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

Hansard will show that Senator Wong asserted that the fact that we are proposing to amend this bill in the Senate now is somehow a mistake. It is not a mistake. It is just that we have taken on board the considered recommendations on how our very good bill could be further improved that were made in the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. The government, as I have already indicated, moved amendments to that effect during the committee stage of the debate on the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill 2016. Those amendments will provide full instructions to voters to number at least five boxes from 1 to 12 in order of their preference when voting below the line, together with the related savings provision that any vote with at least six boxes numbered from 1 to 6 below the line would still be considered formal. Taken together, the measures in this bill will give voters greater control over their vote, increase transparency and simplify the Senate voting system.

As I said right at the outset, these reforms are important reforms. They are reforms which will ensure that future Senate election results truly reflect the will of the Australian people. The measures in this bill will empower voters to direct their preferences according to their wishes instead of having them traded and directed by backroom operators in political parties through insufficiently transparent group voting ticket arrangements. I commend this bill to the Senate.