Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to make a contribution on the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill 2016. This important bill acts to address significant public concerns about the Senate voting system in the aftermath of the 2013 federal election. I agree very much with the member for Brand that it is self-evident that parliament needs to act on electoral reform—in part, to uphold the integrity of the Constitution. I am sorry that he lost the vote in the Labor caucus on this matter. I am sorry because most Australians saw the practices revealed at the last election as scandalous. They saw elaborate preference harvesting, shady deals and the establishment of multiple entities to share those preferences. Antony Green, commenting on a report in The Australian Financial Review earlier this month, said:

A cottage industry has built up of preference whisperers offering advice to 'micro' parties on how to make the system work to their advantage.

The strategy these so-called preference whisperers use is illuminated by this typical media quote:

That advice was to stand as many candidates and parties as possible, and to insure that micro-parties preference each other first ahead of all larger parties. To have a hope of election, the advice is for micro-parties to ignore ideology and political affinity and instead think entirely strategically, to make the system a lottery where by using group ticket votes to aggregate micro-party votes together, one of the parties might draw the lucky ticket and win.

By way of example, a Victorian Senate candidate became a senator in this parliament despite receiving around one half of one percent of Victorians' first preferences. The required 14.29 per cent quota was reached via complex preference-harvesting deals involving a dozen other entities via group ticket votes.

This is not what the vast majority of Australians expect democracy to be, and it is clear from the many comments expressed to me that it shook public confidence in the integrity of our Senate voting system. So great were public concerns that this matter was referred to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters following the 2013 election. The committee made a range of unanimous recommendations to improve the Senate voting system. At the time, I congratulated the Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, now the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Labor's deputy chair for a welcome outbreak of common sense.

At the time, Labor's deputy chair of the committee, the member for Bruce, said this about the committee's recommendations during a press conference on Friday, 9 May 2014: 'This is a positive step forward to take into account what occurred at the recent Senate election: a set of problems which are very much unique to the particular facets of the Senate voting system as it currently stands, and deal with those particular issues. The consensus on the committee pretty much represented the consensus overwhelmingly on the submissions that were received. We think they're the sorts of steps that government should be considering very seriously to actually ensure that the sorts of events that occurred in the Senate election of September 2013 don't happen again.' And I say 'hear, hear' to those words of impeccable wisdom from the member for Bruce, who embraced the committee's key conclusion that retaining the current Senate voting system was not an option.

Recommendations on Senate voting reform were made by the committee to guide the legislative change process, including a recommendation to abolish the current system of Senate voting above the line, and its reliance on group voting tickets. Instead, the committee called for a replacement system that puts the power of preferencing back in the hands of the voter, via an optional preferential voting system, where it is the voter who decides whether to preference and how many parties or candidates to preference.

The member for Brand illuminated how, under the current system, almost 97 per cent of voters at the last election voted '1' above the line.    But, at that point, they lost control of their preferences. Parties then, through insufficiently transparent group and individual voting ticket arrangements, direct what happens to the voter's preferences. It is incumbent on us to respect the voter's right to choose, to ensure that it is the voter, not the shady backroom operator, who determines where their preferences go—not just their first preference but also their second, third and subsequent preferences.

The committee also expressed the unanimous view that party registration rules needed to be enhanced to ensure that parties are real and genuine, rather than vehicles for electoral manipulation. It is worth noting that the committee received over 200 submissions and extensive evidence from many parties during its inquiry. Since the committee handed down its report, the government has carefully considered those recommendations and consulted widely. On Monday, based on the outcome of those consultations, the government put a proposal to the parliament designed to implement the committee's recommendations about voter empowerment and improving the transparency of Senate voting arrangements.

Key aspects of the government's proposal were as follows: the introduction of optional preferential voting above the line, with advice to the voter on the ballot paper to vote above the line by numbering at least six of the boxes in the order of the voter's choice; second, the introduction of a related provision to ensure that a ballot is still formal where the voter has numbered one or fewer than six boxes above the line; third, in relation to voting below the line—and, as I said, a very small proportion of the Australian public do that—a proposal was put into the legislation to reduce the number of informal votes by increasing the number of allowable mistakes from three to five, as long as 90 per cent of the ballot paper below the line is filled in correctly; fourth, the abolition of group and individual voting tickets; fifth, the introduction of a restriction to prevent individuals holding relevant official positions in multiple parties; sixth, to reduce voter confusion between parties with similar party names, a proposal to allow political parties, at their discretion, to have their logo included on the ballot paper.

Yet despite the Labor Party's unanimous endorsement of many of these measures in committee, through the member for Bruce, and publicly, through the member for Brand—including in his very good speech just prior to mine—Labor is now opposing them, for rank political reasons. It is not only false but nonsensical to say, as a number of Labor members have asserted in the last 48 hours, that these changes will lead to 800,000 additional informal votes. That is because there is a specific provision in the legislation to ensure that any voter who numbers just one box above the line, for example, will still have their vote counted. So Australians will be very surprised at the news that Labor will be voting against the proposed overhaul of Senate voting.

I note media reports yesterday that there were those in the Labor caucus who warned against delaying this long-overdue action, and I respect the member for Brand for being one of those active voices in the Labor caucus, because he and the other members that spoke against the Labor position know how poorly this change in sentiment will be seen by the Australian people.

For those calling for more inquiry, more delay, more talk, I would direct them to the comprehensive inquiry undertaken by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, with Labor members unanimously endorsing the committee's recommendations. I would refer them to the well-established precedent of above-the-line optional preferential voting in New South Wales, where it has worked very well since being introduced in the aftermath of the scandalous 'tablecloth' ballot paper of 1999, which the member for Brand brought into this chamber and highlighted in his speech. That change in New South Wales has not decimated small parties, with the Christian Democrats and others still in parliament. What it achieved in New South Wales was to more accurately reflect the people's will. And why shouldn't we elevate the people's will, in a democracy, to decide where their preferences are directed and when they exhaust? Constitutional law professor George Williams, whom members opposite are often fond of quoting, has reflected negatively on the current system in media comments recently, saying:

… in the current system … you cast a vote and you don't even know who it is.

There is of course an urgent imperative for these changes, given that the next general election is due in the second half of this year. Given the lead times involved in implementing these changes, this is the appropriate time to pursue them. It is necessary to give the Australian Electoral Commission sufficient time to adjust their processes, or we risk another general election where the system and the Senate result are disproportionally influenced by those shady backroom operators and their shady preference deals.

Let us implement these reforms and empower voters to clearly express their preferences above and, should they choose, below the line. I think it is fair to say that there is coalescence across the political divide around the need for Senate voting reform. A bipartisan report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters proves exactly that. Let us not fall at this legislative hurdle and impose the same flawed system on the Australian people at the 2016 election.

What this bill proposes is laudable. It reduces the complexity of the Senate voting system, by providing for partial optional preferential voting above the line, including the introduction of advice on the Senate ballot paper that voters number, in order of preference, at least six squares. As I said earlier, this bill provides appropriate provisions to capture voter intent and reduce the risk of increased vote informality. It improves transparency around the allocation of preferences in a Senate election, by abolishing group and individual voting tickets, noting that this does not change other provisions relating to candidates nominating to be grouped on the Senate ballot paper. The bill introduces a restriction that there be a unique registered officer and deputy registered officer for a federally registered party. And it reduces the sort of confusion we saw the 2013 election, around political parties with similar names, by allowing party logos to be printed on ballot papers for both the House of Representatives and the Senate. What these changes do is end party control over preferences between parties. If this legislation is enacted, and I hope that it is, the only way a vote can transfer between parties or groups is if the voter decides that is their preference.

I plead with those opposite to elevate the will of the individual voter in our system above the shady backroom operators, to say to the voters of Australia, 'We will put your needs and your will above all other matters.' Australians should be entitled to that right. To expect that when they vote for the Senate the outcomes will reflect faithfully what each and every voter intends as they exercise their democratic choice. As the member for Brand so beautifully said, 'It is self-evident that parliament needs to act on electoral reform, in part, to uphold the integrity of the Constitution.' On that basis, I strongly commend this bill to the House.

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