Parliament's use of SurveyMonkey slammed by students, Hanson

While airing different concerns, Senator Hanson and the Council of International Students Australia have slammed the use of survey generator SurveyMonkey to gather opinion on toughening the requirements for Australian citizenship.

Each has questioned the validity of the poll, which asked people to provide their email address and name then vote "yes" or "no" on whether they supported Senator Hanson's proposed bill.

The Queensland senator's proposed citizenship legislation is similar to that voted down in the senate last year but would increase the qualifying period of residence from four years to eight.

The changes - which also include tougher English language requirements - would be retrospective.

Senator Hanson on Friday claimed overseas social media accounts and websites were urging followers to vote "no" in the survey. She urged the committee to disregard the poll and instead called for a plebiscite on citizenship to coincide with the next federal election.

"The whole process has been turned into a joke," she said.

“If the point of this poll was to gauge the public's opinion on citizenship reform, then it failed badly. Now we have to make sure it is done properly.”

CISA public relations officer Arjun Mathilakath Madathil told The Canberra Times there was no way to ensure people who participated in the survey lived in Australia.

"Thus we don't believe that this survey shows the accurate sentiments of the Australians," he said.

The committee was contacted on Friday but said it would not pre-empt what members would do with the poll.

Committee chairman Ian Macdonald wrote to Senator Hanson on Thursday to explain SurveyMonkey was used to lessen the work of the secretariat as the previous citizenship survey had inspired "an unusually large response in submissions".

He reminded her she had already been informed that SurveyMonkey would be used during the inquiry.

"You are concerned about who might be responding to the poll but can I remind you that there is never any restriction on who makes submissions to senate inquiries and, in the normal course, every single submission has to be published unless the committee otherwise decides," Senator Macdonald wrote to Senator Hanson.

"The committee believed that there would be a huge number of submissions, including from the groups of people you mention in your letter."

Committee member and Greens immigration spokesman Nick McKim said he did not share the concerns of Senator Hanson nor CISA, emphasising that survey responses were not considered formal submissions but "one of a number of references for the committee to consider".

"We know how the Australian people and the parliament feel because we rejected Peter Dutton's legislation that this is almost a carbon copy of and we know that Peter Dutton's bill received over 13,500 submissions to the senate inquiry that were almost universally negative," Senator McKim said.

SurveyMonkey, which bills itself as "the world's most popular free online survey tool", was also used by the Senate Select Committee on Same Sex Marriage in 2016.

Asked by The Canberra Times how many times SurveyMonkey had been used in senate inquiries, a Senate Department spokesman said: "At least twice, possibly more."

On the integrity of the poll, the spokesman said: "Each SurveyMonkey respondent can only complete the online survey once from their browser and email address."

He added: "The Senate Legal & Constitutional Affairs Committee is currently using SurveyMonkey as an alternative to form letters, petitions and short statements to allow members of the public to express their views on the Australian Citizenship Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Commitments for Australian Citizenship and Other Measures) Bill 2018."

SurveyMonkey has also been deployed in an ongoing inquiry into the efficacy of migration agents and education agents.

A House of Representatives Department spokeswoman said the lower house had used SurveyMonkey "for many years".

"Responses for surveys commissioned by Parliamentary Committees are not treated as formal submissions, but are used as reference material for Committee inquiries," she said.

"The department has run SurveyMonkey surveys on behalf of the Social Policy and Legal Affairs Committee, the Petitions Committee, the Indigenous Affairs Committee, the Environment and Energy Committee and the Migration Committee during the 45th Parliament.

"In addition, we also use the platform to ask for feedback on our seminar program and the About the House Newsletter."

Both polls closed Friday.