Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition will not be supporting these amendments at this stage. We acknowledge arguments that Robson rotation in the printing of ballot papers improves democracy and proposals such as that put forward by Senator Muir to apply the Robson rotation to Senate voting, but Labor believes that any changes to our electoral system should be the subject of careful consideration. So, accordingly, we cannot support a proposal to apply the Robson rotation without further inquiry and report—hopefully by JSCEM, but, as I have said, it has been politicised through this current process in a way that compromises one's confidence that it will address the question as it might in the past have conducted an investigation such as this. Perhaps, if senators still have some concerns about JSCEM, some other process should occur to further investigate how it might apply in a broader context than the ACT.