Family First senator Bob Day’s constitutional challenge to the new Senate voting system will return to court in April to determine whether the case will be heard by the full High Court bench.
After a brief directions hearing on Thursday, Senator Day told reporters he was pleased the case was progressing.
“I can’t praise the Chief Justice enough for giving me such a speedy hearing,” he said.
“Last week the Liberals, with Nick Xenophon and The Greens, rammed through legislation that took away voters’ rights.”
The government’s top lawyer, Solicitor-General Justin Gleeson, SC, said Senator Day’s case was “weak”, but agreed the matter should be settled “as soon as possible” ahead of the upcoming federal election.
The new voting laws, introduced last week after an overnight 40-hour debate in the upper house, are designed to restrict the number of micro-parties elected to the Senate through so-called ‘preference whispering’, which allows candidates to be elected despite low primary votes.
Under the new rules, voters in this year’s election will no longer have to number every box if they want to vote below the line.
Instead they are able to choose between numbering their first 12 preferences below the line, or up to six above the line.
Mr Day’s lawyer argued this created two distinct methods of Senate voting for the first time since federation and therefore violated section nine of the constitution. This section outlines Senate voting must be “uniform for all the States”.
Chief Justice Robert French, who presided over the hearing, said a sworn affidavit in support of the Senator’s case from election expert, psephologist Malcolm Mackerras was probably either inadmissible or irrelevant.
Senator Day told SBS he had accepted an offer from Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm to help pay his legal fees.
He said he did not expect a “particularly expensive case”.
But Senator Leyonhjelm has launched an online crowdfunding campaign to help finance the case with a target of $20,000. By 6.30pm Thursday evening, around $650 had been raised.
If Senator Day wins at the hearing in April the full High Court bench would likely hear the case in early May.
