Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you. The fact that public commentators are picking up errors in legislation drafted by the government should ring alarm bells for this whole process. What really worries me is whether there are other flaws and unintended consequences that will slip through the cracks because of the lack of scrutiny given to this bill because the Greens decided to vote with the government to rush it through.

I have heard Senator Di Natale argue in the media that this legislation has already been given scrutiny by the joint select committee in the previous inquiry into the 2013 federal election. I do not think anyone should be fooled by this argument. It is patently false. The voting system that is being proposed through this grubby deal is not the same as the reform proposals considered by the inquiry.

A multitude of experts have been lining up to criticise what the government and the Greens originally put forward in this bill. Michael Maley, a former senior official at the Australian Electoral Commission, said: 'The scheme proposed in the bill is an incoherent one'—