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

I thank all my colleagues who have made such informative contributions over the last few hours, yesterday and ongoing through the evening. I come to this debate with a mixture of frustration, anger and sadness—frustration that genuine reform of Senate voting procedures was possible and that we could have addressed some of the somewhat overblown concerns that were discussed over the last few years and found a way to ameliorate some of those concerns without having to engage in parties rorting the voting system into the future for their own benefit. We could have solved this if those who were involved had been prepared not to stick to a deal they did years ago on the parliamentary committee—which did not have the support of the Labor Party and never had the support of the Labor Party at any stage, ever. The federal parliamentary Labor Party determines the position of the senators in this chamber, not the national secretary. The federal parliamentary caucus determines this position, not the national secretary or any individual spokesman. Only the federal parliamentary Labor Party determines the position on this floor as guidance for the senators in this chamber. Nobody is above that, no matter how passionate they are on an issue.

I was prepared to put my position to the floor of the caucus any and every time over the last 2½ years—any and every time. And I promise you: the outcome would have been exactly what it is today, at any time this had ever been put to people—any time whatsoever, because this is a deal that was put together for the sole purpose of eradicating minor parties and Independents to the benefit of the Liberal-National coalition and the Greens.

Ironically, because they struggle to walk and chew gum, they did not actually envisage the prospect of a double-D, so I will wave sadly goodbye to a couple of Greens senators who will not be coming back after the double-D is called on 11 May. But sometimes you get a bit of justice in politics, and that day will be justice, because you are consigning some of your own colleagues to oblivion. You will be okay, but we all know what was really driving you.

The tantrums that I have witnessed—the sense of entitlement that now surrounds the Greens senators—I find extraordinary. But it is not just you. Senator Xenophon says, 'I got 1.7 quotas and I should have got two senators.' No, Senator. To get two senators you have to get two quotas, and, if everybody else in the system decided they were not going to preference you because they did not want you to get two senators, guess what: that is called democracy.

I have seen some pretty ugly references to Senator Muir recently: a disgrace to the Senate and the parliament. Frankly—and I am happy to say this in front of Senator Muir, who happens to be here—he is probably the most normal person that has been elected to this parliament in a long, long time.