On Wednesday night, the Senate passed a bill to amend Australia’s referendum machinery laws, ending a long and sometimes tense debate on the rules that will govern the Voice referendum later this year.
Until this week it looked like we would embark on our first referendum since 1999 without broad consensus on the ground rules. Thankfully, the government and opposition reached agreement and the bill passed easily. The House of Representatives is expected to approve it very soon.
The machinery changes range across public education, campaigning and voting. Many of the changes make welcome improvements to our outdated referendum laws.
