Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is indeed an honour to be the member for Grey, let me say, and I rise at the moment to speak on the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill 2016.

The vagaries of upper house voting systems around Australia—in the Senate in particular—are long and large. I hazard a guess that, outside people that work in the Electoral Commission and those addicted to politics, there are very few that understand the voting system. It has always been the case that on many occasions Senate elections have thrown up winners that no-one expected and that managed to be, if you like, the last repository for optional votes that were avoiding the major parties. I can think of a couple of quite prominent ones, and I mean no harm to either of these particular members of the Senate. I do not believe, for instance, that Senator John Madigan would be in this parliament now if it were not for those vagaries, because, for all intents and purposes, even the people of Victoria thought the DLP had disappeared before his election. I do not reflect in any way on his contribution to this parliament, but it was a surprise.

Perhaps an even bigger surprise, and someone who has made an even bigger impact on this parliament, is someone who was not first elected to the Senate on a very small vote but was elected by a very small margin to the South Australian Legislative Council, which is, by and large, a reflection of the voting system that we use. That is Senator Nick Xenophon, who was first elected as a No Pokies campaigner on, from memory—and I did not look it up—about two per cent of the vote. It was a surprise to everyone. I think it was a surprise to Nick. He certainly built on that opportunity to turn himself into a substantial politician, but it has to be said that no-one really expected that result, and probably he did not either.

It is difficult even to explain the Senate voting system and, as I said, I think very few understand it. But, to give the people of Australia some idea of the way I understand it, at least, if I stood for the Senate as the Rowan Ramsey Left-Legged Party and I scored—

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