Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Continuing on from my contribution last night on the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill 2016, I was talking about the concern about the process and the division now in this place. Around the issues of the process, I was talking about the time constraint that has been placed on the decisions that this parliament will make. We have had the ongoing and very valuable work of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, which had met over a period of months during 2014 and 2015. In fact, their last report was delivered in April 2015. However, there has been no further consideration in this place or in any committee process around changes to the electoral process for the Senate. I am not sure why that is, but I have been very clear that there did not seem to be any sense of urgency. As I said last evening, I had checked the Hansard and there was no commentary made.

However, two weeks ago in the media we found out that this was going to be an exceptionally important and urgent vote in this place to change the voting system for the Senate. Linked to that, in exactly the same media coverage, was that the government was looking to move quickly to a double dissolution because they could not get their legislation passed in the Senate. My major concern is the link between these two issues: the urgency around this electoral amendment legislation, which we have only had before us for a fortnight, and the push around the double dissolution. It is impossible not to see a link between these two issues, and that is the point I have been trying to make in a number of my contributions in this debate.

The election of senators is an important issue. It was raised during the joint standing committee process and it has certainly been raised in the media. In terms of an ongoing consideration in this place, it has not happened. Whilst it is absolutely critical that it should happen in this place, more importantly, it should also happen in the wider community. Indeed, the roundtable discussion that was held two weeks ago on this, which was purported to be a joint standing committee inquiry into this bill, the Electoral Commission stated the importance of an education campaign in the community about any changes.

The Electoral Commission made the same statement in their April 2015 recommendations, that because of the magnitude of the change and because there is already an acknowledgement that voting for the Senate is a complex issue—we know that every time we go to the polls—educating the community about the changes must be an important element in the whole process. If we have this truncation of the process, if we have a rushed process in this place to accept new legislation and compound that by having a double dissolution, there will be no time at all to have effective engagement with the wider community to explain the process and to bring them on board with the way we vote for the Senate.

I believe that this is a very serious attack on our democratic process. All the way through, from the time we actually set up this Federation, the expectation was that citizens would be involved in the electoral process. That is what is critically important for us to understand, and there will not be time for this educative process if this bill goes through and we have on top of that the double-dissolution process.

In questions and answers in the conversation around the joint standing committee report two weeks ago, the Australian Electoral Commission—as they do, as professional public servants who are well-skilled in the running of elections—said that they would be able to commit to changing their systems and holding an effective election if these changes go through in a three-month period. They would need a minimum of a three-month period to ensure that the programs are tested and that there could be an effective electoral process. That was for the basic processes of making sure the computer systems work, making sure the counting system works and making sure that they have the appropriate documentation. That did not include any consideration of the range of electoral education that must be considered when we are looking at such a significant change in the way our electoral rules operate.

I am on record as saying there needs to be much more community education around our electoral processes—in a standard way, let alone in terms of what would happen when we are having such a major change. Any of us who have survived the process of a double-dissolution vote—I am not talking about whether we survive the actual election; I am talking about when we actually go to the polls to vote—understand the complexity of having to vote for 12 senators and to understand exactly how that operates. As I said earlier, my major concern around what has occurred is that I think we have made an attack on effective process around something that should receive much more consideration and engagement with a whole range of people who would need to be involved. Also, the outcome is one where I think people who have a purely political motive—and we understand that is a reality—have constructed a process to get the outcome whilst not understanding the elements of process that should be put forward.

I wish to foreshadow a second reading amendment which has been circulated in the chamber. That is for debate at a future time, but I just wanted to foreshadow that I will be moving an amendment, which is on sheet 7892. In terms of where we will go, I feel absolutely certain there will be more opportunities as we go on to have further discussion around a whole range of issues. But, moving right aside from the interactions we have been having in this chamber about who is moving what and why, I think we should take the time to take a very close look at whether this change will have impacts into the future which have not been considered up until now. If there had been the appropriate time given for full consideration to this bill, there would have been a greater chance for more involvement by people in the community, people who have an understanding of the system. Rather than having this debate in the media—which seems to be the chosen method of this government, to have exchange of information and communication through the media—we could have had more effective time for feedback on the kinds of information and data that we as senators should have before casting a vote on such a significant issue.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to 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.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, me?

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

No, Doug, not you. No, Senator Cameron, not you. But Senator Muir is probably the most normal Australian to have been elected to this chamber in a long time. I would have preferred a third Labor senator—apologies, Senator Muir—but I do not find it a disgrace that Senator Muir got elected. I accept there is some criticism of the voting system that could have been reformed without ever coming to a position where a normal person like Senator Muir could never get elected to this parliament. The Greens are perpetrating this atrocity. This absolute travesty of democracy, where they devised a system where 3.4 million Australians will have no say about the make-up of this chamber, is an absolute disgrace.

I am frustrated. I keep seeing members of parliament and senators saying they are sad about what has happened and about the Labor Party position. Let me say again: I am sad that 3.4 million Australians are going to be locked out of representation. What is really sad is the dishonesty. I have sat as national secretaries, federal directors or senior politicians have said, 'We don't know what's going to happen as a result of these reforms.' The national secretary—or the equivalent, the federal director—of the Liberal Party does not know what is going to happen! Senior frontbenchers say, 'Oh, I don't know what's going to happen; it's the will of the people.' How dishonest can you be? Everybody else has stood up and said this bill is designed to eradicate the crossbenchers. I do not know how much blunter it could be. You should have just written 'eradication of crossbench senators' as the title of the bill. You could not be more obvious. You could not be more blatant.

Then you have some of the key people like Senator Rhiannon and some of the key people who have been on the parliamentary committee—senior figures who have spent their entire lives maximising the vote for their party—who say, 'I have no idea what the outcome of this is going to be.' Even key, important commentators have been dishonest in their representation of what this particular alleged reform will do in terms of the outcome. The only thing that came out of that farce of a parliamentary inquiry that the Greens and the government foisted on us was that finally Antony Green was forced to confess that, yes, there was a strong chance that the coalition could get 38 or more seats in a double-D or a half-Senate election. He finally confessed it. I looked at it for 30 seconds when I saw the first proposal and said, 'This can deliver 38 senators for the coalition and 12 senators for the Greens.'

They know it. They just do not want to admit it, because then it will be seen for what it is: a rort that is about denying the opportunity for ordinary Australians to get elected to parliament. It is a total rort. It is not a reform; it is a bill where the Greens say: 'We're pulling up the drawbridge. We're sick of those nasty minor parties that won't give us any preferences because they don't agree with us.' Watching Senator Rhiannon attack Glenn Druery at the committee was comical, as they traded blows about what happened in the year 2000 and why you would not give us preferences in this year and what happened in this state election. Goodness me! What a tantrum from the Greens. What a tantrum from Senator Xenophon. What a sense of entitlement.

That is the thing I really find offensive about the position being advocated by the Greens: they pretend that it is not going to get them more senators in a half-Senate election—so don't let them come back in here and say, 'Oh, one minute you're saying you're winning and one minute you're saying we're losing.' There are two very different scenarios. The fact they were too stupid to work out the government were actually planning a double-D to use the new legislation is a matter for the black Wiggle to explain to the people of Australia. I mean, seriously!

So I find extraordinary the sense of entitlement from those who are voting for this—that they are entitled to Senate positions. Senator Rhiannon is so offended by what happened in the last New South Wales Senate vote—the prospect that she might not win her seat. Oh, my goodness! We cannot possibly have a vote of the New South Wales people and make sure everyone's preferences are taken into account!

You have to admire it. Tony Abbott has left the prime ministership, but the spirit of the Abbott slogan lives on: 'We're going to give the people of Australia control of their preferences, because it's wrong the other way.' We will not tell them that 25 per cent of them will not be counted at all because they are going to exhaust. We will not tell them that what we are actually doing is introducing a radical package which will disenfranchise 25 per cent of Australians who I wish voted for the Labor Party but who do not vote for the Labor Party, the coalition, the Greens or Senator Xenophon. Apparently the way to fix that is to disenfranchise them.

Let us take away their rights to cast a preference below the line, 1 to however many, or to vote above the line. It is all about those nasty backroom deals. You are such hypocrites. I have spent years pseudonegotiating with your backroom boys through various committees. You have been in the preference deal arrangements for years. You yourself, Senator Rhiannon, have engaged in practices to get yourself elected into the New South Wales state election and the federal election. They are the very things you are now attacking. You are guiltier than Glenn Druery for your behaviour, the very behaviour you have been attacking, and you are now so mortified and opposed to. You have been engaging in it for years and you never thought it was wrong until all of a sudden, you worked out: 'Oh my goodness, no-one wants to give us a presence. The best way to fix that is to disenfranchise 25 per cent of Australians who vote in the Senate.' What a lousy argument.

But, no, we will just keep saying over and over again, Tony Abbott style: 'We've got to stop the backroom boys. We've got to stop the factional deals.' You have been in the middle of them. At least say backroom boys and girls, because you have been in the room. For goodness sake, what a hypocrite! I expect the coalition to always rort the system to try and make it as favourable to the coalition as possible. I expect that. I do not even bother to waste my breath on you. It is standard operating procedure—whatever we have to do to win, we will do—block supply, bring down the Prime minister and knock over any convention, all of it.

Government senators interjecting—

No. I am talking about one from the opposite party when they were Prime Minister and you were the opposition. It is 1975 I am talking about. Okay. Let us be clear. There is no convention to trust you to keep up. I respect that. I do not like it. I do not agree with it, but at least I am prepared to accept it is standard operating procedure.

Senator McGrath interjecting—

I know you would prefer me not to mention you. I know you are cheering me on, because she is not going to kick to the kerb. At 12 o'clock tomorrow they are going to kick you to the kerb. I am disgusted by you. They despise you. They are going to laugh all the way to the double-D and wave a couple of you goodbye. They will say, 'Well, you voted for it, idiots.'

It would be laughable if it was not so fundamentally wrong. I have seen a speech this morning that says, 'The only way the Libs can get 38 is if the people of Australia vote for it.' That is not true under this system. That is the point. Seventy-five per cent of people will vote for a particular main party and 25 per cent will get nothing. The 25 per cent will not have voted. Their votes would have been exhausted, cast aside and eliminated by this legislation, and that is what gives those opposite 38 in the future. That does it and not the way the people of Australia vote.

When those dishonest people give speeches saying the only way the Liberals and Nationals can get 38 is by the will of the people, that is not true. That is so dishonest from some people who spent their entire lives harvesting votes for the Labor Party that it beggars belief for the dishonesty that you could stand up in public and say that. And then, when you ask a serious question, what happens? You go, 'Oh, I don’t know.' How can you take someone seriously, who actually says, 'I am proposing this voting change and I don’t know what the outcome is,' when their spent their entire lives harvesting votes, doing preference deals, maximising the Labor Party's vote at every single election and then suddenly say, 'I don’t know what the outcome is going to be'?

Anyone who has a modicum of understanding of quota preferential voting fully understands the game, the scam and the rort being polled by those opposite and the Greens. You have put all political principle and your own platform aside for a filthy deal that you thought would get you 12 votes, 12 green bums on seats, because you are entitled to them. The people of Australia decide who comes here. There is no sense of entitlement. They do not owe us anything. If I get elected, I consider it an absolute privilege to be here. I do not believe I am entitled to be here, unlike those in that crossbench now, who think they are entitled to red leather under their bums. That is what this is about down that end of the—oh please!

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, on a point of order: what about bottom? I think bottom may be more parliamentary. I prefer bottoms rather than bums!

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator McGrath.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, on a point of order: I have been in Australia long enough to know what bums means. Bottom is a Pommy thing, and I know you have been there. I know you got thrown out. But bums is okay!

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not think I will buy that. Senator Conroy, proceed.

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

What I find dishonest about the argument that has been put forward is that they stank before you. Senator Muir, how many votes did you get?

Ricky Muir (Victoria, Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I got 17,000.

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

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would just remind senators to refer to other senators by their correct titles.

Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too would like to contribute to the debate on the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill 2016. This is a bill which has been rushed through the parliament committee scrutiny processes so that the Prime Minister can call a double dissolution election, knowing that he has manipulated the way senators are elected and so that the current crossbench of this Senate will be wiped out and the Liberal-National coalition will gain eventual total control of the Australian Senate.

That is what this is about. The motivation of the government in bringing this bill on is to achieve lasting electoral dominance in the Senate for the conservative parties—the big Liberal and National parties, who want to destroy Medicare, who hate public education, who do not believe in climate change, who want to slash workers' superannuation, who despise working people and want to destroy their working conditions and who want to make higher education unaffordable for ordinary Australian families. They are the parties that oppose everything that is fundamental and fair and which is decent policy—policy which has been worked on and fought for by the Labor Party for over 100 years.

Complicit with the government in this deal to disenfranchise Australian voters and to install majority conservative governments is the Greens party. Senator Di Natale, the leader of the Greens, and his ragtag band of hangers on are up to their necks in this, because some of them will find it easier to get elected—some of them. In his desperate desire to be more than just a page 90 fashion shoot in GQ magazine, Senator Di Natale has decided to shelve any principles that he may have had and to shelve the principled stance of the Greens leaders before him, Senators Bob Brown and Christine Milne, who were principled—most times—when it came to dealing with the hard right of Australian politics. The Greens today, though, are all sanctimony, all spin and no spine at all. They are self interested—as are, indeed, the coalition.

This bill is of great significance to all Australians, that is why the Labor Party will scrutinise the bill extensively in the coming debate on it. The bill fundamentally changes how Australians elect the Senate. If it is successful in this place, it changes an electoral system that has been in place for 30 years. It does that by introducing optional preferential above-the-line voting for the Senate by numbering at least six boxes. It introduces a limited savings provision to ensure that a ballot is still formal where the voter has numbered one, or fewer than six boxes, above the line. It abolishes group and individual voting tickets. It introduces a restriction to prevent individuals holding relevant official positions in multiple parties and it also deals with the matter of parties having a logo on the ballot paper.

These are significant changes—big changes—and so this bill should have the opportunity to be properly scrutinised by the appropriate committee of the parliament. And it should be properly scrutinised by the Senate, because, rightly, most Australians think of the Senate as the house of review and expect senators here to review legislation—particularly significant legislation like this.

That is why the Labor senators are critical of the disgraceful so-called 'committee process' that the coalition and Greens pretend was a process of scrutiny and consideration. Just to go back a step: the coalition claims that the bill reflects the findings of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters of the parliament, which conducted an inquiry subsequent to the 2013 election. That inquiry was finalised last year. Despite claims by the government that this bill implements the findings of that joint standing committee of the federal parliament, the bill does not.

The bill includes new matters, and for that reason Labor insisted the current bill again be scrutinised by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters—a very well-regarded committee, not just within this parliament but also around the world. But that scrutiny process proved to be a complete farce. It minimised the scrutiny of the bill. It was an attempt by the government and the Greens, working together, to pull the wool over the eyes of all Australians.

The committee—the JSCEM, as we call it here—received 107 submissions on this bill from a range of interested parties in Australia, and, of those 100-plus submissions, only eight people were called forward to appear before the JSCEM when it had its public hearing into this significant bill. That hearing lasted 4½ hours. Labor senators were then advised at 9.40 pm, in the evening after that truncated hearing, that the committee's draft report was available for them to have a look at. That was a matter of hours. It just indicated to everybody in the Labor Party that the report had basically already been written before the hearing had been held. Then Labor senators were given until eight o'clock the following morning to provide dissenting reports. Here was a draft report on the most significant change to Australia's electoral system in 30 years, and Labor senators had overnight to have a look at it and to provide dissenting comments. It was a farcical process.

At the hearing itself, which most of us watched, as it was broadcast here—it was well attended, of course, by the crossbench senators—people were shut off, unable to ask questions and not given time to fully explore the issues that they wanted to explore and should have been given the opportunity to explore in that committee hearing. There is no way that a bill like this can be properly scrutinised with only one public hearing that lasts just over four hours. The alleged scrutiny process also did not allow time for people to put in significant, considered submissions, but we thank the people who did put in submissions.

What was the rush? Why couldn't the committee have had longer to consider this bill, which I understand from evidence at that committee hearing was concocted by the coalition, probably in consultation with the Greens, without any input from the Electoral Commission? That is the Electoral Commission that works out the electoral system in this country and applies it. It is because, as I said before, this Prime Minister wants to set up a double-dissolution election and wipe out the crossbench. He wants to wipe them out because neither he nor the Prime Minister before him, Mr Abbott, has been able to work effectively with the crossbench. There have been two coalition governments, the Abbott and the Turnbull governments, and neither figured out how to negotiate successfully with the crossbench. And neither figured out that, if their legislation was not passing the Senate, it was not because the crossbench were being recalcitrant and not because Labor were the bad guys; it was because the legislation itself was bad and should not have been supported. But, instead of devising legislation that would pass the Senate, out comes the double-dissolution sledgehammer and the electoral reform that goes with it.

Labor have always said that we are willing to look at some type of electoral reform. We know that the system is not perfect, and we acknowledge that there are limited concerns about aspects of the Senate election process. Anybody who has been confronted in the Senate voting booth with those massive ballot papers—70 or more candidates to vote for if you wish to vote below the line—knows it is very difficult without spoiling your vote. But we are not convinced that this bill is the way forward.

Australian voters have spent 30 years voting 1 above the line. At the 2013 federal election, more than 96 per cent of Australians voted that way. Following that election, we did see more Independent and microparty senators take a seat in this place. As much as the government hates that, that is democracy in action. That is how it is. That is how the Australian parliament was elected. It is not unusual for the government of the day not to have the numbers in the federal parliament. It is not unusual. In fact, having the numbers is rare, and it has only happened twice in history. In the most recent instance where a coalition government had the numbers in the Senate, it ended very, very badly for that coalition government because the people of Australia do not like one party to have control of the Senate.

The legislation is probably the most self-serving piece of legislation to come into this place in recent memory. As I said, it was primarily concocted by the government to serve the interests of the government, to seize control of this place.

You have to ask: what are the Greens getting for this deal with the coalition? I laughed out loud when I read that Senator Mathias Cormann had appeared on Sky News and had denied that he had considered the impact of this legislation on the preference deals that his party is doing with the Greens. I had to laugh. He outright rejected suggestions that the government had considered how this legislation might benefit the government at the expense of the opposition. With a straight face, he said his 'simple objective' was 'to ensure that the Australian people have the opportunity to direct' what happens to their preferences and who is elected to the Senate. But we all know that the principal beneficiary of this new voting system will be his party, the Liberal Party.

The bill is designed to exhaust preferences early to deprive Independents and the so-called microparties like the Motoring Enthusiast Party, which my senatorial colleague Senator Muir represents—he will soon speak on this bill—of votes so that senators like Senator Muir do not get elected. We all know that preference negotiations and lower house deals between the Greens and the coalition are at the heart of the changes. The idea that Senator Cormann, a senior cabinet minister, has not given any consideration to the impact of the bill in the context of preference deals with the Greens is laughable.

As I said, the current Australian Senate electoral system has been in place since 1983. Back then the newly elected Labor government removed a number of constrictions that had impacted past elections, and we established the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Reform, now called the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters.

That committee, when it is treated with respect and is allowed to do its work properly, has given rise to significant changes to Australia's voting system such as printing of party affiliations on the ballot paper; the introduction of party financing laws; and the creation of the independent Australian Electoral Commission.

Consequently, the Electoral Commission has worked closely with the committee to maintain an effective implementation of the will of the parliament in the electoral field. However, that close collaboration was not seen in the creation of this bill and in the parliamentary scrutiny process that should have been applied to this bill through the JCSEM process.

We know that at the last federal election we saw record levels of support for minor parties and independents in both the House and Senate. Support for non-major party candidates reached 21.1 per cent in the other place, representing more than one in five votes; and, in this place, support for non-major party candidates soared, reaching over 32 per cent.

Non-major party support in the Senate has always been greater than in the House of Representatives, but the 2013 record surpassed the results of the 2010 election as well as the 1998 election when 25 per cent of the vote was received by the One Nation Party. But minor and party independent support has been above 19 per cent in the Senate for every election since 1996. It challenges us in the Labor Party as to why that increase in support for minor parties and independents is so.

I think it indicates that Australians are dissatisfied to some extent with their political representation—and it was blindingly obvious in the 2013 Senate result. However, Labor Senators do not think that addressing the issue should be by manipulating the Senate election system. It should not attempt to be remedied by changing the rules to make it harder for independent and minor parties to join the Senate and, importantly, making it easier for the conservatives to seize complete control of the Senate. That is why we continue to say that we will look at sensible Senate reform but we will not consider, we will not contemplate and we will not support this reform before this parliament, because it is intended to implement the potential for Prime Minister Turnbull to go to a double-dissolution election and wipe out the Senate crossbench that was elected in the 2013 federal election.

There is an opportunity here though, while we are addressing electoral reform, to make some positive changes, and the Labor Party has proposed some amendments to deal with that. Those amendments go to the issue of political donation laws. I have been in this place for a while and I know that Labor has attempted many times to change the laws regarding transparency and accountability for political donations. My former well-regarded senatorial colleague Senator John Faulkner was passionate about this, but his electoral reform in this regard could not pass the Senate: it was thwarted by the Senate and opposed by the conservative parties opposite.

So Labor will move some more amendments to this particular piece of legislation to lower the disclosure threshold for political donations from $10,000 to $1000; ban foreign donations; restrict anonymous donations; and prevent donation splitting to avoid disclosure. It is essential for the purposes of transparency in our political donation system that the information about who is making donations to political parties and members of parliament should be publicly available—and lower levels of political donations—otherwise the political donation system can be gamed.

I look forward to seeing how the sanctimonious Greens and Senator Xenophon vote on those amendments. Both of them like to put themselves forward as paragons of virtue when it comes to political donations—however, we know that both the Greens and Senator Xenophon have been recipients of corporate donations. I would hope that they will support Labor's amendments.

Talking about amendments to this legislation, I note there is a raft of amendments from the government to its own legislation—and that is a factor of the way this legislation was cobbled together, and concocted by the Prime Minister, to facilitate a double-dissolution election without regard for due parliamentary process. If there had been proper parliamentary scrutiny on this legislation, then we would not be in a situation where the government was having to amend its own bill, because—shock, horror—'We examined it in such a rush that now we've found that there are mistakes in it.'

You should always have a scrutiny process for such significant pieces of legislation—especially one that fundamentally changes the way the Senate of the Australian parliament is elected—to avoid a situation where the government is going to have to come in and say, 'Oh my God: we've made a mistake. Here are some amendments.' It will just delay the process but, nevertheless, Labor will take the opportunity in the committee stage, which the government has brought upon itself, to examine in forensic detail the implications of this legislation for the future of the Australian Senate and the ability for people from beyond the major parties to put themselves forward for election; and for the Australian public to have the opportunity to vote for crossbench senators, micro and smaller parties, if that is their wish.

It is incumbent upon the major parties, if we are disturbed about the amount of the Senate votes that are going to crossbench and minor parties, to examine our own policies to understand why that is the case. It is not up to us to support this appalling retrograde legislation that will deny the voters of Australia the right to choose who they want to represent them in the Senate. It is not up to us to support this legislation that will fundamentally change the Senate in Australia, enshrine dominance by governments like the Turnbull and the Abbott governments—like all of the coalition governments, all of the conservative governments—and then wreak havoc upon the fairness and the dignity of the Australian community.

Ricky Muir (Victoria, Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to the debate on the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill 2016. You will have to forgive the speed at which I am speaking because I have a lot to say and not enough time to do it. Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the ALP's contribution to this debate, noting the possible impacts of this legislation in the future and highlighting that even the government has got amendments at the last minute. It goes to show how great this process has been. I commend you for your support of the crossbench and the 25 per cent of voters who are choosing to vote outside of Labor, Liberal, the Nationals and the Greens, who are the instigators of all of this.

My election is largely used as justification for this bill being presented to the parliament. To quote some of the rhetoric, 'It is undemocratic that somebody can be elected on 0.51 per cent of a quota.' This is a commonly used statement. Those who preach this forget that to be elected I had to receive 14.5 per cent of the vote. As it turns out, I did not get elected on 479 votes below the line nor on 17,122 votes above the line but on 483,076 votes after receiving preferences. I started gathering preferences after receiving 0.51 per cent—the common number that gets spread around. These are the exact same rules which the major parties play by and have used to their advantage for 32 years.

In the current make-up of the Senate there are 13 senators who received significantly less of a primary vote than I did—as low as 0.01 per cent before receiving preferences and ending up being elected at the required 14.5 per cent. Nobody is speaking about that of course because it does not suit the agenda. It seems that this bit of information is regularly missing in this debate. Why? Because it highlights exactly how the major parties and the Greens have been using this system to their advantage and pulling the wool over the eyes of voters for 32 years.

I might be called the accidental senator but I am a duly-elected Australian senator nevertheless. I was elected under the rules that have served this country well for 32 years. What is different now is that the minor parties have figured out how to use the rules the exact same way the major parties do and have levelled the playing field by doing just that. If minor parties had been directing their preferences to the major parties or the Greens above other minor parties, we would not be having this debate because they would still be the beneficiaries of the system designed by them to benefit them 32 years ago.

The reality is that one in four voters have become unimpressed with the way they have been represented—or, in reality, unrepresented—by the major parties and the Greens. They are looking elsewhere and that is the only way minor parties are receiving enough votes to stay in the game. If the major parties were passing the pub test by the voters, I would still be blissfully disenfranchised of politics while milling timber in country Victoria.

I note that in Senator Back's contribution to this debate he made some good points in relation to the need for some form of electoral reform. I am not actually saying that things need to or have to stay as they are. I am opposing the so-called reform in its current form as it strips democracy from the people and empowers certain parties. Senator Back quoted section 7 of the Australian Constitution, which highlights that parliamentarians should be elected directly by the people. Senator Back, I agree. Where is the debate about removing above-the-line voting, which encourages party voting and internal party preferences? On Senator Back's assessment, why are we not encouraging below-the-line candidate based voting?

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are.

Ricky Muir (Victoria, Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am going to ignore the interjection. It would seem that this would not benefit the majors, so why was it not even discussed by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters? Either that or this is more evidence that, even with this so-called committee oversight, it was missed by the major party political geniuses. This is more reason why I am calling for a proper process in relation to this bill, not just the Greens claiming that, because they have been discussing a topic for 10 years, the first bill proposed should be rammed through parliament, gagging important debate and oversight on the issue. This just highlights that there is something to hide and they are treating the public of Australia with contempt.

This deal has shown how those who have opposing ideologies sometimes unite around a common cause, albeit a dirty cause this time. The deal between the government and the Greens has shown how these differences of opinion are put aside to unite around a common—yet misguided in this case—view so much so that the government will not discuss its own Australian Building and Construction Commission legislation, which the government has been publicly saying is the most important legislation it needs to present to the parliament. More to that, the Greens have proven that opposing parties will work together on common issues to the extent of opposing their own legislation in relation to marriage equality, twice in one week, and their bill to allow landholders the right to refuse gas and coalmining on their land.

So much for this rubbish that when you vote for a minor party you may get someone who does not have the same values as who you voted for. It appears that it is okay to vote for the Greens and get the LNP, or vote for the LNP and get the Greens. It seems that the government is happy to let the Greens steer their direction while the LNP are now the ones lost in the wilderness. This deal has shown how the voters have trusted their favourite choice under the current system to make these decisions for them. It has also highlighted that, when voters are gravely concerned about the nature of the process, they are not happy to listen but push spin upon them to push their own agenda. This deal has shown how polar opposites on the political spectrum—the conservative coalition and the once progressive Greens—can unite over an issue.

This bill, this debate, is all based around the argument about the need to remove individual and group-voting tickets. Those supporting the removal of group-voting tickets have followed this approach to ensure that these changes are passed in the Senate. Let us think about this for a moment. Let us consider what these parties from opposite sides of politics have done. They have done the exact thing the minor parties did with their group-voting ticket negotiations at the last election. The minor parties from opposing ideologies united around a common cause. That cause was to save the Australian Senate—save the Senate from being either a rubber stamp for the government or a tool of hostile opposition for opposition's sake. Engaged minor party voters agreed, with around one in four voters choosing to vote against the coalition, Labor or the Greens. They trusted their preferred political party to negotiate in their interests. The voters put forward their voice. The voters wanted something different in the Senate. If you consider for a moment that the concept is around minor parties and their supporters uniting against the established major parties and the Greens then this is what the results delivered. But somehow all of a sudden, when the established major parties and the Greens are challenged, the rules are wrong. All of a sudden, the media is enlisted to whip up voter outrage—and don't I know it. How dare minor parties put their political ideology aside to unite! That is only allowed if you are the Liberal or National Party member, Senator Xenophon or the Greens. How dare they pass their preferences amongst themselves to get a political outcome at the expense of the established parties! So what do those with the most to lose do? They unite against the minor parties and Independents to effectively try to wipe them out. Votes will exhaust. Same process, different deals—that is politics, it seems.

The Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party and others worked within the rules, and I make no apology for that. This resulted in me being elected on a full quota of near half a million votes—votes not directed to any of the major parties. These are the rules the major parties were happy with so long as their minor party cousins did not break ranks and continued to funnel their preferences to the majors.

One thing the minor parties have done is keep both the government and opposition accountable during this parliamentary term. They highlight the failings of both sides of politics in this house of review. The government has to win over a diversity of views in the Senate, something that is easily possible if you negotiate and communicate. The government claim that this makes things hard for them. The government are forced to keep up the spin during their whole term, rather than just at the end of it. As a result, the government are accountable during the whole parliamentary term rather than afterwards like they are used to.

This government has failed to be agile and has struggled to adapt. The government has struggled to understand the concepts of negotiation and consultation. The fact of the matter is the government does not have a clue how to deal with the crossbench nor has it any desire to listen to the voices of the people. We saw that with ex-Prime Minister Abbott and we see it still today with Prime Minister Turnbull. I, like others, had very high hopes that Prime Minister Turnbull actually understood. He talked the talk but, for some reason, cannot walk the walk, unless, of course, there is a 'selfie' involved.

I do not attack like this too often. I am generally against political tit-for-tat and am quite vocal about that; however, I feel justified in highlighting the failings of a government and a Prime Minister who have failed to live up to expectations, especially when I am often told by members of the public how I have grown into the role and how they are pleased with my performance. Now that the Prime Minister's failings are starting to show, he wants to divert attention away from myself and my crossbench colleagues completely by attempting to have us removed. He wants to do this with threats and coercion—all the things, ironically, that he seeks to remove from the construction industry. I would always rather play the ball and not the man. It is a shame the Prime Minister of this great country is not willing to do the same.

I will also direct some comments towards the Greens. To their credit, they have adapted. For most of this parliament, they had simply been an irrelevant, minor-party opposition voting bloc on most issues. They began this parliament unwilling to compromise, unwilling to negotiate, and, as a result, would have rather seen children left in detention on Christmas Island. Thankfully, I was able to negotiate and have them removed, even if the process took a bit longer than I expected. I suppose if these issues are actually resolved, it is hard for the Greens to go to an election and gather votes by promising to reach a resolution for these innocent, desperate, vulnerable people—thank God we have a diverse crossbench.

Raising false hope, with complete disregard to how it will affect those it is aimed at, through motions which the Greens know will not get up is a disgusting tactic that needs to be called out. What we see now, however, under the new leadership of Senator Di Natale, is a senator who is actually willing to negotiate and play for the middle. So the Greens are now doing what minor parties have been accused of doing—that is, working with each other from opposite sides of the political spectrum. What worries me is that Senator Di Natale is effectively trying to trick that middle-ground swinging voter to vote for the Greens at the expense of their grassroots supporters, not because he actually wants to represent the middle ground but so that the Greens might increase their power and influence. So finally, under new Greens leadership, they have been able to return to the table and actually become a non-government force. The price for this shift towards the middle is yet to be paid by the Greens, so we will have to wait and see how that plays out.

Let us now turn to the bill itself. Put simply, the bill is rushed and the bill is flawed. The bill fails to address many of the issues introduced by above-the-line voting. We have already established this bill has been introduced to benefit political operatives rather than the people of Australia. I have highlighted many of these concerns in my 30-page dissenting committee report. I encourage voters to read it. I have publically spoken about the token sham process in which this bill has been introduced. The below-the-line omission from the legislation was, it seems, an intentional flaw. It was done to make it appear that the committee process actually found something. It was done so that it would appear that consultation had taken place. I think it was also done so the Greens could run around and crow about yet another fake achievement. I find it very hard to believe, with the seasoned politicians who put this bill together, with all the legal advice that was sought when drafting the bill, that this omission was not intentional. They insult our intelligence, and that of all Australians, thinking that we would fall for such an obvious trick.

The government would continue to insult our intelligence by thinking that Australians are unable to count to twelve. Why would we accept the marking of six boxes below the line to record a formal vote when the minimum is 12 is beyond me. If the majority of Australians are not able to count to 12, and we have to make it easier by allowing a 50 per cent pass mark to cast a vote then I think that screams volumes about the various governments' leadership in education over the years.

Above-the-line voting has turned a pure candidate based system into one where people are voting for a party and not for the candidate. We often hear complaints about the ballot paper and the amount of microparties that form. Nobody is talking about how the number of Independent candidates has declined over the years. Has anyone bothered to consider that these are symptoms of the same problem? That problem is above-the-line voting. Above-the-line voting was designed to allow for the use of group or individual voting tickets. If we are to scrap these then perhaps we should scrap above-the-line altogether. All we need to do is simply make it easier to cast a formal vote. Knowing that political self-interest always wins ahead of the interests of the people, I have quickly given up on this approach to reform.

So how can we make this butchered system better? For a start, let's actually give all preferences back to the voter, not just the preferences exchanged between political parties. Stop saying that this is the intention of these so-called reforms publically, but then presenting a bill which does not do this. I would also like to see the preferences exchanged within a party group go back to the voter. But if we did that then the major parties would oppose it. Why? Because they would no longer be able to help out a mate would who otherwise be a dud candidate. That dud candidate can currently be dropped into the first spot on the ticket. For a candidate to shine above the others, they would need to actually be a candidate of quality. But that would make them accountable to the voters and take power away from the party hacks that put them there. Well, I say, 'Let the people choose.' They can make that choice at the ballot box by voting below-the-line for that candidate.

The problem is that they are not going to do so unless they are encouraged to do so. There is a way to encourage this engagement between candidate and voter by encouraging below-the-line voting. We have established, however, that this will only be done if it is in their self-interest and not the interest of the voter. We will need to make them work for their vote. This could be achieved by rotating the order of groups on the ballot paper. This system of rotation is known as the Robson rotation, and it is used in the Hare-Clarke system that exists already in some of the Australian elections. This will mean that those parachuted in by party hacks will have to get out there and work for their vote. Other candidates in the other spaces on the ticket would have a fighting chance to build a strong local following and earn their seat. This encourages accountability over self-interest.

I should, however, return to the issue of the rise of microparties and the fall of the Independent candidates. Once this bill is passed, it will be impossible for any ungrouped Independent candidate to be represented above the line. Let us consider that for a moment. Around 97 per cent of votes are cast above the line. This bill fails to allow all candidates to be represented above the line. Only grouped, party based candidates are able to access this pool of votes—that is, unless two Independents group together on a ticket, they are not able to be represented above the line. So we have just doubled the number of candidates that will now appear below the line. It is no wonder that people are voting above the line.

To stand a chance, an Independent needs to group above the line for just one available seat. In order to group together, each member of a group must gather 100 different nominators in the state they are nominated in. That is a lot of work for just one seat that will be declared via preferences.

Now consider what you need to do to register a political party when you can centrally nominate. You only need to gather 500 signatures from all over the country. You can then run as many candidates as you like, in whatever state you like, without having to demonstrate any local support at all. You can be a resident of Victoria and run in Western Australia when you are in a political party. If you are in a team of two Independents, you have to have 200 local nominators in that state in order to run. This bill does nothing to address this. Why? Because it means that the political parties would have to work a little bit harder.

If I had been invited to be part of a genuine reform process, my focus would have been on restoring accountability between a candidate and the voter. I would have sought to address all the problems that above-the-line voting has introduced into the system, not just change the rules around the ones that the established major parties, Senator Xenophon and the Greens find to be a threat to themselves. Most importantly, I would have made the system fair again so that small political groups did not need to form a political party just to have a chance. I would have made sure that people stood a fair chance as Independents in their own right. I would hope that any High Court challenge to this bill and perhaps above-the-line voting would consider how there has been a significant shift away from candidate based voting to party based voting. I would hope that they would consider how it is impossible for a single Independent candidate to be directly elected by the people, because of the party based voting above the line.

This bill has been rushed through parliament with little to no oversight for a reason: it does not deliver what those who want it claim. We may well find ourselves with a rubber-stamp Senate after the imminent double-dissolution election, and the Greens will be the ones who will have to answer for it. I am buoyed by the support I have received from across Australia over the past three weeks from coalition supporters disappointed with the coalition and from Greens supporters bitterly disappointed with the Greens. Of course, it is not too late for the Greens to realise the error of their ways and withdraw their support for this ill-considered bill.

Yesterday, Senator Rice mentioned in her speech: how would somebody who votes for the Bullet Train for Australia or the No CSG Party feel with me being elected via their preferences? I suspect they feel pretty good, considering that I have been very vocal about the right for farmers to veto mining companies' access to their land. The question has not been raised about a train from Melbourne to Sydney via Canberra, but—I tell you what—it sounds like a pretty good idea to me.

If I can come to this debate and highlight clear flaws, it shows one thing: Senator Lee Rhiannon is no longer for the grassroots Greens supporters, who are against a political machine; she is part of that machine and allowing the minority Liberal government, who would be nobody without a coalition, to lock diversity out. If this is so important, where is the plebiscite? Why aren't the people having a chance to vote on this? Why is it being rushed through the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, locking everybody else, who might actually have an intelligent contribution to add to it, out of the debate? I would have to say what the Labor Party may have just said: you are running scared.

Dio Wang (WA, Palmer United Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill 2016. Ever since the coalition leadership change, the government has been very keen to claim it is a 21st-century government that is agile and nimble and embraces disruptive technology, but the government's behaviour in relation to Senate voting reform in recent weeks has been in stark contrast to these claims. Let me be crystal clear: the bill in front of us today is not a genuine and legitimate reform. It is nothing more than a Senate restructure, because, simply put, this bill does nothing more than make sure that small political parties face an even greater hurdle to be elected. It does nothing more than make sure that the one-quarter of voters who chose not to vote for the coalition, the Labor Party and the Greens cannot be represented in the Senate.

It is okay for the government on one hand to argue that media reform is needed so that media companies can embrace new technologies and take steps to be competitive. Yet, on the other hand, when faced with a growing number of disillusioned voters, this so-called 21st-century government chooses to resort to 20th-century trickery. I am afraid that unfortunately the coalition has no clue at all on how to deal with those more than three million discontented voters, so, instead of trying to be a more competitive political party by listening to the people and representing them better, the coalition along with the Greens and Senator Xenophon have formed a union to entrench their own political domination by eliminating their competitors—the crossbench.

If the same logic had been applied to the media landscape, the then Minister for Communications, now Prime Minister Turnbull, would have proposed a media reform package that could be summarised as follows: competition is bad; newcomers are bad; online news, social media, online streaming and so on all represent serious competition to our traditional media; therefore, they must all be banned. In fact, while they are at it, why not ban the internet altogether? There would be no NBN at all. It has given the government too much grief anyway! The obvious hypocrisy here is that this government likes to tell others to embrace competition and to be more competitive, but when it finds itself exposed to new political forces its only approach is to get rid of its rivals.

I was very puzzled at why the coalition would do a deal with the Greens and Senator Xenophon, after having a look at the Senate voting records, which confirm that the crossbench senators have been more constructive and more balanced than the Greens and Senator Xenophon. Without the Palmer United Party, Australia would still have a carbon tax and a mining tax. Without us, Australians, when they get sick, would right now be paying a GP co-payment.

Debate interrupted.