Decision to preference his party below the Nationals does not affect WA senator's support for Julian Assange, he says

This article is more than 7 years old

This article is more than 7 years old

The Western Australian Greens senator Scott Ludlam described the WikiLeaks party's decision to preference the Greens below the Nationals as "extraordinarily disappointing" but said he did not regret supporting Julian Assange.

The WikiLeaks decision means Ludlam will face a battle to keep his spot in the Senate, particularly given the National party is his main competition.

The WA WikiLeaks Senate candidate Gerry Georgatos said on Twitter that Ludlam had WikiLeaks' "effective" first preference.

Ludlam said: "What it shows is that WikiLeaks effectively doesn't understand preferential voting.

"This decision could really impact on WikiLeaks' primary vote. But I don't regret speaking out. Bradley Manning is still in a cage, Edward Snowden is still on the run and Julian Assange is still in a broom closet."

The WikiLeaks decision comes less than a week after the opposition leader, Tony Abbott, announced he would place the Greens behind Labor, making it difficult for the Greens' only representative in the lower house, the member for Melbourne, Adam Bandt, to retain his seat.

The Greens v WikiLeaks battle is just one of a number of preference fights between minor and micro parties in the Senate, which may see One Nation's Pauline Hanson back in the federal parliament, boosted by flows from rightwing parties.

Hanson is a rightwing populist politician who exploded onto the political scene in 1996 after she was disendorsed by the Liberal party for making racist comments. She went on to lead the One Nation party.

Ludlam called for reforms that would allow optional preferential voting, where voters could nominate their preferences above the line. The current system means if voters want to nominate their own preferences, rather than the preferences of their party, they have to number every Senate candidate. In New South Wales, for example, this means numbering more than 100 candidates.

WikiLeaks, whose No 1 Senate candidate is Julian Assange, blamed an administrative error" for its preferences going to Australia First and the Shooters and Fishers before the Greens on its NSW Senate ticket.

Amid criticism on Twitter, the party released a statement on Sunday that said it was not aligned with any other political group and would prefer not to allocate preferences at all.

"In allocating preferences between 53 other parties or groups in NSW some administrative errors occurred, as has been the case with some other parties," WikiLeaks said.

"The overall decision as to preferences was a democratically made decision of the full national council of the party. According to the national council decision, the Shooters and Fishers and the Australia First party should have been below Greens, Labor, Liberal.

"As we said, we aren't aligned with anyone and the only policies we promote are our own. We will support and oppose the policies of other parties or groups according to our stated principles."

Australia First's policies include "passive resistance" against refugees, multiculturalism and foreign ownership. The Shooters and Fishers party is running on a platform to increase access to public land and waters for recreational shooters and fishers, as well as reduce Australia's foreign aid budget.

But a prominent Greens member claims he was told a week ago that WikiLeaks would place rightwing parties above the Greens in Senate preferences, rejecting the party's explanation that the decision was an "administrative error".

Max Phillips, a media adviser to the NSW Greens MLC Jeremy Buckingham, said a WikiLeaks representative had told him WikiLeaks would preference micro parties before the Greens.

Phillips had a conversation with the representative at community markets in the Sydney suburb of Marrickville.

"They said they would preference micro parties and would be put the major parties last," he said. "I asked about the Greens and she said WikiLeaks would put them last.

"I said to her, 'You would put right wing parties ahead of the Greens?' and she said, 'The Greens are our competition.' "

Phillips tweeted about the conversation and was told by WikiLeaks supporters that it was "gossip".

"I said I was hoping they were wrong [about the preference claim], turns out they were right," he said.

WikiLeaks is running Senate candidates in Victoria, NSW and WA. Assange is No 1 on the WikiLeaks Victorian Senate ticket, even though he is still in the Ecuadorean embassy in London to avoid the risk of extradition to the US from Sweden. Assange is followed by the ethicist Leslie Cannold and the academic Binoy Kampmark.

The party's NSW candidates are the human rights lawyer Kellie Tranter and the former diplomat Alison Broinowski. In WA journalist Gerry Georgatos and the economist Suresh Rajan are running.