Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Reform) Bill 2024

The majority voted against an amendment introduced by Victorian Senator Lidia Thorpe (Independent), which means it failed. This amendment would have added the text below to the usual second reading motion, which is "that the bill be read a second time" (parliamentary jargon for agreeing with the main idea of the bill).

Amendment text

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate:

(a) the Senate notes that:

(i) the bill and the associated explanatory memorandum are together more than 400 pages long,

(ii) there has been limited parliamentary scrutiny of the more than 400 pages,

(iii) Australians expect the Senate, as the house of review, to consider legislation carefully,

(iv) in the midst of cost of living pressures, the Government is giving itself and other parties substantial increases in public funding instead of prioritising increased support to Australians who are doing it tough,

(v) the bill creates an unfair playing field, giving advantage to incumbents over new candidates by failing to give all candidates the same public funding for administrative support and failing to account for incumbent resources such as an office, staff, a vehicle and marketing budget whilst imposing a spending cap on candidates,

(vi) the bill provides disproportionate yearly administrative assistance funding to major political parties, and fails to account for any economies of scale,

(vii) the bill entrenches political party advantage over independent candidates by imposing a spending cap on individual seats while still permitting additional party advertising under a party's $90 million national cap,

(viii) the bill provisions particularly disadvantage independent candidates from diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, resulting in a parliamentary system and policy outcomes less representative of a wide range of the population; and

(b) the Senate calls on the Government to:

(i) undertake an assessment of realistic administrative compliance costs under the bill, and

(ii) place a cap on administrative assistance funding to political parties to accurately reflect administrative compliance costs".