I’ve been involved in politics for 48 years and until last month could not work out how the Greens conned the Coalition into supporting this bill. There is nothing surprising about a political party acting in its own interests, so I could understand the Coalition wanting to get rid of the micro-party senators and the Greens wanting to eliminate the competition for the balance of power. So rigging the voting system to eliminate the representatives of 24 per cent of Australians from the Senate made sense. What I could not understand was why the Coalition wanted to hand the balance of power over to the Greens, with their 9 per cent support, and thus make future governments, Coalition ones as well as Labor ones, hostage to them. It was amusing to listen to fierce opponents of the Safe Schools Coalition and “same-sex marriage” like Cory Bernardi attempt to justify handing the Greens, fierce supporters of both, the balance of power.

Now we have seen the news reports on a Greens-Coalition preference deals in lower house seats, the deal makes more political sense, but it is still a disgrace, and the Coalition remains idiotic for making future Coalition governments hostage to the Greens even if it picks up a few Reps seats in the process.

This reform is not about making the Senate represent the will of the people. It is about making micro-party preferences exhaust so they play no role in the final result.

The only applicable comment comes from the past and Paul Keating, who described similar obstructionists as unrepresentative swill and the only difference today, is even more so!?

Look, the sooner we get the electoral reforms done and these folk forced to face their employers and account for their obstructionist roles and electoral system rorts, the sooner the better!

Bring on the double D!
Rhrosty.

Compulsory preferential voting, like compulsory voting itself, is undemocratic. The Senate is always going to be a hinderance to democracy, no matter what they do with it. An 'upper' house is as archaic and as wrong as the House of Lords is. It's time to modify the whole system.

ttbn, there's nothing undemocratic about imposing a duty on citizens.

And when bad legislation is proposed, it is better they obstruct it than knowingly impose bad legislation on the country.

[Rhosty I'm surprised to see you also criticise their obstructions -I thought you'd know better]

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Chris C, the Greens didn't need to con the coalition into supporting the changes – it's the coalition who proposed them, and if anyone's been conned it's the Greens!

The Liberals would be the primary beneficiaries of these changes, as they'd be most likely to gain seats that would otherwise go to microparties.

Aidan is correct:

Imposing a duty on "citizens" who never consented to be citizens in the first place, is absolutely evil - but not undemocratic.

It comes down to a certain group of people forcibly imposing themselves on other people - but isn't this exactly what democracy is all about?

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As for replacing GVT with partial preferences above the line, I consider it a positive opportunity that gives people [slightly] more power to choose than before. Sadly, partial preferences will still be missing for the lower house.

Nothing stops people from marking 6 or more small parties above the line - it is much easier than voting below the line and I hope that this is what most of us will do!

Philip is a fan of proportional representation, which is very similar to what we get in the senate. It is obvious by the mess that is Tasmania that this is disastrous in its more pure form. It is just much as bad in our senate when preferential voting is added, so the result has no connection to what most people actually voted for.

A quick look at much of Europe shows how the deals behind closed doors with many competing groups in partial control of parliaments leads to bankruptcy, from really stupid projects getting funded, to buy some votes.

You can't have your purse half silk & half sow's ear, if you want one that functions. Good government will only follow a return to first past the post, & winner take all. Anything else just develops into a talkfest.