Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill 2016. One of the questions that I am most often asked as it gets closer to election day is, 'If I vote for you, or if I vote for another party, where do my preferences go?' They are usually not questions about policy or questions about where you stand on a particular thing. It is a question about, 'If I vote for you, and I place a mark on a ballot paper, where do my preferences go?' People are right to be asking that question and to be concerned about it because what we have seen in the past is—and I am talking less about the current Senate than we have seen in various instances in the past—parties get elected on the basis of preferences even though that party's initial vote was very low. That has caused people in Australia, in my electorate of Melbourne, to be quite surprised and, therefore, quite concerned about whether, when they voted, they played some unwitting part in getting someone else elected on the basis of preferences.

What I like to tell people is, 'You, the voter, are in control of your own preferences.' It is a little understood fact—and there is often misinformation spread by people who do not want to educate voters about it—that voters are in control of their own preferences. When you are voting in the lower house it is very easy to say to people, 'We'll hand out a how-to-vote card,' but, at the end of the day, it is up to you how you want to number preferences in that box. It's up to you. Vote 1 for whoever you like and, as long as you number the other boxes, you can order them in whatever preference you want. Parties do not control your preferences in the lower house, you do.' For many people that is often a revelation and a reassurance.

The difficulty has been that we have not always been able to say that when it comes to the Senate. We have not been able to say that when it comes to the Senate because if you vote 1 above the line in the Senate—and the Senate is a place where there are lots of individuals and parties who run—you do not get to allocate where your preferences go. They get allocated by the party. Your only alternative is to number all the boxes below the line, which, for many people, is a quite a task when you consider the very large size of the Senate ballot paper and the number of people who run.

What should happen is that the same principle that applies in the lower house—that the voter is in control of their preferences—should apply in the Senate as well and that is the principle behind this reform. It is a reform that was supported by all parties on the joint standing committee, including Labor, because it is a sensible reform and it puts power back in the hands of the voters. It gives the voters in the Senate the same power that they have currently in the lower house. In my mind, anything that gives voters more power over where their vote goes is a good thing.

In supporting this reform it is worth noting that this is a reform that has been pursued, for some time, by Greens predecessors. There were two bills introduced by our former leader Senator Bob Brown. It is often said, 'Sometimes the Greens have benefited from this and so what are you doing now?' It is worth remembering that Bob Brown for many years campaigned for this reform. He campaigned, from the Senate, from a position of having only one or two senators there. He said, 'We've got to do this because we have to give power back to the voters, so that preferences are allocated the way the voter wants them to be rather than according to some deal.' This is something that we have been advancing regardless of what it might mean for us, or other parties, but as a matter of principle.

As a matter of principle it is right that voters have power over where their preferences go. It is for that reason that when this first was looked at everyone supported it. It is disappointing that some people have now walked away from it, but you cannot walk away from the basic principle. As I said, the principle I tell voters in the lead-up to the election and on election day is, 'Only you are in control of your vote. You are in control of where your preferences go.' That is now something we will be able to say about the Senate as well as about the House.

When people step back from the hurly-burly they will be pleased about the principle behind this reform because they will be able to be confident now knowing that when they go in to mark their Senate ballot paper—they might have to mark a few more numbers above the line, but that is what you have to do in the House of Representatives and now you just do it in the Senate as well—they will be absolutely confident that their preferences have gone where they want them to go. For that reason, it is a reform that did enjoy the support of everyone and should still enjoy the support of everyone.

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