00:00These long lines and other issues with the state election
00:05were all blamed on underfunding the Electoral Commission.
00:08The man tasked with rebuilding the organisation
00:10says he's already started asking for more money.
00:13My expectation is that, yes, that funding will be provided.
00:16What if it's not?
00:18Well, then there's going to be a real problem.
00:21And I guess a repeat of what we've seen.
00:24When I say there'll be a problem,
00:26I actually think that the funding will be provided.
00:28That's not what happened before the March poll.
00:31In October last year, the Commission requested an extra $16 million.
00:35Just $4 million was approved.
00:37We said if you need more money, we will provide supplementary funding.
00:42That doesn't seem to be an appropriate way to treat the Commission
00:46and to give them any certainty.
00:48So I think that decision of government
00:49actually is at the core of what went wrong.
00:54The ability to request more money wasn't communicated
00:57to Director of Election Operations, Sharnie Wood,
01:00who cut the number of staff she was requesting
01:02from 10,000 to 7,000, causing problems on polling day.
01:06It's up to the head of the organisation to then communicate it down.
01:10I think communications across the agency
01:13probably weren't quite as strong.
01:16Working a little bit in silos.
01:17And I think I've been really active in trying to sort of enhance that.
01:21Dennis O'Reilly says he's making a range of changes across the Commission,
01:24including to improve its governance and structure.
01:27But the bedrock of real, meaningful change
01:30will be an increase in long-term funding from the government.
01:33We want to agree on a funding model
01:36that is going to be sustainable for the future,
01:38not just the sort of sugar hits, I think.
01:41Mr O'Reilly's also committed to a fresh look
01:43at a contract to outsource the recruitment of election workers
01:46after October's local government polls.
01:49He's in the role until the end of the year
01:51when a decision will be made
01:53on the Commission's long-term leadership.
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