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Australian Electoral Commission
The Australian Electoral Commission has launched the main phase of referendum education advertising, reminding voters Your Answer Matters in the lead up to the 2023 referendum.
The campaign, which will be shown on a range of channels, aims to assist and educate Australians to get vote ready for the referendum - providing information resources, translated and accessible material.
Australian Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers said the campaign is deliberately starting before the referendum voting date is announced.
“It’s been 24 years since we last had a referendum,” Mr Rogers said.
“Approximately 6.4 million enrolled Australians weren’t of voting age when we had our most recent referendum in 1999 – for a lot of people the role of a referendum won’t be familiar.
“This campaign ramps up the public education we’ve been doing all year, educating Australians about the importance of referendums and how to cast a formal vote.”
The campaign will also encourage people to update their enrolment details or enrol to vote. This follows a recent announcement of record growth in general, Indigenous and youth enrolment rates.
“This isn’t the time to rest on our laurels,” Mr Rogers said.
“We’ve seen record growth over the past six months but we’re conscious there’s still more to do – and it’s also important that newly-enrolled Australians turn out to vote at the referendum as well.”
The Your Answer Matters campaign explains why referendums are held, how to correctly complete the ballot paper and encourages people to check the source of information about the voting process.
Advertising will be shown on television, online video, radio, cinema, press, digital display, and social media. Assets, including high quality video and audio files for use in reporting, are available via the AEC’s Campaign Hub.
Translated material is available for culturally and linguistically diverse and First Nations audiences.
The AEC has also today launched a dedicated website with detail about referendums, voting and essential information for campaigners in the lead up to the event.
The new website is a resource for Australia’s 17.5 million voters when it comes to the administration of the 2023 Referendum.
As always, the AEC will not discuss the topic other than outlining what the question will be on the ballot paper and hosting the Yes/No case pamphlet – the official cases written and authorised by parliamentarians.
Upcoming podcast series The AEC will also provide a podcast series in partnership with Southern Cross Austereo / LiSTNR.
Featuring AEC spokespeople, the podcast will be a friendly and accessible referendum resource, including a few fun facts for listeners to use at their next quiz night or pub trivia.
Snap partnershipIn addition, the campaign features the return of the AEC’s successful partnership with Snapchat to produce an augmented reality quiz for young voters, available in the Snapchat app.
The launch of the AEC’s advertising campaign follows months of public education from the AEC, including the publication of new education videos to AEC TV on YouTube, dedicated media briefings held around Australia, a popular Reddit ‘Ask Me Anything’ session earlier in 2023 and face to face and online community education sessions.
“We’re being about as active as we can be in order to educate people about the first referendum in Australia for nearly a quarter of a century,” Mr Rogers said.
“We’ll also be continuing our well-regarded ‘firm but friendly’ approach to answering questions on social media - voter education for the 2023 referendum is as important as it has ever been given it’s been 24 years since the last one.”
The AEC acknowledges the Traditional Owners of country throughout Australia and recognises their continuing connection to land, waters, culture and community. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.