Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I think the Labor Party actually made a submission to that which is very, very similar to the legislation that is coming before the parliament. It is very, very similar. You know, optional preferential voting above the line is taking place in New South Wales and the sky has not fallen in. We have still seen people have their choices. What the Labor Party and some of the crossbenchers are saying is one of two things: either they think the Australian people cannot be trusted to choose their own preferences, or the Australian people simply are not smart enough and we should leave it to the political players to choose their preferences for them. I say: let us leave it to the wisdom of the Australian people.

People say this is about favouring one party or another. That is absolute rubbish because if it was about favouring one party then why was the Labor Party, and why were people like Gary Gray, so in favour of it, if it was about favouring one side of politics over another? In three years, or six years, or in future elections, who knows what the dynamics will be in relation to the party structure in this country? Who knows what parties of the left will arise? Who knows what parties of the rights will arise? From time to time it will benefit one party; it will diminish another. That is democracy. But fundamentally when you are looking at these kinds of reforms you should always err on the side of giving voters the choice rather than the backroom players. Fundamentally that is what Labor are going to be arguing against today and no doubt when the legislation comes to the parliament. They are going to be saying to the Australian people, 'No, you can't be trusted to choose where your second, third, fourth, 10th or 15th preference goes.'

I think people should be able to choose. I do not think they should have to preference every party. I think if there are 100 parties you should not have to. There are a lot of parties I have a fundamental opposition to, and I do not want to give them my preferences. I do not want my preferences to go anywhere near them. I could name some parties here, but I am not going to do that today. The reality is that Australians should be given that choice. If there is a party that you have an absolute objection to, they should not be getting any of your preferences.

That is the other great thing about a Senate voting reform which allows people not to preference certain parties whose views they might find obnoxious and objectionable. Under our current system, eventually they get some of those preferences at some point. You will be preferencing them. The best you can do is put them last, but you have to put another obnoxious one second last and another one third last. What I find particularly appealing about this reform is that you would not have to give any of those parties that you have a fundamental objection to a preference. You can preference just the one party. You can preference 10 parties, and it will be the parties that match your philosophy and that you believe are doing a good job.

The Labor Party and some of the crossbenchers are going to say to us that the lottery that we have at the moment where Australians do not know where their preferences go is better. They are going to say that the current system is better and that the Australian people cannot be trusted to do the right thing. We have heard that it will lead to all sorts of informal voting. The reality with the way that this has been structured is that it will not lead to informal voting because, if people vote the same way they always have, it will still count.

But Australians can also follow the instructions that they will be given by the Electoral Commission which will encourage them to number from one to six. In that case, at least the top six choices of that individual will be preferenced. Surely that is fair. The Labor Party and some of the crossbenchers seem to have no confidence in the Australian people's judgement. I have confidence that sometimes they will favour the coalition and sometimes they will reject our policies when they believe we have gotten it wrong. That is democracy, and this reform would actually improve our democracy.