The Turnbull government has offered to team up with Labor and the Greens to pass legislation to apply normal electoral laws to the marriage equality postal survey.
The fix is designed to address concerns that because the survey is technically a statistics gathering exercise run by the Australian Bureau of Statistics electoral laws banning misleading information, fraud, bribery and intimidation will not apply.
On Thursday Labor targeted the Coalition in question time about the flaws with the poll. Malcolm Turnbull did not deny electoral laws would not apply but said laws banning mail tampering, interfering with the collection of statistics or obstructing ABS officials in the conduct of their duty would protect it.
The acting special minister of state, Mathias Cormann, told Fairfax Media the government wanted the postal plebiscite process to be fair. “If there was a consensus that it would be sensible to legislate for things like authorisations and the like, the government is open to consider this,” he said.
Cormann said he was willing to “facilitate swift passage of legislation to give effect to similar protections” as the Electoral Act, not just for the postal marriage survey but for all instances of the ABS collecting “statistical information”.
“I’m putting this out as an offer,” he Cormann said. “If people on either or both sides of the debate believe that it would be sensible to have some rules that are enshrined in law, given that this is now happening, then I guess it’ll be a matter for them to help persuade Labor and the Greens that it would be a sensible thing to do.”
“Our preference always was to have these protections in place,” he said. If the Senate had passed legislation for a compulsory plebiscite, the Australian Electoral Commission would have run the poll and ordinary Electoral Act provisions would have applied. Instead, the upper house twice blocked a bill for a compulsory plebiscite.
The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, said Labor “would certainly have a look” at the proposed fix. He said the government was investigating the option because Labor had “brought attention to the complete shambles” of the postal survey.
Shorten described the survey as a “legal artifice” and “dodge” designed to sidestep the parliament, which blocked a compulsory plebiscite, by using the ABS to run the vote.
“The problem with using the ABS is the protections against some of the things that will happen in this election are not there,” he told the ABC on Friday.
“We’ve raised with the government ‘hey if you’re trying to sidestep the parliament .... can you please at least cross your ts and dot your is’. I’m worried this will be the first of many retreats and patch-ups.”
Shorten said it would be a “fantastic idea” for Turnbull to campaign with him for a yes vote, offering to co-author a letter to every Australian in favour of marriage equality.
Greens LGBTI spokeswoman, Janet Rice, said the postal survey was “completely faulty” but her party would consider “measures to improve it” if and when the High Court upholds its constitutionality and the survey “is definitely going ahead”.
On Friday Turnbull told 3AW Radio in Melbourne he expected turnout in the postal survey to be “in excess of 50%” but headed off claims lower turnout would delegitimise the outcome.
“Every Australian has the right to vote, so if an Australian decides not to vote, that’s their right, they’ve made that choice – that doesn’t delegitimise the votes of those who did choose to vote,” he said.
Asked about the possibility of campaigning with Shorten, Turnbull said he would reflect on the offer of penning a joint letter but “it may be counterproductive”.
“My focus will be number one, to be prime minister, run the government, look after Australians.
“Same-sex marriage is an important issue ... there are a lot of other much more important issues for me to focus on, but I will certainly encourage Australians to vote yes.”
On Thursday Cormann told Guardian Australia: “The usual integrity measures for these types of exercises will apply. Postal voting is a well-established process with well-established integrity measures in place. The process of ensuring only a single response is received per envelope, per enrolled Australian, mitigates against the forms being copied.”
Two high court cases against the postal survey have been listed for a hearing in the high court on Friday afternoon.
The challenges have been brought by the independent MP Andrew Wilkie, marriage equality advocate Felicity Marlowe and Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays Brisbane, with a separate challenge from Australian Marriage Equality and Janet Rice. Both seek urgent injunctions to prevent the poll.
