25
January 2018
PDF version [1336KB]
Dr Damon
Muller
Politics and Public
Administration Section
Executive
summary
- In 2016 the Senate voting system was changed to remove the use of
group voting tickets; and to require voters to allocate six or more preferences
above the line or twelve or more below the line on the ballot paper. The 2016
federal election—a double dissolution election—was the first to be conducted
under the new system.
- The change resulted from recommendations from an inquiry by the
Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters into the 2013 federal election,
largely in response to the number of candidates being elected to the Senate
from small and unknown parties on very low first preference votes. However, the
changes were only legislated late in the parliamentary term, not long before
the double dissolution election was held.
- A High Court challenge was launched almost immediately in
response to the changes to the Senate voting system; however, the Court rapidly
and comprehensively dismissed the case.
- When it was introduced, the new Senate voting system was
criticised for a number of perceived problems, including that most voters would
continue to vote 1 above the line; that the informality rate would be high; that
many more votes would exhaust and not be counted; and that small parties would
have no chance of election.
- None of these anticipated problems presented in the course of the
2016 election. Voters quickly adapted to the new system; informal voting rose
only a small amount; and that the Australian Electoral Commission was able to
implement the new system and count the votes with no major issues eventuating.
- The changes did not arrest the trend of fewer voters giving their
first preferences to the major political parties in the Senate election. However,
many of those who gave their first preference to minor parties also preferenced
one of the major parties with their second and third preferences. While the
2016 Senate election resulted in a record crossbench, much of this is
attributable to the reduced quota due to the double dissolution. Yet even under
a normal half-Senate election, a number of minor party Senators would have been
elected.
- Analysis shows that Australian voters’ use of above-the-line
Senate preferences was complex; was not always along party lines; and, in many
cases, was not consistent with the first preference party’s how-to-vote
recommendations.
Contents
Executive
summary
Introduction
A brief history of Senate electoral
system reform
The single transferable vote system
Introduction of group voting tickets
in 1983
The vote count in Senate elections
and the 2016 reforms
Disproportionate Senate election
results
The inquiry into the 2013 Senate
election
Legislating the changes
The High Court challenge
How the new Senate voting system
works
How well did it work at the 2016
election?
Above-the-line voting
Use of preferences
Vote exhaustion
Informal votes
Senate composition and smaller
parties
Proportionality
Public response to the changes
Conclusion
Appendix A: Analysis of voter Senate
preference choice
Preferencing of established parties
Graphic analysis of above-the-line
preference flows, state by state
New South Wales
Victoria
Queensland
South Australia
Western Australia
Tasmania
Appendix B: Political party
abbreviations
Figures
Figure 1: Senate ballot
paper structure
Figure
2: How above the line preferences are counted on the Senate ballot paper
Figure
3: Above-the-line voting at Senate elections, 1990–2016
Figure
4: Unique parties contesting recent federal elections
Figure
5: Candidates and groups on the NSW Senate ballot paper in recent elections
Figure
6: Proportion of votes and seats won in the Senate by party/group
Figure
7: Combined share of seats and votes of the ALP and Coalition, 1987–2016
Figure
8: Party share of first preference Senate vote, 1987–2016
Figure
9: Share of Senate seats won, 1987–2016
Tables
Table 1: Use of above-
and below-the-line voting by state
Table
2: Use of preferences above the line as a proportion of votes above the line
Table
3: Senate ballot paper informality in 2016 compared to 2013, percentage of
total vote
Table
4: Types of Senate ballot paper informality in 2016
Table
5: Percentage of first preference Senate vote by party/group
Table
6: Senators elected by party under the statutory recount
All hyperlinks in this paper were
correct as at January 2018.
Introduction
In 2016, following a long and sometimes acrimonious debate
in the Senate, the largest reform to Australia’s federal voting system in more
than three decades became law. Despite the haste with which it was introduced
and passed through the Parliament, the reform was a response to address flaws
in the Senate voting system that became apparent over the previous decade and
had been the subject of considerable deliberation.
This research paper outlines the recent history of Senate
electoral reform in federal elections, including examining the reasons for the
most recent changes to the Senate voting system. It describes how the new
system works, and analyses the characteristics of its operation in the 2016
federal election before exploring how well it worked in practice. It concludes
that Australian voters adapted well to the additional complexity of the new
ballot paper; that the election results were generally more proportional in
respect to the vote; and that—so far, at least—the reform appears to have been
successful in terms of aims and implementation.
A brief history of Senate electoral
system reform
The 2013 Senate election was notable both for the overturned
result in Western Australia (WA) due to lost ballot papers, and for the number
of previously unknown candidates from small parties who were elected on very
small primary votes. Both of these issues received considerable attention from the
Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (JSCEM) in its inquiry into the
2013 federal election. In 2016, it was the latter issue that resulted in the
most significant change to Australian federal elections in more than 30 years.
The single
transferable vote system
Since 1949, the Senate has used an electoral system known as
proportional representation through single transferable vote (PR-STV, or simply
STV). STV is a family of electoral systems that are both proportional and
preferential (although some scholars have argued that STV is at best
semi-proportional).[1]
In addition to the Senate electoral system, the Hare-Clark electoral systems
used in Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) are also STV
electoral systems, as are most state upper house electoral systems.
Internationally, elections in Ireland and Malta also use STV, but it is
uncommon outside Australia.[2]
STV is proportional in that it attempts to ensure that
members elected into the multi-member districts are roughly in proportion to
the share of the vote they received. That is, if 30 per cent of people vote for
Party A and 40 per cent vote for Party B, Party A should win roughly 30 per
cent of the seats and Party B should win roughly 40 per cent. In practice there
is a limit to the proportionality—for example, ten parties each winning ten per
cent of the vote could not be accommodated perfectly proportionally in a
district with only six seats.[3]
STV is also preferential in that voters can (or must, in
some circumstances) allocate multiple preferences to candidates. It is similar
in this respect to the preferential voting used in House of Representatives
elections. This feature distinguishes it from most proportional representation (PR)
systems in use throughout the world, which are not preferential. In most of
these other systems (often referred to collectively as PR list systems), voters
only express a single preference for a group of candidates. Candidates are
elected from the group in proportion to the vote that the group receives, with
a number of different formulas used in translating the vote share to seats.
Introduction
of group voting tickets in 1983
The voting system in Australian federal elections in the
House of Representatives and the Senate is defined in the Commonwealth
Electoral Act 1918 (CEA). Similarly to preferential voting used
in House of Representatives elections, the Senate voting system in place between
1949 and 1983 required voters to allocate preferences to every candidate on the
ballot paper in order of their preference for the vote to be counted (or
‘formal’).[4]
While this approach worked well when there were few
candidates on the ballot paper, by 1983 the informality rate for Senate ballot
papers had reached 9.9 per cent (compared to 2.1 per cent informality in the
House of Representatives in 1983), mostly due to numbering errors by voters.[5]
This meant that almost one in ten ballot papers could not be counted.
The wide-ranging 1983 inquiry of the Joint Select Committee
on Electoral Reform (the forerunner to the JSCEM) considered the issue of
informal voting on the Senate ballot paper and commissioned an analysis of
informal votes from the 1977 and 1983 Senate elections. The analysis indicated
that over 75 per cent of informal votes were invalid due to unintentional
error, even though the voter’s intent was clear.[6]
The Committee considered several submissions before settling
on a combination of recommendations from the then Australian Electoral Office
(the precursor to the Australian Electoral Commission) for a ‘list’ system and
from the Liberal Party to continue using the existing full preferencing (as
opposed to the Australian Labor Party’s recommendation to move to optional
preferential voting). The Committee stated:
The ‘list’ system recommended for adoption at Senate
elections is designed to simplify the voting process for those electors who are
content to record on their ballot paper the preference ordering recommended by
a particular party or candidate.
Voters would have the option of recording preferences for all
candidates in the normal way, or of placing a tick or cross in a special square
on the ballot paper to indicate adoption of a particular party or group list.
In the latter case, the vote would be treated as if the elector had numbered
every square in accordance with that list.[7]
This ‘tick or cross in a special square’ became the above-the-line
voting system.
Due to the negotiations required to pass the changes to the
electoral system through the Senate, the legislation that enabled above-the-line
voting[8]
allowed parties to submit up to three group voting tickets (GVTs).[9]
If the party or group submitted more than one GVT, the above-the-line votes for
the party or group were divided evenly between the GVTs.
Michael Maley, a former AEC official who was involved in the
1983 changes, describes how the use of GVTs evolved in unforeseen ways,
culminating in the 2013 results:
Because it was apparent from previous election statistics
that the vast bulk of voters had been following how-to-vote cards anyway, the
change was not seen as being a particularly momentous one. But one important
point was overlooked, and this was the issue which came to a head in 2013. Up
until 1984, the only parties which were able to issue how-to-vote cards were
those which had the membership base, field structure and resources to enable
them to distribute cards physically at polling places. With ticket voting, on
the other hand, every group of candidates on the ballot paper could provide
voters with, in effect, a ‘virtual’ how-to-vote card. This ultimately led
directly to the phenomenon of ‘preference harvesting’, which enables a host of
‘micro-parties’ to exchange preferences with each other for their mutual
benefit.[10]
The vote count
in Senate elections and the 2016 reforms
In STV elections a candidate must receive a ‘quota’ of
votes, either as first preference votes or surplus votes transferred as
preferences from another candidate. The Senate voting system uses a Droop quota
(named after English lawyer and mathematician Henry Droop),[11]
which is defined as:
There are twelve senators in total in the Senate for each
state. As such, in a normal half-Senate election for a state, there are six
vacancies and the candidate must receive one seventh of the total vote to be
elected. In a double dissolution election, as in the 2016 federal election, there
are 12 vacancies and the quota is 1/13 of the vote.[12]
Typically in Senate elections the larger parties receive one
or more quotas of first preference votes and any surplus votes flow down the
ticket to candidates in the same party or group.[13]
The major party candidates may receive very few votes below the line; when they
are elected, it is generally from above-the-line votes for their party that
have transferred as surplus votes from another candidate from the same party
higher up the ticket.
In each election, after all the candidates who have full
quotas are declared elected, there are a number of candidates who build up a
quota mainly from transferred votes from other groups excluded from the count.
Intuitively, those candidates with higher first preference votes might be more
likely to be elected once preferences are distributed. Through the use of
preference trading, however, it is possible for preferences to be pooled
between candidates with very small votes in order to achieve a quota. In some
cases, compulsory full preferencing means that when a large party has elected
as many candidates as it can, and any of its remaining candidates are all
eliminated from the count, those preferences can boost a small party enough to
stay in the count and achieve a quota.
In the STV system, the candidate with the fewest votes in
each count is excluded. The challenge for any small party is to receive enough
transferred preferences each count to stay above the bottom position and remain
in the count. If a small party’s top candidate can accumulate some transferred
votes each time another candidate is excluded—and stay in the count long enough
to be the only candidate remaining when the last candidate for a major party is
excluded—they have a reasonable chance of being elected into one of the last
vacancies.
Disproportionate
Senate election results
The 2013 federal election was not the first occasion that
the coordinated direction of preferences led to an unforeseen result where the
results seemed incongruous with the first preference votes. The first evidence
that coordinated GVT preferencing could lead to an unusual result was in 2004,
when Victorian Steve Fielding of Family First was elected to the Senate on a
first preference vote of 0.13 quotas, or 1.85 per cent of the total vote.[14]
Fielding’s win over a Greens candidate was described by then Greens Senator Bob
Brown as a ‘perverse result’ and ‘outrageous’.[15]
The unsuccessful Greens candidate called for Senate electoral system reform to
allow voters to include multiple preferences above the line.[16]
At the time, election analyst Antony Green, writing in the Sydney
Morning Herald, argued that the system allowed party bosses to engineer
electoral outcomes:
the results of the election have revealed that the Senate’s
voting system, rather than allowing for the expression of the will of the
electorate, has fallen under the control of party ‘bosses’ engaging in complex
preference deals designed to engineer electoral outcomes.
The problem is ‘above the line’ or group ticket voting,
introduced in 1984 to overcome the huge informal vote that had dogged Senate
elections. It also offered political parties a wonderful opportunity to control
party preferences, as was shown when Labor and the Coalition saw common purpose
in ensuring Peter Garrett did not win election for the Nuclear Disarmament
Party.[17]
In December 2004, Senator Bob Brown introduced the Voter’s
Choice (Preference Allocation) Bill 2004, which would have required voters to
number all squares above the line, consistent with the full compulsory
preferencing on the House of Representatives ballot paper. Introducing the Bill
(which was not subsequently passed), Senator Brown cited the ‘perverse’ outcome
in the 2004 election.[18]
Further examples of unforeseen results occurred in the 2010
Senate election, when Victorian John Madigan from the Democratic Labor Party
was elected to the Senate on 0.16 quotas, or 2.33 per cent of the total vote.[19]
The 2013 federal election saw two Senate candidates elected
on very small primary votes. Ricky Muir from the Australian Motoring Enthusiast
Party was elected in Victoria on 0.51 per cent of the primary vote (0.035
quotas), and Wayne Dropulich from the Australian Sports Party was elected in WA
on 0.23 per cent of the primary vote (0.016 quotas).[20]
The election results were unprecedented in a number of ways, including:
In five out of the six States, a candidate was elected from a
party which had never previously been represented in the federal Parliament.
For the first time ever, the seats in one State, South
Australia, were divided between five different parties.[21]
The inquiry
into the 2013 Senate election
Following each federal election, the JSCEM conducts an
inquiry into the conduct of that election. The JSCEM received a reference from
the Special Minister of State to undertake an inquiry into the 2013 election, taking
into account the following specific issues:
- Senate voting reform
- voter ID (proof of identity) at polling place
- the electoral roll (including the impact of direct enrolments)
and public access to the roll
- circumstances surrounding the lost WA Senate votes and
- the feasibility of, and options for, electronic voting.[22]
The JSCEM released its interim report on Senate voting
practices in May 2014. In the foreword to the report, the JSCEM Chair, Tony
Smith, stated:
Combined with pliable and porous party registration rules,
the system of voting for a single
party above the line and delegating the distribution of preferences to that
party, delivered, in some cases, outcomes that distorted the will of the voter.
The system of voting above the line has encouraged the
creation of micro parties in order to funnel preferences to each other, from
voters who have no practical way of knowing where their vote will ultimately
land once they had forfeited it to
the parties’ group voting tickets.[23]
The Chair emphasised that the above-the-line voting system
confused voters, and that many voters would not have known where their
preferences were going when they voted above the line. While the GVT provided
by the parties are publically available, it is unlikely many voters study them
in depth due to their complexity.
The Committee made six recommendations in the report: two
involved replacing group voting tickets with optional preferential voting above
and below the line; one that the AEC should be adequately resourced to
undertake a voter education campaign in relation to the change; and three that
related to party and candidate registration.[24]
The Chair noted that:
This report has been produced at this time to not only
provide the Parliament with the time to legislate change, but to enable
thorough and adequate information, education and explanation of the
improvements to the voting public well in advance of the next election.[25]
The bipartisan Committee unanimously supported the
recommendations. The Deputy Chair of the Committee, ALP member Alan Griffin,
stated that he believed that the GVT system was not operating as had been
intended.[26]
The then Shadow Special Minister of State Gary Gray stated that the ‘changes
will make the Senate voting system more transparent and will mean a full
translation of voter intention to the electoral outcome’.[27]
Legislating
the changes
Little more was heard about the matter after the report was
released, other than a statement by then newly-appointed Special Minister of
State Mal Brough in September 2015 that the Government intended to pursue
Senate voting reform.[28]
This was interpreted as an attack on the Senate crossbenchers (whose votes in
the Senate were necessary to pass the Government’s legislative agenda), and the
topic rapidly vanished from public discussion.[29]
The issue again surfaced in February 2016, with media
reports that the Government was engaged in discussions with the ALP and the
Greens to legislate the Senate reforms before 17 March 2016 in order to pave
the way for an early election.[30]
Other reports suggested that the Greens would introduce their own legislation
if the Government did not, but that the ALP was ‘divided’ as to whether to
support optional preferential voting.[31]
The legislation to reform the Senate voting system, the
Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill 2016,[32]
was introduced into the House of Representatives on 22 February 2016 with
essentially no official prior notice by the Government. It was amended by the
Government almost immediately to allow Senate first preference above-the-line
votes to be counted in the polling place. (In its initial form, no Senate
results would have been reported until the votes had reached the central
scrutiny point, several days after the election.)[33]
On 22 February 2016—the day the Bill was introduced to the
lower house—the Government referred the Bill to the JSCEM for consideration, to
report no later than 2 March 2016.[34]
The JSCEM took submissions and held a public hearing on 1
March 2016. In its initial form, the Bill implemented the recommendations of
the JSCEM interim report to introduce optional preferential voting above the
line. The Bill went beyond the Committee’s recommendations in instructing
voters to allocate at least six preferences above the line; although if there
was at least one first preference above the line, the vote would be formal.
Contrary to the Committee’s recommendations in its interim report, voters were
still required to allocate preferences to all candidates below the line;
however, the allowance for errors in below-the-line preferencing was increased
slightly.[35]
The last-minute Committee inquiry resulted in an advisory
report, which recommended that the Government also allow optional (rather than
compulsory) preferential voting below the line; with a minimum of 12 below-the-line
preferences and a savings provision that the ballot paper would be formal if it
contained at least six preferences.[36]
The JSCEM advisory report also contained a dissenting report
from ALP senators and members, arguing that the Bill was ‘driven not by the
democratic interests of the Australian people, but, rather, the political
self-interest of the Liberal Party and the Greens’.[37]
The dissenting report quoted evidence from Antony Green suggesting that under
the Bill the Coalition would win 38 seats at a double dissolution election,
which would give them a blocking majority in the Senate.[38]
On 2 March 2016 the Bill was introduced into the Senate. The
second reading debate involved speeches from 39 senators and stretched over
four days. The JSCEM’s recommended amendments were agreed to, and the Bill was
finally passed following the longest continuous sitting without breaks of any
kind—lasting 28 hours and 26 minutes—on 18 March.[39]
The Bill passed the House of Representatives later that day and received Royal Assent
on 21 March 2016.
The High Court challenge
No sooner had the Senate voting changes passed the
Parliament than one of the crossbench senators, Bob Day of Family First, lodged
a challenge in the High Court against the changes, supported by Liberal
Democrats senator David Leyonhjelm. Day claimed that the new voting system
‘will make it easier to get rid of pesky independents like me’.[40]
Leyonhjelm set up a crowdfunding campaign to raise $20,000 to pay for the
challenge.[41]
While Labor opposed the changes, it declined to join the High Court challenge.[42]
In a hearing on 24 March 2016, the Chief Justice of the High
Court, sitting alone, ordered that the matter be listed on 15 April 2016 for
directions as to referral to the Full Court, and on 15 April the case was
referred to the Full Court for a hearing on 2 May 2016.[43]
The Court held hearings on 2 and 3 May 2016 and delivered its judgement on 13
May 2016.[44]
As identified by the Court, Day had essentially five
arguments that the new voting system was unconstitutional:
- The above- and below-the-line voting process constituted
different ‘methods of choosing senators’, forbidden under section 9 of the Australian
Constitution.
- Above-the-line voting did not represent senators being ‘directly
chosen by the people’, required under section 7 of the Constitution.
- The Droop quota used to calculate which candidates had been
elected meant that the votes of one seventh of the electorate did not count
towards the election of a successful candidate.
- Votes that exhaust effectively disenfranchise voters.[45]
- In the words of the High Court Justices: ‘a kind of “catch all”
proposition repeating the complaint in the previous argument and the complaint
of effective disenfranchisement’.[46]
Writing before the judgement was handed down, constitutional
law expert Professor Anne Twomey wrote of the merits of the case:
The grounds for this challenge are not strong. For the most
part, the arguments being made would apply with equal or greater force to the
pre-2016 law, the validity of which has consistently been upheld, albeit by
single judge decisions. The 2016 Act is substantively different because it
permits optional preferential voting, allowing votes to exhaust. While there is
a possibility that this might be regarded as contrary to the irreversible
evolution of representative government, the 2016 Act does not mandate that votes
become exhausted—they merely give voters a choice as to how their vote can best
reflect their preferences. It would therefore be difficult to argue that a
Senate elected pursuant to the 2016 Act was not ‘directly chosen by the
people’.[47]
The High Court unanimously upheld the changes to the Senate
voting system, throwing out Day’s case. The brief judgement rejected all five
arguments made in Day’s application, and did not throw a significant amount of
new light on the constitutional restrictions on the electoral system. However,
the ruling did clear the way for the Government to hold the election under the
new system. According to the judgement summary:
The High Court unanimously dismissed both applications. The
High Court held that the term ‘method’ in s 9 of the Constitution is to be
construed broadly, allowing for more than one way of indicating choice within a
single uniform electoral system. The High Court further held that a vote above
the line was a direct vote for individual candidates consistent with s 7 of the
Constitution. Finally, there was no disenfranchisement in the legal effect of
the voting process and there was no infringement of the implied freedom of
political communication or the system of representative government.[48]
The Court further ruled that the plaintiff (Senator Day) pay
costs.
How the new Senate voting system works
Political scientists define electoral systems in terms of
three variables: the electoral formula (how the votes are counted), the ballot
structure and the district magnitude (the number of people to be elected).[49]
Compared to the Senate electoral system as it operated from 1984 to 2014 (the
GTV system),[50]
the new Senate system changed only the ballot structure—leaving the electoral
formula and the district magnitude untouched. That is, the new system maintains
STV with a Droop quota and transfer values calculated using the inclusive
Gregory method,[51]
and the number of senators elected at each election remains unchanged.
The ballot paper looks
superficially similar to that of ballot papers used between 1984 and 2014, with
a series of columns representing groups across the ballot paper and the
candidates in each group listed in their column. The ballot paper is divided by
a horizontal line, and each group that qualifies receives a box above the line
(see Figure 1). Voters can either vote above the line for parties or groups, or
vote below the line for candidates. Voters who vote above the line are
instructed to complete at least six preferences, and voters who vote below the
line are instructed to complete at least 12 preferences (below-the-line
preferences are counted as they are entered by the voter). Savings provisions
allow votes that have at least one preference above or six preferences below
the line to be counted.
Figure
1: Senate ballot paper structure
Note: Groups may be candidates all from one party, or from two
parties that have elected to run a ‘joint’ ticket and have their candidates
listed in the same column, or as non-affiliated candidates who have chosen to
run together in the one column in order to have a square (but not a group name)
above the line.
Votes above the line are
essentially a shortcut for a below-the-line vote, and are converted into a
below-the-line preference order before the vote is counted. In the above
example, an above-the-line vote for Group D is counted as a below-the-line vote
for all of the candidates in Group D in the order in which they are listed on
the ballot paper, top to bottom.
If Group D gets a 1 above the
line, and it has four candidates in the group, the first candidate in the group
will get a 1 vote, the second a 2 vote, through to the fourth candidate who
gets a 4. If the voter then gives their second above-the-line preference to
Group F (which has four candidates), the first candidate in Group F will get
the next preference in sequence (5), and the next two candidates in Group B will
get 6 and 7 respectively—and so on, until all above-the-line preferences are
allocated to equivalent below-the-line candidates (see Figure 2).
Figure
2: How above the line preferences are counted on the Senate ballot paper
If the voter skips or repeats any numbers (either above or
below the line), the repeated numbers and any higher numbers are ignored. For
example if the voter has listed the preferences 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6 below the
line only, preferences 1 through 3 will be counted. This vote would therefore
be informal and not counted, as it has fewer than six below the line preferences.
If the voter allocates preferences both above and below the
line, only the below-the-line vote will be counted. However, if the vote below
the line is informal, the above-the-line vote will be used. In addition, any
ticks and crosses on the ballot paper are counted as a 1.
A high-level explanation of how the vote is counted is that
a quota is determined (as discussed above), and the candidates with more than
one quota of votes are declared elected. The surplus votes of the elected
candidates (their total vote minus a quota) are then transferred to the voter’s
next preference. Following the transfer, if any candidates are above quota,
they are declared elected and their surplus is distributed to the next
preference. If none are over quota, the candidate with the lowest number of
first preference votes is excluded and their votes are transferred to the
voter’s next preference. The process continues with candidates over one quota
being elected and their votes being transferred—or candidates with the lowest
vote being excluded and their votes transferred—until either all of the
vacancies are filled or there are no more votes to transfer. If the latter
happens and there are unfilled vacancies, the candidates with the highest
remaining votes are declared elected into any remaining vacancies.
How well did it work at the 2016 election?
Following the federal election on 2 July 2016, the AEC
declared the first Senate election result (for the Northern Territory) on 25
July 2016, and the last (for NSW) on 4 August 2016—meaning that despite the new
system the AEC completed the count before the deadline of the final day for the
return of the writs on 8 August 2016.[52]
There were no reports of problems with the Senate count or results, although
one former NSW Electoral Commission official suggested that the AEC was being less
than transparent about its auditing and certification of the vote scanning
process.[53]
Once the AEC began to publish the Senate vote data,[54]
a number of analysts started examining the criticisms that had been levelled
against the new voting system before the election, including that it would
eliminate minor parties; that most voters would just vote 1; and that there
would be high vote exhaustion rates and higher informality. These criticisms
are considered in detail below.
Above-the-line voting
As in all elections since the
introduction of group voting tickets in 1984, the majority of Australian voters
chose to vote above the line for the Senate in 2016. While the number of voters
numbering preferences above the line was noticeably lower than in recent
elections (see Figure 3), more than nine in ten voters numbered preferences above
the line.
Figure
3: Above-the-line voting at Senate elections, 1990–2016
Source: Compiled by the Parliamentary Library from AEC data.
Rates of above-the-line voting were slightly lower in 2016
than in 2013 for most states and territories (Table 1). The below-the-line
voting rates in both Tasmania and the ACT were substantially higher than those
for the other states and territories; however, in 2013 both Tasmania and the
ACT also had the highest below-the-line voting in the country. Both of these
jurisdictions use Hare-Clark for state or territory elections—a voting
experience that is similar to voting below-the-line in the Senate, which likely
explains their traditionally high below-the-line voting rate.[55]
Table
1: Use of above- and below-the-line voting by state
|
2013 |
2016 |
| |
Above
% |
Below
% |
Above
% |
Below
% |
| NSW |
97.90 |
2.10 |
94.60 |
5.40 |
| Vic. |
97.33 |
2.67 |
94.69 |
5.31 |
| Qld |
97.00 |
3.00 |
93.86 |
6.14 |
| WA |
96.17 |
3.83 |
94.49 |
5.51 |
| SA |
93.47 |
6.53 |
91.50 |
8.50 |
| Tas. |
89.66 |
10.34 |
71.88 |
28.12 |
| ACT |
80.13 |
19.87 |
84.82 |
15.18 |
| NT |
91.89 |
8.11 |
91.42 |
8.58 |
| National |
96.49 |
3.51 |
93.47 |
6.53 |
Source: Compiled by the Parliamentary Library from AEC data.
In contrast to the ACT—where below-the-line
voting remained high in 2016 but dropped slightly since 2013—the rate of below-the-line
voting in Tasmania more than doubled in 2016 compared to 2013, with more than
one in four Tasmanian voters numbering preferences below the line. This
increase is likely due to the Senate campaign of Labor Senate candidate Lisa
Singh, which encouraged voters to vote below the line for Singh.[56]
Use of preferences
At the JSCEM public hearing on
the Bill for the new Senate voting system, Labor Senator Stephen Conroy stated
‘I have read figures of 80 to 90 per cent casting a 1 and have no preferences
after that’.[57]
Under the new system, a ballot paper with just a first preference above the line
would still be formal. The data show that this outcome did not eventuate at the
2016 election, however, with only 3.2 per cent of above-the-line voters writing
only 1 above the line (Table 2). The highest rate was in NSW, where 5 per cent
of those who voted above the line only voted 1. Given that the NSW
Legislative Council ballot paper allows a single preference above the line,
some voter confusion between the requirements of the respective ballot papers
is to be expected.
Table
2: Use of preferences above the line as a proportion of votes above the
line
| Preferences above
the line |
NSW
% |
Vic.
% |
Qld
% |
WA
% |
SA
% |
Tas.
% |
ACT
% |
NT
% |
Total
% |
| 1 |
5.0 |
2.5 |
2.1 |
2.3 |
2.5 |
1.5 |
1.6 |
2.5 |
3.2 |
| 2 |
1.5 |
1.1 |
1.1 |
1.0 |
1.0 |
0.9 |
0.5 |
0.8 |
1.2 |
| 3 |
1.3 |
1.2 |
1.2 |
1.0 |
1.0 |
1.0 |
0.5 |
0.7 |
1.2 |
| 4 |
0.8 |
0.7 |
0.7 |
0.6 |
0.7 |
0.6 |
0.4 |
0.8 |
0.7 |
| 5 |
0.9 |
0.8 |
0.6 |
0.9 |
0.7 |
0.6 |
0.6 |
0.8 |
0.8 |
| 6 |
85.5 |
88.2 |
88.7 |
88.3 |
86.6 |
85.0 |
83.2 |
55.5 |
86.9 |
| More than 6 |
5.2 |
5.5 |
5.6 |
5.7 |
7.6 |
10.4 |
13.1 |
38.8 |
6.1 |
Source: Compiled by the Parliamentary
Library from AEC data.
Note: There are small
differences between the figures in this table and similar analysis published by
the AEC, likely due to the AEC’s use of its own internal vote data for its
analysis compared to the published vote data used for this table. The figures
above are consistent with other third-party analysis of the AEC’s data.[58]
The vast majority of voters—more than four out of five above-the-line
voters—followed the ballot paper instructions and allocated six preferences.
The one exception was the Northern Territory where there were only seven
columns above the line; here 55.5 per cent of above-the-line voters used six
preferences, and an additional 38.7 per cent allocated all seven preferences.
Vote exhaustion
Some parties expressed concerns that the reforms would lead to
high levels of vote exhaustion (where votes indicated no preference for one of
the candidates remaining in the count and therefore would not count against a
final candidate) due to an expected high numbers of 1-only above-the-line votes.
These concerns did not materialise at the 2016 election (see Table 2).
For example, in the Liberal Democrats submission to the
JSCEM inquiry into the Bill, the party stated:
Inevitably, a significant number of votes cast—especially
those cast for parties other than the three major parties—will simply exhaust
instead of being allocated according to preferences. Where those votes would
previously have helped to elect minor party candidates, they will simply not
count toward any vote tally once the six candidates that the voter preferred
are eliminated from the contest, ie the votes will be discarded. As an elector,
the idea that your vote will be discounted if you do not vote for the
government’s preferred candidates should be horrifying.[59]
At least nine of the speeches against the Bill in the Senate—from
Labor, Family First and Senator Lambie—also expressed concern about vote
exhaustion, including a concern that three million people’s votes would exhaust
as a result of the changes (or, as Family First Senator Bob Day termed it, ‘the
potential disenfranchising of three million votes’).[60]
For example, Labor Senator O’Neill stated:
What they did in that last election was—and there are three
million Australians who made this decision with their vote—vote for candidates
other than from these larger parties which dominate the political landscape of
the country. It looks like the legislation will get through because of this
dirty deal. Three million people voted at the last election for candidates
other than those from these three parties. Their votes are going to ‘exhaust’.
They are ‘exhausted’ simply means they are not counted. They are going to end
up not being involved in the election of anyone. Twenty-five per cent of the
voting public will end up with no representation of their view of who should be
here, and that hardly seems fair.[61]
While all votes—including exhausted votes—are counted to
determine the election results, exhausted votes do not count against a
successful candidate. This is effectively the same as in preferential voting in
the House of Representatives elections, where a vote that preferences the
unsuccessful of the final two candidates does not count against the successful
candidate’s total vote.
For example, as stated in an AEC report on vote exhaustion
following the 2016 federal election:
[It is easy to think of] an exhausted ballot paper as lost or
wasted, or to think of exhausted votes as being less effective than fully
preferenced ballot papers. There is an argument that the more preferences there
are on a ballot paper the more ‘effective’ or ‘powerful’ it is.
However this is a subjective argument. An exhausted vote is
by definition formal, and has expressed the electors stated preferences. An
elector may reach the conclusion that if the candidates they have numbered are
not elected, they do not wish their vote to assist in the election of any other
candidates. This is, potentially, as valuable to an elector as their stated
preferences.[62]
The High Court action against the new system by then Senator
Bob Day, discussed above, also cited the projected exhaustion rate as a problem:
Upon that new approach, the value of the votes of those who
follow the instruction is diminished, by reference to the number of parties
that are not preferenced [eg 29 in South Australia in the last general
election]. That is because in the scrutiny their ballots will be treated as
exhausted or not ‘available’ for the transfer of their vote from candidate six
in the list [who is eliminated] to the next candidate in the list [ie past
six]. The result of that is that such electors record no vote at all, as their
vote is denied all real value, and not treated as equivalent to those who did
vote either for all candidates by a full preference vote [very few ] or those
who record first preference votes in sufficient numbers to elect their first,
second or third preferences within the one party list.
The Commonwealth cannot justify that regime: because if
voting remains compulsory as it does there is no sound justification for
diminishing the value of a vote from some of those votes as against others.
Upon the record of the last election the number of persons the value of whose
votes is diminished in this way is 25% of the State ‘voting as one electorate’.
As pleaded in paragraph 9 of the Grounds this is, nationally, 3,314,174 votes
across Senate elections in 2013 as against a total formal vote of 13,380,545
votes.[63]
Election analyst Antony Green has argued that the raw number
of exhausted votes is not a good indicator of the issue. In some counts, the
AEC excluded the final non-elected candidate in order to determine an order of
election for the successful candidates, thus inflating the exhaustion rate. Upon
re-examining the ballot papers to assess the exhausted preferences of parties
that did not elect senators, Green found an exhaustion rate of around 800,000
votes (around 5.6 per cent).[64]
Psephologist Kevin Bonham has agreed with this approach, citing an exhaustion
rate of 5.1 per cent ‘at the point at which the winners in the various states
were determined’.[65]
Rather than being wasted or discarded, 83.9 per cent of above-the-line
votes for minor parties were directed towards a successful party or to the
final non-elected party.[66]
In addition, up to 70 per cent of voters for the ten largest minor parties by
votes marked the Coalition, Labor or the Greens as a second or third preference
(see Appendix A). One possible explanation for this may be that voters are
aware, at least at some level, of the potential for vote exhaustion, and are
voting such that if their vote cannot be counted for a minor party candidate,
their preference will count towards a party with a better chance of election
and will not be wasted.
A slightly different approach is taken by the AEC in its
analysis of Senate vote exhaustion following the 2016 federal election, where a
distinction is drawn between the number of ballot papers and the number of
votes. The number of votes can be different to the number of ballot papers due
to surplus votes being transferred at reduced values. For example, if the quota
for election is 80 votes and a candidate receives 100 votes, 20 votes will need
to be transferred to the next preference. Rather than choose which of the 80
ballots to keep and which 20 to transfer, all 100 ballots are transferred at a transfer
value of 0.2 of a vote each for 20 total votes. If 10 of those ballot papers
cannot be transferred to another candidate, they will exhaust—but as they do so
at a transfer value of 0.2, only two votes will exhaust. Importantly, because
these ballots are transferred after electing a candidate, they still count
towards the election of that candidate, even though the votes subsequently exhaust.
The AEC analysis concluded that, using its approach, the
national exhaustion rate was 7.5 per cent. Of the exhausted ballots, 86.5 per
cent helped elect at least one candidate in the 2016 Senate election, and 56.7
per cent helped elect four or more candidates. The AEC report also noted that
vote exhaustion was strongly associated with the number of candidates on the
ballot paper, with a higher number of candidates leading to higher levels of
exhaustion.[67]
As noted above by the AEC, it is also worth considering that,
in some cases, voters may prefer that their vote exhaust rather than see the
vote elect candidates with whom they strongly disagree. In this regard at
least, vote exhaustion in optional preferential voting is not a ‘bug’ but a
‘feature’.
Informal votes
Prior to the election, it was reported that internal Labor
analysis predicted an additional 800,000 informal votes as a result of the new
Senate voting system, given the AEC would not have sufficient time to educate
voters about the change. The analysis reportedly predicted that the informality
rate in the Senate would increase to 10 per cent.[68]
The savings provisions built into the change—where votes with at least one
preference above the line, or at least six below the line, would be formal—should
have prevented this outcome. As the original report on which the article is
based is not available, it is not known how the Labor analysis reached this
conclusion.
After the voting had begun there were reports of polling
officials giving voters incorrect advice—such as having to number ‘up to’ six
boxes above the line, or not being able to number more than six boxes above the
line. The AEC stated that it was the voter’s responsibility to read and follow
the ballot paper instructions, but admitted that—given the scale of the
election—it was possible that some issuing officers might have given the wrong
advice.[69]
Due to the savings provisions, however, such instructions should not have led
voters to cast an informal ballot as long as they recorded at least one
preference above the line.
AEC figures on Senate ballot
paper informality indicate that the number of informal Senate ballot papers did
increase slightly on the 2013 election, but by less than 1 percentage point
nationally. The final Senate informality rate was just under 4 per cent,
or around half-a-million informal ballots (see Table 3). NSW had the highest
informality rate at 4.53 per cent.
Table
3: Senate ballot paper informality in 2016 compared to 2013, percentage of
total vote
| Jurisdiction |
Formal |
Informal |
Total |
Informal
% |
Change on 2013
% |
| NSW |
4 492 197 |
213 073 |
4 705 270 |
4.53 |
1.21 |
| Vic. |
3 500 237 |
153 499 |
3 653 736 |
4.20 |
0.83 |
| Qld |
2 723 166 |
95 831 |
2 818 997 |
3.40 |
1.24 |
| WA |
1 366 182 |
47 371 |
1 413 553 |
3.35 |
0.85 |
| SA |
1 061 165 |
36 545 |
1 097 710 |
3.33 |
0.68 |
| Tas. |
339 159 |
12 221 |
351 380 |
3.48 |
1.02 |
| ACT |
254 767 |
5 754 |
260 521 |
2.21 |
0.23 |
| NT |
102 027 |
3 512 |
105 539 |
3.33 |
0.66 |
| Total |
13 838 900 |
567 806 |
14 406 706 |
3.94 |
0.98 |
Source: AEC[70]
The AEC also undertook an analysis of types of informal
Senate ballot papers, reproduced in Table 4 below. As the AEC does not routinely
analyse the types of informal Senate ballot papers, it is not possible to
compare the results to previous elections. However, the digitisation of the
Senate ballot papers for the 2016 Senate election enabled the AEC to produce
the analysis for 2016.
The most common form of informal ballot paper had no
identifiable preferences—a category which would include blank ballot papers.
These constituted 64 per cent of all informal ballot papers. Unfortunately it
is not possible to tell what the voters intended by leaving their ballot papers
blank, but they may have included not wanting to vote at all, but wanting to
avoid a fine, or not wanting to give any of the candidates on the ballot a
preference.
The next most common errors were repeated numbers either
above or below the line. In some cases this might be due to ticks and crosses
on the ballot paper, which are counted as a 1. (A ballot paper with some
candidates ticked and some crossed would be treated as being informal due to
having multiple 1s.) Repeated and skipped numbers were common on informal below-the-line
ballots—informal only if they had not otherwise had six consecutive preferences
starting at 1 below the line. (For example, a below-the-line preference
sequence of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9 would have been formal, whereas a
sequence of 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 would not.)
Prior to the 2016 amendments to the CEA, skipped and
repeated numbers below the line would not have made the ballot paper informal.
It is unlikely that many voters knew the details of the complicated pre-2016
ballot paper formality rules, and so it is likely plausible that these were
simply errors. Expanding the savings provisions to allow for skipped and
repeated numbers, as per the pre-2016 CEA, would have potentially
allowed an additional 58,267 (or 10 per cent of the informal ballot papers) to
be counted.
Table 4: Types of Senate ballot paper informality in
2016
|
NSW |
Vic. |
Qld |
WA |
SA |
Tas. |
ACT |
NT |
Total |
| No preferences |
140
683 |
93
471 |
62
259 |
31
027 |
23
226 |
7
350 |
3
761 |
2
116 |
363
893 |
| Above the line |
| No ‘1’ |
7
420 |
13
369 |
3
630 |
1
812 |
1
043 |
240 |
156 |
176 |
27
846 |
| Repeated ‘1’s |
35
506 |
26
583 |
18
637 |
8
608 |
6
651 |
1
423 |
708 |
437 |
98
553 |
| Below the line |
| ‘1’ only |
6
160 |
3
080 |
1
600 |
1
055 |
914 |
149 |
133 |
123 |
13
214 |
| 2 to 5 preferences |
1
997 |
1
217 |
753 |
413 |
410 |
185 |
119 |
58 |
5
152 |
| Repeated numbers |
16
854 |
11
701 |
6
881 |
3
480 |
3
395 |
2
292 |
648 |
364 |
45
615 |
| Skipped numbers |
3
121 |
2
979 |
1
472 |
660 |
641 |
469 |
157 |
180 |
9
679 |
| Repeat and skip |
1
076 |
910 |
393 |
205 |
189 |
105 |
44 |
51 |
2
973 |
| Other |
256 |
189 |
206 |
111 |
76 |
8 |
28 |
7 |
881 |
| Total |
213
073 |
153
499 |
95
831 |
47
371 |
36
545 |
12
221 |
5
754 |
3
512 |
567
806 |
Source: AEC[71]
These numbers indicate that there was reasonably little
misunderstanding of the new Senate ballot paper among voters. The vast majority
of the informal ballot papers under the new system would also have been
informal under the old system (no preferences, no above-the-line 1, repeated above-the-line
1, and insufficient preferences below-the-line). It is therefore unlikely that
the errors were purely a result of the changes.
Senate composition and smaller parties
Much of the criticism of the Senate voting reform Bill
related to the expected composition of the new Senate. The main arguments were
that it would eliminate the non-major party crossbench from the Senate, and
that it would entrench Coalition control of the Senate.
In their dissenting report to the JSCEM’s report into the
Bill, ALP members of the committee stated:
This Bill will have the effect of maximising the number of
senators elected representing major parties ... This will deprive independents
and so-called ‘micro parties’ of votes and prevent new entrants from achieving
election to the Senate, thereby entrenching the dominance of existing parties.[72]
Several analysts concluded that the Senate reforms would
result in the Coalition having a majority in the Senate after the election. One
analysis predicted that the Coalition would win 40 seats and Labor would win
only 25 in a double dissolution election under the new voting system.[73]
As it eventuated, the Coalition won 30 seats and Labor 26 in the 2016 election.
One of the most politically significant criticisms raised
against the new system when it was proposed was that it would eliminate the
election of senators from outside the major political parties to the Senate. In
testimony at the JSCEM hearing into the Bill, political consultant Glenn Druery
stated that it was unlikely that any minor parties would survive or ‘be born’
under the new system.[74]
Clearly, the new Senate voting system did not eliminate
minor parties from the Senate. Six non-major parties won, between them, 11
seats in the 76 seat Senate, having received 13.6 per cent of the primary vote
(see Table 5).
Table
5: Percentage of first preference Senate vote by party/group
| Party/Group |
National first preference vote
% |
| Liberals and Nationals |
35.18 |
| Australian Labor Party |
29.79 |
| The Greens |
8.65 |
| Pauline Hanson’s One Nation |
4.29 |
| Nick Xenophon Team |
3.30 |
| Liberal Democrats |
2.16 |
| Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party |
1.93 |
| Family First |
1.38 |
| Jacqui Lambie Network |
0.50 |
| Successful minor parties total |
13.55 |
| Others |
12.82 |
Source: Compiled by the Parliamentary Library from AEC data.
The level of success of small parties in 2016 can be
attributed in large part to the double dissolution election, which reduced the
quota for election from one seventh of the vote to one thirteenth.
There have been no public
counts of the 2016 election using a normal half-Senate election quota, so it is
not clear how well the small parties would have fared in a half-Senate
election. However, the CEA requires the AEC to undertake a recount under
section 282 to provide the Senate with a list of potential short- and long-term
senators following a double dissolution election.[75]
This recount only includes those candidates who were elected at the full Senate
count, but it applies the half-Senate quota. This recount provides some
indication of how many senators elected at the double dissolution election would
also have enjoyed the same result at a half-Senate election (see Table 6).
Table
6: Senators elected by party under the statutory recount
|
Coalition |
ALP |
DHJP |
FFP |
GRN |
LDP |
ON |
XEN |
JLN |
| Elected |
16 |
13 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
1 |
| Not
elected |
12 |
11 |
1 |
1 |
6 |
1 |
3 |
1 |
0 |
Source: AEC[76]
The section 282 recount suggests
that, under a normal half-Senate election, Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party, Family
First and the Liberal Democrats would not have gained Senate seats; and that the
Greens, One Nation and the Nick Xenophon Team would have gained fewer seats.
However, the section 282 results for One Nation, the Nick Xenophon Team and the
Jacqui Lambie Network—whereby they still have senators under the new system—suggest
that the reform is not inherently hostile to small parties; and that if small
parties have significant public support, they can gain a presence in the Senate.
After the election, the Senate reforms were again blamed for
the composition of the Senate—this time for enabling the election of four One
Nation senators. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten told the media:
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party appears to have four
Senators. They have four Senators because the Greens political party and
Malcolm Turnbull changed the rules in the Senate and then Malcolm Turnbull
called a double dissolution. The presence in such numbers of One Nation in the
Senate is a direct result of Mr Turnbull and Mr [sic] Di Natale’s actions in
terms of their so-called electoral reform.[77]
Kevin Bonham considered the
effects that the new system might have had on the success of One Nation,
concluding that it was more the double dissolution factor that accounted for
One Nation’s success:
By any fair measure, One Nation’s primary vote share and
strong preferencing performance compared to other micro parties entitles it to
the seats it won. Anyone who disagrees with that has a problem not with
the new Senate system, but with preferential and proportional democracy
itself. All the same, the fact that we have four new One Nation Senators
and not one (given the votes actually cast) is down not to Senate reform but to
the government's strategic decision to force a double-dissolution ...
Without knowing what deals might have been done we cannot
know for sure how many seats One Nation would have won under the old system—it
might even be in theory that at a half-Senate election Hanson herself could
have been beaten by some similar right-wing micro-party on a preference
snowball. It’s very likely though that PHON [Pauline Hanson’s One Nation] would
have won at least one [seat] at a half-Senate election with a good chance of
more, and that they would have won multiple seats at a double dissolution.
Depending on the deals done, their seat haul at a double dissolution under the
old system could have even been as high as seven.[78]
In general, the 2016 Senate election (albeit with a reduced
quota) demonstrated that small parties with reasonable first preference votes
and strong preference flows can gain seats in the Senate—even in the
absence of group voting tickets, and particularly in smaller electorates such
as Tasmania and South Australia. Under the reduced quota of a double
dissolution election, even a brand new small party such as Derryn Hinch’s
Justice Party can be successful in a large state like Victoria in the new
system.
However, despite the success of such parties in 2016, it
is likely that the new system will, over time, lead to fewer parties contesting
Senate elections, although this may take a number of elections to become evident.
Smaller parties that do not have an obvious constituency
and do not have the financial or grass-roots support to campaign throughout a
state will find it difficult to replicate the results of, for example, the
Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party in 2013.
The Senate voting system that operated prior to the 2016
election created incentives for registering multiple parties with catchy names
and using those to channel preferences through GTVs to another party, expanding
the ballot paper.[79]
In the absence of preference deals, single-issue parties (or those with an
appealing or provocative party name) will rarely gain sufficient votes or
preferences to be elected—particularly in a normal half-Senate election—and
will not be able to reliably direct their preferences. Over a number of
election cycles, as evidence increases that this type of participation is
ineffective, the number of these parties should decrease.
Parties that have a specific constituency—such as those
who appeal to certain religious groups, for example Australian Christians or
Christian Democrats—may choose to merge rather than risk splitting their vote
between multiple parties. Under the previous Senate voting system, these
parties could easily trade preferences, pooling the vote of their constituency.
Under the new system, these parties will depend on their voters allocating
preferences to all of them or have their vote split between the parties. By
merging or running joint tickets in the Senate, parties that share a
constituency can better consolidate their voter base and increase their chances
of election.
This is not to suggest that small or single-issue parties
will disappear, but rather that the removal of some of the incentives for the
creation of these parties should lead to fewer of them appearing on the ballot
paper in the future—particularly at a normal half-Senate election.
In addition to its recommendations for changes to the
Senate voting system, the JSCEM interim report on the 2013 federal election also
made recommendations in relation to party registration; namely, a minimum threshold
requirement of 1,500 unique members to register a political party.[80]
These recommendations have not yet been acted on by the Government.
In her second reading
speech on the Bill implementing the changes, Senator Lee Rhiannon stated that
the Greens objected to raising the registration requirements as it would be a
barrier to small parties:
The Greens have stood firm in our longstanding support for
the vital role of small parties in our democracy. We did this when Labor, the
Liberals and the Nationals voted together to double the nomination fees to run
in an election. It was clearly a move to try to knock out smaller parties, and
some people have come to realise that that is not the fair way to enhance our
democratic process. There was also the controversial attempt to raise the
number of members needed to register a party, which the Greens did not agree
with, because we recognised that most parties start small with little money and
there should not be barriers such as large memberships or high nomination fees
put in their way.[81]
By 2016, a total of 66
different parties contested the federal election—almost double the 35 who
contested the 2004 federal election (see Figure 4). As noted above, however, it
is likely that the new system will, over time, lead to fewer parties contesting
Senate elections.
Figure
4: Unique parties contesting recent federal elections
Source: Compiled by the Parliamentary Library from AEC data.
In addition to registered political
parties, Senate elections allow non-affiliated groups of candidates to run as a
group on the ballot paper, receiving an above the line square. In NSW, which
has traditionally attracted the greatest number of candidates and groups to its
Senate ballot paper, the number of parties and groups in the past two federal
elections numbered in the 40s (although it decreased slightly between 2013 and
2016), and the number of candidates has continued to climb, reaching 151 in
2016 (see Figure 5).
The changes to below-the-line voting allow numbering as few
as 12 preferences. This change has certainly reduced the burden on voters, who
otherwise would have had to number all 151 preferences below the line on the
NSW ballot paper. However, it is arguable that even a relatively well-informed
NSW voter would not have sufficient information on all 41 groups to make a
rational decision as to whether each was deserving of one of their preferences—particularly
given many of these groups would have done little or no campaigning.
Figure
5: Candidates and groups on the NSW Senate ballot paper in recent elections
Source: Compiled by the Parliamentary Library from AEC data.
Proportionality
One of the criticisms of the
previous Senate voting system was that it produced disproportionate results,
some candidates having been elected with very small first preference votes over
candidates with larger votes. As outlined in this paper, there is a limit to
how proportional the outcome of an STV electoral system can be; however, it is
apparent that the 2016 Senate results were roughly proportionate to the share
of the vote that accumulated to respective parties and groups. Parties with
larger or medium-sized votes tended to gain more seats relative to their vote
share under the new system (see Figure 6).
Figure
6: Proportion of votes and seats won in the Senate by party/group
Source: Compiled by the Parliamentary Library from AEC data.
Kevin Bonham has also analysed the
proportionality of the new Senate by looking at the average number of votes and
seats won by each party in each state. He concluded that it was generally
proportional, although it might have favoured the left side of politics
slightly:
Out of the 72 seats, every party
that has averaged over 1/73rd of the vote per state has won at least one seat,
and every party that
has averaged less has won none. NXT [Nick Xenophon Team] has won three seats
instead of a proportional four (mainly because outside SA its 1.8% vote was too
evenly spread) and One Nation has won four instead of three (on superior
preferencing performance by collecting votes from a lot of right-micros that
won nothing).[82]
Comparing the number of seats and votes won by the major
parties to everyone else, it is apparent that the combined seats the major
parties won in the Senate closely aligns with the proportion of the vote they
received. However, the combined share of seats won by the major parties
is consistently greater than the share of votes that they win,
suggesting that the Senate voting system has afforded a small degree of advantage
to the major parties (see Figure 7). The new Senate voting system has not yet
changed that situation; although, one election—and an unusual double
dissolution election at that—is not a sufficient basis to discern a trend.
Figure 7: Combined share of seats and votes of the ALP
and Coalition, 1987–2016
Source: Compiled by the Parliamentary Library from AEC data.
When considering Senate proportionality, an important factor
is the decreasing share of votes that the major parties have received in recent
elections. The 2016 Senate election did not slow this trend, with 26.39 per
cent of votes not going to the Coalition, the ALP or the Greens (see Figure 8). As outlined in this paper, however, many voters who gave their first
preference to a minor party gave their second or third preference to one of the
established political parties (see also Appendix A).
Figure
8: Party share of first preference Senate vote, 1987–2016
Source: Compiled by the Parliamentary
Library from AEC data.
In general, this decrease in the
major party vote in the Senate is not reflected nearly as dramatically in terms
of share of seats won, with non-major parties only winning 14.5 per cent of the
seats in 2016 (see Figure 9). This is a result of the preferential nature of
the system because, while in total around one quarter of the Senate vote is
going to non-major parties, that vote is split between many parties (53 of them
in 2016), and tends to flow back to the bigger parties on preferences (rather
than being an inherent bias towards the major parties).
The results over recent
elections show that there is considerable potential for one (or a small number)
of non-major parties to collect these votes—much as One Nation did in 2016—and to
turn them into Senate seats.
Figure
9: Share of Senate seats won, 1987–2016
Source: Compiled by the Parliamentary
Library from AEC data.
Public
response to the changes
A survey conducted by Essential Research in mid-July 2016
asked respondents whether they thought that the changes to the system made Senate
voting easier or more difficult. A total of 19 per cent of respondents reported
that the changes made it easier to vote, and 37 per cent said it was more
difficult. Older respondents and those who had not yet completed year 12 were
most likely to think it made voting more difficult, and there was not a large
difference in perceptions between supporters of different parties.[83]
Asked if the reforms led to a more democratic outcome in the
Senate, 20 per cent said it did make it more democratic, 15 per cent said less
democratic, 39 per cent said it made no difference, and 26 per cent did not
know.[84]
Essential Research had conducted an earlier poll on Senate
reform in late February 2016. Essential found that just over half of the
respondents (53 per cent) approved of the changes, with a majority of both
Coalition and Labor voters approving, while 16 per cent of all respondents disapproved
of the changes.[85]
In the final analysis, the relatively low informality rate
and the high rate of compliance with the minimum number of preferences above
the line suggest that the public did not reject the changes to the voting
system.
Conclusion
By any reasonable measure, the recent reforms to the Senate
voting system have successfully achieved the parliament’s objectives. Voters
appear to have attended to the AEC’s advertising campaign and polling place and
ballot paper instructions to allocate six preferences above the line, straightforwardly
abandoning the habit of 30 years of Senate voting. While informal voting did
increase compared to the 2013 Senate election, the increase was mild in the
context of such a major change introduced at such short notice. On the whole,
it did not appear the rate of informal voting was a result of the ballot paper
changes.
As a double
dissolution election, with a halved quota for election, the 2016 federal
election is not an ideal test case of the potential of the new voting system to
change the composition of the Senate. However, the results of the section 282
recount suggest that small parties will continue to be able to be elected.
Due to the
success of some small parties who only just gained seats under the reduced
quota (such as the Liberal Democrats and Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party), the
likely effect of the new system on the fortunes of very small parties in Senate
elections might not yet be apparent. But, in order to be successful, those
interested in forming such parties with the hope of being elected to the Senate
may need more support in the electorate than was mustered by very small parties
in 2013 and 2016. Over several electoral cycles with the new system in place, it
is likely that small parties that do gain Senate representation will require substantial
grassroots support and/or consolidation.
The new system has
not arrested the decline in the major party vote in the Senate observed over
the past several decades. Yet voters are certainly not completely abandoning
the major parties, and many minor party voters are keeping the major parties
high in their preferences. This is positive for both major and minor parties: if
a minor party can marshal sufficient support, it stands a chance of gaining
seats; but if it does not receive enough votes to get over the line, the votes may
well flow to a major party.
From the
perspective of the voter, it means that a preference can be lodged for a
smaller party for whatever reason, but voters can also be reasonably confident
that their vote will count for a party with some chance of electoral success.
What is reasonably clear is that voters have embraced the opportunity to
allocate their own preferences in the Senate—with preference deals made by
parties having much less influence.
Appendix A:
Analysis of voter Senate preference choice
The 2016 Senate election represents the first Senate
election since 1983 where the majority of voters in the Senate allocated their
own preferences between the parties and candidates on the ballot paper.
One of the justifications for the introduction of group
voting tickets in 1984 was that most voters wish to follow their preferred
party’s how-to-vote (HTV) card, and allowing them to vote using a group voting
ticket (GVT) essentially simplified the process of following the party’s HTV
card (see discussion on page 5). If it was true that most voters wanted to
allocate preferences according to their preferred party’s ordering in 1984,
however, an analysis of the allocated preferences from 2016 shows that this is
no longer the case.
The analysis in this appendix uses the full preference file
published by the AEC for the 2016 election, which lists the preferences of all
14.4 million formal Senate ballot papers, both above and below the line. It is
included in order to indicate where preferences from certain parties come from—and
who they are going to. The analysis reveals that voter behaviour is much more
complex than all left-leaning or all right-leaning voters preferencing the same
way or allocating preferences to the same parties.
The analysis focuses on first, second and third preferences
for the sake of simplicity, but also because it is likely that voters’ first
few preferences are more reflective of their sympathy with a party than their
later preferences. In some cases, voters may not have heard of six parties on
the ballot paper, but it is very likely that they would know at least three.
Note that this analysis examines the preferences as
allocated by voters, and not the preference flows of the count. It is an
analysis of voter intention, as opposed to electoral effect. For example, the
analysis shows who received the second and third preferences of the Coalition
and Labor voters—even though in the count most of those preferences will count
toward electing the Coalition or Labor candidate, and very few will be
transferred to count against electing the second or later preferenced
candidates.
Charts in this section only include parties that received at
least 0.1 per cent of the state Senate vote. All charts and tables in this appendix
are based on Parliamentary Library analysis of Senate preferences published by
the AEC on its website.[86]
Senate votes for the territories were not included in this analysis as the two
territories each only elect two senators and preferences play a much smaller
role in determining the result.
Note: Political party abbreviations used in this appendix
are official AEC abbreviations, a list of which is at Appendix B.
Preferencing
of established parties
The decrease in the primary vote of the major parties over
time is discussed in the main body of the paper above. The preference data allows
an examination of how many of voters who did not use their first preference for
an established or major party (here defined as the Coalition, the ALP or the
Greens) instead use a second or third preference for one of the established
parties.
The ten largest (in terms of
first preference vote) of the non-major parties are included in this analysis
to see what proportion of minor-party voters gave their second or third
preference to an established party (see Table A1). While the proportion
varied, between 28 per cent and almost 70 per cent of the minor-party vote across
the states potentially came back to the established parties as preferences.[87]
Table A1: Percentage of votes
for top ten minor parties for which second or third preferences went to established
parties, by state
| Party |
NSW
% |
Vic.
% |
Qld
% |
SA
% |
WA
% |
Tas.
% |
All states
% |
| XEN |
64.95 |
63.07 |
55.03 |
76.29 |
75.62 |
66.13 |
69.94 |
| LDP |
65.74 |
58.06 |
65.69 |
50.58 |
68.28 |
48.10 |
63.90 |
| CDP |
65.98 |
29.00 |
28.25 |
43.93 |
43.52 |
63.55 |
59.70 |
| DHJP |
31.56 |
50.30 |
30.21 |
31.62 |
49.83 |
37.07 |
47.06 |
| DLP |
52.75 |
36.77 |
39.43 |
NA |
56.19 |
NA |
47.90 |
| AJP |
44.64 |
44.10 |
32.88 |
50.48 |
53.93 |
48.94 |
43.12 |
| FFP |
42.99 |
38.46 |
33.52 |
49.84 |
42.48 |
66.44 |
41.08 |
| ON |
35.22 |
29.97 |
31.99 |
35.67 |
45.34 |
36.75 |
34.32 |
| ASP |
33.41 |
29.96 |
23.29 |
29.97 |
50.68 |
32.94 |
33.31 |
| ALA |
24.94 |
32.86 |
21.74 |
23.99 |
38.99 |
25.63 |
27.94 |
Note: Top ten parties by number of Australia-wide first
preference votes, excluding the Coalition, the ALP and the Greens.
This data suggests that many voters
for minor parties are retaining one or more major parties as a ‘backup’ vote.
However, it is impossible to know the motivation behind the preferencing on the
basis of this analysis. These votes could constitute a protest against the
major parties—denying them the benefits of a first preference vote (such as public
funding) while ensuring that the major party does eventually get their
preference—or could have been cast for some other reason (by virtue of name
recognition of the major parties, for example).
Yet these voters are, in fact, using the preference system
in the manner that it was designed to be used. Their first preference may go to
the most appealing party—regardless of that party’s prospects of election—but their
vote may ultimately count for a party with a chance of actually electing a
candidate if their preferred party does not poll well enough to do so.
Graphic
analysis of above-the-line preference flows, state by state
The graphs for each state below depict the flows between the
first, second and third above-the-line preferences in that state. The strength
of flows between parties are according to the proportion of votes allocated as
first through third preferences—that is, larger segments or thicker connections
between parties represent more votes than smaller segments and thinner links. The
columns of parties are in preference order: from first preference on the left
side to third preference on the right. The charts include all ballot papers for
the state in which there were at least six above-the-line preferences.
New South
Wales
Strong preference flows
eventuated between the LPNP (the joint Liberals and Nationals ticket); the
Christian Democrats; and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers. This was the
recommended first three preferences for those who followed the LPNP HTV card,
and equates to 32.7 per cent HTV correspondence by LPNP voters. In stark contrast,
only 1.4 per cent of ALP voters followed their party’s HTV to the third
preference (1: ALP; 2: GRN; 3: Renewable Energy Party (REP));[88]
although it is impossible to know whether voters who allocated certain
preference patterns were following the HTV card, or whether the HTV card
reflected the voters’ natural preferences.
Figure A1: New South Wales voters’
first three preferences
NSW elected two Senators from
minor parties: the Liberal Democrats (LDP) and One Nation (ON). The preference
flows to and from these two parties are set out in Table A2 and Table A3 below.
Both have very different preference flows. The LPNP make up almost 80 per cent
of first preferences of the votes that had the LDP as second preference.
Whereas ON second preference votes came almost equally from ALP and LPNP first
preferences, almost half of the preferences from the LDP went to the LPNP as
second preferences. In neither of these cases did the ALP, LPNP or LDP HTV cards
recommend those preference orders.
Table A2: Preferences to and
from the Liberal Democrats (LDP) in New South Wales
| Party |
First preference, LDP second preference |
Second preference, LDP first preference |
| |
Counts |
% |
Counts |
% |
| LPNP |
210 030 |
79.07 |
59 867 |
44.96 |
| ALP |
25 414 |
9.57 |
10 296 |
7.73 |
| CDP |
4 992 |
1.88 |
2 402 |
1.80 |
| ON |
3 728 |
1.40 |
4 416 |
3.32 |
| ASP |
3 444 |
1.30 |
5 138 |
3.86 |
| FFP |
3 278 |
1.23 |
7 096 |
5.33 |
| GRN |
2 817 |
1.06 |
3 305 |
2.48 |
| DLP |
2 579 |
0.97 |
5 112 |
3.84 |
| NMP |
2 231 |
0.84 |
4 399 |
3.30 |
| SUN |
1 735 |
0.65 |
3 714 |
2.79 |
| DHJP |
380 |
0.14 |
1 881 |
1.41 |
| FLUX |
317 |
0.12 |
1 737 |
1.30 |
| VEP |
206 |
0.08 |
1 461 |
1.10 |
Table A3: Preferences to and
from One Nation (ON) in New South Wales
| Party |
First preference, ON second preference |
Second preference, ON first preference |
| |
Counts |
% |
Counts |
% |
| ALP |
74 329 |
35.91 |
18 839 |
10.79 |
| LPNP |
71 835 |
34.7 |
18 349 |
10.51 |
| ASP |
12 593 |
6.08 |
13 323 |
7.63 |
| DHJP |
6 992 |
3.38 |
19 319 |
11.06 |
| ALA |
6 831 |
3.30 |
7 003 |
4.01 |
| LDP |
4 416 |
2.13 |
3 728 |
2.13 |
| CDP |
4 382 |
2.12 |
4 087 |
2.34 |
| JLN |
4 301 |
2.08 |
14 020 |
8.03 |
| XEN |
3 900 |
1.88 |
4 186 |
2.40 |
| AJP |
1 785 |
0.86 |
5 736 |
3.28 |
| GRN |
1 703 |
0.82 |
2 540 |
1.45 |
| FFP |
1 678 |
0.81 |
4 696 |
2.69 |
| AMEP |
1 186 |
0.57 |
2 835 |
1.62 |
| RUA |
1 107 |
0.53 |
8 317 |
4.76 |
| SUN |
985 |
0.48 |
2 993 |
1.71 |
| NMP |
806 |
0.39 |
2 232 |
1.28 |
| ASXP |
751 |
0.36 |
4 041 |
2.31 |
| VEP |
722 |
0.35 |
1 856 |
1.06 |
| KAP |
714 |
0.34 |
3 985 |
2.28 |
| ADVP |
621 |
0.3 |
5 076 |
2.91 |
| HMP |
600 |
0.29 |
3 526 |
2.02 |
| PUP |
316 |
0.15 |
2 343 |
1.34 |
| DRF |
276 |
0.13 |
2 150 |
1.23 |
Victoria
The Victorian Senate election is notable mainly for the
election to the Senate of Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party (DHJP) candidate Derryn
Hinch. It is clear from Figure A2 that DHJP received reasonably strong votes in
first, second and third preference positions. While the DHJP did not direct
preferences on its HTV,[89]
it received the first column on the Victorian Senate ballot paper; and 3.8 per
cent of the DHJP votes were ‘donkey votes’, in that voters filled out the first
three groups on the ballot paper in order (1: DHJP; 2: Group B; 3: AJP).[90]
Figure A2: Victorian voters’
first three preferences
The Liberals and Nationals again got reasonably strong correspondence
with their HTV card, with 43.5 per cent of LPNP voters following the HTV card
for the first three preferences (1: LPNP; 2: Family First; 3: Australian
Christians).
Almost as many ALP voters gave their second preference to
the Greens (16.7 per cent) as followed the ALP’s HTV card (19.5 per cent) (1: ALP;
2: Australian Sex Party; 3: DHJP).
While the DHJP received strong preferencing from voters of
both of the major parties—and there was also strong preferencing from
the DHJP to the major parties—it was more strongly associated with the
ALP than the LPNP. There were also reasonably high amounts of preferencing from
DHJP voters to the Animal Justice Party, but relatively little to the Greens (see
Table A4).
Table A4: Preferences to and
from Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party (DHJP) in Victoria
| Party |
First preference, DHJP second preference |
Second preference, DHJP first preference |
| |
Counts |
% |
Counts |
% |
| ALP |
106 176 |
45.54 |
37 760 |
19.35 |
| LPNP |
75 719 |
32.48 |
28 338 |
14.52 |
| ON |
11 685 |
5.01 |
15 050 |
7.71 |
| AJP |
6 734 |
2.89 |
23 647 |
12.12 |
| XEN |
6 083 |
2.61 |
9 321 |
4.78 |
| GRN |
5 332 |
2.29 |
5 138 |
2.63 |
| LDP |
3 020 |
1.30 |
3 490 |
1.79 |
| ALA |
2 633 |
1.13 |
1 505 |
0.77 |
| JLN |
2 150 |
0.92 |
11 229 |
5.75 |
| ASXP |
1 817 |
0.78 |
5 289 |
2.71 |
| ASP |
1 651 |
0.71 |
2 393 |
1.23 |
| AMEP |
1 413 |
0.61 |
2 301 |
1.18 |
| FFP |
1 105 |
0.47 |
5 956 |
3.05 |
| SPP |
742 |
0.32 |
2 947 |
1.51 |
| AUC |
695 |
0.30 |
2 421 |
1.24 |
| NMP |
616 |
0.26 |
2 995 |
1.53 |
| AEQ |
517 |
0.22 |
2 737 |
1.40 |
| PIR |
481 |
0.21 |
2 310 |
1.18 |
| PUP |
438 |
0.19 |
2 911 |
1.49 |
| Group B |
426 |
0.18 |
8 861 |
4.54 |
| VEP |
349 |
0.15 |
1 958 |
1.00 |
Queensland
The LNP in Queensland managed to receive 23.0 per cent correspondence
with its HTV card, allocating its second preference to Family First (FFP) and third
to the Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group/CDP). The ALP had 13.7 per
cent correspondence with its HTV recommendation of second preference to the
Greens and third to the Australian Sex Party/Marijuana (Hemp) Party (ASXP/HEMP)
joint ticket.[91]
Figure A3: Queensland voters’
first three preferences
Queensland was the only state
that elected two ON candidates to the Senate. As can be seen in Figure A3, ON
polled reasonably well in terms of first, second and third preferences coming
from voters from a variety of other parties.[92]
Over a third of the votes for ON as a second preference came from those who put
the LNP first; however, only one of the parties that ON voters preferenced
second received as much as 10 per cent of the ON preferences, and that party,
the Australian Liberty Alliance (ALA) was second on the ON HTV card (see Table
A5).
Table A5: Preferences to and
from One Nation (ON) in Queensland
| Party |
First preference, ON second preference |
Second preference, ON first preference |
| |
Counts |
% |
Counts |
% |
| LNP |
58 815 |
36.28 |
22 795 |
9.95 |
| ALP |
38 907 |
24.00 |
17 591 |
7.68 |
| ALA |
12 916 |
7.97 |
23 728 |
10.36 |
| KAP |
8 515 |
5.25 |
19 212 |
8.39 |
| GLT |
5 920 |
3.65 |
17 714 |
7.73 |
| FFP |
4 617 |
2.85 |
15 112 |
6.60 |
| ASP |
4 519 |
2.79 |
12 919 |
5.64 |
| XEN |
4 048 |
2.50 |
5 522 |
2.41 |
| DHJP |
3 310 |
2.04 |
12 285 |
5.36 |
| LDP |
3 206 |
1.98 |
4 170 |
1.82 |
| ASXP/HEMP |
2 764 |
1.70 |
8 714 |
3.80 |
| GRN |
2 315 |
1.43 |
5 101 |
2.23 |
| JLN |
1 929 |
1.19 |
12 401 |
5.41 |
| DLP |
1 314 |
0.81 |
2 339 |
1.02 |
| AJP |
1 240 |
0.76 |
3 929 |
1.72 |
| DRF |
1 075 |
0.66 |
4 367 |
1.91 |
| PUP |
941 |
0.58 |
7 028 |
3.07 |
| AEQ |
914 |
0.56 |
3 425 |
1.50 |
| RUA |
850 |
0.52 |
7 327 |
3.20 |
| ADVP |
453 |
0.28 |
3 042 |
1.33 |
South
Australia
South Australian Senate preferencing at the 2016 election
was characterised by the strong performance of the Nick Xenophon Team (XEN) in
both first and later preferences, and the Family First Party (FFP),
particularly in terms of second preferences.
The Liberal Party (LP) in South Australia fared particularly
poorly in terms of correspondence with its HTV card compared to other states,
with only 12.6 per cent of LP voters following its recommended preferencing (1:
LP; 2: FFP; 3: LDP). In contrast, 15.4 per cent of Labor voters followed
the Labor HTV card (1: ALP, 2: GRN; 3: AJP).[93]
Figure A4: South Australian voters’ first three
preferences
Both FFP and XEN are minor parties with strong levels of
support in South Australia. However, the two parties show different patterns of
preferencing from their voters.
Over three-quarters of the
votes that came to FFP as a second preference came from voters who had given
their first preference to the LP, however less than 20 per cent of those who
gave their first preference to FFP gave their second to the LP. Family First
voters were less consistent in their preferencing, with almost a third of their
preferences going to the Christian Democrats and similar proportions going to
the ALP, XEN and ON.
Table A6: Preferences to and from Family First (FFP) in South
Australia
| Party |
First preference, FFP second preference |
Second preference, FFP first preference |
| |
Counts |
% |
Counts |
% |
| LP |
141 894 |
77.26 |
4 344 |
17.5 |
| ALP |
17 426 |
9.49 |
1 809 |
7.29 |
| XEN |
12 423 |
6.76 |
2 440 |
9.83 |
| ON |
4 150 |
2.26 |
1 791 |
7.22 |
| GRN |
1 882 |
1.02 |
1 336 |
5.38 |
| CDP |
1 368 |
0.74 |
7 779 |
31.35 |
| LDP |
1 008 |
0.55 |
573 |
2.31 |
| ASP |
783 |
0.43 |
504 |
2.03 |
| ASXP/HEMP |
594 |
0.32 |
535 |
2.16 |
| AJP |
511 |
0.28 |
724 |
2.92 |
| AEQ |
350 |
0.19 |
831 |
3.35 |
Nick Xenophon Team voters were
much more strongly associated with the major parties. Over four-fifths of the
voters who put XEN second gave their first preference to either the ALP or LP,
and were about equally split between them. Those who voted 1 XEN were more
divided, with about one quarter each voting ALP or LP second. In terms of
ideological groupings, slightly more XEN voters gave their second preference to
the ALP and left-of-centre parties (GRN) than to the LP and right-of-centre
parties (ON and FFP). This suggests that XEN does occupy a centrist position in
the minds of voters, but leans slightly to the left.
Table A7: Senate preferences to and from Nick Xenophon
Team (XEN) in South Australia
| Party |
First preference, XEN second preference |
Second preference, XEN first preference |
|
Counts |
% |
Counts |
% |
| ALP |
70 757 |
43.27 |
58 019 |
28.37 |
| LP |
67 269 |
41.13 |
49 039 |
23.98 |
| GRN |
11 967 |
7.32 |
28 312 |
13.84 |
| ON |
5 100 |
3.12 |
14 978 |
7.32 |
| FFP |
2 440 |
1.49 |
12 423 |
6.07 |
| LDP |
905 |
0.55 |
3 201 |
1.57 |
| ASXP/HEMP |
763 |
0.47 |
2 938 |
1.44 |
| AJP |
660 |
0.40 |
3 463 |
1.69 |
| ASP |
641 |
0.39 |
2 383 |
1.17 |
| AMEP |
583 |
0.36 |
3 242 |
1.59 |
| MAP |
362 |
0.22 |
4 064 |
1.99 |
| DHJP |
310 |
0.19 |
4 423 |
2.16 |
| CYC |
257 |
0.16 |
2 236 |
1.09 |
| AEQ |
223 |
0.14 |
2 532 |
1.24 |
| VEP |
209 |
0.13 |
2 693 |
1.32 |
Western
Australia
The ALP received 19.0 per cent correspondence with its HTV
recommended preferencing (1: ALP; 2: GRN; 3: ASXP/HEMP), and the LP
received 36.9 per cent HTV correspondence with its preferencing (1: LP;
2: NP; 3: Australian Christians (AUC)).[94]
The strong Liberal preferencing largely accounts for the
significant representation of AUC as the most popular third preference in
Western Australia. Also of note is that the Liberals and Nationals did not run
joint tickets in the WA Senate election—although there are strong preference flows
between the two parties, with 89 per cent of Nationals second preference votes
coming from the Liberals.
Figure A5: Western Australian voters’ first three
preferences
One of the four seats ON won was in WA, which occurred at
the very end of the count of the votes through preferences from a primary vote
of 3.99 per cent (or 0.5 quotas). One Nation received reasonably strong
preferencing from both LP and ALP voters, with roughly a third of its second
preference votes coming from the LP and one quarter from the ALP.
Preferences from ON voters were much less tightly clustered,
with only the LP and the Sex Party (ASXP)/HEMP joint ticket receiving more than
10 per cent of ON voters’ second preferences. Small parties—like the Shooters,
Fishers and Farmers Party; Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party; Rise Up Australia; and
the Australian Liberty Alliance—did relatively well in terms of preferences
from ON voters.
Table A8: Senate preferences to and from One Nation (ON) in
Western Australia
| Party |
First preference, ON second preference |
Second preference, ON first preference |
|
Counts |
% |
Counts |
% |
| LP |
20 176 |
35.82 |
6 550 |
12.46 |
| ALP |
15 488 |
27.50 |
5 008 |
9.53 |
| ALA |
3 114 |
5.53 |
2 816 |
5.36 |
| ASP |
2 864 |
5.08 |
4 036 |
7.68 |
| ASXP/HEMP |
2 444 |
4.34 |
5 343 |
10.17 |
| DHJP |
1 813 |
3.22 |
4 563 |
8.68 |
| GRN |
1 653 |
2.93 |
2 225 |
4.23 |
| NP |
1 481 |
2.63 |
1 756 |
3.34 |
| XEN |
1 433 |
2.54 |
1 232 |
2.34 |
| DLP |
803 |
1.43 |
846 |
1.61 |
| AJP |
718 |
1.27 |
1 519 |
2.89 |
| RUA |
706 |
1.25 |
4 407 |
8.39 |
| PUP |
580 |
1.03 |
1 860 |
3.54 |
| LDP |
575 |
1.02 |
593 |
1.13 |
| AFN |
460 |
0.82 |
2 353 |
4.48 |
| FFP |
397 |
0.70 |
1 986 |
3.78 |
| AUC |
357 |
0.63 |
761 |
1.45 |
| MAP |
265 |
0.47 |
745 |
1.42 |
| NMP |
254 |
0.45 |
1 019 |
1.94 |
| REP |
205 |
0.36 |
768 |
1.46 |
Tasmania
Tasmania elected one senator from the Jacqui Lambie Network
(JLN) and, as Figure A6 and Table A9 show, JLN had both a reasonably strong
primary vote and relatively strong second and third preferences from a variety
of different parties. It is notable, however, that almost half of the
preferences to the JLN came from the ALP, whereas roughly equal numbers of JLN
preferences went to the ALP and ON.
The strong ALP preferencing for JLN may account for some of
the low correspondence of ALP voters with the ALP HTV card (only 6.3 per cent),
which put JLN as third preference behind the Greens as second. Correspondence
with the Liberal HTV was better, but also relatively low (at 13.2 per cent).
The Liberal HTV card preferenced the CDP and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party
(ASP).[95]
Another effect may be the large ALP below-the-line vote for Lisa Singh.
Figure A6: Tasmanian voters’
first three preferences
Table A9: Preferences to and from the Jacqui Lambie
Network (JLN) in Tasmania
| Party |
First preference, JLN second preference |
Second preference, JLN first preference |
| |
Counts |
% |
Counts |
% |
| ALP |
11 897 |
46.39 |
3 354 |
20.44 |
| LP |
7 597 |
29.63 |
1 606 |
9.79 |
| ON |
2 238 |
8.73 |
3 542 |
21.58 |
| GRN |
955 |
3.72 |
780 |
4.75 |
| XEN |
694 |
2.71 |
1 600 |
9.75 |
| ASP |
357 |
1.39 |
962 |
5.86 |
| DHJP |
286 |
1.12 |
1 044 |
6.36 |
| ASXP/HEMP |
269 |
1.05 |
353 |
2.15 |
| PUP |
223 |
0.87 |
501 |
3.05 |
| ARF |
204 |
0.80 |
463 |
2.82 |
| FFP |
179 |
0.70 |
352 |
2.14 |
| LDP |
168 |
0.66 |
210 |
1.28 |
| AJP |
165 |
0.64 |
420 |
2.56 |
| ALA |
112 |
0.44 |
230 |
1.40 |
| REP |
95 |
0.37 |
358 |
2.18 |
Appendix B:
Political party abbreviations
| Abbreviation |
State |
Registered Party
Abbreviation |
Party Name |
| AAPP |
NSW |
Antipaedophile Party |
Australian Antipaedophile Party |
| ADVP |
VIC |
Veterans Party |
Australian Defence Veterans Party |
| AEQ |
VIC |
Marriage Equality |
Australian Equality Party (Marriage) |
| AFN |
NSW |
Australia First Party |
Australia First Party (NSW) Incorporated |
| AIN |
QLD |
|
Australian Independents |
| AJP |
VIC |
AJP |
Animal Justice Party |
| ALA |
VIC |
ALA |
Australian Liberty Alliance |
| ALP |
ACT |
Australian Labor Party |
Australian Labor Party (ACT Branch) |
| ALP |
NSW |
Labor |
Australian Labor Party (N.S.W. Branch) |
| ALP |
NT |
A.L.P. |
Australian Labor Party (Northern Territory)
Branch |
| ALP |
QLD |
Australian Labor Party |
Australian Labor Party (State of
Queensland) |
| ALP |
SA |
Australian Labor Party |
Australian Labor Party (South Australian
Branch) |
| ALP |
TAS |
Australian Labor Party |
Australian Labor Party (Tasmanian Branch) |
| ALP |
VIC |
Australian Labor Party |
Australian Labor Party (Victorian Branch) |
| ALP |
WA |
Australian Labor Party |
Australian Labor Party (WA Branch) |
| AMEP |
QLD |
AMEP |
Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party |
| APP |
SA |
|
Australian Protectionist Party |
| ARF |
TAS |
|
Australian Recreational Fishers Party |
| ARTS |
NSW |
TAP |
The Arts Party |
| ASP |
NSW |
Shooters, Fishers and Farmers |
Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party |
| ASXP |
VIC |
ASXP |
Australian Sex Party |
| ASXP |
VIC |
Sex Party |
Australian Sex Party |
| ASXP/HEMPSXHM |
NAT |
|
Sex Party/HEMP |
| ASXP/HEMPSXHM |
QLD |
|
Australian Sex Party/Marijuana (HEMP) Party |
| ASXP/HEMPSXHM |
SA |
|
Marijuana (HEMP) Party/Australian Sex Party |
| AUC |
WA |
|
Australian Christians |
| AUP |
NSW |
The Progressives |
Australian Progressives |
| BTA |
ACT |
|
Bullet Train For Australia |
| CDP |
NSW |
Christian Democratic Party |
Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile
Group) |
| CEC |
VIC |
Citizens Electoral Council |
Citizens Electoral Council of Australia |
| CLP |
NT |
Country Liberals (NT) |
Country Liberals (Northern Territory) |
| CM |
NSW |
|
CountryMinded |
| CRNT |
QLD |
|
Consumer Rights & No-Tolls |
| CYA |
VIC |
|
Australian Country Party |
| CYC |
NSW |
|
Australian Cyclists Party |
| DEM |
SA |
Democrats |
Australian Democrats |
| DHJP |
VIC |
Hinch |
Derryn Hinch's Justice Party |
| DLP |
NSW |
DLP Democratic Labour |
Democratic Labour Party (DLP) |
| DRF |
VIC |
Drug Law Reform |
Drug Law Reform Australia |
| FFP |
SA |
Family First |
Family First Party |
| FLUX |
NSW |
Flux |
VOTEFLUX.ORG | Upgrade Democracy! |
| FNPP |
NT |
AFNPP |
Australia's First Nations Political Party |
| FTCY |
NAT |
|
Science Party/Cyclists Party |
| FTCY |
NSW |
|
Science Party/Cyclists Party |
| FTCY |
VIC |
|
Science Party / Cyclists Party |
| FUT |
NSW |
|
Science Party |
| GLT |
QLD |
|
Glenn Lazarus Team |
| GRN |
ACT |
The Greens |
Australian Greens |
| GRN |
QLD |
The Greens |
Queensland Greens |
| GRN |
WA |
The Greens (WA) |
The Greens (WA) Inc |
| HMP |
NSW |
Marijuana (HEMP) Party |
Help End Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP) Party |
| JLN |
TAS |
JLN |
Jacqui Lambie Network |
| JMP |
VIC |
MFP |
John Madigan's Manufacturing and Farming
Party |
| KAP |
QLD |
|
Katter's Australian Party |
| LDP |
NSW |
Liberal Democrats |
Liberal Democratic Party |
| LNP |
QLD |
LNP |
Liberal National Party of Queensland |
| LP |
ACT |
Liberal |
Liberal Party of Australia |
| LP |
ACT |
Liberal |
Liberal Party of Australia - ACT Division |
| LP |
NSW |
Liberal |
Liberal Party of Australia, NSW Division |
| LP |
SA |
Liberal |
Liberal Party of Australia (S.A. Division) |
| LP |
TAS |
Liberal |
Liberal Party of Australia - Tasmanian
Division |
| LP |
VIC |
Liberal |
Liberal Party of Australia (Victorian
Division) |
| LP |
WA |
Liberal |
Liberal Party (W.A. Division) Inc |
| LPNP |
NAT |
|
Liberal/Nationals |
| LPNP |
NSW |
|
Liberal & Nationals |
| LPNP |
VIC |
|
Liberal/The Nationals |
| MAP |
QLD |
Mature Australia |
Mature Australia Party |
| NCP |
NSW |
|
Non-Custodial Parents Party (Equal
Parenting) |
| NMP |
VIC |
HAP |
Health Australia Party |
| NP |
ACT |
The Nationals |
National Party of Australia |
| NP |
NSW |
The Nationals |
National Party of Australia - N.S.W. |
| NP |
SA |
National Party |
National Party of Australia (S.A.) Inc. |
| NP |
VIC |
The Nationals |
National Party of Australia - Victoria |
| NP |
WA |
The Nationals |
National Party of Australia (WA) Inc |
| ODR |
NSW |
Stop The Greens |
Outdoor Recreation Party (Stop The Greens) |
| ON |
QLD |
|
Pauline Hanson's One Nation |
| PIR |
NSW |
Pirate Party |
Pirate Party Australia |
| PUP |
QLD |
|
Palmer United Party |
| REP |
NSW |
|
Renewable Energy Party |
| RUA |
VIC |
RUA |
Rise Up Australia Party |
| SAL |
NSW |
|
Socialist Alliance |
| SEP |
NSW |
|
Socialist Equality Party |
| SMK |
NSW |
Smokers Rights |
Smokers Rights Party |
| SOL |
NSW |
|
Online Direct Democracy - (Empowering the
People!) |
| SPA |
VIC |
|
Secular Party of Australia |
| SPP |
NSW |
Sustainable Australia |
#Sustainable Australia |
| SPRT |
WA |
Sports |
Australian Sports Party |
| SUN |
NSW |
SUPA |
Seniors United Party of Australia |
| SXHM |
NT |
|
Marijuana (HEMP) Party/Australian Sex Party |
| SXHM |
WA |
|
Marijuana (HEMP) Party/Australian Sex Party |
| SXHMASXP/HEMP |
TAS |
|
Australian Sex Party/Marijuana (HEMP) Party |
| UNP |
QLD |
|
Uniting Australia Party |
| VCE |
QLD |
Australian Voice |
Australian Voice Party |
| VEP |
NSW |
VEP |
Voluntary Euthanasia Party |
| XEN |
SA |
|
Nick Xenophon Team |
Source: AEC[96]
[1]. P Norris, ‘Choosing
electoral systems: Proportional, majoritarian and mixed systems’, International
Journal of Political Science, 18(3), July 1997, pp. 297–312.
[2]. DM Farrell
and I McAllister, The Australian electoral system: Origins, variations and
consequences, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2006.
[3]. The number of
seats is referred to as the ‘district magnitude’ by those who study electoral
systems.
[4]. The
requirement to put full preferences on the Senate ballot paper actual preceded
the move to STV by 14 years.
[5]. Australian
Electoral Commission, ‘Informality (%)
House of Representatives and Senate’, Australian Electoral Commission
website.
[6]. Joint Select
Committee on Electoral Reform, First Report, Australian Government
Publishing Service, Canberra, September 1983.
[7]. Ibid., p. 64.
[8]. Commonwealth
Electoral Legislation Amendment Act 1983.
[9]. M Maley, ‘Senate electoral
reform’, Australian Public Law, blog, 29 September 2015.
[10]. Ibid.
[11]. J Lundell and
ID Hill, ‘Notes
on the Droop Quota’, Voting Matters, 24, October 2007, pp. 3–6.
[12]. The two
territories elected two senators, each with terms tied to the House of
Representatives parliamentary term, and so the quota for the territory senators
does not change at a double dissolution election and is always one third of the
vote.
[13]. The CEA
also allows multiple parties to combine and run as a single group on the Senate
ballot paper. The Liberal and National parties often run as a single group in
Senate elections.
[14]. AEC, ‘First
preferences by candidate – Vic’, Virtual Tally Room – 2004 Federal
Election, AEC website, 9 November 2005.
[15]. B
Brown, Outrageous
Senate outcome – Brown, media release, 3 November 2004.
[16]. E Colman, ‘Green
with frustration over secret preference deals’, Weekend Australian,
6 November 2004, p. 21.
[17]. A Green, ‘Reform
is needed of the Senate voting system run by party bosses’, The Sydney
Morning Herald, 29 October 2004, p. 17.
[18]. B
Brown, ‘Second
reading speech: Senate Voters’ Choice (Preference Allocation) Bill 2004’,
Senate, Debates, 9 December 2004, p. 4.
[19]. AEC,
‘First
preferences by candidate – Vic’, Virtual Tally Room – 2010 Federal Election,
AEC website. 15 September 2010.
[20]. Dropulich was
not successful in the 2014 re-run of the WA Senate election so ultimately was
not elected to the Senate.
[21]. M
Maley, op. cit.
[22]. M Ronaldson
(Special Minister of State), Ministerial
reference to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, media
release, 9 December 2013.
[23]. Joint
Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, Interim
report on the inquiry into the conduct of the 2013 federal election: Senate
voting practices, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, May 2014, p. v.
[24]. Ibid.
[25]. Ibid, p. vii.
[26]. M
Grattan, ‘Proposed
Senate voting reforms would curb micro parties’, The Conversation,
12 May 2014.
[27]. G
Gray, Gary
Gray endorses optional preferential voting in the Senate, media
release, 9 May 2014.
[28]. M Grattan, ‘Will
Senate voting reform end up in the too hard basket?’, The Conversation,
22 September 2015.
[29]. H Aston, ‘Brough’s
attach riles vote-wary crossbenchers’, The Sydney Morning Herald,
23 September 2016, p. 5.
[30]. P Coorey, ‘Early
poll threats as Senate reform looms’, Australian Financial Review, 3
February 2016, p. 3.
[31]. D Crowe and R
Lewis, ‘Greens
take aim at micro-party deals’, The Australian, 4 February 2016, p.
5.
[32]. Parliament of
Australia, ‘Commonwealth
Electoral Amendment Bill 2016 homepage’, Australian Parliament website.
[33]. P Hendy, ‘Consideration
in detail: Commonwealth electoral amendment Bill 2016’, House of
Representatives, Debates, 24 February 2016, p. 2116.
[34]. S Morrison, ‘Reference
to Committee: Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill 2016’, House of
Representatives, Debates, 22 February, 2016, p. 1570.
[35]. D Muller, Commonwealth
Electoral Amendment Bill 2016, Bills Digest, 96, 2015–16, Parliamentary
Library, Canberra, 1 March 2016.
[36]. Joint
Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, Advisory
Report on the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill 2016, Commonwealth
of Australia, Canberra, 2 March 2016.
[37]. Ibid., p. 67.
[38]. Ibid.
[39]. ‘Occasional
Note: Prorogation and a new session of Parliament’, Procedural Informal
Bulletin no. 303, Senate, Canberra, 23 March 2016.
[40]. ‘Crossbenchers
to launch High Court challenge to senator voting changes’, Sunday
Canberra Times, 20 March 2016, p. 5.
[41]. P Karp, ‘Senate
voting changes: David Leyonhjelm turn to crowdfunding to pay for legal
challenge’, Guardian, 24 March 2016.
[42]. P Wearne, ‘Labor
rejects legal bid’, West Australian, 21 March 2016, p. 14.
[43]. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCATrans/2016/85.html
[44]. Day
v Australian Electoral Officer for the State of South Australia & Anor [2016] HCA 20.
[45]. Votes exhaust
when the ballot paper has no more preferences that can be allocated to
candidates who are still in the count.
[46].
Ibid. at [37].
[47]. A Twomey, ‘Before
the High Court: Day v Australian Electoral Officer (SA): Senate Voting Reforms
under Challenge’, Sydney Law Review, 38, 231–41, p. 241.
[48]. Day v.
Australian Electoral Officer for the State of South Australia & Anor, op.cit.
[49]. See, for
example, DM Farrell, Electoral Systems: A Comparative Introduction, 2nd
edn, Pangrave Macmillan, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK, 2011.
[50]. None of the
specific variants of STV used for Senate elections have ever had an official
name, making a distinction between them somewhat difficult. No electoral
systems with the essential characteristics of the Senate voting system (either
pre- or post-2016) exist elsewhere in the world, meaning there is little in the
way of precedent. The main distinguishing characteristics of the system as it
operated between 1984 and 2014 was the use of GVTs, hence ‘the GVT system’.
Lacking a more correct alternative, this paper refers to the post-2016 Senate
voting system as the ‘new Senate voting system’.
[51]. DM Farrell
and I McAllister, ‘The
1983 change in surplus vote transfer procedures for the Australian Senate and
its consequence for the single transferable vote’, Australian Journal of
Political Science, 38(3), 2003, pp. 479–91.
[52]. The writ is
an order, under section 12 of the Constitution, issued by the Governor
of a state to hold an election for vacancies in the Senate and that nominates a
date at which the election must be declared and the writs returned. The return
of the writ is accompanied by a certification of the results of the election
and signifies the conclusion of the election under the CEA.
[53]. I Brightwell,
‘Can
we trust that our Senate votes were counted correctly?’, Crikey, 5
August 2016.
[54]. As it has for
recent Senate elections, the AEC has made the preferences recorded for each
formal vote in the 2016 Senate election available for download
on its website. This is sufficient detail for a third party to
independently verify the accuracy of the count.
[55]. Both the ACT
and Tasmania also tend to feature lower numbers of candidates and therefore a
less imposing ballot paper. The NT, which like those two jurisdictions has a
small population and a relatively small Senate ballot paper, also features much
higher rates of above-the-line voting—suggesting that it is Hare-Clark which is
responsible for the high rate of below-the-line voting, not just the size of
the ballot paper.
[56]. H Aston, ‘Tasmania
gives ALP factions a lesson’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 July
2016, p. 7
[57]. Joint
Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, Inquiry
into Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill 2016, 1 March 2016, p. 18.
[58]. K Bonham, ‘Senate
reform performance review part 1’, Dr Kevin Bonham, blog, 6 August 2016.
[59]. GJ Bukley, Submission
to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, Inquiry into the
Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill 2016, 29 February 2016.
[60]. B Day, ‘Second
Reading: Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill 2016’, Senate,
Debates, 16 March 2016, p. 2041–2086.
[61]. D O’Neill, ‘Second
Reading: Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill 2016’, Senate,
Debates, 16 March 2016, p. 2222.
[62]. AEC, Exhaustion:
Senate ballot paper study 2016, Senate Ballot Paper Study
papers, AEC, n.d.
[63]. R Day, ‘Written
submissions of Plaintiff’, Submission in Day v. Australian Electoral
Officer for the State of South Australia & Anor, [2016] HCA 20.
[64]. A Green, ‘How
voters reacted to the Senate’s new electoral system’, Antony Green’s
Election Blog, 11 October 2016.
[65]. K Bonham, ‘Senate
performance review part 1’, op.cit.
[66]. A Green, ‘How
voters reacted to the Senate’s new electoral system’, op. cit.
[67]. AEC, Exhaustion:
Senate ballot paper study 2016, op.cit.
[68]. J Ireland, ‘Labor
warns of voter “gerrymander”’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 22
February 2016, p. 9.
[69]. G Hutchens, ‘Reports
of confusing advice about new Australian Senate voting rules’, The
Guardian (online), 2 July 2016.
[70]. AEC, Submission
to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, Inquiry into the
conduct of the 2016 federal election and matters related thereto, 1
November 2016, p. 40.
[71]. Ibid.
[72]. ALP,
Dissenting report, Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, Advisory
Report on the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill 2016, Commonwealth
of Australia, Canberra, 2 March 2016.
[73]. H Aston, ‘Reforms
may give Coalition rare majority’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 17
February 2016, p. 5.
[74]. G Druery, Evidence
to Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, Inquiry into
Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill 2016, 1 March 2016.
[75]. Commonwealth
Electoral Act 1918, section 282.
[76]. Australia, Senate,
Re-counts
of Senate votes pursuant to section 282 of the Commonwealth Electoral
Act—Letters from the Australian Electoral Officers for New South Wales,
Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia,
Canberra, 30 August 2016.
[77]. B Shorten
(Leader of the Opposition), Transcript
of doorstop: Sydney, media release, 4 August 2016.
[78]. K Bonham, ‘Senate
performance review part 2’, Dr Kevin Bonham, 8 August 2016
[79]. See, for
example, G Druery, Evidence
to Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters Conduct of the 2013 federal
election and matters related thereto, 1 May 2014.
[80]. JSCEM, Interim
report on the inquiry into the conduct of the 2013 federal election: Senate
voting practices, op.cit.
[81]. L Rhiannon, ‘Second
reading speech: Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill 2016’, Senate, Debates,
2 March 2016, p. 1578. The Australian Greens did not lodge a dissenting
report to the JSCEM interim report.
[82]. K Bonham, ‘Senate
performance review part 1’, op.cit.
[83]. Essential
Research, The
Essential Report, 19 July 2016.
[84]. Ibid.
[85]. Essential
Research, The
Essential Report, 1 March 2016.
[86]. AEC, ‘Senate
downloads’, 2016 Federal Election Tally Room, AEC website.
[87]. This analysis
uses the voters’ expressed preferences, rather than preferences as counted. A
ballot paper that preferenced a minor party above a major party may have flowed
to that major party when the minor party candidate was excluded, or may have
elected the minor party candidate and therefore not counted against any of the
later preferences. At the time the voter casts their vote they do not know
which of these will be the case, and for any given vote it may be impossible to
determine which candidate it voted against once the count has run.
[88]. Australian
Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), ‘Senate
How to Votes – New South Wales’, Federal Election 2016, ABC website.
[89]. Derryn
Hinch’s Justice Party ran an open ticket, advising voters to ‘vote 2–6 your own
preference’ on its HTV card.
[90]. ABC, ‘Senate
How to Votes – Victoria’, Federal Election 2016, ABC website.
[91]. ABC, ‘Senate
How to Votes – Queensland’, Federal Election 2016, ABC website.
[92]. One of whom
was subsequently found to have been invalidly elected by the Court of Disputed
Returns due to holding dual citizenship. The replacement selected in a recount
chose not to sit as a One Nation senator.
[93]. ‘Senate
How to Votes - South Australia’, ABC Federal Election 2016 website.
[94]. ABC, ‘Senate
How to Votes - Western Australia’, Federal Election 2016, ABC website.
[95]. ‘Senate
How to Votes – Tasmania’, ABC Federal Election 2016 website.
[96]. AEC, ‘2016
Federal Election Political Parties’, 2016 Federal Election Tally Room, AEC
website.
For copyright reasons some linked items are only available to members of Parliament.
© Commonwealth of Australia
Creative Commons
In essence, you are free to copy and communicate this work in its current form for all non-commercial purposes, as long as you attribute the work to the author and abide by the other licence terms. The work cannot be adapted or modified in any way. Content from this publication should be attributed in the following way: Author(s), Title of publication, Series Name and No, Publisher, Date.
To the extent that copyright subsists in third party quotes it remains with the original owner and permission may be required to reuse the material.
Inquiries regarding the licence and any use of the publication are welcome to webmanager@aph.gov.au.
This work has been prepared to support the work of the Australian Parliament using information available at the time of production. The views expressed do not reflect an official position of the Parliamentary Library, nor do they constitute professional legal opinion.
Any concerns or complaints should be directed to the Parliamentary Librarian. Parliamentary Library staff are available to discuss the contents of publications with Senators and Members and their staff. To access this service, clients may contact the author or the Library‘s Central Enquiry Point for referral.