Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This presentation includes several large petitions that draw attention to recent events in Iran and request the Australian government to take action in response.

Clearly this issue has been a matter of concern within Australia and around the world. For the petitioning process, petitions that attract interest from overseas can pose a challenge. The standing orders require that all signatories to petitions are either citizens or residents of Australia. To sign a petition—either in paper or via our website—a signatory has to declare that they are a citizen or resident of Australia.

In its inquiry in the last parliament into petitioning security and accessibility, the previous committee considered how best to enforce this requirement. The inquiry looked at whether more active identity-verification methods should be introduced, such as crosschecking with official records like the electorate roll.

After consideration, the committee decided that using additional verification would unreasonably limit accessibility. The committee's view was that self-declaration was the right balance between compliance and allowing anyone who wishes to petition the parliament to easily do so.

On occasion, the committee will report to the House on petitions that may have some invalid signatures. One way of testing this is by reviewing the IP addresses of signatories. This is not a fail-safe method, as you can be a citizen or resident of Australia and be overseas, or in Australia and using a private network.

In the case of the petitions presented today, there are an unusually high number of non-Australian IP addresses. Despite this, after consideration the committee is satisfied that there is a genuine intention to petition, that most of the signatures are compliant and that the matters raised in the petitions warrant a ministerial response. However, the committee would like to draw the attention of the House to the possibility of noncompliant signatures and will continue to monitor this issue in the future.

I'd also like to note that present in the chamber are the members for Bennelong, Kooyong and Menzies, who all have a deep interest in the petition on the events in Iran that I'm tabling today.