‘Time to put a stop to Senate defections’

Senators who switch allegiances midterm, as Lidia Thorpe did, are delivering a ‘rebuff to the democracy’, an integrity expert says | HAVE YOUR SAY

Senator Lidia Thorpe left the Greens, on whose platform she won re-election in 2022 for a six-year term, to sit as an independent leading a ‘black sovereign movement’. Picture: Getty Images

Senators who switch political ­allegiances midterm, as Lidia Thorpe did a week ago, are delivering a “rebuff to the democratic system”, according to a leading integrity expert who is calling for reforms to curb the practice.

Centre for Public Integrity chair Anthony Whealy, a former NSW Supreme Court judge and former ICAC assistant commissioner, said the defection of senators was a complex problem but changes were needed to ensure the will of the people was not being defied.

The warning comes after Senator Thorpe announced she would leave the Greens, on whose platform she won re-election in 2022 for a six-year term, to sit as an independent in the upper house in order to lead a “black sovereign movement”.

 

“I think parliament itself needs to initiate reforms here, I think that they do,” Mr Whealy said. “The overriding concept should be that the will of the people should be respected.

“The fundamental aspect of democracy and elections is that the people are asked to vote ­essentially for people who belong to a party – except in the case perhaps of the teal independents,” he said. “And so by registering a vote for the party, the will of the people should prevail.

“Where a particular senator simply splits from their party but wants to remain in the Senate or House representing some particular point of view that may not be party policy then I think that’s a rebuff to the democratic system.”

In the past decade, there have been at least 12 defections in the upper house, where senators have abandoned their party to sit as an independent, start their own party or join another political party.

Examples include Jacqui Lambie who resigned from the Palmer United Party in 2014, Cory Bernardi who left the Liberal Party in 2017 to form the Australian Conservatives and Rex Patrick who left Centre Alliance in 2020.

Former Liberal attorney-­general George Brandis said the successful 1977 referendum, ­allowing political parties to fill casual Senate vacancies with someone else from within the party, had relevance to the debate over Senator Thorpe’s defection.

Mr Brandis said it created a “constitutional norm” under which the make-up of the Senate as elected should be retained. He said Senator Thorpe’s decision to abandon the Greens was a “cynical and egotistical act which is a blatant insult to the voters who voted, not for her, but for the Greens”.

“It was a cynical and egotistical act for Cory Bernardi to do what he did when he formed his own party,” Mr Brandis said.

“There’s no possibility that Cory Bernardi would have been elected as an independent senator from South Australia. He was only there because he carried the Liberal Party’s endorsement.

“It is a flagrant defiance of a democratic norm. As section 15 of the constitution implies, there is a constitutional norm that the ­political constitution of the Senate should be respected as that which the public chose at the preceding senate or half senate election.”

One elected Victorian Green, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the party ­membership was a “complete mixed bag” on the question of Senator Thorpe’s departure from the party less than a year into her six-year term. “Older members from organised left-wing traditions, where loyalty and collective action are tightly held principles, are livid and want her expelled from the party ... and younger members are generally quite forgiving of what Lidia has done,” the Greens insider said.

“A lot of those younger people quite like her ‘blow it up’ brand of radical politics.

“Nowhere is more divided than the Darebin branch, where they experienced Lidia as a state MP and have been divided on the question of “is Lidia a good party representative?” for a lot longer than the rest of the country.

“You’ll find in Darebin lots of fury, you know, ‘how dare she?’ from a lot of people who have been expecting something like this.”

Young constituents who spoke to The Australian near Senator Thorpe’s office on Smith Street in Collingwood on Tuesday generally supported her remaining in the Senate as an independent.

Zac Doukas, 21, said: “I think we elect the person and their views”, not the party.

Bronte Tarn-Weir, 34, backed Senator Thorpe and said she should remain in parliament even though she was elected on the Greens ticket. “I think it is important to have people like Lidia Thorpe represented in the parliament,” Ms Tarn-Weir said. “I would like to think people (choose) the person and their individual values.”

Collingwood resident Bronte Taro-Weir on Tuesday. Picture: Valeriu Campan

Eva Tsarhatsidis, 20, backed Senator Thorpe’s defection from the Greens and supported her remaining in the Senate as an independent for another five years. “I think she could go quite far as an independent,” she said.

Older members of the public were more sceptical of Senator Thorpe’s defection.

Greg Oddo, 57, said he believed she had deceived voters by defecting from the party that helped her get elected.

“I think it is misleading to the constituents that supported her. She represented herself as a Greens (candidate),” Mr Oddo said. “I think it let them down.”

He said he supported changing the Constitution to prevent senators defecting.