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

For those listening to this debate, the interesting thing is that we are now going back to the line of questioning that Senator Collins started with at 5.30 pm yesterday. For the benefit of the chamber, and in an abundance of helpfulness, let me quickly recap. The government put forward what we judged was the best possible reform proposal when we introduced the legislation into the House of Representatives on 22 February.

But in relation to the below-the-line voting, our initial thinking was, given that we have compulsory voting in the House of Representatives, people voting in the House of Representatives are required, when voting for individual candidates, to fill every single box. In order to keep a level of consistency, it was appropriate to provide for compulsory full preferential voting when voting for candidates in the Senate—which the below-the-line vote is as well.

We did have in our original proposal a proposition to improve and relax somewhat the savings provision of below-the-line voting by increasing the number of allowable mistakes in sequence below the line from three to five. Assessing what happened at the last election, if that had been in place, the number of informal votes would have been reduced from less than two per cent to less than one per cent. So we thought that that was a reasonable proposition.

Though, after having introduced the bill, after having sent it to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters for inquiry, a range of submissions identified what was perceived to be an asymmetry between the reform to voting above the line with what was proposed to be done below the line. The government carefully considered these arguments. We had discussions with the Labor Party through their then shadow minister. We had discussions with the Greens. We had discussions with others and we made a judgement, on balance, as to what would be an appropriate number in terms of the guidance that should be provided to voters when voting below the line for the Senate.

I guess, because it is at least six boxes about the line, there was a view that there was a good symmetry by asking for at least 12 below the line–six above the line and 12 below the line, six above the line and 12 below the line. It seemed to align quite nicely and it was more than the number of vacancies of any half-Senate election. It was certainly double the number of preferences that would, at least, be required to be indicated when voting above the line.

You can have a different view. I note that all parties represented in the Senate, with the exception of the Australian Labor Party, have supported the government's proposal in relation to below-the-line optional preferential voting. The Labor Party is entitled to have a different view; but the government takes a lot of comfort from the fact that every single party represented in the Senate, with the exception of the Australian Labor Party, actually is supporting the government's approach to below-the-line optional preferential voting.