Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I am talking you through it now. The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters recommended optional preferential voting above the line. We are proposing to introduce optional preferential voting above the line, with a recommendation to voters to number at least one to six boxes above the line and with a related savings provision that one of fewer than six is still formal.

The JSCEM recommendation was for partial optional preferential voting below the line, with preferences to be completed equal to the number of vacancies. Our announcement today means that we are introducing partial optional preferential voting, with an instruction to voters to vote at least one to 12, with the savings provision that any ballot where one to six boxes are numbered sequentially below the line in the order of '1' to '6' that the vote would still be formal.

The recommendation of JSCEM was to abolish group and individual voting tickets. We are proposing to abolish group and individual voting tickets. JSCEM recommended that additional resources be provided to the AEC to educate voters on changes. We are allocating additional resources to the AEC.

JSCEM recommended various increases in membership requirements for the registration of political parties. We have decided not to pursue this matter at this time because of an insufficient consensus in the parliament to pursue these changes—something that actually favours those micro and minor parties. We have made a decision, though, to include a restriction to unique registered officers for a federally-registered party, consistent with the recommendations of JSCEM.

JSCEM recommended that the government explore a way where we could require candidates to be resident in the state or territory in which they are seeking election. We have decided not to proceed with that recommendation on the basis of legal advice that this would likely be found unconstitutional, because such a restriction would not be consistent with the requirements for an election for the House of Representatives or the Senate that are included in the Constitution. That is the reason why we did not pursue that particular recommendation. And while there are no specific JSCEM recommendations to this effect, in its report JSCEM did point to the problem of potential voter confusion with similar party names. It encouraged the government to consider this issue. Of course, in this proposal the government has addressed this by allowing political parties, at their discretion, to have their logo included on the ballot paper. There are a lot of politics in relation to this.

What has happened on the Labor side is that, instead of going along with the considered advice of people like the highly regarded shadow minister Gary Gray, like ALP National Secretary George Wright and like the longstanding ALP member and Deputy Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, Alan Griffin, Bill Shorten went for the easy road. He went for the union lobby and he went for the backroom operators in the Labor Party. Instead of acting in the national interest and instead of acting in the public interest, he is acting in what he and the union perceive to be their self-interest. The government is not going to be distracted by that.

A range of other points have been made during the debate so far. Let me make these final observations, because I do not want to hold up the Senate. The reforms that we are putting forward empower people across Australia to clearly express their preferences above and below the line—not only their first preference above the line but also their subsequent preferences. Labor's assertion that this will lead to an additional 800,000 informal votes was of course disproven by none other than Labor's shadow minister Gary Gray. The savings provision in this proposed legislation ensures that any voter who numbers just one above the line will still have their vote counted and, under our proposed amendment, any voter who numbers just six boxes below the line will still have their vote counted.

The next general election, as everybody knows, is due in the second half of this year. There has been a lot of speculation about the link between this reform proposal and the timing of an election. Let me just say that it is the government's view that, whenever the next election takes place and in whatever form, it is in the public interest for the next Senate election results to reflect the will of the Australian people. The government has of course always the option, irrespective of whether this legislation goes through or not, when certain requirements are met to pursue a double dissolution election to resolve a deadlock on legislation between the House of Representatives and the Senate. That is an option available to the government irrespective of what the parliament decides in relation to this bill. Conversely, this reform is necessary whether the election is in August, September or October to ensure that the result of the next election truly reflects the actual will of the Australian people.

Finally, a number of contributors have suggested that this will mean one outcome or another and it will favour one party or another, but people who argue these sorts of self-interested perspectives are missing the point. The Australian people will decide the result of the next election. This legislation is about making sure that the result of the next election genuinely reflects the will of the Australian people. These proposed reforms empower voters to clearly express their preferences above and below the line instead of having political parties determine preference flows in an insufficiently transparent way as a result of secret deals behind closed doors.

Senator Conroy interjecting—

Senator Conroy interjects that all these votes are going to be exhausted. Let me tell Senator Conroy that it is entirely up to every individual Australian voter who they want to vote for and how many preferences they want to allocate. It is an entirely legitimate choice for an individual Australian voter to make that they do not want to provide a preference to every single political party across Australia and they do not want to provide a preference to every single candidate across Australia. Of course, this legislation, this reform proposal, empowers the Australian people to make their choice as they see fit, according to their wishes.

If they want to vote one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and 10—they want to fill every single box above the line—they can do so. They will be instructed, they will be guided, to fill in at least six boxes above the line in order of their preference from one to six. They will be instructed to vote at least one to 12 below the line in order of their preference. There will be some appropriate savings provision, but this will give the voter the best opportunity to have their intentions reflected in the final outcome.

The alternative, which is in place at present, is of course that people once they vote one above the line lose control of their preferences

Their preferences are captured by the political parties and are traded by political parties and directed, through group-voting tickets, to their ultimate destination.

Senator Conroy interjecting—

Backroom operators like Senator Conroy, who is interjecting incessantly, like these sorts of backroom deals, but we do not. We have made a judgement that that is not the right way forward.

On group-voting tickets: in fact, Senator Conroy yesterday, during the public hearing of the committee inquiry, was actually making our point. He was questioning the federal director of the Liberal Party, Tony Nutt, and in his line of questioning he was making the point that only a very small number of people across Australia—10 or so—understand the maths and science of preferences.

That is the exact point. Every single Australian voter should understand what happens to their preferences. It should not be complicated maths and science. You should not have to go to the Electoral Commission and find the group-voting ticket to see where your vote has been channelled. And of course some political parties are registering three different group-voting tickets. Any Australian voter should be able to find out, in practical terms, what happens to their preference after they vote 1 above the line, but how they can do so, under the current system, when political parties are able to channel that vote in three different directions after it has been issued, is beyond me. That is an undesirable situation. It is a situation which the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters has asked the parliament to address. It is a reform proposal that the Turnbull government has embraced, and we are very grateful that the Greens and Senator Xenophon and others in this chamber have embraced this as well. And I understand that the Greens have had a longstanding policy position along those lines.

Let me just make this final point. The Labor Party issued a dissenting report to the majority report recommending passage of this bill subject to an amendment on below-the-line voting. Whose signature was missing? There is, of course, a very high-profile member of that joint standing committee—none other than the member for Brand, Mr Gary Gray, the shadow minister for electoral matters. He is the Labor spokesperson for electoral matters, and he refused to sign Senator Conroy's outrageous backroom-dealing, preference-manipulating minority report that seeks to preserve the status quo for the sorts of union hacks and union heavies and backroom preference-manipulators like him.

This reflects really badly on Bill Shorten—the person who wants to be the future Prime Minister of Australia. I commend Mr Gray for his strength of character, for his fortitude and for having resisted the relentless bullying by people like Senator Conroy in the face of what is a very sound and strong public policy recommendation that he made to his leadership and to his shadow cabinet.