The Turnbull government’s pledge to try to reform voting rules for the Senate before the next election could sour its relationship with crucial crossbench senators and also trigger a bitter internal fight within the ALP.



The new special minister of state, Mal Brough, has said he wants to legislate before the next election for the voting rule changes, which would reduce the chances that micro-parties could be elected on a tiny proportion of the vote after elaborate preference deals in future Senate elections.

MPs said a former special minister of state, senator Michael Ronaldson, had told them he had drafted changes – in line with a bipartisan Senate committee report – but that the bills were being held up in the former prime minister’s office.

Brough later told Guardian Australia he was “not wedded to any particular set of reforms”.

Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm told Guardian Australia his understanding was that the plan was “dead and buried” and that he had been “more or less told that” by senior ministers.

He warned that any resurrection of the plan would hurt the government’s relationship with the Senate crossbench, whose votes are often needed to pass legislation that is opposed by Labor and the Greens.

“I hope this is a brain fart by the new minister. If it’s not then the government will have a big problem with the crossbench that no amount of schmoozing by Malcolm Turnbull will overcome,” Leyonhjelm said.

Motoring Enthusiast senator Ricky Muir also responded angrily.

“I would like to remind the new special minister of state, and indeed the prime minister, that although it can be difficult negotiating with a diverse crossbench, sometimes we protect the government from themselves,” he said in a statement.

“If it wasn’t for the Senate crossbench, there would be a six-month wait for Newstart, a GP co-payment, major cuts to family tax benefit and a deregulated university system. Last time the government had a majority in the Senate, the Australian people got WorkChoices.

“I feel any reform, no matter how it is sold to the people, is nothing more than a power grab to protect the major parties.”

Queensland senator Glenn Lazarus said the new prime minister had just finished telling the Senate crossbench he wanted to be more consultative.

“This has been simmering for a while but you’d think they’d wait until we’d had a meeting before bringing it on again,” he said, adding that he was happy to look at changes.

Brough said he would consult with the crossbench.



“They shouldn’t fear me. I’m not taking any particular path here.”

Turnbull called all eight crossbench senators last week and is arranging meetings with them over the next few weeks.

The government could pass laws bringing in optional preferential voting for the Senate with the backing of the Greens – who have long supported the reforms – but the major parties have usually sought bipartisanship on big electoral law changes.

Labor is bitterly divided on the plan.

Labor factional leaders, including shadow minister and Victorian senator Stephen Conroy and the New South Wales senator Sam Dastyari, are opposed to change on the grounds it would “entrench” Coalition control of the Senate.

Others, including the Labor MP and deputy chairman of the joint standing committee on electoral matters, Alan Griffin, and the shadow minister and committee member Gary Gray back the change. The shadow cabinet has yet to take a formal decision and will not do so until the government produces legislation.

Brough has used a slew of interviews to say he would give the voting changes “urgent” attention.

“It’s in the nation’s interest to have a change to the voting system that is more transparent – people do not like the fact that they are not choosing their own preference flow,” he said.

As revealed by Guardian Australia, Abbott government ministers started private informal consultations about the highly sensitive changes in March.

Gray endorsed the plan in a speech to parliament in May.

“It would be a travesty for Australian democracy if these careful and thought-through reforms were not in place in time for the next federal election. These reforms will significantly strengthen our democratic process by reducing the capacity for manipulation and increasing transparency in our electoral system which, despite these concerns, still remains among the most stable and effective in the world,” he said.

But Dastyari, leader of the right faction and former secretary of the NSW branch of the ALP, told the Australian newspaper in May that the measures would result in a more conservative upper house.

“It would be complete madness for Labor to support any proposal that would risk forever preventing a progressive Senate. I can’t see Labor doing that,” Dastyari said. “Frankly I can’t find a single Labor senator that supports any of this.”

Supporters of the change point to calculations by the ABC’s election analyst, Antony Green, which suggested that had the optional preferential system been in place in 2013, both Labor and the Greens would have benefited. Opponents point to research from the parliamentary library that suggests it would entrench conservative majorities.

Voting reform is considered a likely precursor to calling any election. A double-dissolution halves the quota required to get a senator elected and therefore makes it more likely senators could be elected on very few votes, under the current rules. A normal half-Senate election would mean that six of the current eight crossbench senators were not facing the electorate and they would probably continue to hold balance-of-power votes for another three years, along with any new micro-party senators elected in that poll.

The Greens leader, senator Richard Di Natale, has said the present system was not democratic.

He said the Greens were “favourably disposed” to the recommendations of the parliamentary report but would “consider other options” including a system being discussed by some in the Labor party for a minimum vote threshold for a party to get elected.