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

Senator Muir, do you know how many votes I got to be elected to the Senate of Australia? I got 1,472—what a disgrace I am. I am even a bigger disgrace than you. I am about one-sixteenth of a disgrace to you or bigger disgrace than you, because it is okay for a party to pass a preference down its ticket. It is okay for two parties to come together to pass their votes between each other if you call yourself coalition. National Party, Liberal Party—they can pass preferences to each other. That is okay. What is absolutely wrong is the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party passing its preferences to the Liberal Democratic Party! That is wrong. The Greens have been trying to pass their preferences from their No. 1 candidate to their No. 2 candidate. It is not going to work for them, because they are not going to get enough votes. But it is okay to pass preferences of Senator Rhiannon to the No. 2 on the Greens ticket and from Senator Ludlam, with that huge vote that he got last time, pass it down to his No. 2. That is okay. But Senator Muir, how dare you give a preference to the Jacqui Lambie Party, or the Glenn Lazarus party or the Liberal Democrats or Family First?

How dare you! What an affront to democracy! But it is okay for the Liberals to give votes to the Nationals. That is okay! But you are a disgrace! You are a disgrace to this parliament, Senator Muir! How dare you actually want to engage in a preference arrangement with another political party? You could form a coalition and that would be okay—okay? That is fine.

What hypocrisy! If you want to deal with pop-up parties and if you want to deal with some of the other complaints about the system, there are better ways to do it than this. Much better ways. But you are obstinate, you refuse to discuss it and you are committed to only one path because you knew it maximised the political benefit to yourselves. And that is what is so frustrating, disappointing and sad. You are going to pull a rort on the people of Australia—pull a rort!—because you think you are entitled to have your bums on red leather.

Ultimately, the Australian people will work you out. That is the great thing about democracy in this country: ultimately, the punters on the street work out the scams, the rorts and the frauds. And they work out those who pretend they are interested in democracy and will mark you down accordingly. They know a filthy deal that gives the coalition a 'blocking majority', as I call it—38 votes. But you do not care. No principle and no policy can pass without the permission of those opposite. No future environmental gains or social justice gains—any of that: it all goes out the window so you can get your bum on your seat for New South Wales in the Senate, Senator Rhiannon. You should be ashamed of yourself.

There are fairer ways to fix this. There are much more democratic ways to fix this. But at the end of the day, 25 per cent of Australians will be disenfranchised by this vote—25 per cent! There will be 3.4 million Australians who have their ballot papers put in the bin. They will have no say about who is elected to this chamber because of the filthy deal that Senator Rhiannon has orchestrated on behalf of the 'Black Wiggle' and his friends, and they are too obstinate to admit that they have made a mistake. There is still time, but I do not think they have the fortitude or the backbone to stand up for what is right. (Time expired)