Turnbull relaxed about post poll

MALCOLM Turnbull says any rate of return of same-sex marriage postal survey forms will be legitimate.

The electoral roll closed on Thursday at midnight with 90,000 names added and almost one million changes made.

Concerns have been raised that because the survey is voluntary, there will be a low rate of return of survey forms, which will start arriving in mailboxes from the middle of next month pending a High Court challenge.

Australian Lawyers for Human Rights say the postal vote is fundamentally flawed because it cannot produce either an electoral vote or a genuine statistical survey.

The Prime Minister predicted the return rate would be “above 50 per cent”, but was not concerned about it.

“Any level is legitimate because it’s legitimate for somebody to say, ‘I don’t want to vote’,” Mr Turnbull told Melbourne radio yesterday.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics, which is running the survey, has promised to publish detailed participation figures broken down by age, gender, electorate and state.

The bureau confirmed yesterday it would publish a statement on the quality and integrity of the survey on November 15.

It said external observers would be nominated by MPs by the middle of next month.

The bureau will also engage an independent auditor to monitor processes such as the dispatch of survey forms and the receipt and destruction of forms.

However, Ian Brightwell — the former chief information officer with the NSW Electoral Commission and an expert in information security — told an inquiry into the postal survey that the observers would need maximum access to all aspects of the survey process.