Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak to these amendments, which are a product of the new coalition: Liberals, Nationals and Greens. We had the Prime Minister come in here and speak to a procedural motion. In it he said something very significant. He said that he was indebted to the Greens. We know he is indeed indebted on the basis of this legislation.

But that is not all, because his Victorian party president, Michael Kroger, has given up details of where he also is indebted, because a part of this arrangement is this bloke and the Greens securing preferences from the Liberal Party in seats that they believe that they can win, and in return the Greens issuing open tickets in marginal seats that the Liberal Party either hopes to hold onto your hopes to win. That is the game here that is really on. So we have a circumstance whereby, due to absolute opportunism, we have opposites being attracted. That is what is going on here. This legislation, of course, is designed to have optional preferential voting in the Senate. During the Senate debate last night, Minister Cormann confirmed that it would be formal to advocate a just vote 1 proposition. This means that the up to 25 per cent of Australian voters who cast their votes not for Labor, not for the Liberals, not for the nationals and not for the Greens will have their votes effectively put in the bin. Up to 25 per cent of votes will be exhausted as result of that.

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