty twenty one, So

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Speaker 2: that lack of continuity could we argued that we were

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Speaker 2: behind and playing a bit of catch up there. I

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Speaker 2: certainly wouldn't dispute that. But the teams, then, they have

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Speaker 2: worked hard over the last few months in the lead

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Speaker 2: up to the election, and of course there's a lot

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Speaker 2: of work for them to do as we move forward

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Speaker 2: in the next electoral cycle.

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Speaker 1: Jeff, I know that you and your team, as you've

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Speaker 1: pointed out, put in an enormous amount of effort to

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Speaker 1: try to get as many Territorians out to vote as possible.

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Speaker 1: Do you feel disappointed then that those numbers are so low.

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Speaker 2: Well, the effort that we've put in, like the twelve

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Speaker 2: months of planning that goes into this or more if

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Speaker 2: we call it back in time, twelve months of planning

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Speaker 2: as a minimum. You know, nine hundred polling staff that

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Speaker 2: we recruited, and that's not easy. Again, noting that there's

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Speaker 2: not a lot of people looking for a job right now,

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Speaker 2: training those people, getting them into those polling places, delivering

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Speaker 2: the service, a huge amount of effort. Very tired people.

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Speaker 2: I have to say here seems like a long time

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Speaker 2: ago that the rits issued back on the eleventh of April.

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Speaker 2: It's around sixty days since those rits were issued. So

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Speaker 2: the efforts, the communication that the agency did, more broadly,

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Speaker 2: the messaging TV ads, radio ads, social media, and we

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Speaker 2: put an official guide into every elector's postbox, letterbox. Big effort,

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Speaker 2: and unfortunately now the turnout is not what we hoped

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Speaker 2: it would be.

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Speaker 1: If are the people who didn't turn up to vote

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Speaker 1: going to be fined.

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Speaker 2: There is what we call a non voter process after

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Speaker 2: each federal election, and as we do after every election,

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Speaker 2: we look at the process itself. We do write to

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Speaker 2: people who have not voted so their name has not

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Speaker 2: been marked off the electoral role, and we ask them

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Speaker 2: to provide a reason as to why they didn't vote.

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Speaker 2: I think that will be interesting this time around us

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Speaker 2: to some of the reasons, whether it is something to

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Speaker 2: do with illness or being a close contact and so forth,

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Speaker 2: or just their comfort level around going to a polling

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Speaker 2: place where despite the COVID measures that we had in

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Speaker 2: place to make those polling places to say this possible,

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Speaker 2: people not feel comfortable going to a polling place. All

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Speaker 2: of those things will become visible once we get those

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Speaker 2: responses from people, So the l will occurred in the

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Speaker 2: months ahead, certainly before the end of the year.

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Speaker 1: Could it be a situation where the Electoral Commission has

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Speaker 1: done everything that they can to try to get people

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Speaker 1: to vote, but unfortunately some Territorians just aren't really interested

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Speaker 1: in the people that have put their hand up to run.

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Speaker 2: I know there's some external commentators that have got some

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Speaker 2: theories about people being disconnected from the political process or

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Speaker 2: the democratic process, and of course we can't necessarily comment

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Speaker 2: on that. We don't know. We are the service delivery

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Speaker 2: side of the business and that's what we do and

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Speaker 2: we believe we've done a very good job there. But

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Speaker 2: there's certainly some other commentrary out there that may be

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Speaker 2: born out in time, but certainly nothing that I could

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Speaker 2: comment on specifically.

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Speaker 1: Well, Jeff Bloom, the Australian Electoral Officer for the Northern Territory,

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Speaker 1: We always appreciate your time. Thank you for having a

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Speaker 1: chat with us this morning.

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Speaker 2: Thanks Katie, thank you