Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The government members opposite are applauding this extraordinary decision by the backroom people in the Labor Party. This decision will leave many Labor voters in Victoria absolutely furious with the perfidy of it. Let me give one DLP policy as an example; it is a policy on government waste. A DLP advertisement says:

Abolition of all federal departments … whose essential functions are duplicated at the state level.

Now there is a wacky and cranky policy if ever I saw one, but it is one that has been potentially boosted into the Victorian parliament by the backroom people of the Labor Party in Victoria. When will they ever learn? When will they ever get over this process of not according with their members’ wishes? Obviously, the solution is to have above the line voting so that electors may determine their own preferences when it comes to political parties, rather than have it done by the backroom boys of the Labor Party. The Liberals and Nationals, of course, love Labor making such absurd and duplicitous decisions in their preference dealings.