Posts Tagged ‘Voting’

Victorian Senate Voting for all those who are confused and tired, and also a bit radical on the quiet. (If you’re not from Victoria, look away now.)

Posted: June 22, 2016 in Political musings, Popular Culture et al
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ballotVoting in Australia’s Senate is notoriously confusing. Last time we saw all sorts of odd people elected on next to no initial support. So bizarre were the results last time that the Parliament even changed the voting system this time round.

But there are still a number of interesting opportunities for voting in the Senate this time, and some really horrid dangers too.

As we say, the voting system has changed. The simplest way to do your civic duty now is to vote for AT LEAST six groups ABOVE the line.

So … what to do with your precious vote?

Well, because the quota comes down to 7% in a double dissolution election (when we vote for ALL the Senate and ALL the House of Representatives at the same time) we can pretty much predict what’s going to happen.

The Greens are bound to win one Senate seat in Victoria, and Labor and the Coalition would normally split the others, but there is also a real chance one micro party will also manage to get a quota.

Micro parties have had a bad rap recently because of the “Preference Whisperer” at the last election getting all sorts of odd people elected. But they do bring focus onto important issues that often don’t get the attention they need, so frankly we would suggest you at least consider putting these micro parties in the order you like best and THEN next preference the Greens (to try and get a second Greens Senator elected, unless you happen to hate the Greens) and THEN Labor or the Liberal/National Coalition after that:

  • ARTS (a party set up to promote the Arts in Government)
  • DRUG LAW REFORM (favour decriminalising drugs)
  • MARRIAGE EQUALITY PARTY (self explanatory)
  • AUSTRALIAN PROGRESSIVES (generally good progressive policies)
  • RENEWABLE ENERGY PARTY (self explanatory)
  • SEX PARTY (against religion fiddling in politics and in favour of a relaxed attitude to sex, basically)
  • VOLUNTARY EUTHANASIA PARTY (self explanatory)
  • NICK XENEPHON TEAM (a centrist independent grouping based around the South Australian Senator Nick Xenephon)

And THEN, as we say, put the GREENS and THEN add EITHER THE ALP or THE LIBERALS after the Greens. (Ending up on one  of the major groupings means your preferences can’t become “exhausted”. And information on all the above parties can be found on Wikipedia.)

And then we strongly suggest you STOP numbering boxes! So you number a maximum of 1-10 boxes above the line, stopping at your ultimate preference between Labor and the Coalition.

Why stop there? Because most of the rest of the options are truly appalling in our honest view. And we don’t want any of them elected accidentally. So we would simply recommend, don’t number past 10 above the line.

However we strongly urge you to completely reject our advice if you see fit. It’s a secret ballot, and it’s your vote, so do as you like 🙂 Just please make sure you Vote! People died for that right, remember.

If you don’t want the Motoring Enthusiasts Party, the Sporting Party, some pro-gun guy from NSW and a few others running the country instead of the Government you THOUGHT you elected, then this is what you do.

Posted: September 9, 2013 in Political musings
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Democracy becomes a farce

Dear Australia: I frankly expect better and I insist. Do you agree?

Faced with an Upper House result in our election on Saturday which is clearly ludicrous, I append below a letter I just sent to The Age and the The Australian. I’ll let you know if either of them print it.

If you are Australian, and you agree me, then I suggest you make the letter your own, and send it to Tony Abbott, or someone.

Dear Sirs

The solution to the current farce in the Senate – with preference deals delivering seats to people who initially achieve miniscule popular votes – is not to ban minor parties, nor even yet their convoluted preference deals.

It is simply to remove the requirement for people to vote “exhaustively”, (to number all the boxes), and to make the change not just in the Senate but in both houses of Parliament.

It is obviously ridiculous and impractical, if an elector does not understand or does not wish to follow a pre-set preference flow, and therefore intends to vote “below the line”, to insist that they express a preference between 97 Senate candidates, as we had to in Victoria.

And it makes a mockery of democratic will for candidates that clearly have no popular support whatsoever to be gifted a major role in determining what legislation successfully wends its way through Parliament.

Just let us number as many boxes as we like, then stop.

And it is just as ridiculous, in the lower house, to force us all to ultimately transfer our vote to one of the major party candidates if we don’t want to. We should be entitled to transfer a preference just as far as we, the electors, decide, not to be forced to end up donating our vote to a party with which we fundamentally disagree, merely because they are the lesser of two evils. That is fundamentally un-democratic.

And if, as a result of such a change, a lower house candidate fails to achieve 50% +1 in a seat, then the solution is simple – have a re-run after a short period of reflection for local electors to consider their options.

The necessary change to the electoral legislation would take five minutes to write. And it will be much more sensible, and less disruptive to Australian traditions, than many of the other ideas you will hear mooted, such as making it prohibitively difficult or expensive to establish a political party, or getting rid of mandatory attendance at polling stations. (Note, not “mandatory voting”, which we do not have in Australia.)

I look forward to our zealously reformist Prime Minister-elect acting on my suggestions forthwith.

Your sincerely
Stephen Yolland

PS Dear Reader, if you do anything as a result of reading this, let me know.

Related articles

This person’s vote is worth the same as mine and yours

Posted: February 25, 2013 in Popular Culture et al
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This letter is from a country newspaper from the border-land between Victoria and New South Wales. I am reliably assured it is real.

Oh dearie me. It reminds me of when the British public were supposed to have rioted over the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, designed to correct the “drift”of Easter in the former Julian calendar. In fact, although it is a popular myth, such riots never occured, and were merely a fiction flowing from a politically acerbic painting of the time by Hogarth.

Sadly, no such neat excuse exists for this correspondent. Nor for the newspaper which published his letter.

Mr, Mrs or Ms Hill is apparently next applying for a job as economic adviser to House Republicans.

Mr, Mrs or Ms Hill is apparently next applying for a job as economic adviser to House Republicans.

You. Must. Vote.

Posted: October 18, 2012 in Political musings, Popular Culture et al
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Stewart Yolland

Thomas Stewart Yolland, died 1957, 1939-1945 Star, Africa Star, Pacific Star, Italy Star, 1939-45 King George medal. Vote for Yolland if you can’t think of any other reasons.

A message to all Americans. OK, I don’t care whether you vote for Obama or Romney or one of the 1% candidates (Whoa! He’s lying right there, fact check him, quick!) but I do care that you vote.

You see, Democracy is dead simple. Use it, or lose it.

This little video makes the point SO well. I really hope all Americans view it, and show their 18 year old kids and their 90 year old grandparents, and their neighbours. It’s too late to register to vote if you haven’t already (I believe, I think I have that right, all the way from Oz) but if you are registered then this little video charmingly and intelligently explains why you MUST vote.

You. Must. Vote.

Quite apart from the fact that my Dad spent six years on destroyers in WWII to defend our right to a free vote, and it killed him. So if you can’t think of any better reasons to vote, vote for my Dad’s sacrifice. And for all the others who sacrificed, and still do.

Please.

You believed in what you did.
And I believe in what you did.
But all we are left with are the yellow photographs.
They get more yellow with the years. Time eats them alive.
They rust, like life. Until all that is left is a shell,
ready to crumble at the lightest touch and disappear.
We never had the days at the football.
We never had Christmas.
We never had a shared pint.
We never had a quiet laugh in the garden at dawn.
You had the waves, and the torpedos, and the fear,
and the cigarettes, and the fear.
And I got the yellow photographs.
That’s the way of it.