At the 2013 federal election, almost a quarter of voters preferred a minor party in the Senate over a representative of the Coalition, Labor or Greens. Despite that, minor parties won only 18% of seats. Our overall share of seats in the Senate is just 11%. In democratic terms, minor parties are under-represented.



And yet, a parliamentary inquiry has now recommended changing the voting system so that minor parties are unlikely ever to win seats again. It’s equivalent to the major supermarkets setting the rules for corner stores.

The key recommendation is to replace group voting tickets with optional preferential voting above the line. The same system is used in NSW upper house elections, although preferences in that state’s lower house are also optional. That there is no proposal to introduce optional preferential voting for the House of Representatives reflects the fact that this is about changing election outcomes, not enhancing democracy.

The reasoning behind the recommendation is that the wishes of voters were not reflected in the election of minor party senators, with Ricky Muir’s election in Victoria cited as proof. Liberal cheerleaders also argue that a further reason is the government’s difficulty in having its legislation passed by the Senate, with some crossbench senators more politically skilled than others.

The problem with the first argument is that senator Muir was elected on the same basis as all the other senators, including the government and opposition. There was no greater manipulation of the preference system at the last election, whether by the so-called “preference whisperer”, Glenn Druery, or anyone else, than has occurred ever since group voting tickets were introduced in 1983.

It is faintly amusing to hear commentators argue that the system must now be changed

In fact, all Druery did was to show the minor parties that preferencing each other ahead of the major parties increased the chance that one of them would win a seat. What they did is no different than the National and Liberal parties preferencing each other.

It is faintly amusing to hear commentators argue that the system must now be changed because the minor parties have, after 30 years, figured out how to “game” it.

The second argument, that the minor party crossbench is frustrating implementation of the government’s policies, is only partially true. In reality, the crossbench has supported important legislation, including repeal of the carbon tax and mining tax, whereas in the nine months after the election and before the new crossbench commenced, nothing was passed by Labor and the Greens.

Some of the government’s difficulties with the crossbench are of its own making. But the crossbench is also broadly representative. If each of the eight crossbench senators were obliged to join one of the major parties, I believe there would be three extra votes for Labor (Lazarus, Lambie and Muir), four for the Liberals/Nationals (Day, Wang, Madigan and myself) and one for the Greens (Xenophon). The government would still not have a majority.

Unless the government were to win a majority in the Senate under optional preferential voting, it would be no better off. And yet, all my calculations show that abolition of group voting tickets and their replacement with optional preferential voting above the line would ensure the Senate remained permanently deadlocked, with the Greens holding the balance of power.

It is worth noting that under the current group voting ticket system my election was at the expense of Greens candidate Cate Faehrmann. If the system is retained, senator Lee Rhiannon may lose her seat to a Liberal Democrat.

It is false to claim that optional preferential voting is more democratic than the current Senate voting system. Experience in NSW shows a large majority of voters do not indicate any preferences when they are optional. When their candidate is excluded, their vote dies.

By contrast, the current system ensures their vote is never wasted. Voters can mark their preferences themselves (below the line) or let their first chosen party direct their preference for them via the group voting ticket.

It defies belief that the Liberals would contemplate doing a deal with the Greens to lock themselves into a voting system that guarantees a permanently hostile Senate. And it is beyond comprehension that Labor would contemplate supporting changes that ensured it has no chance of ever freeing itself from its Greens nemesis.

No ‘gaming’ of the system, says micro party advisor Read more

If the conclusion is that minor parties are manipulating the system, fact-checking will wreck your story. You will be told those tricky Liberal Democrats have only been registered since 2010, when in fact we have been around since 2001. That as registered officer of two minor parties I am a master manipulator, when there is a perfectly innocent explanation for this. That the minor parties have worked the system to take seats off the major parties to which they are not entitled, when the system actually keeps the minor parties from winning seats in proportion to their votes.

For the sake of democracy and fairness, the parliamentary inquiry’s recommendations to change the Senate voting system deserve to be thrown in the bin.