Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens will not be supporting these amendments either. Effectively amendments (1), (2), (3), (4) and (5) want to allow an individual, ungrouped candidate to have a box above the line with a party name next to it. We oppose this because it would really clutter up the ballot paper and make it more difficult for the voters. So it is not something that would facilitate a good outcome.

The other amendments—(6), (7) and (8)—would result in quite a complex system of printing the Senate ballot papers in batches that contained different candidate orders. Certainly there have been some successful ways of introducing a rotational system for where names appear on ballot papers, but this one would not achieve that or ensure that we have a ballot paper that works.

The CHAIRMAN: The question is that amendments (1) to (5) and (7) on sheet 7875 moved by Senator Muir be agreed to.

Question negatived.