Liberal Democrat David Leyonhjelm wants to make voting voluntary for Australians.
Senator Leyonhjelm plans to move several amendments to the government's draft laws to change the way Australians vote for senators, including an amendment to introduce voluntary enrolment and voting.
If the Senate voting reforms are all about voters, as the government says, then voters should decide whether or not they want to vote at all, he says.
"The UK, the US, most of the rest of the world has non-compulsory voting - it's the normal situation for the world," he said.
"It's very, very unusual to have compulsory voting."
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Senator Leyonhjelm will also propose an overhaul of Senate election funding - cutting the budget by a quarter but extending funding to all candidates and not just those receiving more than four per cent of first preference votes.
Each vote would attract $1.95 in funding, instead of $2.60.
He will also seek to introduce optional preferential voting for the lower house.
"They are going to allow optional preferential voting in the Senate but they refuse to allow it in the House of Representatives - the situation is going to be rather ridiculous."
The draft laws, currently before the upper house, have been slammed by Labor and most crossbenchers as a "dirty deal" between the government, Greens and Nick Xenophon to push out minor parties and independents.
