The Coalition and Labor collude to squeeze minor parties out

A major overhaul of electoral laws which will raise the barrier to entry for minor parties and limit early voting is set to pass the lower house after the Labor caucus decided to back it.

This month the Morrison government introduced four bills, including one which would require political parties to have 1500 rather than 500 members, and cracks down on party names. And it wants them passed ASAP. This morning Coalition senators moved to get them rammed through in this sitting.

But the bills have been met with outrage from both crossbench MPs and senators — and upstart parties. 

What the bills mean

If passed, the laws would usher in significant changes to how elections are held — some of which have been years in the making. Late last year the Coalition-dominated joint standing committee on electoral matters produced a review into the 2019 election, with recommendations that included controversial proposals to introduce voter ID laws and make preferential voting optional.

Although those recommendations — condemned by Labor at the time — aren’t reflected in the new bills, others have been taken up by the government.

The first bill streamlines postal voting rules and reduces pre-poll to 12 days before the election. Another broadens the offence of interfering with political liberty, a response to concerns about stalking and harassment of candidates. And there are provisions to crack down on people who vote multiple times.

But most controversial are the changes for minor parties. Parties now have a membership threshold of 1500, rather than the previous 500.

The good news for Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party is that the threshold doesn’t apply where a party has a member or senator. Hughes MP Craig Kelly’s announcement on Monday that he’d joined Palmer’s rogue outfit gets them over the line. But they leave more than 40 parties scrambling.

Another controversial element includes a rule that could see parties deregistered for having a name similar to another. Assistant Minister for Electoral Matters Ben Morton says it is to avoid voter confusion. 

There are two minor parties most clearly affected: one is the New Liberals, a socially progressive party whose name the Australian Electoral Commission ruled sufficiently distinct from the old Liberals, much to the government’s annoyance.

The other is the Liberal Democrats, conservative libertarians who are running former Queensland premier Campbell Newman as a Senate candidate. In 2013, the party’s former leader David Leyonhjelm ended up in the Senate, most likely because people confused the LDP with the Liberals. 

Both the New Liberals and the Liberal Democrats claim the bill is an attempt to shut them down.

Crossbench attack changes

The bills are likely to pass both houses of Parliament, after Labor threw its weight behind them. This morning Liberal Senator Anne Ruston moved to get the bills exempted from cut-off, which means they can be passed this parliamentary sitting.

Both the bills, and the government’s desperation to pass them, have been met with anger on the crossbench. The Greens and senators Rex Patrick and Jacqui Lambie opposed the motion. 

Lambie said she was “absolutely shattered” for minor parties, arguing the laws would lock out many regular people who weren’t represented by the main parties of ever being able to run for politics.

“No normal Australian is getting into Parliament,” she said. “There’s no chance in hell.”

Greens Senator Larissa Waters said it was an “absolute abomination” that the major parties were once again ganging up to entrench the two-party system.

“The government is proposing to ram through electoral bills … in a feeble attempt to shore up their grip on power,” she said.

The government’s attempt to push the bills through means they will be passed during a chaotic sitting period, where there are fewer MPs and senators around, and less chance of any politically distracting debate.

Lambie says it’s a sign the major parties are colluding to push these laws through and avoid any scrutiny.

“What they’re doing is disgusting, it’s undemocratic,” she said.