The Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Protecting Voters) Bill 2025 inserts three new rules into the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918. It bars registered political parties and candidates (both Senate and House of Representatives) from making an application for registration as a general postal voter on behalf of an elector and from sending a postal‑vote application form to the Electoral Commissioner or Assistant Returning Officer on an elector’s behalf.
Each prohibition attracts a civil penalty of 100 penalty units.
The change targets third‑party facilitation of postal‑vote enrolment and application processes — a recognised vector for coercion, manipulation, or administrative abuse in high‑stakes contests. Practically, the bill forces parties and candidates to stop collecting and lodging postal‑vote forms for voters and will require campaigns, volunteers and compliance teams to change established get‑out‑the‑vote practices.
It also leaves open questions about enforcement, permissible assistance by non‑political actors, and how the Electoral Commission will interpret phrases like “on behalf of.”
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill adds section 184AAA to prohibit registered political parties and candidates from lodging a general postal‑voter registration application on behalf of an elector, and section 184AB to prohibit those same actors from sending a postal‑vote application form to the Electoral Commissioner or Assistant Returning Officer on an elector’s behalf. Both prohibitions attract a civil penalty of 100 penalty units.
Who It Affects
Directly affected parties are registered political parties and anyone standing as a candidate in Senate or House of Representatives elections. Indirectly affected are campaign staff and volunteers who previously collected or forwarded postal‑vote forms, community organisations that assist voters, and the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) which must interpret and enforce the new rules.
Why It Matters
The bill narrows the pool of third parties who may lawfully intervene in postal‑vote enrolment to reduce risks of undue influence and fraud, changing common campaign get‑out‑the‑vote tactics. That shift has immediate compliance implications for campaigns and creates enforcement and access trade‑offs that election administrators and civil‑society groups will need to resolve.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
The Bill makes three focused amendments to how postal‑vote applications are handled under the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918. First, it adds a new prohibition barring registered political parties and candidates (both Senate and House candidates) from making a registration application for a general postal voter on someone else’s behalf.
Second, it adds a separate prohibition that stops those same actors from sending a completed or partially completed postal‑vote application form to the Electoral Commissioner or an Assistant Returning Officer on behalf of an elector. Third, it tightens language in an existing provision (184A(3)) so that the Act’s prior allowance for "another person" to act does not include the newly prohibited political actors.
Both new prohibitions are enforceable by a civil penalty set at 100 penalty units. Because the Bill uses civil penalties rather than criminal offences, breaches will be subject to the Act’s civil penalty regime rather than criminal prosecution; that matters for proof standards, remedies and possible remediation paths.
The Bill does not create an express criminal offence, does not amend who may lawfully sign an application as the elector, and does not itself define the administrative process for detecting or referring breaches to enforcement authorities.Operationally, the Bill removes a common campaign practice: party operatives and candidates can no longer collect postal‑vote requests from voters and lodge them with the AEC on the voter’s behalf. Campaigns will need to rework outreach procedures so that electors submit their own applications or rely on non‑political helpers.
Community organisations and carers who are not parties or candidates remain able to assist voters, subject to existing safeguards; the Bill draws its prohibitions narrowly to target political actors rather than all third‑party assistance.The text leaves several practical questions for the AEC to resolve through guidance or regulation: what constitutes "sending on behalf of" (hand‑delivering, mailing, scanning and emailing?), whether party volunteers who are not formal agents fall within the prohibition, and how to handle inadvertent breaches. The Bill creates a clear bright line against party‑led lodging of postal applications, but it relies on administrative interpretation and enforcement to make that line workable in the field.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The Bill inserts section 184AAA into the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 to forbid a registered political party or any candidate in a Senate or House election from making a general postal‑voter registration application on behalf of an elector.
The Bill inserts section 184AB to prohibit those same actors from sending a postal‑vote application form to the Electoral Commissioner or an Assistant Returning Officer on behalf of an applicant.
Both new prohibitions attract a civil penalty of 100 penalty units — the Bill specifies the penalty quantum but does not convert it to a monetary amount.
The Bill amends subsection 184A(3) to exclude the persons listed in the new 184AAA from the Act’s existing "another person" exception, narrowing who may act for an elector under current law.
The prohibitions target registered political parties and candidates specifically; the Bill does not ban assistance by family members, carers, or community organisations that are not political parties or candidates.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Narrowing the existing 'another person' exception
The change to subsection 184A(3) inserts a parenthetical that excludes persons listed in the new section 184AAA from the phrase "another person." Practically, this removes a potential interpretation that a candidate or party could act under the existing "another person" allowance. The effect is technical but important: where the Act previously permitted a third party to take certain steps for an elector, that permission no longer extends to parties or candidates named in the new prohibitions.
Prohibits parties and candidates from making postal‑voter registration applications on behalf of electors
Section 184AAA makes it a contravention for a registered political party, a Senate candidate or a House of Representatives candidate to submit an application for registration as a general postal voter on someone else’s behalf. The provision is narrowly drafted to capture these political actors specifically and contains a civil penalty provision of 100 penalty units. This is a proactive ban: it targets the act of making the application rather than the elector’s entitlement to be registered.
Prohibits sending postal‑vote application forms to electoral authorities on behalf of electors
Section 184AB forbids the same class of political actors from forwarding or sending a postal‑vote application form to the Electoral Commissioner or an Assistant Returning Officer on behalf of an elector, again with a 100‑penalty‑unit civil sanction. That covers the operational step of delivering or transmitting application forms to electoral authorities and targets a common logistical channel through which parties and candidates historically handled postal voting paperwork.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on Elections across all five countries.
Explore Elections in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Voters at risk of coercion or undue influence — the ban reduces a direct pathway by which political actors can register or apply for postal votes on others' behalf, protecting voter autonomy in vulnerable cohorts.
- Non‑political assistance providers (carers, family members, independent community organisations) — they remain permitted to help voters and therefore become the default lawful helpers when electors need assistance.
- Compliant parties and candidates — the rule reduces reputational and legal risk for those who already avoid hands‑on handling of postal‑vote applications and establishes a clearer compliance boundary.
Who Bears the Cost
- Registered political parties — will have to stop collecting and lodging postal‑vote forms, retrain volunteers and risk 100‑penalty‑unit fines for breaches.
- Candidates and campaign staff — lose a common operational tool for mobilising voters and must overhaul outreach and administrative workflows during campaigns.
- Community organisations with party ties or mixed volunteers — face compliance risk if volunteers act for electors while also working for political actors, and may need new policies to segregate activities.
- The Australian Electoral Commission — will need to issue guidance, monitor compliance and potentially handle civil penalty processes or referrals without further resources allocated in the Bill.
- Vulnerable electors who rely on party‑provided, doorstep assistance — may see reduced convenience and increased friction in accessing postal voting unless alternative non‑political assistance is arranged.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The Bill balances two legitimate aims — protecting voters from political manipulation of postal voting and preserving access to postal voting for electors who need help — but in doing so it shifts the trade‑off toward protection at the possible expense of convenience and access; implementing that trade‑off without creating enforcement gaps or undue burdens on vulnerable voters is the central dilemma.
The Bill draws a sharp line: political actors cannot lodge or forward postal‑vote application materials for voters. That clarity is valuable, but it also creates practical and interpretive tensions.
Key terms such as "on behalf of" and who qualifies as an actor "sending" a form are fact‑dependent and will require AEC guidance to prevent both over‑broad application and easy circumvention. For example, parties could still hand blank forms to voters to lodge themselves, or use proxies not formally linked to the campaign; both practices raise questions about the effectiveness of the ban.
Enforcement is another unresolved area. The Bill prescribes a civil penalty quantum but does not set out an express investigative or adjudicative pathway unique to these provisions.
That means enforcement will rely on existing civil penalty mechanisms in electoral law, which may entail notices, administrative determinations or court proceedings. The civil‑penalty framing lowers the bar compared with criminal sanctions but also places emphasis on detection and evidence‑gathering in contexts (doorstep interactions, volunteer activity) that are hard to supervise.
Finally, the statutory carve‑outs for non‑political helpers may produce unintended access costs for vulnerable electors whose only practical helper has previously been a party‑linked volunteer; mitigating that outcome will likely fall to non‑legislative responses such as AEC operational changes or targeted support programs.
Try it yourself.
Ask a question in plain English, or pick a topic below. Results in seconds.