Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Every single slogan. Let's have some facts, not your slogans. You are a proud Abbott warrior. Let's not pretend some obscure website is the only place you can find them. You can go to the Australian Electoral Commission or you can ask to see it at a polling station. But, if you choose to vote below the line, as I said, you have to order them. The Greens insist that it is to offer voters more control over their preferences, that it will end party-preference registration, and the bill recommends that voters themselves number a 1 or at least six in the boxes above the line, creating a far shorter list of destinations for preferences. I do not know: why is it okay to pass votes six times and not seven or eight or nine? What is the magic about the number six? Can anyone give me a rational explanation as to why it is okay to pass votes six times? Why don't you tell them to vote 12 or tell them to vote 20, because what you are really about is introducing first-past-the-post voting. That is exactly it.

This is what Van Badham says:

“Voter control” is a disingenuous argument, given the option of below-the-line voting is already offered to every voter ...

That goes to the heart of the sloganeering disguised as rational arguments. Australians have a choice to vote below the line.

Senator Whish-Wilson interjecting—

If you were genuine about this, Senator Whish-Wilson, you would have just proposed optional preferential voting below the line, but, no, that is not what you wanted. You wanted to gut the crossbench. So voter control is a disingenuous argument, but it is your slogan. Tony Abbott will be proud of you today.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN: Senator Conroy—

My apologies. I am being harassed, but I should accept your direction and ignore the harassment. You are right, Mr Temporary Chairman. I accept your admonishment. Van Badham says:

“Voter control” is a disingenuous argument, given the option of below-the-line voting is already offered to every voter, while the list of how parties have ordered their preferences are offered online and at every ballot booth—

as I just said—

Even so, the change looks—

and sounds—

fair—unless you know anything about voting.

While everyone knows that Victoria's Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party—Senator Ricky Muir—won only a small number of No. 1 votes, few people appreciate that Senator Michaela Cash from the Liberals received even less. She must be a bigger disgrace than Senator Muir, according to the Prime Minister. She must be a bigger disgrace, and yet under the Greens' proposed changes, her re-election will be near guaranteed while his will not. What a fair reform that is! Your hypocrisy is exposed by this article. The first task—

Government senators interjecting—

No, she is just explaining the facts. The facts!

The first task of a ballot count is to establish which of the candidates have met that 14.3 per cent quota—it's easily reached by the popular major parties. What people don't know is that when a candidate goes 'over quota', the number of votes that go over quota are redistributed at a percentage of where their 'number 2' preferences are going.

I will put it to you that if you were to ask almost anyone, even in this chamber, no-one could explain to you how the preferences pass on and at what value.