Constitutional law expert George Williams discusses the Senate election result and the need for reform to the electoral system so the result better reflects the voters’ intentions.
buggery.org
Better than a poke in the eye with a wet fish
Tagged with elections …
Where your Sex Party vote went
They seem so bright, youthful and groovy, with progressive policies like legalising same-sex marriage and marijuana, so it’s no wonder lots of people, especially gay men and lesbians, have decided to give the Australian Sex Party their vote this year. But if you’re one of those who did, you might be a bit surprised to know where your vote ended up.
In three states, above-the-line votes from the Sex Party were instrumental in getting candidates from right-wing microparties elected: the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party in Victoria, the Liberal Democratic Party in NSW, and the Australian Sports Party in WA were the ultimate recipients of the Sex Party’s votes in those states.
Elsewhere, votes for the Sex Party ultimately ended up with the Liberal Party (in Tasmania), the ALP (in NT), Nick Xenophon (in SA) and the Greens (in SA, Queensland and the ACT). Sex Party votes did help reelect SA Greens Senator Sarah Hanson Young.
Many of the people I have met who supported the Sex Party would consider themselves vaguely left-wing, progressive voters. Most of those would be surprised to discover where their Senate vote ended up.
The full details of how Sex Party Senate votes were distributed in each state are below (these numbers are progressive, as the count is still proceeding, and only include above-the-line votes).
I doubt many of those who voted for the Sex Party would be happy to know their vote ended up electing a gun nut (in NSW), a car nut (in Vic) or sports nut (nobody seems to know what the Australian Sports Party’s policies are, except they seem to like sport) in WA. The fact that they did shows the urgent need for reform of the above-the-line voting system in the Senate.
(States are listed below in order of the size of the Sex Party vote)
Victoria
There were 43,744 votes for the Sex Party in Victoria. Every one of those votes went to their 42nd preference, the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party, enough to get Ricky Muir elected to the Senate for the next six years.
NSW
There were 32,599 votes for the Sex Party in NSW. All but 118 of those votes went to their 18th preference, the gun-toting Liberal Democrats, pushing David Leyonhjelm over the line and into the upper house until at least mid-2020. The remaining 188 votes went to the Shooters and Fishers Party, via preference 48.
Queensland
There were 20,592 votes for the Sex Party in the Sunshine State. These were distributed first to the HEMP Party via preference 5, and then to the Greens via preference 42.
Western Australia
There were 12,376 votes for the Sex Party in WA. Of those 12,338 went to their 11th preference, the Australian Sports Party, pushing Wayne Dropulich across the line and onto the comfy red leather benches for the next six years. The remaining 38 votes went to the Greens.
South Australia
There were 7610 votes for the Sex Party in SA. These were initially distributed to the No Carbon Tax Climate Sceptics (preference 11), then to the Greens (preference 41), where they helped reelect Sarah Hanson-Young, before coming to rest with Nick Xenophon (preference 45).
ACT
There were 5966 votes for the Sex Party in the traditionally porno-loving national capital. These were distributed first to the Bullet Train For Australia Party (preference 9) and then to Simon Sheikh of the Greens (preference 15).
Tasmania
There were 4112 votes for the Sex Party. These went to the Liberal Democratic Party (preference 21) and then on to the Liberal Party (preference 34).
NT
There were 1410 votes for the Sex Party in the Territory. These went briefly to the Shooters and Fishers (preference 3) before helping elect Nova Peris for the ALP (preference 12).
Source: ABC elections website, accessed 9 September 2013.
Image: Fiona Patten (CC-licensed image from Wikimedia Commons)
Hung parliament
Australia is headed for a hung parliament after the most appalling election campaign in history culminated in the most perverted election result in history.
A first-term government that has delivered low inflation, low unemployment and massive infrastructure investment while deftly managing the greatest economic crisis of recent years has been rejected at the polls, and an opposition composed of a ragged band of right-wing reactionaries, Christian fundamentalists and a peppering of downright loonies has come within a hair’s breadth of winning government. It takes a very special brand of stupid for a political party to squander opportunity the way the Labor Party have done over the last 12 months.
As it stands, the ABC election computer suggests that Labor have won 70 seats, the Coalition 72 seats, and the Greens 1 seat in the new parliament. There are four independents – including Andrew Wilkie, a former whistleblower who previously stood for election in Bennelong (2004) and for the Tasmania Senate (2007) as a Green. That leaves three seats in doubt – Brisbane (Coalition ahead), Corangamite (ALP), and Lindsay (ALP). Many seats have be won with very slim margins, which means they could slip from one column to the other over the next week, but the upshot is that no party is going to have the numbers to govern in its own right.
How could this happen? Twelve months ago, Labor was riding high – they’d dodged the global financial crisis, apologised to the Stolen Generations, and were gradually rolling out positive policy reforms in health, education, welfare and a whole lot more. They had a leader in Kevin Rudd who was enjoying near-stratospheric approval ratings, and an opposition that was tearing itself apart over climate change and mired in scandal following the Godwin Grech affair. When Tony Abbott became leader on 1 December last year, the event was dismissed by most people as the latest in a long series of missteps by a futile and disunited opposition. That was just eight and a half months ago.
The decision to depose Kevin Rudd in a party-room coup, engineered (or so the media narrative tells us) by “faceless faction leaders” using an ambitious woman – Julia Gillard – as their puppet, will go down as one of the ALP’s greatest tactical errors, but it also shows how deeply lost the ALP has become. A party made up of career politicians and factional warlords, where only the grittiest and most ambitious can rise to the leadership, where policies and ideals take a second place behind a cynical pitch for votes that has only one aim: keeping yourself in power at any cost. Yes, it’s true of both parties and both leaders, as I wrote yesterday, but in Labor this form of cynical antipolitics has reached its apotheosis.
There is an old saying that oppositions don’t win elections; governments lose them. This is an election that the government emphatically lost, but the opposition did not win. The only winners are the Greens, who have attracted droves of disaffected Labor voters and who have run a principled campaign backed by a comprehensive policy platform. As well as winning a lower-house seat for the first time in a general election, the Greens will likely have nine senators from 1 July next year, and I expect will have a close working relationship with Wilkie. That’s a huge win for the Greens and an impressive vote for change.
Of course, it’s easy to have a great policy platform when you don’t have the nuisance of having to implement it. Now the Greens will hold real political power for the first time, possibly in support of a minority Labor government, and certainly holding the balance of power in the Senate (but not until 1 July). The way they exercise that power will be keenly watched, and will test the party. The downfall of the Australian Democrats was ultimately in how they exercised power when they had it, and the Greens will need to find a balance between idealism and pragmatism if they are to succeed.
As for the Labor Party, the recriminations over today’s failure are already starting. The Greens will be blamed, for taking votes and seats away from Labor, even though most of those votes were returned through the preference system, and the two seats lost due to Greens influence, Melbourne and Denison, will back Labor ahead of the Coalition in parliament. The media will be blamed, and rightly so, for its failure to look beyond the intra-party squabbles and personalty issues and its abysmal failure of policy analysis. Kevin Rudd will be blamed, for his (assumed) rearguard spoiler action against Gillard. Mark Latham will be blamed. Queensland and NSW state Labor will be blamed.
But will anyone take the blame within the Labor Party machine that orchestrated this catastrophe? I doubt it.
You have to blame someone, and you can’t blame yourself – that would require a level of humility and introspection that is beyond the ALP.
UPDATE, 1PM: Karl Bitar and Bill Shorten have both been on TV this morning arguing that it was the cabinet leaks in the early days of the campaign that led to the loss. Not their decision to dump Kevin Rudd, not their decision to go to an election too early with no narrative and no coherent message, not the appalling way they conducted the campaign. No, it’s somebody else’s fault.
With ‘strategists’ like Bitar and Shorten, the ALP is doomed.
I don’t care who wins, as long as Tony Abbott loses
It’s polling day today. This great ritual of democracy ought to inspire and excite us, but like a lot of Australians, this time round I’m more depressed than inspired, and more angry than excited.
Over the last five weeks we have lived through the most negative, cynical and dispiriting election campaign in memory. Virtually devoid of policy debate, unrelentingly negative from the get-go, a squalid race for the bottom that reflects the parlous state of politics in Australia. If, as they say, you get the politicians you deserve, then we must have done something very bad to deserve this lot.
Like most people in Australia, this election is not about me. Whether you’re an inner-city progressive, a Toorak Tory, a socially regressive cow cocky or a middle-aged queer tree-changer like me, neither of the big parties give a damn about you. This election is only about a handful of ignorant bigots in a few marginal seats in western Sydney and south-east Queensland. The rest of us don’t matter.
The result is a political auction to see who can be toughest on the most vulnerable and helpless people in society. The resulting campaign has degenerated into a five-week harangue attacking refugees, immigrants, welfare recipients, and anyone else who doesn’t fit the economically aspirational but socially insular template of the so-called ‘Howard battlers’ who now virtually run the country. Then there’s the rivers of middle-class welfare, the pandering to special interests, the bare-faced lies, and the sheer, mind-numbing, putrid, soul destroying emptiness of it all.
What should be a debate about the country’s future is instead presented as a choice between two individuals, one a self-flagellating Christian fundamentalist and the other an ambitious and calculating woman. Tony or Julia, who are you going to vote for? But both these stories are false: Abbott and Gillard are both career politicians, equally ambitious and both motivated by one thing only — gaining and holding power at any cost. Whatever it takes, as Richo said.
In our hearts we want our politicians to be motivated by a desire to build a better world, to protect and strengthen us, and build a united, resilient society. We want them to make us better people. Instead the political process has become a contest of personal ambition, played out by a small group of pathologically self-interested career politicians and perverted by the media into a presidential-style contest where the he-said, she-said narrative trumps any discussion or analysis of policy. Instead of debate, we get arguments about debates, breathlessly reported by a press pack who have unwittingly become players in the game.
The opinion polls published over the last few days have both major parties neck and neck, locked in at roughly 50% each of the two-party preferred vote, as if the electorate can’t make up its mind who it hates the most. A pox on both their houses.
I sincerely hope that Tony Abbott does not become our 28th prime minister today. I know that would be a disaster for Australia, or at least for the Australia I believe in. But I cannot say I feel any affection for Julia Gillard either. Like just about everyone I know, I’ll be voting for the Greens, who look likely to substantially increase their numbers in the senate, and maybe score a seat in the lower house for the first time at a general election.
But the Greens will not be the government — either Labor or the Coalition will, and neither deserves to be.
Leaders ahoy!
This election campaign has been breaking record for both dullity and awfulitude, but finally in week three we have been blessed with the wisdom of the ages as a swag of superannuated and mostly geriatric ex-leaders have been sounding forth on the big issues, to help us make up our minds about who we dislike the least. It’s a non-stop nostalgia fest for political tragics.
Bob Hawke: characteristically quick out of the blocks, the Silver Bodgie has been doing the rounds since early in the campaign, promoting his miniseries, promoting his wife’s book, creeping us out, sparring with Paul Keating and occasionally campaigning for the ALP. He’s “still got it”, according to the media. although what “it” is or was is mercifully left unexplained – perhaps it’s his lifetime gold travel pass. Bob says the Liberals have a stupid asylum seeker policy and a leader who’s as ‘mad as a cut snake’. Couldn’t agree more.
Kevin Rudd: emerged from his hospital bed yesterday and is ready to rescue the ALP campaign. Julia Gillard says he’s allowed to campaign for the ALP, which is kind, and Kevin’s playing the nice guy card, insisting he has no ill will for Julia. If he keeps that charade up until the election, she will have to make him Foreign Minister, Governor-General and Secretary-General of the UN.
John Howard: he’s back, and it’s gloves off, say the hacks at the Australian, who are unsurprisingly a little bit moist to have the short man back in the limelight. Hilariously, Howard staged his return at a fundraiser for Chinese immigrants. Howard says we should vote for Tony Abbott – shock! In other news, Howard lost his own seat in 2007 and has gone on to not become the vice-president of the ICC.
Malcolm Fraser: he’s back too! On ABC radio this morning he said the coalition is “not ready for government“. Who will he vote for then? The Sex Party? The Greens?
Malcolm Turnbull: has come out in support of gay marriage, and is known to be for carbon trading renewable energy, onshore processing of refugees and, for all I know, legal heroin. He should just join the Greens and be done with it.
Brendan Nelson: Australia’s ambassador to the EU has been pleasantly silent.
Paul Keating: gave a speech about privacy laws the other day. Suggested a snappy new campaign slogan for the ALP: “I would campaign simply to the point that it is not believable that Mr Abbott could facilitate the transition of the Australian economy from where it is to where it needs to be … The constant flip-flop he has made on policy, the lack of an over-arching schematic.” Brilliant!
John Hewson: has been popping up all over the place, presumably because he is an expert on losing the unloseable election, a feat which the ALP seems determined to emulate. On Gruen Nation this week, Hewson insisted that his party allegiance shouldn’t be taken for granted. Another Greens voter?
Gough Whitlam: has been having a nap.
UPDATE, 9 AUGUST: Now Mark Latham has entered the fray, using the campaign to prosecute a few long-held grudges against, well, everybody. And Andrew Peacock has been beating up on disabled people! Will the fun never end?
Julia on gay marriage
Julia had a press conference today. Julia said she’d decided it was time for us to see the “real” Julia, instead of the fake Julia the campaign managers have been forcing her to be. Julia wants us to see the differences between her and Tony Abbott. A journalist asked Julia her views on same-sex marriage. Julia – the “real” Julia, the Julia that wants us to know she’s different to Tony Abbott – said she has exactly the same point of view and the same party policy as Tony Abbott.
http://www.youtube.com/v/o7h15h6P370
August 21
So, the Prime Minister has been to Yarralumla and we are all going to the polls on 21 August. About time we brought these shenanigans to a climax. The next five week are likely to be unpleasant enough, with Labor and Liberal trying to outbid each other in a naked grab for the hearts and minds of the lowest common denominator.
I could go on about the relative merits of the parties, but if you want meaningful action on climate change, genuine equality for gay and lesbian Australians, a compassionate response to asylum seekers, fair workplaces and investment in public services and public transport, there’s no real option. Reject the major parties race to the bottom and vote for the Greens.
