Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens will be supporting the amendments. Indeed, in the 40 hours of debate that we have had, what I understand is the seventh longest debate in recent history, my colleagues in the Senate have set out the reasons why and I am not going to recount here why we support them. I think it is important to go back to basics and realise what this is all about. The effect of this is that when people vote in the Senate they will be able to vote 1 and then allocate their own preferences above the line. This is something that for many years voters in Melbourne, certainly, have said to me that they have wanted to be able to do, because they have been worried about where they have ended up. I remind the chamber that the first bill that was introduced in this place to allow voters to number above the line was introduced on two separate occasions by former Greens leader Bob Brown. It is something that has been pushed for a period of time by the Greens and it is now finally coming to fruition. Without recounting the reasons that my colleagues have put on the record in the past 40 hours, the Green support the amendments.

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