Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I withdraw that last comment if that is unparliamentary. You cannot trust the Labor Party on this issue. There has been a whole series of misinformation and misleading statements on what is actually a very, very important issue. What has concerned me the most—Senator Dastyari touched on it very briefly then—is the use of psephologists like Antony Green, who have spent their lives studying our democratic system and have been champions for reform, and the Labor Party is prepared to throw them under a bus and use statements they have made out of context to win a political argument in this chamber.

Yesterday in the chamber, during the middle of an extraordinary meltdown, Senator Penny Wong said:

I will remind the Greens of the evidence that was given to the joint standing committee by Antony Green, whom they have cited in debate on many issues in this chamber. He said that the most likely outcome is blocking majority for the coalition.

However, when asked on Twitter if Penny Wong was quoting him correctly, Antony Green replied, 'It's news to me.' Senator Wong has twisted Antony Green's words. If Senator Wong had been paying attention or had read Antony Green's earlier article on this specific issue, she would have understood that he meant that, if the coalition had a landslide victory, it is more likely the coalition would have a majority in the Senate—pretty basic stuff, really. Antony Green points out, 'This situation will occur under those circumstances whether there is Senate reform or not.' This is what Antony Green said at the full hearing yesterday:

Mr Green: The Senate is a proportional system, for if party wins a majority of the vote it has a chance of winning a majority of the seats. So for someone to say, 'Can you guarantee the coalition will never win a majority?' I say, 'No, I can't. If they win a majority of the vote they may win a majority of the seats.' Under more normal voting patterns the coalition does not get a majority of the vote. I counted it up and there are less than half a dozen instances in the last 25 years of them getting to 50 per cent in their own right in any individual state. In a double dissolution, where you are more likely to get a majority than a half-Senate election, that is the only time you would start seeing it as being a chance. It is much more likely that the coalition will win six seats at a double dissolution or three at a half-Senate election in each state. But I would point out that during the Howard government in 1996, 1998 and 2004 they won three of all of the vacancies in three states under the current system. All I am saying is that it would tend to produce the same thing as the current system.

He also wrote an entire article on this issue, had Senator Wong bothered to read it—'Would voting reform lead to the coalition winning a Senate majority at double dissolution?'

It is a claim that has set the dogs running this morning after analysis by the Renewable Energy Party claimed it would.—

A minor party—

The claim is the Coalition would win 7 of the 12 vacancies in three states delivering the Turnbull government a Senate majority.

It is a claim that doesn't stand up to analysis.

…   …   …

Let's face facts. If the Coalition get the 50% of the vote to win seven Senate seats in NSW, Victoria and WA, then the Turnbull government would be returned to office with a massive House majority.

Under both the current and the proposed electoral system, a party would come close to winning seven Senate seats if its vote was above 50%.

That is the same thing he said yesterday. He continued:

The current Senate electoral system could just as easily produce the same result. However, you would have to work out the labyrinthine preference flows and factor in the random factors produce by voters needing to use magnifying glasses on the over-sized ballot papers in under-sized fonts.

I would also point out that there have been several other well-respected psephologists, including Dr Kevin Bonham from Tasmania, say similar things.

With all the chest beating and all the wild gesticulating, with all the flushed faces and the faux anger, with all the banging on the tables—if we captured little videos of it and ran some Benny Hill music in the background, we might actually produce an excellent, comical breakdown of what the Senate has been going through in the last three days, courtesy of the Labor Party. That is what it has looked like, but it is a serious issue. It is not a farcical or a comical issue. To be misquoting someone like Antony Green, I think is really poor form. Unfortunately, Senator Wong's quote was quoted verbatim in an article by The Guardian this morning. So it is out there in the public realm. I would ask Senator Wong to come into the Senate, check what Antony Green actually said and wrote and clarify her comments. And please correct the record, because this is a very serious debate. Antony Green has been a long-time contributor to democracy—