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

Listening to that contribution just now, I note that the Labor Party is yet again trying to defer consideration by the Senate of this very important reform, which has been considered in the Senate for more than 20 hours now and which has been inquired into by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters for more than two years. No wonder that Labor's senior shadow cabinet minister Gary Gray said in the Federation Chamber today:

I must say the position taken by my party continues to simply make me sad.

That is what Mr Gray said this morning. Of course on this side of the chamber we all know that Mr Gray is a highly regarded, highly respected senior Labor member of parliament, who was a long-serving Special Minister of State and a long serving shadow special minister of state. He is highly regarded on both sides of politics. Today, the Labor Party just makes him sad.

Senator McAllister, you did not have to accept this job that was handed to you by the tactics committee of the Labor Party. The Senate has already voted on this exact point on several occasions. The person that you replace in this chamber, the very highly regarded former senator John Faulkner, was part of the committee which nearly two years ago recommended the improvements to Senate voting arrangements that are here in the Senate before us today. The Labor deputy chair of that committee, Mr Griffin, the member for Bruce, urged the government 12 months ago to get on with it. Mr Gray, the shadow special minister of state at the time, went on national television urging the government to get on with it. Today Mr Gray told the House of Representatives that our reforms achieve '95 per cent of the reforms that were recommended by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters.' The five per cent that we are not doing was not actually a good idea. That is why we discarded it.

Sadly, the Labor Party today is very juvenile. What we are putting before the Senate for consideration today, which the Greens and Senator Xenophon have indicated they are prepared to support, is doing the right thing in the public interest. We are ensuring that future Senate election results truly reflect the will of the Australian people. That is what we are doing. By passing these reforms the Senate will ensure that voters are empowered to direct their preferences according to their wishes, instead of having them traded and directed by backroom operators in political parties through insufficiently transparent voting ticket arrangements.

I understand why people like Senator Carr and Senator Conroy do not like that. They have made a career out of being backroom operators. I know that Senator Carr and Senator Conroy are the national secretaries of the backroom operators union. We know that Senator Carr is the chief operating officer of the backroom operators union, so we understand why Senator Carr comes in here to stand up for the backroom operators of Australia, for the union heavies of Australia.

But, Senator McAllister, you are better than that. You come into this chamber after the august, highly regarded former senator John Faulkner, who has his fingerprints all over these recommendations, who was behind these recommendations, who was a strong advocate for what is in front of us here and who was part of the committee that unanimously recommended that we do what is here in front of the Senate today. So, instead of playing games as though you were still in student politics, you should actually get involved in the substance of the debate. You say you want to have a debate; let us have a debate. Let us get into the committee stage of the debate and get into the substance of it, instead of running all these little procedural games.

If you still want to be here on Good Friday, that is fine. Let us be here on Easter Friday. We will be here until this legislation has been dealt with by the Senate, because this is something that is very much in the national interest. This is very much in the interests of the people of Australia. We on this side are absolutely committed to ensuring that future Senate election results truly reflect the will of the Australian people.