The Tally Room

There’s been a lot of attempts by various people to predict the impact of Senate reform in terms of which parties will win and which parties will lose.

Some of this has been smart, and some of it has been quite dumb. Some has focused on the long-term tendencies, while others have been obsessively focused on the outcome under one narrow scenario where the Coalition wins a double dissolution comfortably, or freak out about outcomes that are just as likely under the current system.

I’ve generally tried to avoid getting too much into these questions. In general, I expect that party behaviour and voter behaviour will change in ways which are difficult to predict, and overconfidence in any particular outcome suggests that a person has an agenda to push (usually an anti-reform agenda).

(If you really want to have a better sense of likely outcomes, I can point you to Kevin Bonham, Antony Green and Adrian Beaumount‘s analysis. In short, both major parties and the Greens would have gained seats, in proportion to their vote, but the chances of a Coalition majority are not much greater than the current system.)

I wanted to specifically address a question raised in a bunch of places: does the left “splitting” its vote between Labor and the Greens disadvantage them relative to the Coalition, who run as a single ticket.

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So we now have the government’s legislation for Senate voting reform. You can read it here.

The key points are as follows.

Abolition of group voting tickets

From now on there won’t be any distribution of preferences beyond a single party group unless the voter marks it themselves on the ballot.

Introduction of optional preferential voting above the line

From now on you will be allowed to number as many boxes as you want above the line, and your vote will flow through each party group in ticket order.

The ballot paper will carry instructions saying the voter must number “at least 6” boxes above the line, although that would revert to being full compulsory preferential voting if six or less groups nominate.

Having said that, votes just containing a ‘1’ above the line will be formal, and there is no “Langer clause” which would prevent parties or other groups advocating for a person to number less than six boxes above the line.

No major changes to below-the-line voting

Despite JSCEM recommending optional preferential voting below the line, this bill only slightly loosens the requirements for below-the-line voting. You’ll still need to number most boxes for your vote to count, but you’ll be allowed up to five sequencing errors, up from the current three.

Party logos on the ballot paper

This one wasn’t expected! Presumably this is motivated by Liberal concern about confusion with the Liberal Democrats. It’s not unheard-of: New Zealand has party logos on the ballot.

Prohibition on being Registered Officer of multiple parties

This is to address the concern about David Leyonhjelm being the registered officer (who is the official who liaises with the AEC and nominates candidates) of multiple parties.

I will have some more commentary this evening about the political impact of the reforms, but feel free to use this post to discuss the reforms as they unfold today.

Update: No counting of Senate ballots

Unfortunately I missed one major change. The legislation proposes that Senate ballots are no longer counted and recorded in group totals on election night. Antony Green has looked into this.