David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Hansard source

I support this amendment. It is substantively similar to mine; therefore, I will speak to this one and not to mine. Professor George Williams provided testimony to the one public hearing of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters inquiring into the provisions of this bill. He stated:

… further protective measures need to be introduced into the bill to ensure that people are unable to produce how-to-vote cards and other material that could effectively turn this into a de facto 'vote 1' system.

… it is possible for this parliament to legislate in a way that removes the possibility … for exploitation, whereby candidates and parties can advocate a vote that is saved but is clearly not the type of vote that is contemplated by the system. I believe that type of measure is important here.

Dr Kevin Bonham also provided testimony as follows:

… it should not be allowed to issue a how-to-vote card that recommends that voters vote in a manner different to the instructions on the ballot paper and … it should also not be allowed to encourage people to do this or publish an advertisement that draws people's attention to the fact that they can do that. Basically, the idea should be that people will just vote 1 above the line but voters should not be encouraged to do that because, if voters are encouraged to do that, you may get higher exhaust rates than otherwise and those may be distributed unevenly between different parties.

This amendment from Senator Day and my amendment that is substantively the same deliver on what Professor Williams and Dr Bonham recommended.

If Liberal-National-Greens coalition does not support this amendment, it would demonstrate that the one public hearing inquiring into this bill was a complete farce and that the expert witnesses who appeared should not have bothered. It would demonstrate that the Liberal-National-Greens coalition cares nothing about votes being exhausted. Let me remind the Senate what vote exhaustion means. It means that, if you did not write in numbers on the ballot paper for the parties vying for the last Senate spot, then you have no say in determining which of those parties wins that last Senate spot. This phenomenon is a feature of optional preferential voting and would be particularly prevalent if just 1 voting took hold. I note that the current directors of the Liberal and National parties provided testimony to the one hearing of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters stating that they intend to recommend that people vote 1 to 6, but these comments do not bind the Liberal and National parties now or in the future, and other parties also appear to have the option of pursuing just vote 1 how-to-vote cards if they wish. As such, this amendment is necessary to ensure we do not descend into a just vote 1 electoral system.