Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I want to return to the question that I have not had an answer on. I would like to understand when the advertising campaign will commence—how long after assent? That is the first thing. And the second is that I want to come back to the issue of the exhaustion rate. I think I asked earlier, but I have still not had an answer, whether the government had done any assessment of the exhaustion rate. Senator Cormann, I think, answered it by giving a lengthy discussion about choice.

I was looking at the joint standing committee Hansardthere was only a half-day hearing, so it has to be from 1 March—where Mr Green, who has been quoted a few times, said 83 per cent of ballot papers had only a single 1 above the line, when he was asked about the New South Wales system and the experience of the New South Wales system. He was asked about the exhaustion rate, which is 84.8, and then he said, 'For the last election, 83 per cent of ballot papers had only a single 1 above the line.' That would mean that essentially you have a first-past-the-post system for 83 per cent of the vote.