Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Or a Xenophon T-shirt. It is one size fits all because I do not have the same budget as the major parties!

And you have a situation where you can give your first preference to a particular party but it then goes straight to a party or a candidate that it was not intended to on the official voting sheet for that party, on the ticket that has been lodged or in the preference arrangements that have been made. So it would deal with that mischief. I agree that there needs to be broader reform, but this is a particularly egregious and outrageous abuse where it seems that state and federal laws, at least in South Australia, cannot deal with it and our federal legislation is ambiguous, and this would have cleared that up. So, as much as I have a very high regard for Senator Feeney—and I do—I think that, in this case, to say that this would not be of any practical effect is simply wrong on the law. But I understand that this is something that will be the subject of a broader review, and I hope that we can deal with it substantively in the next few months.