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

I concur with the positive findings that have come out of the review of the 2007 federal election by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. One thing that does concern me is that I have been here long enough to see very good reports come out of this committee that are put before the parliament and absolutely zero action as a result. I think it is incumbent upon committee members and members of the Senate generally—and particularly the government, of course—to follow through on these reports to ensure that we do get results. The government has said there is a green paper coming out later in the year. One would hope that a lot of notice of the proceedings and recommendations of the committee will come out of that.

Two important matters that the Greens have been pursuing for some time did not get acceptance from the committee as a whole. The first is above-the-line voting in Senate elections—voters tick the boxes of the parties and the Independents in the order of their choice. It must not be left to the scramble we now have, where the parties get together, try to trade positions and get advantage and hand a preference order to the electoral office before the election. Then, on election day, everybody who votes ‘1’ Labor and leaves it at that has their preferences directed according to the Labor Party; everybody who votes ‘1’ Green and leaves it at that, ditto; everybody who votes ‘1’ coalition, ditto; and so on. But the outcome of that is very often against what the majority of those voters would want—in other words, the machinations in the backrooms are contrary to what the voters actually want.

I am sure Senator Fielding will not mind me mentioning the fact that, although he got less than two per cent of the vote in the previous election in 2004, he was elected to this place, whereas a Greens candidate in Victoria on nearly 10 per cent of the vote was not elected. They needed 14 per cent because Labor Party and Democrat preferences flowed to Senator Fielding against the wishes of the majority of Labor voters. It is really a case here of getting a more honest outcome based on what the electorate’s intention is. Anomalies like that should not be allowed. Indeed, my colleague Senator Milne—who, agree with her or not, everybody would say is an enormous contributor to this Senate and to this parliament—got, I think, 10 or 12 per cent of the vote in Tasmania.