Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

It is an anomaly in our nation that 70 per cent of our nation is represented by less than four per cent of the members in the House of Representatives. It is also an anomaly in our nation, in the West-Washington system— where the House of Representatives is based on the Westminster system and the Senate is based on the Washington system—that we have never actually developed new states, so we have vast swathes of our nation that don't have Senate representation. It is generally the case that 11 out of 12 senators come from the capital cities. We've seen that in Western Australia—I believe currently—South Australia, Victoria and even in New South Wales, where 11 out of 12 come from Sydney or Wollongong. What this means is vast swathes of our nation in a geographic area do not have a Senate representation. Not only that, but Indigenous Australians, who are calling for a voice to parliament, are missing a voice in parliament.

What we need is six regions per state, which we can do by an act of this parliament. No region of those six should be bigger than 30 per cent of the state, and no urban basin should be more than one region. It would not be unusual when you consider that, in the United States, New York has two senators—but, in Australia, Adelaide has 11. We need to make sure, as the seats get bigger and bigger and bigger in the House of Representatives in regional areas, that this is offset by the capacity to get more Senate representation. What we have in the Constitution—this does not need a referendum—is the capacity within chapter 1, part 2, clause 7, where it states:

The Senate shall be composed of senators for each State, directly chosen by the people of the State, voting, until the Parliament otherwise provides, as one electorate...

So an amendment of the parliament can change how the parliament decides—this is something that is so important. If we had two senators per region, one would get in, I imagine, on around about 40 per cent of the vote, one would get in on around about 30 per cent and the rest of the vote would exhaust. This means that in areas such as the Gulf of Carpentaria we have a great chance of Indigenous representation. And in the Kimberley and in other areas of Western Australia—maybe western New South Wales—we have the capacity to have Indigenous representation in one of the most powerful elected bodies of this nation, the Senate. Of course it would also mean that we'd have offices in regional areas which people would have access to. And, to be quite frank, senators would have something that they haven't had for quite some time: constituents, who walk in the door with requirements on NDIS, on issues pertinent to health and education; and they mightn't reside, in many instances, in one building in the centre of town, where you have to go through security to get access to.

We need for our Senate to have a constituency and to have the capacity to represent a geographic area. It wouldn't take much for a competent representative to get elected if they required about 30 per cent of the vote—a competent independent could do it, or, obviously, a competent member of the Labor Party, a competent member of the Liberal Party, a competent member of the National Party or the Greens. It is not at the exclusion of any party. It's at the inclusion, but it gives the regions vastly more say in how they do this.

Mr Speaker, I'm not going to suspend standing orders—people have asked me about that—but I reserve the right to do so in the future. This has been within the National Party policy. We've come to federal conferences and argued for this. I can't see the point of people coming to federal conferences if you don't actually follow through with what they want; it's just a talkfest. We should be able to stand behind issues like this and see them through.

In the last election, the Labor Party got one senator up in Queensland, so things are not working well for them. The Labor Party, itself, should be looking strongly at how they represent the views of the constituency that they wish to represent in areas such as Central Queensland or Far North Queensland or the Gulf. Maybe in so doing they'd have the capacity to turn policy in such a way as to temper some of the effects that happen when you get an overurbanisation of the vote. Remember, the vast number of the votes in this place are from the capital cities. It is perverse to think there's an even greater representation of senators from capital cities so that, when an issue goes through, it has not only the benefit of the vast majority of the numbers in the House of Representatives, it's also got the support of the vast majority of people in the Senate.

The United States created pastoral states, and, by so doing, they had two senators per state. This gave greater representation. We seem to be completely at odds with creating new states, so the only way to do it—to get this representation of Indigenous people, of regional areas and a better balance—is to have regional senators, who were noted before. I see the member for Kennedy here, who's seconding this bill. I'm going to allow the rest of my time for him to speak.

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