Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

There has been an awful lot said in this place about Senate voting reform recently. Much of it is political rubbish and that contribution fits squarely into that category. What I want to do is very clearly lay out the policy issue that is facing us here. I might add before I do that that, when I want a first-principles reference for how I should behave and how I should vote in this place, I go back to the founding principles of the party that I have the massive honour of representing in this place, the Australian Greens. For the edification of senators, the four founding principles of our party are: ecological sustainability, social justice or a fair go for everyone, peace and nonviolence, and a participatory grassroots democracy—I will say the last one again: a participatory grassroots democracy.

For us—and certainly for me—part of a participatory democracy is the will of the voters being reflected to the greatest degree possible in who is elected into this chamber and, in fact, to both chambers of the Australian parliament. The problem with the current system is that it ends up in a make-up of the parliament which does not accurately reflect the will of the voters because, of course, the power over preferences currently rests in the hands of the backroom wheelers and dealers. It does not rest in the hands of the voters. In a democracy with full participation from voters, the power must rest in the hands of the voters to flow through and choose their elected representatives in this place. I would have thought that did not need to be said, but clearly it does need to be said given some of the rubbish we have heard from Labor on this issue over the last couple of days.

The current system is broken. It led, in 2013, to a candidate in Western Australia being elected on 0.2 of one per cent of the vote. That is fewer than 3,000 votes out of over a million votes cast in Western Australia for senators in that election. Fewer than 3,000 votes—out of a million votes—were enough to get someone elected to this place. That is a broken system, particularly when there were numerous candidates in that election who polled far, far more than 3,000 votes who did not get elected to this place.

I want to rebut, in the short time available to me, a number of Labor's arguments. Firstly, they say this legislation is being rushed. We had a joint parliamentary committee inquiry that ran for nearly a year and a half, held 21 public hearings right around this country and ended in a set of unanimous recommendations that were at that time supported by the Labor Party. Unfortunately, as they so often do for their own political purposes, they backflipped on their position and are now opposed to the Senate voting reform that they previously supported.

We believe that this is an opportunity and that the planets have finally aligned for us on an issue that we have been working hard on and campaigning hard on since 2004, when we had just two senators in this place and when Bob Brown, who was then Leader of the Australian Greens, tabled a first effort from us to deliver Senate voting reform. I add that, if Labor had honoured the written agreement they made with the Greens after the 2010 election that they would actually progress and deliver Senate voting reform to the best of their capacity, we would not even be having this argument now. We would not even be having this discussion now, because this would be done sometime between 2010 and sometime in 2013. But Labor squibbed on that written agreement, just as they did on political donations, that they are now going to use in this legislation that is coming before the Senate to try and wedge us out of supporting it. If they had not squibbed on the written agreement they signed with the Greens in 2010, we would have political donations reform already up and running in Australia. But, no, Labor walked away from their written agreement with the Greens in 2010.

Lastly, if Labor really were serious about avoiding coalition control of this Senate, they would not be obsessing about this; they would be getting out there and selling their policies to the Australian people— (Time expired)