Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

What a great opportunity it is to speak today to demonstrate the complete hypocrisy and the complete cowardice of the Greens party. They have gone from being a claimed party of principle to a party that is more interested in maximising the number of Green bums on Senate seats. That is what is going on in this chamber today. The Greens are so embarrassed by their filthy deal with the government to eradicate all voices on the cross benches of the chamber other than their own. They have entered into a filthy deal with the government.

Let me read to you from the constitutional reform and democracy platform of the Greens. Under 'Principles' it states:

4. The Constitution should express our aspirations as a community and define our rights and responsibilities …

5. Parliament is the central authority of representative and responsible government.

And here is the cracker:

6. The composition of Parliament should reflect the diversity of opinion within society.

Well, tell me this: how can you live up to that principle of your policy when you are introducing a system that you know is absolutely about eliminating the votes of 25 per cent of Australian voters, who did not vote for us, who did not vote for the coalition and who did not vote for you or Senator Xenophon? Twenty-five per cent of voters are going to be excluded.

I want to thank my colleague Gary Gray for circulating this document, because if any document circulated by Gary Gray recently demonstrates what is really going on in this debate, this document does it. Tragically, it does not support Gary's own arguments, but I suspect he did not bother to read too much of it. It says 'Australian voters have spent over 30 years voting 1 above the line, and it does seem reasonable to assume that many people will continue to do so.' What you are introducing is a first-past-the-post voting system, and you are legalising it. You may be happy with that, but let us go to why. This document is the analysis from the Parliamentary Library circulated by Gary Gray, who thinks it supports his arguments. It goes on to say: 'The obvious way to approximate the new system is to first look at how many quotas are achieved by each party as a primary vote. This will indicate how many seats the party is guaranteed to win and may account for four or five of the six vacancies at a normal half Senate election. The remaining seats will be determined either by preference flows or by whichever party has the largest remainder after the full quota is allocated to elected candidates.' Here is the scam: according to the Parliamentary Library, the only parties that could be reasonably expected to transfer preferences at sufficient numbers to elect another candidate are the larger parties—the Liberals, the Nationals, the Labor Party and those down in that corner, the Greens.

The Parliamentary Library has belled the cat. The Greens have done a deal to breach their own constitution, their own principles that they set out. The only parties that could reasonably be expected to transfer their preferences in sufficient numbers to elect another candidate are the larger parties. It goes on to discuss 'the limitations of this approach,' because he has been asked to model this by Gary Gray: 'Whilst the 2013 Senate election is the most recent guide to the will of the voters it was unusual in a number of ways, which will not likely be replicated in future elections.' This is the Parliamentary Library's analysis—