A push by the finance department to cut costs in the agency that runs Australia's elections has been put off until after the next federal election.
Just before last year's budget, the department told the Australian Electoral Commission it wanted any new spending offset by cuts within the agency.
A minute from an April 29 meeting last year involving the AEC and Finance, released to the Senate, said the department - based on advice from cabinet's expenditure review committee - had "proposed offsets for certain existing costs" within the AEC.
But no final decision had been made on which cuts to take forward.
The department went further, telling AEC officials at a June 9 meeting that it wanted the agency to be considered for a "contestability review".
News that makes sense
Your trusted source for staying up-to-date with the world around you. Get free daily news updates and analysis, straight to your inbox.
According to the department's website, a contestability review refers to "the prospect of competition in public sector functions to improve both the efficiency and effectiveness of contributing to achieving government's outcomes".
The result of such a review can range from management changes to outsourcing or full privatisation.
The AEC officials said they would "continue to discuss" funding as the agency went through its own reform processes in the wake of the 2013 West Australian Senate election ballot paper bungle which led to it being re-run in 2014.
But in August, the finance department advised the AEC that the contestability review was now "proposed post the 2016 election".
The federal election is expected to cost taxpayers upwards of $200 million, with a plebiscite on same-sex marriage estimated to cost $160 million.
Greens spokeswoman Lee Rhiannon said her party would oppose any move to outsource or privatise the functions of the AEC.
"Selling off public services is part of the coalition's dangerous neo-liberal agenda and that is one of the reasons it is important that they be defeated in the next election," Senator Rhiannon told AAP on Monday.
The NSW coalition government gave local councils the option to hire private firms to run their elections in 2012.
Fourteen of them took up the offer.
Senator Rhiannon said many of these council elections were "unsatisfactory in how they were conducted".
