Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I am not going to be verballed by the member for Watson. The reality is, as he knows, that political parties in our preferential system assign preferences in their own interests. And I may as well ask whether the member for Watson agrees in free heroin; whether he agrees in abandoning the American alliance; whether he agrees, for example, in loosening Australia's gun laws? I think not. The fishers and shooters party was preferenced by the Labor Party, in the Orange by-election just recently, ahead of the National Party.

The reality is that all political parties in Australia, particularly at the federal level with compulsory preferential voting, allocate preferences in their own interests, and, when we allocate preferences, we do so for the purpose of ensuring that more Liberal and National members are elected to parliament. That is our objective.

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