Australian electoral law: a stocktake

Abstract

This article addresses a number of key issues confronting contemporary electoral law in Australia. It demonstrates that Australian electoral law is facing many of the same questions and problems that concern other nations, such as how best to regulate campaign financing, regulating ballot access, and what role the law ought to play in shaping the "internal" affairs of political parties.However, the Australian approach to such issues is often quite different to other nations. It is characterised by a lower degree of judicial intervention than is commonly experienced in nations such as the United States. Without a Bill of Rights or even the entrenchment of basic democratic principles such as the right to vote, the Australian High Court has played only a minor role in the development of this field of law. It has instead been largely the domain of political scientists, parliamentarians and the electoral officials who administer the law.