Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

What a remarkable act of hypocrisy we are witnessing from those opposite, and I appreciate that they do not want to be called out for it. They do not want to be called out for the hypocrisy we are seeing here today. But, of course, it is quite remarkable, not just the substance of their argument but also the mere fact that they are having this argument to go off to an inquiry. And the fact that it is Senator McAllister who is here moving this motion is most remarkable of all. As Senator Cormann—

Opposition senators: Why?

You say, 'Why?' It is a very good question you ask. Senator Cormann highlighted the fact that Senator McAllister took Senator Faulkner's seat—he was an advocate of the very reforms we are bringing here. More importantly, Senator Rhiannon just referenced, quite rightly, the ALP submission to the JSCEM inquiry, signed off by George Wright, the national secretary. Guess who the national president of the Australian Labor Party was when this submission was launched. Senator McAllister. Senator McAllister was heading up the federal executive of the Labor Party that authorised this submission—this fine submission, this upstanding submission from the Australian Labor Party, this submission dated 24 April 2014. It was a mere two years ago.

Let me read some more from this submission because it is so outstanding:

The manipulation of Group Voting Tickets (GVTs) are a central reason that candidates with little public support have seen themselves elected to the Australian Senate. Without GVTs, the capacity of these candidates to deliver sufficient preferences through a coordinated preference harvesting strategy would not exist.

They are very strong arguments against group voting tickets, very strong arguments for the exact legislation before this chamber that Senator McAllister now seeks to delay. Mr Wright, who was answering to Senator McAllister at that time two years ago, went on:

In the specific circumstances of the current Senate voting system where GVTs—

group voting tickets—

are so blatantly being abused to frustrate the democratic will of electors, even the normally undesirable effect of OPV—

optional preferential voting—

which leads to a significant number of votes exhausting may be the lesser of two evils.

Then Mr Wright went on to put the very statement that Senator Rhiannon read, the precise argument in favour of the precise reforms we have brought to this chamber, reforms that require votes above the line to be dictated at the preference of the elector; that require there to be more than one box to be filled out; that require there to be a savings provision, though, if somebody only fills out the one box—all of the measures in the legislation that Senator Cormann brings to this chamber and that has been the subject of much scrutiny.

'How much scrutiny?' you might ask. Let us go back and have a look at the joint standing committee inquiry that the submission of Senator McAllister, of the Australian Labor Party, was made to—because it was a very long inquiry, you know, Mr President. When they come here and say they want more inquiry time, let us look back, because that inquiry had 21 hearings. It had 21 hearings! Those hearings were held over a period of time from February 2014 to March 2015. There were 13 months of inquiry. There were 13 months of hearings that resulted in recommendations that we have put into legislation.

You supported those recommendations, yet now you seek to frustrate it. Now the Australian Labor Party, having put a submission to an inquiry two years ago asking for these reforms, having participated in 13 months of hearings, 21 different hearings, come here and say, 'Now we've changed our minds and we don't want it.' The most hypocritical and the most petulant behaviour I have seen in nine years in the Senate I see from those opposite at present. It is the most hypocritical, petulant behaviour I have ever seen in this place. Why? They are simply standing up for backroom operators, for preference whisperers, and standing against the democratic will of the Australian voter.

We on this side are proud to say that we trust voters to direct their preferences. We do not think that backroom operators should direct the voters' will. We think voters should direct their preferences as they see fit. That is exactly what our legislation will determine. We are proud of it, and you should be ashamed of yourselves for your hypocritical backflip.