On 23 June 2011, former Premier Barry O'Farrell announced the "long overdue review" of the State's electoral legislation by the NSW Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. Whilst the two key Acts of the NSW electoral system – the Parliamentary Electorates and Elections Act 1912 andElection Funding, Expenditure and Disclosures Act 1981 – had undergone numerous changes since their respective enactments, neither Act had been subject to comprehensive review. Considering the technological developments that had taken place since their introduction, it was argued that wide scale reform was needed to bring the NSW electoral system into the 21st century.
A 2015 briefing paper, Integrity in government: issues and developments in New South Wales, 2011-2015, reviews the electoral law reform process from Premier O'Farrell's announcement in 2011 to the release of the Final Report of the Panel of Experts on Political Donations in December 2014. This e-brief provides an overview of recent developments in electoral law reform in NSW. It examines a number of recommendations of the NSW Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters throughout its recent inquiries, as well as the Government responses. Following the release of the Draft Electoral Bill in August 2017, a summary of the Bill's key features is also included.
