http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/em/elect04/subs.htm

It speaks for itself. But I hope they would pay enough attention to realise that it should be ignored.

A couple of responses to Paul Murphy.

The exhausted vote in the NSW LC is high, but the system basically operates as a form of List PR with highest remainder method of determining the final vacancies. That was how it was before ticket voting was introduced in 1988, and how it worked under the new system in 2003. When electing 21 MLCs, you might as well use systems like D´Hondt rather than quota preferential voting. Sure, the last candidates got less than a quota, but they were the parties with the highest remaining votes. Under the previous ticket system, proportionality was completely distorted by preferences, hence parties elected with originally less than 1%.

I would not recommend the NSW LC system of no inter-party preferences for the Senate because there are only 6 vacancies to fill. Preferences have to play a bigger roll, so a minimum number of preferences are required.

To date, the only arguments put for minimum threshold have called for it to be set at 0.5 or 0.8 of the actual quota. In other words, an attempt to really cut minor parties. Any value set is arbitrary. I doubt these will get up. The National Party would not have won the last Queensland seat under such a system.

Setting a threshold is an arbitrary method stopping preference harvesting. I would go for higher deposit fees, tougher party registration rules and limiting preferences on group tickets as a way of achieving the same goal.

At the risk of sounding like chief trumpet-blower with the Melbourne Symphony, I wrote an article advocating a preference-above-the-line system a fortnight after the Federal election last year. Here's the link, http://home.iprimus.com.au/ltuffin/SHARP.html, and here's the crucial paragraph:

It's time to alter the Senate voting system to give voters more control of their preferences. Instead of the current option of voters simply lodging a single preference above the line, voters should be able to number all boxes above the line, and their preferences should be counted as if they had voted straight down the list of candidates for each party in the number ordered. The below-the-line option would still remain. With a simple change, voters could have much greater control over how they vote and could easily indicate where they wish their preferences to go. This change would minimise the ability of shady backroom deals to undermine the intentions of voters, since there would be no 'preference ticket' lodged with the Electoral Commission. Most importantly, it would go some way to alleviating the anger and disillusionment that many voters are feeling because of the way their preferences are being used to elect candidates with a very different political affiliation to the one they voted for.

There is a great confluence of minds on this one Ari. The system you propose has already been implemented for the NSW Legislative Council, which is why it is the main change being proposed.

But at the NSW Senate election, there were 78 below the line candidates and 29 groups. If compulosy preferential voting still applied, that would be 29 above the line preferences.

Maybe the Parliament will consider completely abolishing ticket voting, in which case allowing above the line preferences is the way to go, but I suspect it would have to be combined with optional preferences.

There are a number of options, some outlined in my article like limiting preferences on tickets.

But the key change that must be made is to provide voters an easy option to fill in their own preferences, an option which they are currently denied.

Elections are about measuring the will of the electorate. The current system fails that as it makes it very difficult for voters to do anything other than use the ticket votes.

Thanks Antony for opening up this important debate. It's tragic that you are now almost the only figure in the country capable of doing this - politicians often won't because they benefit, and those who do are accused of doing it for party gain, and most other figures are seen as so partisan their contributions on an issue like this are also discounted.

A minor point I would like to add was that the whole problem was made worse by the way booklets listing the group voting tickets were not made available at polling booths, at least in Victoria. I received a phone call from someone who had asked to see the booklet at her polling booth and was told by the staff they did not have it. I thought this was an exception, but around 1pm on polling day ran into a friend of mine who was second in charge for the AEC at one of the largest polling booths in the state. He was coming out for his first break since 7am (all of 10 minutes to run across the road and get lunch) and when I told him this he responded that he was pretty sure that they either didn't have the booklets at his booth, or would not be able to find them if asked.

Subsequent inquiries demonstrated that most other booths didn't have the booklets readily available. The AEC seems to have decided that their former role of ensuring the public is properly informed about the mechanisms of democracy is less important than cutting back on costs.

One minor correction - in 1998 Victoria was not the Democrats' highest vote, but their second, after South Australi.