2015-07-09
Senator Lee Rhiannon
Talk of an early federal election is putting the spotlight on Senate voting reform. With a strange alliance consisting of right-wing Labor Senators, Clive Palmer, the Liberal Democrats' David Leyonhjelm and Richard Dennis from the Australia Institute entering the debate, the range of ideas on the topic need to be carefully analysed.
The 2013 Senate election reignited interest in reform as some candidates were elected with incredibly small proportions of the vote — less than 1 per cent in some cases. This was the direct consequence of our system of "Group Voting Tickets" that takes the power to determine preferences out of the hands of voters and gives control to political parties.
The federal parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters in its unanimous report on the 2013 election recommended that the method of electing Senators be changed to a system known as Optional Preferential Voting above the line, which would allow voters to decide how their preferences are allocated.
This would mean the end of Group Voting Tickets which allow political parties to control the preferences of their voters. Ending Group Voting Tickets would mean no more back-room negotiations between political party operators that determine the secretive and complex Senate preference deals. These deals leave most voters in the dark with regard to where their preferences will end up.
In some cases voters realised after election day that their preferences, which they had no control over, helped elect candidates who stood on a platform at odds with the voter's own beliefs.
To be elected to the Senate requires a candidate to obtain 14.3 per cent of the vote.
In the 2010 Senate election in Victoria, the Democratic Labor Party's John Madigan was elected while polling only 2.3 per cent of the vote. If voters had been able to determine their preferences instead of their vote being channelled through complex, back-room deals, then the seat would have probably been won by the third candidate on Labor's ticket who was on about 9 per cent of the vote
In 2013 Nick Xenophon's running mate in South Australia sitting on 12 per cent of the primary vote was defeated by the Family First candidate polling less than 4 per cent of the vote — again due to preference deals the voter had no say in.
The end result is a system where candidates with little to no support in the community can manipulate the system to get elected and hold sway over important policies — like the clean energy package, the renewable energy target and offshore detention of refugees.
Despite these undemocratic outcomes there are voices that want to leave Senate preference allocation in the hands of political parties. This is not surprising.
The success of a handful of candidates over the years in winning a Senate seat has been via manipulating secretive preference deals. For some this offers the only chance they have to be elected. It's not surprising that David Leyonhjelm, the anti-wind farm pro-gun Senator for NSW, supports the current system when he has admitted to creating front parties in order to manipulate preferences.
Richard Dennis is on the side of retaining the current undemocratic system for Senate elections with the added proviso of a 2 or 4 per cent threshold vote before a candidate could be elected. This would be the worst of both worlds. Parties would still control voters' preferences, but minor parties would be locked out of the system based on an arbitrary number.
A threshold is an undemocratic barrier that would make it harder for newly emerging and small parties to be legitimately elected.
It is not surprising that many progressive voters have raised an eyebrow when the Australia Institute, which advises Senators who have been elected via preference deals arranged under the current undemocratic system, lines up with the likes of David Leyonhjelm and Labor right's Stephen Conroy.
Ending the back-room deals would not lock minor parties out of the system. It simply means that such parties would need to build support in the community to get elected. The success of the Animal Justice Party in winning a NSW upper house seat under an optional preferential voting system, albeit with a lower quota, shows that genuine parties with a true constituency can succeed without Group Voting Tickets that take power out of the hands of voters.
At a time when Australians are becoming more cynical about politics, with corruption scandals and massive corporate donations, strengthening the role of the voting public will be central to cleaning up politics.
It's time to put preferences back in the hands of voters where they belong.
Senator Lee Rhiannon is the Greens democracy spokeswoman. This article initially appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald.