Debacle in Victoria - a very long political rant.
At the election party-cum-wake on Saturday night, the opinion was expressed that above the line voting in the Senate - where you trust your Party to distribute preferences on your behalf - was a better option than having to number the dozens of boxes below the line - where you need to make an informed judgement on the very large number of parties and their policies.
In Victoria, the expected election of a senator from the neophyte "Family First" party should have put paid to this idea. The "Family First" party is so new that the electorate must know little beyond the fact that the party is a front for the fundamentalist Christian churches, judging by some of the truly irrational stances they espoused during the campaign. It is the major parties - Liberal, Labor, and Democrats - that should have had better judgement to give preferences to legitimate parties before fly-by-night operations with no clear policies other than their singular Private Pet Policy. It is the major parties - Liberal, Labor, and Democrats - which have completely dropped the ball, with undemocratic and unrepresentative preference distributions in Victoria.
There were 19 distinct groups contesting the Senate election in Victoria, and 8 other individuals ungrouped, for a total of 65 candidates. I freely maintain that there are too many candidates and parties to know all of their policies in detail, so how did I cast my vote? My principle is, "better the devil you know than the devil you don't" - so in other words, when filling out the ballot, you first vote for all of the parties you know of - unless you live under a rock this will include Labor, the Coalition, and the other major parties. This will also fill out your first 20 to 30 boxes on the ballot. As for the remainder of candidates - since you can't express an intelligent preference for them if you don't know what they stand for - they receive low preferences behind the major parties. Too bad.
As a soon-to-be-ex-member of the Australian Labor Party, I voted Labor for both the House of Representatives and the Senate. However, I had major reservations about Labor ticket preferences which have turned out to be completely justified, and so I voted below the line using my own judgement rather than following the ticket.
In the following analysis I'll use the following acronyms for the parties: CEC - Citizens Electoral Council; DLP - Democratic Labor Party; SA - Socialist Alliance; ALP - Australian Labor Party; DEM - Australian Democrats; REP - Republican Party of Australia; GRN - The Greens; LIB - Liberal/National Party; FFP - Family First; ONE - One Nation; FRA - Group S Independents.
As you can see, I've only listed half of the parties - but they happened to be the only ones I knew something about. However they account for 39 of the 65 candidates. As no one is going to be elected by virtue of me giving them my 40th preference, I simply number the remaining boxes from 40 up to 65 in any order I like, since I need the vote to be formal for it to have any effect.
Let's now see how I distributed my preferences, and how the party tickets compare.
ME: ALP -> GRN -> DEM -> SA -> REP -> FRA -> LIB -> DLP -> ONE -> CEC -> FFP
Note: all of the parties preference themselves first :-)
CEC: -> GRN -> DEM -> FRA -> ALP -> FFP -> ONE -> REP -> DLP -> SA -> LIB
DLP: -> FFP -> LIB -> ALP -> FRA -> REP -> ONE -> GRN -> DEM -> CEC -> SA
SA: -> FRA -> GRN -> ALP -> DEM -> LIB -> REP -> DLP -> FFP -> CEC -> ONE
ALP: -> FFP -> DLP -> GRN -> DEM -> SA -> REP -> FRA -> LIB -> CEC -> ONE
DEM1: -> FRA -> FFP -> GRN -> LIB -> ALP -> REP -> SA -> DLP -> CEC -> ONE
DEM2: -> FRA -> FFP -> GRN -> ALP -> REP -> LIB -> SA -> DLP -> CEC -> ONE
GRN: -> FRA -> SA -> REP -> DEM -> ALP -> DLP -> LIB -> FFP -> CEC -> ONE
LIB: -> DLP -> FFP -> REP -> DEM -> FRA -> GRN -> ALP -> CEC -> SA -> ONE
FFP: -> DLP -> ALP -> DEM -> LIB -> ONE -> CEC -> SA -> REP -> GRN -> FRA
ONE: -> FRA -> CEC -> FFP -> LIB -> DLP -> ALP -> DEM -> REP -> SA -> GRN
FRA: -> DEM -> SA -> GRN -> REP -> ALP -> FFP -> DLP -> CEC -> LIB -> ONE
In no sense is this supposed to represent a full preference distribution, just to show how the preference flows are arranged at large. Now to tease out a little bit of detail:
Several of the parties are fellow travellers, but with different agendas - we have the paranoid right-wing represented by the Citizens Electoral Council and One Nation, but it is interesting that One Nation preferences the Greens last, but the Lyndon LaRouche-funded CEC preference the Greens second (after themselves). Most of the parties toward the left correctly give One Nation and the CEC their last preferences.
The Group S Independents, headed by Richard Frankland, were not going to receive any priority in my vote at all, except that I was able to read their flyer while waiting in queue at the polling booth, and recognising that they were indigenous candidates with activist health and social justice policies, elevated them in my preferences accordingly. You'll notice on the grounds of social justice the Democrats give their direct second preference to Frankland; and from completely opposite sides of politics, so do Socialist Alliance and One Nation - strange bed-fellows indeed!
The Democratic Labor Party is the pro-Catholic, anti-communist right-wing rump of the ALP, so it is no surprise that they preference the fundamentalist Family First and the Coalition ahead of the ALP and Socialist Alliance. Those parties return the favour by preferencing the DLP ahead of the ALP, as though the DLP is the "real" Labor Party.
The past few elections had shown that the Australian Labor Party and the Greens share a great deal in common in terms of voters - the increasing Green vote has usually been a splinter from the ALP primary vote, and Green voter's preferences tend to favour the ALP over the Coalition by a ratio of four or five to one. Mark Latham was actually prepared to visit a forest with Dr Bob Brown and espouse a pro-forest position in Tasmania (at the cost of two seats), unlike his opponent. So if the Labor constituency has such affinity with the Greens, then what explanation can account for Labor preferencing Family First and the DLP ahead of the Greens?
Assuredly, the DLP and Family First did not reciprocate with their preferences! In a complicated maneuver the DLP put the National Party senator Julian McGauran ahead of Labor's vulnerable third senator, Jacinta Collins; the remainder of Labor candidates were then put behind the remaining Liberal candidates. Like the Liberals, the Family First party believe the DLP to be the "real" Labor Party - and any party espousing Christian ideals automatically puts them ahead in preferences as opposed to the secular parties.
Both Labor and Liberal gave important preferences to Family First, though particularly in terms of Labor the Family First constituency is more aligned to the socially-conservative DLP. The Democrats run two preference tickets so that half of their votes give higher preference to Labor, and the other half give higher preference to the coalition; both tickets however put the Greens in fourth preference after Family First (actually the Greens were the ninth preferred after a group of minor parties including Family First).
It is clear from the preference flows that few of the parties ran tickets with which my preferred order of candidates agree. The closest are the Greens ticket and the Group S Independent (Frankland) ticket; but for the inclusion of the Family First and DLP at the head of the preference distribution, the ALP ticket would be fairly close as well. The problem is, the ALP have made a major miscalculation in preferencing Family First.
Here are the numbers of quotas for the main parties in Victoria as a result of the first preference count:
Liberal/National Party: 3.0838 (1,042,830 votes)
Australian Labor Party: 2.5699 (867,961 votes)
The Greens: 0.6063 (203,644 votes)
Family First: 0.1331 (45,069 votes)
Australian Democrats: 0.1297 (43,796 votes)
Democratic Labor Party: 0.1295 (43,831 votes)
Liberals for forests: 0.1213 (41,116 votes)
One Nation: 0.0471 (15,953 votes)
Citizens Electoral Council: 0.0344 (11,634 votes)
Aged and Disability Pensioners Party: 0.0329 (11,116 votes)
Three Coalition and two Labor Senators are elected immediately, leaving the sixth Senate seat up for grabs. All the other parties and candidates received less than 10,000 votes and will be rapidly eliminated.
The two leading candidates would seem to be Jacinta Collins and David Risstrom, on about 0.6 of a quota. However from the preference flows: the Aged and Disability Pensioners Party favour Family First while the Citizens Electoral Council favour the Greens, so they effectively cancel out. One Nation goes indirectly to Family First. Next eliminated (and with 0.1 of a quota, now a significant number of votes), Liberals for forests votes go straight to Family First. As we have seen, the DLP and Democrats go to Family First ahead of either the Greens or the ALP. The fourth Liberal candidate at about 0.1 of a quota will also be eliminated with votes going to Family First ahead of the Greens and the ALP.
Therefore, the sixth seat will be a three-way contest between Steve Fielding of Family First, David Risstrom of the Greens, Senator Jacinta Collins of the ALP, and each with about 0.6 of a quota. It seems likely that Jacinta Collins will run third, so the Labor ticket will give most of that 0.6 of a quota straight to Family First, and thus giving them a Senate seat. If David Risstrom finishes third, then Senator Collins will be returned for the ALP; as the Family First vote is a composite of preferences from Liberal/National, Democrat, DLP, Liberals for forests and other parties, if Fielding were eliminated the preferences would split unevenly between the Greens and ALP, probably favouring the ALP by about 3:2, and so again Senator Collins would be returned.
For a great number of ALP supporters who would prefer a Greens senator to be elected rather than Family First, this is clearly the wrong result, and is the latest in a series of blunders by the ALP which have taken their toll on my patience with the Party. I was disillusioned by Beazley's stand at the previous election over refugees, and was glad to see Crean take the leadership after that disaster. I was disillusioned by Beazley destabilising Crean's leadership, so that for the first time in 103 years a federal leader of the Labor party did not get the opportunity to contest an election. I was therefore pleased that Mark Latham won the leadership, but even he has failed to maximise the Party's difference from the Coalition. As a matter of one's personal stance, as an openly bisexual man I was appalled by Labor's stance on gay marriage - even if I'm also of the opinion that marriage isn't for everyone, I don't see the point in restricting it solely to people who are notionally heterosexual and of differing gender.
As a result of the ALP preferring to elect a Family First senator, and therefore giving the Coalition effective control of the Senate with that senator's co-operation, I will be writing to the Labor Party to rescind my membership, and while I may continue to give them my vote or preferences, I will be not exerting myself on behalf of the Party until they come to their senses.
In Victoria, the expected election of a senator from the neophyte "Family First" party should have put paid to this idea. The "Family First" party is so new that the electorate must know little beyond the fact that the party is a front for the fundamentalist Christian churches, judging by some of the truly irrational stances they espoused during the campaign. It is the major parties - Liberal, Labor, and Democrats - that should have had better judgement to give preferences to legitimate parties before fly-by-night operations with no clear policies other than their singular Private Pet Policy. It is the major parties - Liberal, Labor, and Democrats - which have completely dropped the ball, with undemocratic and unrepresentative preference distributions in Victoria.
There were 19 distinct groups contesting the Senate election in Victoria, and 8 other individuals ungrouped, for a total of 65 candidates. I freely maintain that there are too many candidates and parties to know all of their policies in detail, so how did I cast my vote? My principle is, "better the devil you know than the devil you don't" - so in other words, when filling out the ballot, you first vote for all of the parties you know of - unless you live under a rock this will include Labor, the Coalition, and the other major parties. This will also fill out your first 20 to 30 boxes on the ballot. As for the remainder of candidates - since you can't express an intelligent preference for them if you don't know what they stand for - they receive low preferences behind the major parties. Too bad.
As a soon-to-be-ex-member of the Australian Labor Party, I voted Labor for both the House of Representatives and the Senate. However, I had major reservations about Labor ticket preferences which have turned out to be completely justified, and so I voted below the line using my own judgement rather than following the ticket.
In the following analysis I'll use the following acronyms for the parties: CEC - Citizens Electoral Council; DLP - Democratic Labor Party; SA - Socialist Alliance; ALP - Australian Labor Party; DEM - Australian Democrats; REP - Republican Party of Australia; GRN - The Greens; LIB - Liberal/National Party; FFP - Family First; ONE - One Nation; FRA - Group S Independents.
As you can see, I've only listed half of the parties - but they happened to be the only ones I knew something about. However they account for 39 of the 65 candidates. As no one is going to be elected by virtue of me giving them my 40th preference, I simply number the remaining boxes from 40 up to 65 in any order I like, since I need the vote to be formal for it to have any effect.
Let's now see how I distributed my preferences, and how the party tickets compare.
ME: ALP -> GRN -> DEM -> SA -> REP -> FRA -> LIB -> DLP -> ONE -> CEC -> FFP
Note: all of the parties preference themselves first :-)
CEC: -> GRN -> DEM -> FRA -> ALP -> FFP -> ONE -> REP -> DLP -> SA -> LIB
DLP: -> FFP -> LIB -> ALP -> FRA -> REP -> ONE -> GRN -> DEM -> CEC -> SA
SA: -> FRA -> GRN -> ALP -> DEM -> LIB -> REP -> DLP -> FFP -> CEC -> ONE
ALP: -> FFP -> DLP -> GRN -> DEM -> SA -> REP -> FRA -> LIB -> CEC -> ONE
DEM1: -> FRA -> FFP -> GRN -> LIB -> ALP -> REP -> SA -> DLP -> CEC -> ONE
DEM2: -> FRA -> FFP -> GRN -> ALP -> REP -> LIB -> SA -> DLP -> CEC -> ONE
GRN: -> FRA -> SA -> REP -> DEM -> ALP -> DLP -> LIB -> FFP -> CEC -> ONE
LIB: -> DLP -> FFP -> REP -> DEM -> FRA -> GRN -> ALP -> CEC -> SA -> ONE
FFP: -> DLP -> ALP -> DEM -> LIB -> ONE -> CEC -> SA -> REP -> GRN -> FRA
ONE: -> FRA -> CEC -> FFP -> LIB -> DLP -> ALP -> DEM -> REP -> SA -> GRN
FRA: -> DEM -> SA -> GRN -> REP -> ALP -> FFP -> DLP -> CEC -> LIB -> ONE
In no sense is this supposed to represent a full preference distribution, just to show how the preference flows are arranged at large. Now to tease out a little bit of detail:
Several of the parties are fellow travellers, but with different agendas - we have the paranoid right-wing represented by the Citizens Electoral Council and One Nation, but it is interesting that One Nation preferences the Greens last, but the Lyndon LaRouche-funded CEC preference the Greens second (after themselves). Most of the parties toward the left correctly give One Nation and the CEC their last preferences.
The Group S Independents, headed by Richard Frankland, were not going to receive any priority in my vote at all, except that I was able to read their flyer while waiting in queue at the polling booth, and recognising that they were indigenous candidates with activist health and social justice policies, elevated them in my preferences accordingly. You'll notice on the grounds of social justice the Democrats give their direct second preference to Frankland; and from completely opposite sides of politics, so do Socialist Alliance and One Nation - strange bed-fellows indeed!
The Democratic Labor Party is the pro-Catholic, anti-communist right-wing rump of the ALP, so it is no surprise that they preference the fundamentalist Family First and the Coalition ahead of the ALP and Socialist Alliance. Those parties return the favour by preferencing the DLP ahead of the ALP, as though the DLP is the "real" Labor Party.
The past few elections had shown that the Australian Labor Party and the Greens share a great deal in common in terms of voters - the increasing Green vote has usually been a splinter from the ALP primary vote, and Green voter's preferences tend to favour the ALP over the Coalition by a ratio of four or five to one. Mark Latham was actually prepared to visit a forest with Dr Bob Brown and espouse a pro-forest position in Tasmania (at the cost of two seats), unlike his opponent. So if the Labor constituency has such affinity with the Greens, then what explanation can account for Labor preferencing Family First and the DLP ahead of the Greens?
Assuredly, the DLP and Family First did not reciprocate with their preferences! In a complicated maneuver the DLP put the National Party senator Julian McGauran ahead of Labor's vulnerable third senator, Jacinta Collins; the remainder of Labor candidates were then put behind the remaining Liberal candidates. Like the Liberals, the Family First party believe the DLP to be the "real" Labor Party - and any party espousing Christian ideals automatically puts them ahead in preferences as opposed to the secular parties.
Both Labor and Liberal gave important preferences to Family First, though particularly in terms of Labor the Family First constituency is more aligned to the socially-conservative DLP. The Democrats run two preference tickets so that half of their votes give higher preference to Labor, and the other half give higher preference to the coalition; both tickets however put the Greens in fourth preference after Family First (actually the Greens were the ninth preferred after a group of minor parties including Family First).
It is clear from the preference flows that few of the parties ran tickets with which my preferred order of candidates agree. The closest are the Greens ticket and the Group S Independent (Frankland) ticket; but for the inclusion of the Family First and DLP at the head of the preference distribution, the ALP ticket would be fairly close as well. The problem is, the ALP have made a major miscalculation in preferencing Family First.
Here are the numbers of quotas for the main parties in Victoria as a result of the first preference count:
Liberal/National Party: 3.0838 (1,042,830 votes)
Australian Labor Party: 2.5699 (867,961 votes)
The Greens: 0.6063 (203,644 votes)
Family First: 0.1331 (45,069 votes)
Australian Democrats: 0.1297 (43,796 votes)
Democratic Labor Party: 0.1295 (43,831 votes)
Liberals for forests: 0.1213 (41,116 votes)
One Nation: 0.0471 (15,953 votes)
Citizens Electoral Council: 0.0344 (11,634 votes)
Aged and Disability Pensioners Party: 0.0329 (11,116 votes)
Three Coalition and two Labor Senators are elected immediately, leaving the sixth Senate seat up for grabs. All the other parties and candidates received less than 10,000 votes and will be rapidly eliminated.
The two leading candidates would seem to be Jacinta Collins and David Risstrom, on about 0.6 of a quota. However from the preference flows: the Aged and Disability Pensioners Party favour Family First while the Citizens Electoral Council favour the Greens, so they effectively cancel out. One Nation goes indirectly to Family First. Next eliminated (and with 0.1 of a quota, now a significant number of votes), Liberals for forests votes go straight to Family First. As we have seen, the DLP and Democrats go to Family First ahead of either the Greens or the ALP. The fourth Liberal candidate at about 0.1 of a quota will also be eliminated with votes going to Family First ahead of the Greens and the ALP.
Therefore, the sixth seat will be a three-way contest between Steve Fielding of Family First, David Risstrom of the Greens, Senator Jacinta Collins of the ALP, and each with about 0.6 of a quota. It seems likely that Jacinta Collins will run third, so the Labor ticket will give most of that 0.6 of a quota straight to Family First, and thus giving them a Senate seat. If David Risstrom finishes third, then Senator Collins will be returned for the ALP; as the Family First vote is a composite of preferences from Liberal/National, Democrat, DLP, Liberals for forests and other parties, if Fielding were eliminated the preferences would split unevenly between the Greens and ALP, probably favouring the ALP by about 3:2, and so again Senator Collins would be returned.
For a great number of ALP supporters who would prefer a Greens senator to be elected rather than Family First, this is clearly the wrong result, and is the latest in a series of blunders by the ALP which have taken their toll on my patience with the Party. I was disillusioned by Beazley's stand at the previous election over refugees, and was glad to see Crean take the leadership after that disaster. I was disillusioned by Beazley destabilising Crean's leadership, so that for the first time in 103 years a federal leader of the Labor party did not get the opportunity to contest an election. I was therefore pleased that Mark Latham won the leadership, but even he has failed to maximise the Party's difference from the Coalition. As a matter of one's personal stance, as an openly bisexual man I was appalled by Labor's stance on gay marriage - even if I'm also of the opinion that marriage isn't for everyone, I don't see the point in restricting it solely to people who are notionally heterosexual and of differing gender.
As a result of the ALP preferring to elect a Family First senator, and therefore giving the Coalition effective control of the Senate with that senator's co-operation, I will be writing to the Labor Party to rescind my membership, and while I may continue to give them my vote or preferences, I will be not exerting myself on behalf of the Party until they come to their senses.