The 2013 election result led to criticism of preference deals between the so called micro-parties which helped them get candidates over the line despite securing only a small number of primary votes. This system saw candidates from minor parties such as the Australian Sports Party and the Motoring Enthusiast Party gain seats in the Senate.

The Greens pushed for a democratic way to fix the Senate voting system leaving voters to decide their preferences and end the backroom party deals by abolishing Group Voting Tickets.The key difference is that under the Greens plan the voter will decide the allocation of preferences not party backroom deals.

New legislation under the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill would give voters greater control over where their preference votes end up in Senate elections. Will this change bring a true representation of the electorate, or just entrench the two party systems even further.

I think the Australian Muslim Party has a very big chance of getting a senator into the upper house at the next election. I think it will also draw a lot of votes from outside the Muslim communities. So don't be surprised if they get a lot more than a single senator into Parliament.

I think the age of the senate providing the checks and balances for the states of the Commonwealth is anachronistic given that Australia no longer exists as a nation but is now just a country structured around a congeries of ethnic groups which are becoming ever more segregated into spatial and political entities.

I'd like to see the Chinese establishing their own political party as well. I think the Chinese are in a position to become the principal political minority given that there are several million Chinese resident in Australia.

So in summary, these reforms may actually be the beginning of wider ethnic-based politics in Australia. We might eventually see the disappearance of the dominant two-party system and the introduction of continuous coalition governments in which the likes of the Australian Muslim Party joins with an Australian China Party to form a ruling coalition.

Opinion,

You going to learn Arabic as well as "Chinese"?

I think this Bill will help weed out most of those mad little political parties that were surely started with a joke! I will be happy to see this madness stamped out, and give voters more say in exactly who they want to elect.

Mr. Opinion, why not start the Opinion Party, and then you could stand for your fave anti-Chinese/anti-Muslim thoughts? Surely you could muster up more support for yourself than some of the other funny little Parties?

The new legislation makes politics a tad better than before, so I support the change.

However, I do not support the way and the context in which it was bullied through.

What happened essentially is that the government decided to banish certain senators which it hates and they are willing to use any convoluted scheme to achieve that objective. For them, passing this change so urgently at this time, was only a cog in their scheme rather than any genuine care for the autonomy of the voters.

As for the future, there will be somewhat fewer parties on the senate ballot papers, perhaps half, and this I expect, will assist a significant portion of the voters to number above the line, in some order or another (including donkey-order) all the parties except the big 3 dinosaurs.

The new legislation doesn't get rid of the voting above the line so preference deals will still be done.
voting should be all below the line with a minimum of consecutive numbers set.

Anyone who is not intelligent enough to vote with, say, 12 consecutive numbers shouldn't be voting.
That way I wouldn't need to number all the squares and could ignore the Greens entirely.