NEW England MP Barnaby Joyce has renewed his push for parliamentary voting to be done remotely, after Parliament resumed on Monday.
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As MPs from across the country gathered for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began and others joined remotely, Mr Joyce said the pandemic was the perfect time to implement a remote parliamentary voting system.
"The issue that I think is really important is that we should go the full hog in making sure this parliament has capacity for people to effect their vote from outside of it," Mr Joyce told Parliament on Monday.
"If we believe in decentralisation then we believe in remote voting.
"If I can move millions of dollars, if I had it, from one account to another, surely I can press yes or no on a keyboard from Tamworth."
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Mr Joyce first began the push for remote parliamentary voting in July, telling the Leader: "I think it is essential that if we are thinking about working offline, that every politician makes themselves accountable and presentable to the Australian people,"
At the time, Parkes MP Mark Coulton said it was vital the votes would be secure, if they were done remotely.
"If you were going to have a vote that was binding, we would need to make sure we had security as to who was doing the voting," Mr Coulton said last month.
"We are doing a lot of things online at the moment and it isn't impossible.
"We certainly have the technology for it."
Mr Joyce told yesterday's Parliamentary sitting it was time to "make it happen and show Australia how we can be smarter about it".
"We can't have a parliament with this sort of set-up, with a few people in here and other people watching but not allowed to vote - it's just clumsy," he said.
"On both sides, we have got to say, 'let's do this properly.'
"I know the reason we don't do it that way is that we want the whips to have control of the vote.
"That's why we live in this twilight zone."