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

Tell us more about the Labor Party—the national secretary keeps the national president of the Labor Party in the dark! That is the way they operate. We are getting all the revelations now about the internal workings of the Labor Party. The national president of the Labor Party is treated like a mushroom. The national secretary does not even share with the president what is in a submission he makes to a parliamentary committee looking into Senate voting arrangements. You are not really taking this very seriously, Senator Conroy.

But let me just remind you what the national secretary of the Labor Party said to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters on 24 April 2014 in relation to this precise point:

Labor’s preferred position would also see a requirement that ballot paper instructions and how-to-vote material advocate that voters fill in a minimum number of boxes above the line, while still counting as formal any ballot paper with at least a 1 above the line.

That is precisely what our reforms do. We are precisely following the preferred position of the national secretary of the Labor Party—which apparently he has put to a committee of the parliament in secret, without even consulting his national president. I find that very hard to believe, but let us take Senator Conroy's word for it.