Election review a 'hyper-partisan witch-hunt', Coalition says

The Coalition has launched an extraordinary attack on one of parliament's top committees, labelling its treatment of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church a "hyper-partisan witch-hunt".

A group of opposition politicians on the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters have accused the government of using the inquiry into last year's election as a "political weapon", undermining its status as a bipartisan committee focused on administering elections.

The dissenting report from the group, made up of Richard Colbeck, James McGrath and Ben Small, said the Labor-dominated committee had threatened to summon members of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church to give evidence before hearings, while groups supportive of progressive politics were not.

In a section titled "Less Inquiry, More Hyperpartisan Witch Hunt", the report says:

"Of particular concern is that the conduct of one of the Parliament's most serious Committees has been reduced to a partisan witch hunt of Australians based on their religious faith.

"Coalition Members are deeply troubled of the pursuit by any political party against another group based on their religion, ethnicity, gender or creed."

The Coalition report noted that husband of Kooyong MP Monique Ryan, Peter Jordan, was not summoned to appear before the hearings after being caught removing a Liberal candidate's election sign.

It also drew attention to homophobic insults made by the father of the committee chair, Labor MP Jerome Laxale, towards Liberal Party volunteers at a polling place, which Mr Laxale later apologised for.

Antisocial behaviour escalates

A full interim report from the committee found last year's federal election marked an escalation in antisocial behaviour at polling booths, driven in part by so-called third-party groups, which had an "almost universally corrosive" impact on voters.

High-profile incidents included police being called to a dispute between a volunteer for Wills MP Peter Khalil and a Muslim Votes Matter volunteer, neo-Nazis protesting outside the office of Liberal senator James Paterson and Peter Dutton and Anthony Albanese being heckled at press conferences.

The committee has recommended a new code of conduct for polling places, including that all campaigners are formally registered with the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC).

The report said newer "third parties" — interest groups that are not registered political parties — could discourage voters enough to be considered "domestic interference".

Mr Laxale said the conflict at voting booths in some seats last year "shattered" the norms of voting day.

"Across the country certain polling places were flooded with participants who shook the foundations of our established free, fair and safe electoral processes," he said in a statement.

The Coalition's dissenting report condemned aggressive, obstructive and intimidating behaviour and accused the inquiry of running a "protection racket for Labor Party supporters who were documented as behaving in the most egregious, if not outright unlawful of ways".

Plymouth Brethren yet to appear

The Coalition said the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church had agreed to appear before the committee but had not done so due to "scheduling clashes".

The church said in its submission that it had experienced an "unprecedented assault" by politicians during the campaign, which included being called a "cult".

The Plymouth Brethren Christian Church said it was a mainstream Christian church established about 200 years ago and that it "did not organise or coordinate any volunteer efforts or any donation efforts of any type in any location".

"Our church did not participate in the election nor coordinate the political involvement of those who did. But many of our parishioners did," its submission said.

Ms Ryan said the committee had heard from a number of third-party groups, including Climate 200, which supported her campaign, but little was known about the engagement and funding of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church.

"The exact nature and extent of these groups' involvement in the federal election … remains unclear," she said.

Running the gauntlet

Some participants told hearings that last year's election was "mind-blowingly different to any experience that I've had" and "more like a war zone than it was a polling booth".

The interim report recommended the AEC be granted powers to direct volunteers to leave polling places if they were involved in "repeated" or "egregious" breaches of any new code of conduct.

Several participants also said the AEC's six-metre exclusion zone at the entrance to polling booths could create "imposing and intimidatory gauntlet effect" for voters, because it concentrated the competing and "often aggressive" demands of campaigners within the area.

The committee recommended that a new "campaign zone" be created for voters which featuring fewer campaigners and a reduction in signage.

The Coalition said it was opposed to this and the majority of the committee's recommendations, but said it "supported in principle" changes proposed to improve privacy, accessibility and the authorisation of election material.

The committee's work will continue. The final report is expected to be published at the end of the year.