Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move Greens amendments (1) to (4) on sheet 7274 Revised:

(1) Schedule 2, item 1, page 18 (line 4) to page 19 (line 1)

(2) Schedule 2, items 2 to 6, page 19 (lines 2 to 11)

(3) Schedule 2, Part 2, page 20 (lines 1 to 5)

(4) Schedule 2, page 18 (lines 1 to 3), omit the headings.

These amendments are very much needed. We do need changes to the legislation. A number of speakers have identified areas where this legislation needs to be improved and we have all had our own experiences from running in elections and working in election campaigns where you see these problems up close.

The essence of the Greens amendments is to ensure that we do not end up with an electoral system that makes it harder for smaller parties, Independents, and new groups that wish to engage with the democratic process from being able to do so. The bar is being raised too high here and it is very serious. When you double the amount of money that has to be paid to put up a candidate, when you start looking at a full Senate team ticket in each state and when you start looking at running candidates in a number of House of Representatives seats, or in all seats, it becomes very costly.

It was interesting and quite informative to hear Senator Sinodinos in his contribution. He spoke about how much elections have changed. He said that people want authenticity, that they are moving away sharply from previous voting patterns, and talked about how Independents are thrown up because of the vagaries of the electoral system. So he paints a picture that we can all see: there is a shift and we cannot be so assured of how people will vote. It is certainly not like it was a decade or more ago.

However, what was revealing in what Senator Sinodinos said is that, while he was acknowledging the diversity that people are looking for so often when they go to vote on election day, the system that the coalition and Labor appear to be about to vote together on here will make it much harder for newly-emerging parties and Independents to run because it is so costly. To say that that is not the case really highlights how out of touch Senator Sinodinos is. Let us look at what the costs are. Doubling the nomination fee to $1,000 for a House of Representatives candidate and to $2,000 for a Senate candidate does raise the bar considerably. What we need to remember here—and people in this chamber have this experience—is that when you are establishing a party you are not just running in one seat, although certainly that might apply to Independents, but you are gradually moving to run in more and more seats so people get to know you, you are able to increase your vote and you are able to highlight your policies to more sections of the Australian population. Now it will be so hard to do that because the fees to run a full Senate ticket in one state will jump from $6,000 to $12,000 and to run in all seats in the House of Representatives will be $150,000.

Speaking from the Greens' experience, I have been in the party since the early 1990s when we did not run in every seat, but at each election we would gradually run in more and more seats and for a number of federal elections in recent times we have run in all seats. It has been a big cost burden on our local groups, on our state and territory sections and on the national party, but it was something that we worked hard to do. I imagine that the other smaller parties endeavour to do the same thing, but this will be a real bar to being able to achieve that, particularly if they are new parties just getting going. I am sure senators are keeping an eye on who will be running in this election. There are a number of smaller parties out there talking to their members so they can put in for registration under the AEC to run in the coming election. They will now have this huge financial burden about to hit them, come this election, and it will be quite prohibitive for many of them.

I go back to underlining how out of touch Senator Sinodinos and some of his colleagues are. Essentially what they are saying is, 'Yes, we can see the Australian people are looking for more diversity when it comes to voting and they're looking for alternatives to Labor and the coalition parties, but we're going to make it harder for those other voices to get a go and be able to run in the elections.' If it is hard to get going, it is hard to maintain yourself and come back and run in future elections. So the Greens strongly urge other senators to seriously consider these amendments and their importance to the democratic process.

With regard to the number of nominators for an unendorsed candidate increasing from 50 to 100, that also involves an additional barrier for smaller parties, particularly those that are first establishing. I think these are matters we need to give close attention to and I look forward to hearing the debate.