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

Here is what Mr Beattie said:

I think Gary Gray's comments are right on Senate reform. Frankly, I don't agree with the Labor Party's position on this. Senate reform is important.

The Labor Party under Mr Shorten's leadership is out of step with the respected opinion of senior Labor people across the country. Everybody in Australia knows that the only reason that Bill Shorten decided to ignore the considered advice of people like Mr Gray, former Senator Faulkner, Peter Beattie, former ACTU President Jennie George and a member in the House of Representatives is that he did not have the courage to stand up to the bullying tactics of people like Senator Conroy and various interests in the union movement. That is the reason. He did not want to pick the fight. Mr Shorten knows in his heart of hearts that what we are doing here today is right—hence the comments that he made in a doorstop earlier this week, which Senator Rhiannon read into the chamber earlier, where he said that he actually accepts the system and that, if it is changed, he will keep the system. He knows that what we are doing is right. He is just humouring people like Senator Stephen Conroy, like Senator Dastyari, like the sort of union heavies who come in and out of his office every day, because he does not have the guts to pick the fight, even though that is what would be required in order to stand up for the national interest.

People say that we are rushing these reforms, but on 6 February 2016 this is what Mr Gray, the then shadow minister for electoral matters—the then shadow minister representing the Labor Party, the spokesperson for the Labor Party, dealing with Senate electoral reform—had to say. As the person responsible for this area for the government, I was talking to Mr Gray as the person responsible for the Labor Party. He was my talking partner in order for me to ascertain Labor's position, to ascertain whether there was opportunity for common ground, to ascertain the best way forward. And he published an opinion piece in The West Australian on 6 February saying:

The system needs to be fixed. Fixing the Senate voting system is as important as one-vote-one-value and it is as important as the franchise.

Then he talks about the recommendations of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters:

These recommendations would see the power to allocate preferences given back to voters and stop opaque preference swaps between parties.

More specifically, under the recommended optional preferential voting system, voters would be able to expressly preference parties or candidate groups above the line rather than having their preferences distributed for them under a registered group voting ticket.

Then he says:

These changes will mean voter intention is reflected in a democratic electoral outcome. They will give voters control over whom they do and do not vote for.

These reforms are not intended to stifle or prevent the formation of new parties. These reforms simply mean that political parties, including my own, will have to convince the public rather than backroom deal-makers that they deserve their votes.

And here comes the clincher—the final sentence in that opinion piece:

The government should act now without delay and before the next election.

That is from the person who at the time was the appointed Labor spokesperson for Senate electoral reform. He was the person who was speaking for the Labor Party. He was the person who I was talking to as the spokesperson for the Labor Party. But now they are all saying: 'Oh, he was on a frolic of his own. That was never supported by the Labor Party.' But Senator Birmingham has already read out the extracts from the submission of the National Secretary of the Labor Party complaining about the manipulation of group voting tickets as a central reason that candidates with little public support have seen themselves elected to the Australian Senate. He has already read out the quotes from the National Secretary of the Labor Party, George Wright, indicating that Labor's preferred position would also see a requirement that ballot paper instructions and how to vote material advocate that voters fill in the minimum number of boxes above the line—which is precisely what we are doing—while still counting as formal any ballot paper with at least a 1 above the line. That is precisely, 100 per cent, what this bill is doing.

Mr Gray is not the only one who is urging us to get on with it. On 18 April 2015, Mr Griffin was, as he is now, the Labor deputy chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. This is what he said in April last year, nearly a year ago: 'The government should be acting on these recommendations' from the Joint Standing Committee on electoral Matters 'and, if they’re going to, they need to hurry up because they’re running out of time.' And after all these Labor luminaries have been out there saying to the government, 'Get on with it—let's do it! It's important. We need to fix this,' here we are putting a proposal to the Senate which, according to the Labor shadow cabinet minister, Gary Gray, is 95 per cent of what was recommended on Senate voting reform, and Labor says: 'No, no, no, no, no. Let's just wait for another six months. Let's just do it later.' The truth is that we could have an inquiry that lasts for another five years. If Bill Shorten is the leader with people like Senator Conroy and Senator Dastyari pulling his strings, the Labor Party will never change its mind in relation to what is a good public policy position.

It has again been suggested that this legislation is dramatically different from what the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters recommended back in 2014, some two years ago. Let me take you through it. Let me take you through the individual recommendations and explain to you precisely what is similar and what is different. The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters recommended optional preferential voting above the line—full stop. That would have meant that people could have just filled in 1 above the line without any guidance or instruction or advice to fill in at least six boxes from 1 to 6 in the order of their preference. We have decided to do the latter—instead of going with the original Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters recommendation to just put 1 and to advise to just put 1, we are going with the advice on the ballot paper that, to vote above the line, the voter needs to complete at least 1 to 6 but with the savings provision that one or fewer than six is still formal.

So the position we have adopted is more consistent with the submission that the National Secretary of the Labor Party put to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. Yes, we have departed from what was recommended by JSCEM; we are not strictly adopting their position, but our position is actually more consistent with the Labor Party position put to that committee at the time. I would have thought that the Labor Party would have congratulated us for the fact that we were taking on board the suggestions of the National Secretary of the Labor Party. I would have thought that, in particular, Senator McAllister, the National President of the Labor Party at the time when Labor made that submission, would have congratulated us for having taken that on board and for the fact that the coalition and the Greens thought, 'Yes, George Wright is right on this, and we will take on board what he is saying.' That is exactly what we have done.

In relation to below-the-line voting, the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters recommended partial optional preferential voting, with preferences to be completed equal to the number of vacancies—six, 12 or two. The government—and this not hard to understand—has accepted the subsequent recommendation of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters—that in order to vote below the line, the advice on the ballot paper should encourage the voter to number at least 1 to 12, but with a savings provision that any ballot paper where at least one to six boxes have been filled in sequentially from 1 to 6 in order of their preference, is still formal. Again, it is not complicated; you agree or you disagree. It is a slight variation on what was recommended, but it is extremely close.

The JSCEM recommended the abolition of group- and individual-voting tickets. We are abolishing, through this bill, group- and individual-voting tickets. The JSCEM recommended additional resources to the AEC to educate voters on changes. We have already publicly indicated, and the AEC told the most recent inquiry, that the government are providing additional resources for that purpose.

Then there was a range of recommendations in that interim report that was released in May 2014 to increase various membership requirements: membership numbers, verification, compliance et cetera. The background to this is the level of gaming that took place where members of one party would set up another party and another party and another party, and the same members of one party were officers of several parties and negotiating preferences with themselves through group-voting ticket arrangements. So for voters, it was completely misleading and they were not clear who they were actually voting for when voting for one of these pop-up parties that were channelling preferences in all sorts of directions.

There is only one change that we have adopted out of those recommendations—that is, that a registered officer for a political party should not be able to be a registered officer for several parties. We would have thought that that was sensible. It is a complete conflict for a person to be the registered officer of two different parties. Senator Leyonhjelm appeared as a witness at the inquiry and said if he had had the time, he would have set up 20 different parties with various names—the no carbon tax party, the no this party, the no secret taxes party, the no that party. The name of the party, being a slogan, would attract some primary votes, which would then be channelled, after they had negotiated with themselves on how to channel the preferences through group-voting tickets. Is that really the way we should elect senators to this chamber? Is that really what the Labor Party believe? So we are making that change that was recommended by JSCEM.

We were not able to reach consensus with the Greens, and I am quite open and candid about this. The government's preference would have been to accept the recommendation which would have required an increase in the membership requirement from the 500 or so that it is at present to 1,500. But, in the end, we had to make a judgement on what was realistically achievable through this chamber, so the government compromised. The government accepted that the Greens would not support this. Nobody knew where the Labor Party was going to be in relation to any of this because, by then, the Labor Party was in chaos and complete dysfunction. Their shadow spokesperson was expressing one view and people in the Senate were expressing a different view. So it was very hard to actually know what the Labor Party position was.

There was a recommendation from JSCEM that we should require candidates to be resident in the state or territory in which they were seeking election. The proposition was that if you do not have enough support in the state that you cannot even attract a candidate in that state, you should not be able to run a candidate. Initially, we considered adopting that recommendation, but we received legal advice that that would highly likely be found to be unconstitutional. So we did not proceed with that recommendation because the eligibility requirements for election to this place are provided for in the Senate.

Senator Jacinta Collins interjecting—

I am taking it through quite logically. Finally, while there was no specific JSCEM recommendation in relation to party logos, the joint standing committee did point out that there was a problem of potential voter confusion with similar party names and that the government should consider ways to address it. Our proposal to allow political parties, at their discretion, to have their logo included in the ballot paper is our attempt at minimising voter confusion when you have political parties with similar names presenting themselves for election.

The government have very much constructively and positively taken on board the recommendations of the joint standing committee. We have consulted subsequent to that, including with the Labor Party through the official spokesperson on electoral matters from the Labor Party. We have gone in good faith through a very thorough process and the bill that is in front of the Senate today is a result of that process.