Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today in the grievance debate to speak briefly about the interim report on the inquiry into the conduct of the 2013 federal election that was undertaken last year by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, of which I am deputy chair. Members may be aware that the report was passed in May of last year; it considered the question of the issues around Senate voting practices and recent developments with voting for the Senate and some of the results that have become apparent as a result of various practices in play for Senate elections.

I start off by saying that all the practices I am talking about are absolutely legal—there is nothing to suggest anything other than the system is being utilised very effectively by some people who seek to contest the election. But I contend, and the committee contends, that that in itself has produced some outcomes that are problematic to the actual operation of the system. There have been significant increases in the number of microparties contesting Senate elections, and more recently we have seen evidence of that spreading into state jurisdictions, particularly in the recent Victorian election. The evidence which would suggest that parties are springing up that are designed to appeal, at least on a symbolic front, to subsections of the voting population, but which then utilise group-voting tickets to harvest preferences and through that process gain results that, I argue, are not in line with the democratic intentions of those who are voting.

There is no doubt that we are seeing the vote of the major parties declining and the vote for microparties increasing. Votes for Labor, Liberals, Nationals and even the Greens to some extent are on the decline, while the vote for others is on the increase. We can debate what that says about disaffection with the electoral system and the nature of the choice that voters face and with the way we operate individually and collectively. The conclusion that some try to reach is: the mere fact that people vote for somebody else means that they support anybody else. If 20 per cent of people are voting for a minor party or a microparty, then, frankly, it is any microparty, That is the end result of the sort of ticketing arrangements that we are talking about. Overwhelmingly those who vote in that way have their preferences gathered and forced into the electoral contest on the back of a handful of people. There is no doubt that many of the people who vote in that manner have absolutely no idea of where their preferences end up and no idea of the end result. A major example of that occurred in the last federal election where the Motoring Enthusiasts Party received some 0.05 per cent of the vote in Victoria, but still was elected to the Senate. I do not think there were many people who had a clue about who the Motoring Enthusiasts Party was—including some of those who voted for it. I am damn sure that an awful lot of people whose vote ended up with Senator Muir, with all due respect to him, had absolutely no idea that would happen.

It is a trend that is increasing. It is increasing because there are massive increases in group-voting tickets through the registration of parties, and this is having an impact on the percentages. I would like to introduce a few figures in support of that. This is a comparison of the 2010 Senate election with the 2013 Senate election, state by state, by the number of groups registered above the line—in other words, those with group voting tickets—and then by the percentage. In New South Wales in 2010 there were 32 parties registered and 32 group voting tickets; in 2013 there were 44. The 'other' vote—other than major parties and other than the Greens—went from 13.8 per cent in 2010 to 26.45 per cent in 2013. So group voting tickets went up by 12—a percentage increase of some 12.65 per cent for 'others'. In Victoria there were 21 group voting tickets in 2010 and 37 in 2013. The vote for others went from 13.17 per cent to 19.65 per cent. In Queensland there were 23 group voting tickets in 2010 and 36 in 2013, up by 13. The vote for others went from 16.37 per cent to 24.05 per cent. In Western Australia there were 22 group voting tickets in 2010 and 27 in 2013. The minor vote went from 9.89 per cent to 19.65 per cent—up by nearly 10 per cent. In South Australia there were 18 group voting tickets in 2010 and 32 in 2013. The vote for others went from 11.04 per cent in 2010 to 42.5 per cent in 2013. We have to take into account Senator Xenophon's impact on that, but there is no doubt that the increase is huge. In Tasmania there were 10 group voting tickets in 2010 and 22 in 2013. The 'other' vote went from 5.07 per cent in 2010 to 18 per cent in 2013. The total group voting tickets across those states were 126 in 2010 and 198 in 2013: plus 72.

That is having an impact not only in terms of the sorts of choices that people think they are making; it is also encouraging people to vote above the line, because it is so complex. The New South Wales ballot paper was a metre long and you needed a magnifying glass to look at it effectively in order to make your choices. A real impact on democracy is coming through there. It is not only occurring in that situation. I mentioned Victoria, and in Victoria at the last election, in November, we had minor parties—the DLP, the Shooters and Fishers Party, Vote 1 Local Jobs, and the Sex Party—all elected in upper house regions. Who came close? The Rise Up Australia Party, Voice for the West, the Voluntary Euthanasia Party, the Animal Justice Party, the Australian Country Alliance and the Australian Christians.

We now have a crossbench of some eight senators, and if we went to a double dissolution election the probability is that that crossbench could be somewhere in the region of 17 or 18 members. We all know what the Senate has been like to deal with over the last year or two, and we all know that that has implications for the nature of policy. We might disagree across the chamber about what those policies should be, and we can argue the toss about the question of what we should support and when we should support it, but I contend that that in itself cannot be helping democracy and good governance within this country. When you look at that in the terms of the circumstances around a double dissolution election, or even around a normal half-Senate election, we can still see a situation where we will probably end up, on the basis of that last election result, with something like 14 or 15 on the cross benches. I think there is a grave concern there for the operation of our democracy, and I think that there is a real need, therefore, for action to be taken.

I call upon the government to take into account the recommendations made in the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters—a unanimous report, supported by both sides of the House and also by the Greens—in order to deal with this issue. I have to ask why the government has not acted on this report. As members know, a government normally has six months to respond to a committee report. That six months is well and truly up and yet there has been no action; it is all very quiet.

I understand that the government are endeavouring to work through what they can of its agenda with the existing Senate, but I put this to them: these issues will not go away. The fact is, as we look to the next election, if we are not careful, the circumstances that we now face will in fact be significantly worse, and that has implications for all sides of the House with respect to the operation of our democracy.

The government needs to move on this issue. It needs to pick up the bipartisan recommendations of the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters and ensure that these issues are legislated before the next election. There is a need to get rid of group voting tickets to move into line with the recommendations of the committee around optional preferential voting. That is a major change, but it is a change which is needed. The electorate needs to be educated on those issues and the community needs to understand the implications for it in order to ensure that our democracy can continue to deliver results which we can all work with, even when we win and even when we lose.