Court of Disputed Returns (Queensland) - Caseload

Caseload

In 1995 the court heard its first petition under the new election laws. This was a petition concerning the return for the 1995 election of a member for the electorate of Mundingburra. The court noted that there were 22,035 enrolled voters, of which 2,513 did not cast a vote. Of those votes, 287 were informal votes. On the remaining 19,235 votes, the petitioner received 8,541 first preference votes whilst the elected person received 8,429 votes. The voting then went to preferences. On second preferences, the petitioner received 751 of those second preference votes and the elected person received 879 votes. This meant that the elected person received 9,308 votes whilst the petitioner received 9,292 votes. The end result was the elected person was elected by a majority of 16 votes. The court analysed the voting process and determined that there were 35 instances of invalid voting or correct voting which had been rejected. In the circumstances, the Justice Ambrose ordered a fresh election for the electorate of Mundingburra.

In the same year, the court also determined a preliminary issue for a petition concerning the election return for Greenslopes. In that case, the petitioner alleged that the Electoral Commission has not followed procedures in counting declaration votes, and as a result, the whole election for Greenslopes should be declared as invalid. The court dismissed the application noting that even if it was correct, the number of informal would total 3,504 votes instead of 420 votes, and the elected person would have received 8,143 votes as against the petitioner’s 7,946 votes.

In 1998, the court heard a petition concerning the election held on 13 June 1998 of a member of parliament for the electoral district of Mansfield. The petitioner was the former sitting member representing the Liberal Party whilst the Australian Labor Party (ALP) candidate was declared elected. The petition alleged that a how to vote card was handed out by ALP party workers to voters for One Nation party (ONP), which directed second preferences to the ALP. The how to vote card was an ALP authorised card rather than an ONP authorised card. In the circumstances of the dispute, the court dismissed the petition.

In 2001 and 2004, a person declared by the Supreme Court of Queensland to be vexatious, attempted to bring a case in the Court of Disputed Returns against the Premier of Queensland, Peter Beattie. The basis of his applications was a “remedy of long standing defects in respect of the manner in which the State and Nation’s affairs” are conducted, or in other words, that the Queensland Government was unconstitutional. The basis of his application was that the legal tender of money could only be made in coins made of gold (and not paper money or ordinary coins), and secondly, that the whole of the Queensland Government was invalid as a change to the governor’s office was not approved by way of a referendum. The person was not permitted to bring the petition, and the presiding judge, Justice Chesterman wryly noted that he could not understand why the applicant was petitioning the court to be elected to a parliament which he claimed was actually invalid.