Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is nice to have so many fans around waiting for my contribution on this bill. It is just tremendous. Following the result of the 2013 federal election, it is important that everyone understands that the parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters in their inquiry found that Senate outcomes are affected by pop-up parties gaming the system and then manipulating outcomes to enable the election of candidates who have polled very small numbers of votes. In May 2014, through the multi-party report, the committee recommended that the system of registering political parties be made more rigorous, group voting tickets be abolished for the Senate and a system of optional preferential voting be introduced. Since then, there has been constant speculation on what path the government would take with its plans for reform. Last week, however, the Prime Minister finally released his plans for Senate reform, which, with the support of the Greens, not only would benefit the coalition in the Senate but also could wipe out the minor parties and independents by making it much more difficult to engineer preference deals and game the system to get elected.

Do not get me wrong. We should consider ways of removing incentives for gaming the system. There is no argument about that. However, this Liberal-Greens deal disenfranchises people who vote for small parties or independents, discourages people from standing for the Senate or from organising new parties, and reduces participation in our political system. None of that could be good for our democracy. It is crucial that we get the balance right with this reform. We will not achieve that, however, if we accept this grubby backroom deal and approve it through this parliament. Madam Deputy President, I keep tending to look at the Greens, but I think I will get yelled at for looking at them, so I must encourage myself to address my comments through you. This is an insider stitch-up by the government with that lot over there, the Greens, to get their sneaky policies through the Senate—policies like the $80 billion cuts to schools and hospitals, cuts to Medicare and $100,000 university degrees. How could we forget them?

I remind the Senate that this is not the first time the Greens—and I will look at them—have done sneaky, grubby deals with the government. Since Senator Richard Di Natale took over as Leader of the Australian Greens, they have voted with the government in the Senate to cut age pensions by $2.4 billion. They voted to pass Mr Abbott and Mr Hockey's budget measures, cutting the age pension for 330,000 elderly Australians. That was done in June 2015. They have also let big companies keep secret how much tax they pay. The Greens voted to defeat Labor amendments requiring large private companies making more than $100 million in profits to publicly disclose how much tax they pay. They did that in December last year. They—the Greens, over there; that lot in the corner—have also joined forces with the government to deter job-creating investment. They voted with the Liberals and the Nats to erect new barriers against investment by reducing Foreign Investment Review Board screening thresholds for proposed investments in agriculture and agribusiness. That they did in November 2015. The Green also could not wait to do the deal with the government—the Liberals and the Nats—when they ignored expert advice on medical research funding. They voted for legislation allowing the health minister to make multimillion dollar medical research funding decisions without following the recommendations of the independent expert advisory body. That they did in August of last year. That lot in the corner, the Greens, also joined forces with the government to defeat a motion for the government to buy 12 locally-built submarines. They voted with the government to amend a motion calling on the government to support local manufacturing jobs by honouring its election promise to procure 12 future submarines for the Royal Australian Navy through a local build—Australian jobs; remember that—only in September last year. They voted with the Nationals in the Senate to call for the introduction of an effects test in competition law that would chill competition and put upward pressure on consumer prices in September last year.

All of these deals have been done purely as an act of naked self-interest, and this one is no different. This is not a deal that is in the national interest. It is one that suits them. It suits the Greens and it suits the government. It is designed for one thing and one thing only: to rid the Senate of minor parties and the independents. Tell me how that could be good for democracy?

I would like to have a look at a few numbers. At the last election, 25 per cent of voters—that is 3.3 million Australians—did not vote for Senate candidates representing the coalition, the Greens or Labor. Under the Liberal-Greens deal, millions of votes like these will be exhausted under Mr Turnbull's new laws. How could that be democratic? Think about that for a minute. As of today, Australia's population is 24,013,786. Since I wrote that, it has probably popped up by a few hundred. But, thanks to the Greens, the Liberals and the Nats, 25 per cent of those Australians who are eligible to vote will, in fact, have their votes discounted. All this grubby deal will mean at the end of the day is that more coalition senators will be elected. The deal will make it likely that the coalition will win at least three of the six Senate positions in each state in a normal Senate election. That will make it far easier for the coalition to achieve a Senate majority. If the reforms go through, the coalition would have a majority, which would mean that they would not have to negotiate with any other parties. We remember the last time that happened. The Howard government passed its controversial Work Choices laws. If Mr Turnbull achieves a majority in this place, heaven knows what other disastrous and harmful pieces of legislation like Work Choices the Conservatives will push through this chamber. If that happens, heaven forbid, we know who to point the finger at.

Have the Greens forgotten everything that the former Prime Minister, Mr Abbott, and the current Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, tried to do in order to abolish the Climate Change Authority and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation? The Greens, on their website, say that the Greens' Plan for a Better Australia includes a clean economy, a caring society and a healthy environment. I reckon they can kiss all that goodbye with this deal, as you can bet your bottom dollar that this government will continue to rip funding away from those in our society who need it the most and from environmentally friendly programs.

Let us put into perspective what a coalition majority in the Senate means. A coalition majority in the Senate would mean that Mr Abbott's 2014 budget would be law. We would have $100,000 university degrees, Medicare co-payments, cuts to the age pension and young people waiting six months to access unemployment benefits. This would all be a reality, thanks to the support of the Greens.

Australians expect the Senate to continue as a check on the government of the day, not as a rubber stamp that passes legislation without proper review. The dangers of ramming this legislation through have already been exposed. The day after introducing the bill to the House, the government was forced to rewrite the bill to fix a mistake. The original bill would have prevented assistant returning officers from counting Senate first preferences on election night. If it were not for Mr Antony Green pointing it out, this error would have gone unnoticed. As a result of this error being discovered, on 24 February the government had to rush in six amendments to the House of Representatives to fix the mistake. This mistake makes me wonder: how many more mistakes are there in the bill?

As I said, the dangers of ramming this legislation through have already been exposed. Furthermore, an increasing number of experts have now rejected the Liberal-Green Senate voting deal and called for different approaches or at least warned that, without adequate scrutiny, it risked creating adverse consequences. Those joining the growing chorus of opposition to this bill being rammed through the Senate include none other than Mr Malcolm Mackerras, the eminent election expert and political scientist, and he has said:

It is not about fairness. It is about the re-shaping of our party system. South Australia is to have a four-party system, Liberal on the right, Xenophon in the centre and Labor … on the left—

and the Greens on another planet—

The rest of Australia is to have a three-party system, Coalition, Labor and Greens. There will be no independent senators, unless Jacquie Lambie can get a short term—

a short term, not a long one—

at a 2016 double dissolution election.

There will be only one benefit for voters. The ballot paper will be smaller.

Mr Ross Gittins, the respected Economics Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald, has said:

… we need time—the usual Senate public inquiry would do—to hear from the experts and examine the properties of the voting system one side of politics has come up with and wants to ram through.

If the Coalition has proposed a move to optional preferential voting, allowing people to express their preference for up to six party groupings, it's a fair bet it believes such a system will advantage it over its Labor rival.

How can you argue with that?

If the left-leaning Greens and centrist Xenophon party are happy to give the Coalition what it wants, it's a fair bet that's because the deal leaves room for their comfortable survival, while raising the drawbridge against the emergence of new minor-party rivals of either leaning.

Mr Richard Denniss, the former head of The Australia Institute, who has a long history of expertise in Senate voting arrangements and a commitment to progressive causes, has said:

… the best way to avoid real scrutiny of a new law is to swamp people with more detail than they can comprehend—while telling them a simple story about 'the big picture'. Take for example the current debate about Senate reform. …

The Bill describing the biggest changes to the way we elect senators in 30 years was released to the public on Monday—

of this week—

and the government and the Greens have agreed that there is no need for a public inquiry into its likely impacts, and it is believed that the bill will become law in just two sitting weeks. Most alarmingly, they have agreed that the new laws should take immediate effect which means that weeks after the creation of the new laws an election … could be called. What could go wrong?

I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.