… with some God-fearing Good Friday news nuggets to tide you over until the pubs re-open.
• Senate polls have consistently proved themselves to be pointless endeavours, but let the record note that Roy Morgan has produced one from their last three months of surveys. This might be of at least some use if Morgan gave South Australian respondents a chance to indicate support for Nick Xenophon, but they presumably don’t because he is not up for re-election next time (unless there’s a double dissolution of course). Nonetheless, South Australia shows an “others” result of 19.5 per cent compared with 8 per cent nationally.
• The Tasmanian Liberals have preselected three candidates for the Hobart electorate of Denison for next year’s state election, after earlier delaying the process due to concerns about a “lack of high-profile talent”. The nominees are 70-year-old incumbent Michael Hodgman; lawyer Elise Archer, who polled a solid 3.2 per cent at the 2006 election; and Matt Stevenson, state president of the Young Liberals. No sign of contentious Hobart alderman Marti Zucco, but two positions remain to be filled.
• Yesterday’s Crikey Daily Mail had a piece by Malcolm Mackerras noting the looming by-election in New Zealand for Helen Clark’s seat of Mount Albert, and the absurdity of such a thing in a supposedly proportional representation system. If it loses, Labour will be deprived of one of the seats entitled to it by its national vote share at last November’s election. New Zealand’s mixed-member proportional system is modelled on Germany’s, but departs from it in that vacated constituency seats in Germany are filled by unelected candidates from the party’s national lists – which New Zealand was obviously loath to do as it would randomly match members to electorates with which they had no connection.
• Mackerras also notes that the May 12 election in the Canadian province of British Columbia will be held in conjunction with a second referendum seeking to replace its first-past-the-post single-member constituency system with “BC-STV” (British Columbia-Single Transferable Vote). I take this to be identical in every respect to Hare-Clark as it operates in Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory (complete with Robson rotation and optional preferential voting), except the number of members per region will range from two to seven. A referendum was also held at the previous election in 2005, but it received 57.7 per cent support while requiring 60 per cent to be binding. Get funky with the official website of British Columbians for BC-STV.
UPDATE (11/4/09): The West Australian carries a second Westpoll survey of 400 respondents on the May 16 daylight saving referendum, showing 47 per cent supporting and 51 per cent opposed compared with 42 per cent and 57 per cent at the poll last month. The West’s report says this means “community support for daylight saving has climbed steadily over the last month”, but I don’t need to tell you all what a load of bollocks that is. Taken together, the surveys suggest the proposal is most likely headed for defeat by the same narrow-ish margins as in 1975, 1984 and 1992.
1,465 Comments
For something to receive that level of support but fall short of the required vote to become binding isn’t very democratic imho…
A couple of variations on the proportional rep theme alluded to there, but it revives the dream of national PR here in the Reps. How refreshing and vibrant it would be campared with the dead relic of our rightist christian democrat party system with 2 variations on the same theme fighting for the same constituency. It’s a form of political tyranny. So many people, such as left of centre non-christians for example, permanently disenfranchised here these days. (And if any big party status quo defenders invoke the old chestnut of Italy in relation to PR, I’ll scream
)
PR should certainly be forced onto the agenda, as difficult as it would be for modern political species to achieve it against the opposition of the 2 great big dinosaur parties.
I don’t support PR in the lower house. I think Australia has a great system. I like two-party stability in the lower house. Keep PR for the upper house. Just remember what governance is like in PR lower houses. Look at Israel. *shudder*
If BC-STV gets up then it will be the first ever provincial/state level PR north of Mexico.
JV,
I always think of Italy when ratbags propose PR for lower House elections.
GG, I just scream.
Israeli politics would not be stable if they had single member electorates because many of the people of the various political groups live in areas where a lot of like minded people live e.g. most Arab-Israelis live in areas where the people are mostly Arab-Israeli and the people in the settlements would tend to vote for the pro-settlement parties.
Diog
re virtual doctor consultations. I kind of have them already with my rheumatologist, we have “telephone consultations” if I need a prescription he posts it to me, if I have questions I email him.
The only time I physically see him is to discuss “bone scans” which I have to collect from the gamma camera mob and take to him.
I would never consider a vitual consultation with my GP but for specialists monitoring chronic disease it is a great idea. RuddNETT will make it easier.
Eminem annoys Bill O’Reilly, especially by joking about Sarah Palin.
http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/hiphopmediatraining/92537/eminems-palin-spoof-condemned-by-bill-oreilly/
I had some Xrays taken yesterday which were handed to me as a CD to then hand to my medical practicioner. I imagine this is but a first step on the way of what will openup with the coming of the Ruddnet.
For the geeky among us
http://www.internetworldstats.com/articles/art072.htm
and one of the products out there
http://www.thehightechstore.com/electricinternet.html
ruawake
With the Ruddnet, the bone scans could be sent to the rheumatologist and you might avoid a few more visits. I must say that you have a better working relationship with your doctors than most people do. Medicine would work a whole lot better for everyone if we had more patients like you and more doctors like yours. Unfortunately, the system is set to work at “lowest common denominator” level, which is expensive, inefficient and doesn’t deliver good outcomes.
But unfortunately Amateur Radio operators don’t like it because of the interference in causes to their transmissions.
http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~vk5vka/stopbpl.htm
No 8
The vehicle will be there, but it would be up to the incompetent Labor state governments to ensure that the appropriate systems are in place to facilitate these virtual consultations.
Frank
I think the “inhouse application is tres exciting.
BTW I understand some euro countries (sweden esp) are trialling one way feeds down the power lines.
ie foxtel delivered via your powerline as ooposed to a seperate cable/satellite
Those ‘incompetent’ state Labor governments just keep on being re-elected. Says a lot about the incompetence of the Liberal oppositions don’t you think?
STV in the lower house and recession. Weimar Republic anyone?
No 2
Let me be the one to make you scream. The best argument against PR is Italy.
bob –
Fair enough, lucky for you that you like the ‘stability’ of more of the same centrist policies decade after decade, regardless of who is in power – and support the cosy bi-partisan approach to, say, education, the environment, and social policy we have been enduring under both parties for 25 years. Me, I’d rather argue for something better. The alternative is just to give up and take more medication.
I’d also like to see PR in the states, where there is far too much ‘stability’. When you look at the NSW government over the past 10 years and at Her Majesty’s loyal opposition, you’d have to agree that ‘stability’ has got completely out of hand, even worse than it has Federally.
If the NSW parliamentary government is better than a PR system, then I’m indeed a ratbag, GG.
GP
The relationship I have with my rheumatologist has nothing to do with the state govt. He runs his own business “Coast Joint Care”. The only Govt. he deals with is Federal.
He is the only place I go to (and I consume a lot of health care) that will rebate the medicare “refund” directly to my bank account via eftpos.
Plus the phone consulatations are at no charge – guess he can do it when his waiting list is 3 months.
GP –
Oh dear, you’ve fallen into the old trap. The horror – Italy… and more horror – Israel.
However, of the 36 nations with more than 2 million people that aren’t human rights messes, 30 of them have a PR system. Italy and Israel are the exceptions.
Pakistan and India are unstable examples among we non-PR voting nations. So it seems stability of government isn’t dependent on whether the voting system is first past the post, preferential, or PR, but rather on cultural, ethnic, and social factors. I think in Aus we’d be more likely to fall into the category of the 30 successful larger PR states, such as Germany and NZ, don’t you?
Yes, somehow when opponents of PR refer us to international examples it’s the same tired old process.
Perhaps those same opponents here could enlighten us about how the PR system in the Netherlands has resulted in systemic representative failures in that country.
The Nazis got 37.8% at there highest at a fair election. At the last UK election Labour got 35.3%. The problem in Germany was severe economic problems combined with a lack of support for democracy not PR. The Nazis would not have been able to get the powers to end democracy they had without the support of other parties under the Weimar system but under the British system they would probably been able to do it on their own.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_election,_July_1932
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_2005
Politics is about the least worst choice.
JV,
The Greens are simply a cult with illusions of grandeur that they will one day rule the earth. Greens love to use nebulus words like “better” and “socially progressive” without any clear definition of what they actually mean. Political expediency dictates that they deride the current system because it actually represents the majority of the electorate.
Unfortunately, for the Greens, the current system works for most Australians. So, just repeating your Omm mantra of alleged superiority neither makes it true nor inevitable.
At the core, Greens want to exercise power without earning the right to do so.
The NSW Government may or not have problems. But, I don’t relate any of that to the electoral process.
If New South Wales still has PR (evil PR scrapping Lang) then the ALP would need support to govern and that would probably mean the Greens who would demand policy changes which would improve the governance and policy.
JV
To get PR in Australia means a majority of people in the majority states supporting it. Which basically means that the dinosaur parties you deride would need to support the change.
Do you think this can happen?
Let us not forget the strife-torn police state that is Tasmania.
Is there a point where district magnitude gets so low we don’t qualify it as PR? If memory serves, the PR that Lang scrapped had three members per district. Would such a system produce non-majority government any more than at present?
Why is it that ‘the Greens’ involvement equals ‘improvement’? It may but not just as a matter of course.
Hi ruawake,
Actually, the electoral system is governed by legislation, not the Constitution. The point remains the same – the major parties would have to change the legislation.
No, it would require a simple change to the Electoral Act.
A system of multi-member electorates with Hare-Clark is all that is needed. The mainland states would be subdivided and Tasmania and the Territories would be each be one electorate. Achievable in Australia. Tasmania used Hare-Clark in 1901 for its seats in the 1st Commonwealth Parliament.
Bule
You are probably correct, but I could not envisage a change to PR not being put to the people.
The thing about Nazi germany was that it a small radical party an outlet and legitimacy to advance their cause. Countries other than italy and israel have problems. The rise of the far right in Austria. If i recall correct Switerland has never had a formal change of government as the same grand coalition has ruled the country since the end of ww2.
Austria is a good comparrison with the rise of the far right. In Australia a degree of consensus was reached between the main parties to squeez One Nation of air and over time it just went away. In Austria on a federal level the far right parties have been able to build momentum.
Why not? After all, there was no referendum for the introduction of compulsory voting or the preferential system, let alone proposed amendments to the Electoral Act such as those which denied citizens in prison the right to vote.
Malta has multi-member electorates with Hare-Clark (or something similar), and just two parties win all the seats.
Is there any evidence to suggest that Hare Clark is any better than any other system? What are the arguments for it?
If Tasmania tried it and then ditched it, surely it was because it wasn’t working?
As for more elected Greens = better governance, I’m not sure of that. It’s much the same as the mantra that independents are somehow ‘better’ than someone representing the majors – it depends on the independent – thus, Andren good, Fielding bad; WA Greens having balance of power in the Senate bad, Bob Brown’s Greens OK so far.
Many people thought that the Democrats having bop in the Senate was a good thing and it was, until young Meg came along.
Here is some analysis of what it would be like.
http://www.prsa.org.au/elancwtb.htm
I don’t understand the “stability” argument either. Sure in a *democracy* the point of parliament is not to be “stable” but to be representative. In 2009 does a single member system ensure better representation of people’s views and what they want than a PR system?
They still have it? So does ACT?
Tasmania no longer uses Hare-Clark for federal elections because the Commonwealth took over federal elections in 1902. Tasmania has used Hare-Clark for House of Assembly election continuously since 1906.
Correct, Oz – although they did cut the number of seats per region from seven to five to make it less proportional (in other words, to stiff the Greens).
So is Hare Clarke different from, say, Victoria’s Upper House?
GG,
It’s not just the current government, it’s the one single big party alternative that is the problem, particularly when it has similar values and talent and is also consistenly a crock. What do you turn to in this system – independents or despair?
There will be a surge in the independents’ vote next NSW election, but that doesn’t generally translate into members in parliament and achieve what is required. It did once in the early 90′s by luck, when 3 independents had the balance of power in the assembly. It was the best period of genuine open political debate in the history of NSW as far I remember it. PR could offer that most of the time.
I don’t know why you wish to invoke the Greens in particular, but they would be one party of many, including groups on the right. Ther major parties would be sure to break up into at least their current major factions but probably further eventually. Surely that would be preferable to the current party situations of seething hatred within the parties, and the result of factional warriors and hacks floating to the surface as representatives and ministers like Conroy and Co, David Clark, Alex Hawke, Joe Tripodi, Ms Keneally etc etc .
What a great event the break up of the tired useless major parties would be, as would the sight of genuine coalitions being formed, parliament by parliament. The Greens would have to propose specific and workable policies like everyone else, or suffer the consequences of failure at the ballot box if they were part of the government.
You know it makes sense.
The problem is the vested interests in and around the major parties who do not have an objective view, but a strong emotional attachment to the parties of the past, which they don’t realise are gone forever (What light on what f ‘n hill?). Fortunately their signficance is diminishing in the public arena. Time for big changes.
Zoomster:
Depends how you define Hare-Clark. A lot of people take it to mean the Tasmanian/ACT system, which differs from Victoria’s in that there are rotating ballot papers, so you don’t get the party effectively dictating the order in which their own candidates are elected. They are otherwise substantially the same – both members of the happy family of PR-STV systems which British Columbia might soon be joining.
Single member electorates give disproportionate power to parties with geographical areas in which they are strong and voters in areas where there are parties of approximately equal support.
Didn’t this happen when the Tassie Greens were in a “coalition” with Labor? Thus consigning themselves to being stiffed?
Remember however that Australia started off its Federal parliamentary life with only one ‘real’ party (Labor). Everyone else was effectively an independent. We had elections on an almost constant basis.
Our party system evolved from that chaos. I assume it did so because the situation was simply unworkable.
There was a Liberal minority government at the time, and the bill passed with Labor support. It was most certainly opposed by the Greens.
I don’t think The Greens voted it for it. I think Labor and Liberal did a deal because neither of them wanted to have to work with the ferals. Which, if you think about it, makes a lot of sense given they’re far closer in terms of policy than The Greens.
In 1906 Tasmania introduced a 5×6 system but this was considered to make a majority not likely enough so they introduced an extra member for each electorate (5×7). Then In 1998 they cut it back to 5×5 because the big parties decided they wanted the Greens power reduced.
Sorry I was wrong, the Greens backed the Lib minority Govt. then got shafted.
WB & Zoomster
I think the concept should be one of abandoning local district representation in favour of representation in parliament proportionate to each registered parties’ overall support – perhaps with some state or regional overlay. Hence the conundrum with the vacancy in NZ, which by the way seems unfair, and the German model of a replacement form the same party seems preferable.
Such a party proportionate system would acknowledge the reality of politics you mention from the early days of Federation, Zoomster -the emergence of parties regardless of intention.
It would be fun to speculate on what the parties would be, both from the current parties and new ones.
JV,
Your argument seems to revolve around the unsubstantiated assertion that because you don’t like it, then it is bad and must be changed.
The fact is the system ain’t broke and serves the community well they way it is structured. You may not like that, but as John Stewart put it so eloquently, “being in the minority is supposed to taste like a sh*it taco”.
I don’t see any mass movement to change the way things operate. Rather I see and hear a noisome bunch of whingeing Greens handringers who won’t do the work to win the confidence of the majority.
Both liberal and Labor wanted to reduce it. i know for sure bob cheek (liberal) crossed the floor to support the labor plan. Former liberal premier Robin Grey was important in his decision.
“Robin Gray” bad habbit of mine
explains abit of it btw
http://www.themonthly.com.au/tm/?q=node/512
What a quaint view. This opinion is as unsubstantiated as the one you deride as it’s based entirely on your opinion. Something doesn’t have to be completely broken for one to acknowledge flaws and suggest ways of dealing with them.
I don’t really see why in your attempt to argue against PR you think it’s relevant to just attack The Greens. The Greens are one party that advocate PR but not all the people who support PR are Greens. And it’s quite clear that whilst they will most likely benefit so will others, on the other end of the political spectrum. It’s not about designing a system that’s better for you at the expense of other people but one that reflects the nature of politics in Australia and is truly representative.
On the contrary, one of the problems is that currently the government functions as though it has support of the majority when it very rarely does.
The system Lang scrapped was 3-member rural electorates and 5-member urban electorates. It would mean more non-Liberal/non-Labor winners such as independents and Greens.
Multi-member electorates provide a good balance between local representation and absolute proportionality.
Interestingly, while the plan was pretty much about destroying The Greens, who had 11% of the seats, they know have 16% of the seats.
*now
If we are to have a PR system does that mean Tasmania loses its 12 Senators and 5 HoR members? Does it mean the Senate is proportional to population?
Note the ? in my posts.
An interesting side note. Tasmania is the only state i am aware of currentley with more left faction members than the right faction. i am not saying this is just because of the system but it does not hurt.
Every state really should adopt some form of the Robson Rotation to stop those nasty donkey votes having much impact.
I stand corrected, Tom.
Exactly GG – the current system ‘ain’t broke’ for those attached to it, but rational analysis rather than an emotional reaction reveals a system that, while it did once work moderately well, is now a quagmire of 2 sub-standard parties with the same basic agenda. The diminishing primary vote for the major parties in recent times is a reflection of that. And that is happening in a world without any real choice outside the two tyrannosaurus.
If you believe that the large minority who vote first for another party should remain in the cold eating mexican excrement then you are truly an example of the attitude of the big 2 of – winner takes all.
People are entitled to disagree with my view and express satisfaction with things as they are but such conservatism is qualified by the fact it comes from big party vested interests and supporters.
Do you think most voters are aware of who is what faction and would that actually influence that many votes?
Oz,
It is actually the job of the proponents of radical change to substantiate their arguments. Show me the clamouring of support for change. You and Miffy down the Mung bean collective doesn’t really cut it.
I would argue that the current system “reflects the nature of politics in Australia and is truly representative”. The prefereneial system ensures that any winning candidate has the majority support over all other candidates.
Again, the inherent flaw in the Greens argument is they want power without having majority support. Do the hard work and earn your power.
Scrapping equal representation of states in the Senate would require a referendum to pass in all states. Most PR proposals would leave the Senate unchanged (except proposals that would abolish above the line and introduce Robson Rotation) and only apply to the House of Representatives.
JS Mill wrote on PR in 1861, and said what PR stands for, versus the tyranny of a system resulting in a simple majority, magnificently:
JV,
85% of people vote for the major parties. It is appropriate that Government’s largely reflect the views of this centalist and moderate majority.
As for Party partisanship, I have a pretty Kettle for you to meet Mr Pot.
I think this is pretty much what myself and others have been doing so far…
I don’t really think there is a “clamouring of support”. I think the idea is to create that support for the idea and thus get the change you want.
The idea behind our current system is that whoever gets 51% of the vote (in our 51% 2PP, could mean 40% primary) has “the power”. The idea behind PR is that democracy should not be about elected dictatorships and giving those who don’t (or just) achieve a majority of the votes complete authority is not representative or even really democratic.
I think a lot of where you stand depends on your own belief in what democracy is and what the purpose of voting is. If you think elections and parliament exist for the purpose of creating a “stable” government then you aren’t likely to be a supporter of PR. If you think parliament (or whatever elected assembly you have) should be about allowing a broader and more accurate representation of the communities views to be heard then you’re more likely to support PR.
A question I have for advocates of PR is whether or not they believe that the application of such a system in the House would render the Senate obsolete?
I don’t quite see the point of a Senate if you have a PR lower house. Unless you actually want it to become a “states’ house”, which would be extremely difficult.
50.1% (votes) x 50.1% (seats) = 25.1001% (votes)
Difficult to ensure I mean.
So it appears my #70 is just a less eloquent version of Mills.
I’m with Greensborough Growler on this.
No 72
The senate, under the constitution, is a states house. But in practice, it is just an extension of party partisanship.
Oz @ 75
That’s right Oz – take your place on the great philosophers’ podium as we make a toast to you. Well done indeed.
GG – What’s with the kitchenware reference?
Are you including the National Party in that 85 %?
Then National Party gets less votes than the Greens (outside the Rugby League states) but more seats.
No 70
The Australian Parliamentary system does not result in elected dictatorships. The Rudd Government has had to temper many of its policy decisions according to the demands of the Senate. I think our system is a reasonable balance. I do not want a situation where unholy marriages of political parties and months of negotiation are required in order to determine who will be our government.
Oz,
Governments make decisions and rule for all, not just the 50+% who voted for them.
This is my point.
I view a multi member lower house being quite similar to our current senate in terms of how it’s elected and it’s make up. From that, I don’t see the point of having two of them.
While I agree that we should get rid of the Senate, would a PR lower house be elected on equal sized electorates?
JV,
Your a Greens supporter. It’s a bit rich accusing others of party partisanship.
“Pot calling Kettle black”.
Which is PR… Thanks for agreeing.
GP & GG
Basically it comes down to whether or not you support the representation of any identifiable group and minority in the parliament proportionate to their vote. What’s wrong with that? On what basis do you disagree with JS Mills’ treatise philosophically?
So, if a PR House would look pretty much like the Senate (in terms of distribution of seats), why wouldn’t we just abolish the House and have a unicameral system?
No doubt, but they don’t have the mandate of all. That is the issue.
And I understand that no government under whatever system is going to have the support of 100% of the people. But I think there are ways to make sure that parliament, the elected part of our system of governance, more broadly reflects the current values of the community.
Leaving aside what you think the purpose of parliament should be, does anyone actually think that single member electorates represent a more broader cross section of the communities views than PR? I think this point is difficult to dispute.
So the actually argument is what people want from their elected assembly. Mills puts the tension far better than I could.
Do you mean in terms of elected representatives/population? I’d say yes.
This would obviously get rid of what you could describe as gerrymanders like Tasmania, which currently actually favours my own political persuasion. Even though that’s the case I still accept it’s a gerrymander and I wouldn’t go to the effort of creating a more representative system and leave something like that in there. It would defeat the point of my whole argument.
The logical extention of the PR zealots is that NSW, Qld and Vic. will determine who forms Govt.
Or does proportional not relate to population?
I’m pretty sure those states already decide who forms government now…
GG @ 84 I see now, however, wrong. Never been a member of any of the parties, never supported the Greens party in any way via my labour, my time, or my money.
I think what you mean is that you have noticed that I support environmental protection and climate change action.
That hardly disqualifies me from pointing out that members and supporters of the 2 big parties are the most likely to seek to maintian the staus quo and argue against PR. By the same token I could also say that that members of minority groups and smaller parties are most likely to support PR.
And none of that diminishes the force of the arguments for PR.
Tasmania is a beneficiary of malapportionment (one area getting more seats per capita than another) not gerrymandering (boundaries rigged in favour of a party or parties).
Tasmania has both the equal senators and the the minimum 5 HoR seats per state to its benefit.
“but they don’t have the mandate of all”
Yes they do! Edmund Burke said it best in his Speech to the Electors at Bristol at the Conclusion of the Poll which was noted for its defence of the principles of representative democracy against the notion that elected officials should be delegates:
…it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
No 86
The ALP panders to minority groups all the time. The flaw in your analysis is that you think these groups are completely unrepresented.
Yes, GG, unfortunately the applicability of Burke in Australia is somewhat problematic because party political representatives here *are* delegates. If they cease acting as such, they are swiftly disendorsed and only with immense strength of will and electoral support retain their position in parliament.
Furthermore, I don’t think society should be held to ransom by minority groups, which is what PR entails. The Senate is enough of a taste of PR for me.
No 95
Indeed, the Liberal/National parties also ‘pander’ to minority groups. I’m not sure you’d call it ‘representative’, though, would you, in the sense of a formal process of democratic legislative representation?
So you do support a Tasmania gerrymander?
NSW has more people than WA. It makes sense they have more elected represenatives.
jv,
To pretend that you are some sort of unbiased umpire in this discussion is rubbish.
Please cite all the studies performed that support your assertions about the attitudes of Greens, major party supporters and other minority voters.
I can argue just as persuasively that the vast majority of Greens and other minority supporters prefer the Preferential system because it absolves them of having to make tough decisions and they can sit back and whinge about the major parties while preserving a fig leaf of moral superiority.
SNIP: Abusive comment deleted – The Management.
GG – Edmund was full of it wasn’t he? If only he were alive today to see how religiously our very own antipodean descendents of old Westminster live out his vision… as a matter of fact I think I heard Joe Tripodi, or was it Belinda, saying something very similar to Ed’s tract just the other day.
I do not support Tasmania having 12 senators and 5 HoR seats, it is not a gerrymander, it is just not proportional.
Votes are decided by a majority so if a vote does not pass it is because a majority did not support the bill/motion/government on which that vote was held. If both the major parties support a bill/motion/government then it passes whether or not the minor party or parties support it.b
I really don’t see what the hell PR has to do with The Greens or any other specific political party. You can’t advocate it without being disregarded simply because you’re a Green?
Everyone in Germany is a Green? Everyone in Norway is a Green? Everyone who votes in NSW local government elections is a Green?
No 98
The great thing about our current system is that both parties have to moderate their views to get elected. PR tends to bring out more extremist elements of society. Sure, it is more representative, but it is inherently more uncertain and unstable.
I like stability. I might not like Labor, but this government is generally stable.
Your arguments are contradictory.
You don’t want the eastern states to have more seats, even though the only reason they do is because more people live there, but you don’t want other areas to be given extra seats to make up for it.
Oz, that’s a bit rough when you know that GP was quietly side-stepping workchoices which were demanded by the Business council, the legislation was drafted with huge input from the Business Council and ultimately welcomed by the Business Council. What more representation would minorities want?
So now we’re back 50 posts.
I think a discussion about PR is pointless without first having a discussion about what you want from your elected assembly. GP and GG want “stability” and majority rule. I can’t speak for other proponents of PR but I want something that accepts a broader and more diverse range of views and opinions – as decided by the electorate, and thus is a representative assembly, elected to represent the views of the people, not just 80%.
And also something that limits the possibility of those being able to govern with not even a majority of the vote.
Oz,
If you can dismiss/ignore any Green-baiting that’s been going on (which, at the very least, is often amusing), there are some quite logical points that advocates of electoral system reform have not yet come to grips with.
If, as I believe you contend or at least concede, the current system favours the major parties, then the only way to change it is through generating sufficient public support to make them pay attention.
Arguing with people here may be part of that strategy, but it doesn’t seem the most likely means to generate the support that you’d like to see.
So, (and I guess this is a question for all PR supporters here) how are you going to generate the public ‘clamouring’ that will make the major parties act against their own interests?
Oz
I am happy with the current situation – senate excluded – surely any proportional system must include population? Your previous post does not make sense to me.
#108
Highlighting why contemporary examples of what the ALP is doing is not a substitute for an argument against structural change. The Rudd government may well be “pandering” to the views of lots of different people (Dunno if it is, but let’s say that’s the case). The Howard government certainly didn’t and it’s no certainty that any future government will either.
#112
Of course the Howard government pandered to minority groups. I can name Alan Jones and Kerry Packer as representatives of minority interests without giving the matter much thought at all.
Here is a Joke for the Australian Left.
What is the difference between the Liberals and the Nationals?
The Liberals believe in one dollar one vote and the National believe in one acre one vote.
I don’t think we’re both on the same page as what “proportional to population” means. 1 member for every 50,000, for example, is proportional, no?
Possibly, or getting a party/parties with that position already in a sufficient position of power so they can argue for it in a much more appropriate arena.
So just how does PR change this? The fact is with preferential voting major parties do govern with the majority of the vote – TPP. The only thing PR does is take the TPP and place it in parliament. So you will still get a major party governing with the support of a minor.
We could also highlight the Greens role in toppling the Goss Government in Queensland over the Koala Road which only achieved a pathway for One Nation to feed of the discontent. How is that helping to make the parliament more progressive?
#115
OK, well if that’s your strategy, and the only party with that position at the moment is the Greens, then it’s a little bit rich to claim that it’s unfair that your arguments for PR are derided as a stalking horse for the Greens.
If you want to distance the two campaigns from one another, you’ll have to diversify your strategy a little, I think.
GP,
I agree, that stable Government is what the community wants given that most people will support 90% of of what the Government does regardless of its colour. This is evidenced by the high proportion of legislation that is passed with the support of all Members and Parties.
Obviously, we all argue when this is not the case.
The important thing is that you accept that Labor is the Government and entitled to implement (with moderation) its policies. PR simply allows minority groups to wield power in disproportion to their real support and encourages disruption and dissension as these groups attempt to differentiate themselves.
If we want PR one of the first issues to address is why a Tasmanian member of the HoR has about 10,000 people living in the electorate while an ACT member has about 170,000?
#119
GG, maybe I’m missing something but could you tell me how a system designed to be proportional could result in disproportionate representation?
Oz, just how does the election of Steve Fielding fit in with this progressive newfangled theory?
The difference being that minor party/parties are actually in parliament and get to voice their issues continually as opposed to once every 3 years and hope that what the promises that the major parties made in regards to preference deals are actually upheld (which they often aren’t).
I said this earlier, but the goal isn’t to make parliament more “progressive” or more “conservative”. I very readily concede that whilst PR makes it more likely for The Greens to get more seats it also increases the chances of FF or the CDP. If I wanted to rig the system to it make more progressive I’d make sure that the closer you live to a capital cities CBD the more your vote is worth.
I’m not suggesting it is my “strategy”, it’s simply an idea. I do not have a strategy. I didn’t kick off the PR discussion and I’m not intending to ram it down anyone’s throat. A debate is ensuing and I’m making my views heard. The fact that they correlate with a particular party is irrelevant. GG’s views correlate with the Liberal Party but I’m not suggesting he’s a Liberal stooge.
oops left of a 0 100,000 v 170,000
Newfangled… it’s been around in Australia longer than preferential single member electorates.
I still think a better strategy for the Greens is to take on a few Tories in marginal seats and actually beat them. Suddenly all these ideas will be redundant.
#123
Apologies. Let me rephrase.
If the election of greater numbers of Greens representatives is the only strategy that proponents of PR have (aside from having people with varying levels of commitment to the cause argue with ardent opponents on blogsites), then it is hardly surprising that support for the Greens and support for PR are considered complementary. Similarly unsurprising is the hubris of opponents, who could rightly consider themselves safe from the threat of PR ever becoming a reality.
Gary B
No, PR takes the proportionate support for each party or group and places it in parliament.
The parliament then would form a coalition government from its ranks (as now) of members who are proportionate in number to the proportion of support their party got in the election. Then the executive is elected from that government. I personally would suggest some changes to how that would work, but that’s a separate issue.
Steve, if the goal was simply to increase representation of The Greens, then maybe.
But that’s not my starting position for advocating PR. It stems from how I want our parliament to function, to more accurately reflect the views of the community instead of insisting that Labor and Liberal actually do take care of it all themselves, don’t worry.
One of the few things Labor and Liberal hacks will vehemently agree on. I find that telling.
No doubt, but I doubt everyone who supports PR votes Green and every Green supports PR.
Go ahead and make a link between The Greens and PR, but that’s quite different to shooting down PR simply by saying “You’re a Greenie, who cares”.
JV
But that would require that Tasmania, ACT and NT have a the “correct” number of members?
ruawake, I think it’s pretty much agreed the answer is yes.
I don’t envisage any potential PR system retaining the existing disproportionality between states.
#130
I agree, but put it to you again that another strategy is required in order to create the necessary distance between the Greens and PR.
It may be trite to reflect that it is incumbent on advocates for change to convince a substantial proportion of society that change is necessary, but so far nothing in this debate gives evidence of any strategy for generating that support other than relying on the election of the Greens.
If this is really a big issue, and it seems to me a few people (not just you, Oz) here think it is, then why aren’t you doing something about it? Other than supporting the Greens?
Oz, I used to vote Green and give my preference to Labor up until the Greens preference deal elected the conservative Borbidge Government and a rump of One Nation MP’s into the Queensland parliament and I think this is one of the reasons that the Greens have not managed to garner the support necessary for them to win seats in their own right.
While the Greens are good at pointing out where the major parties act not necessarily in their own supporters’ interests. The log in their own eye is easier to excuse as a system that unfairly victimises the Greens. The answer then becomes to make a case for PR to be extended.
GP is right, our preferential system forces the 2 major parties to not go to extreme polar opposites ideologically or they wont get elected across a broad cross section of society.
If you think PR is so good look at Germany.
The Left Party = ex-Communists
Greens = more radical than our own
These 2 political organisations hold more than 100 seats in the German Bundestag.
Now look what happened in their election in 2005 neither major party could govern in their own right and had to form a coalition with each other it would be like the Liberals and ALP forming a Coalition government…see how well that would work before you start thinking PR is the best thing since sliced bread!
So to introduce PR, and for it to be fair, it would mean a change to the constitution?
#135
Just quietly, Glen, I think that would suit many voters to a T. Haven’t you ever seen those letters to the editor in any given newspaper ‘Why can’t they just pick the brightest and best from both parties and make One Government Under Love?’
Rua if you want PR for the lower house go to Europe and see where it has produced stable government!
The only system that produces stable government is the Westminster system/preferential or FPTP voting.
Bule that would go against the principles of the Westminster system.
#139
Nonsense. The scenario you painted was one in which the two major parties could only form a majority by banding together. In such circumstances, the combined minority parties would take the cross-benches, with the largest or a combination of them forming the opposition.
I think it’s pretty important but I don’t think it’s a high priority issue now, compared to other things. I have my hands pretty full with things I view as more immediate so I’m leaving the PR flag-waving to others.
But if the topic arises, as it has today, I’ll gladly engage in discussion.
Steve, I’m not going to defend any preference deals that elect conservative governments. But the fact that the only power The Greens, a party that gets up to 10% of the vote (more in recent examples, except QLD), has in influencing the lower house is through preference deals should be viewed as a reason why we need PR.
Preference deals are complicated, bitter things. You cite QLD, other examples might be Fielding in Victoria or any plethora of examples where you see left wing voters elected right wing candidates or vice versa. The people on the raw end of the preference deal, usually the minor party or independent, have no guarantee in what goes on in parliament. They only get to adjudicate on election promises and whatever they can negotiate. And there’s no guarantee these will stay once government’s been formed. And it’s really difficult when you have to make a choice between a corrupt right wing party or another corrupt right wing part (the Libs and Labor in NSW for example).
If you turn those preferences (which is all they boil down too) into actual seats in parliament it lets the representatives you voted for have a say on every issue in parliament, even forming government, rather than whatever gets promised prior to the election to secure preferences.
Bule, they pick the brightest and best and make them doctors in Queensland but these same people can’t even run a hospital system even though they are given unlimited power and huge wages to do so. I can’t see that system being a success.
My version of PR, probably.
But I don’t think it should be viewed as all or nothing. Whilst the ultimate goal (in my opinion) should be a completely equitable system that gets rid of historical malapportionment, there are other things that don’t require constitutional change that could be done.
Glen, your points are crap and have already been dealt with.
Stupidest thing anyone’s ever said. You tell us where it’s produced unstable government and then demonstrate that it’s because of PR. The only country you’ll mention is probably Belgium and that has a lot more to do with racial tensions than their system of elected MP’s.
Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland are all unstable are they? Fool.
I think it’s clearly the case that if advocates for PR had a website as cool as their BC counterparts the argument would already be won.
Italy Definately was under Prodi
If you have a system of parliamentary government, then the more the system deviates from a hypothetical pure model in which there are only two options to choose between for forming the government, the less control the voters have over who will form the government. Australia is pretty close to the hypothetical pure model of two choices. In Australia, those two choices are Labor and the Coalition, and most of the time it’s the way people vote that decide which of those two will form the government. Some other countries are also pretty close to the hypothetical pure model of two choices, the UK being one example. Italy now (as opposed to for the last sixty years) is also pretty close to this–there are more than two parties, but most of the significant ones have grouped themselves into just two major alliances, and it’s mostly the voters’ choice between these two alliances which determines who will form the government.
On the other hand, countries like the Netherlands and Belgium are a long way from the hypothetical pure model of just two choices. Not only are there multiple parties in their Parliaments, but there are multiple possibilities for forming a government. Sometimes it takes months of negotiations after a general election before they decide what the new government will be, and this reflects the fact that the voters’ choices play only a limited indirect role in deciding that. Sometimes the voters can effectively reject some options, but that still leaves a range of others, and the choice between them is not under the voters’ control.
The differences here don’t arise directly and simply from the electoral system. Malta, for example, as I mentioned, has a form of PR, but still has just two parties in its Parliament and operates on the pure model of two choices to form the government. Papua New Guinea, on the other hand, has a pure majority electoral system, but is a long way from the model of just two choices to form the government.
But electoral systems must have some effect.
If you are arguing to move away from the ‘just two choices’ model, then you are arguing in favour of reducing the voters’ control over who forms the government. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it’s better if the voters have less control over who forms the government. But if you move away from the ‘just two choices’ model (and given still the background assumption of a parliamentary system), then the reduction of voter control necessarily follows. Look at all the different countries that have parliamentary government, and the pattern is unmistakable.
Iceland, Oz?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/world/europe/27iceland.html?_r=1&scp=6&sq=iceland&st=cse
Also Iceland and Holland all suffer from PR and it forces major parties in Coalitions that they wouldnt prefer.
Germany’s government isnt as stable as you think, do you really think the Conservative CDU/CSU get along nice and well with the SPD????
Why is having only two choices of representative government ‘hypothetically pure’? Doesn’t that presuppose that on any given question there are only two possible answers, yes or no? Doesn’t it also presuppose that the drafting of the question itself is somehow hypothetically pure in some sense, and, indeed, that there two clear alternative questions?
What disingenuous rubbish. It enables minorities to be given a share of power in proportion to their support on the community.
It does no such thing. If two ‘majority groups’ chose to do so they could form a majority or reach an agreement re confidence and supply issues to squeeze out the ‘minority groups’.
It gives ‘minority groups’ no more power than that given to them by the people. Other systems of voting might act instead to disempower all those who choose to not vote for one of two ‘majority group’ parties.
J-D
Re-read Mill extract above for your answer. PR by definition increases voters’ control over the proportion of members who represent their own group’s views in parliament. The bigger the group the bigger the representation. Sounds fair to me.
Bule @150
There’s nothing necessarily better about being pure. The hypothesis is pure only in the mathematical sense. Only two options is the simplest possible choice. Life is nearly always more complicated than simple pure hypotheses. I’m not advocating one way or the other, I’m just pointing out what’s involved in the decision.
So does learning how to pick good candidates,developing polices acceptable to the the majority of an electorate and focusing resources where the best chance of winning happens to be.
jaundiced view @153
Yes, PR gives voters more control over the representation of their group in parliament. But insofar as it tends to move the system away from the simplest model of two choices only (which it doesn’t have to, as it doesn’t in Malta, but there is a tendency that way), it reduces voters’ control over who forms the government.
Ruawake @ 131
I envisage it would work not as proportional on a population basis state by state, but on national support for the various groups/parties.
#154
Thanks for that clarification. It did seem that you were suggesting that voter choice diminishes with deviation from a hypothetically pure model, which, to democratically minded people might imply that such a model is better.
As it is, I’m not convinced that your conclusions are necessarily sound. If the stability of only two alternatives results in increased capacity for political parties to engage in rent-seeking or imposing other forms of obligation on elected representatives, acting as delegates, then this may have more significant effects on the strength of voter choice than any effects of models deviating from such a ‘pure’ model.
If a party (or a parties policies) has/have the support of a majority of the electorate they will receive the majority of the seats under a PR system. Currently, a majority of people do not support (necessarily) the policies of the governing party.
J-D
As Mill said, systems like ours result in a simple majority of 50.1% having all the power:
How does the disenfranchisement of minorities give them any control over the government formed?
I didn’t say it diminishes voter choice, I said that it diminishes voters’ control over who forms the government.
Again, I didn’t say anything about the strength of voter choice, and I’m not sure what you mean by that phrase.
The reduction in voters’ control over who forms the government is, as I said, empirically observable. Whether one chooses to regard that as a good thing or a bad thing, and how much weight one attaches to it in comparison with other effects, is another matter. Some people might think that a parliament with a large number of different groups proportionally represented, and without the fixed alliances between them that one finds in countries like Italy and India, is a good thing, and that the reduction in voters’ control over who forms the government doesn’t matter or is a price worth paying. All I’m saying is that you will get the reduction in voters’ control over who forms the government.
JV, the old tyranny of the majority theory, no doubt. Funny your concerns haven’t run to the other side of the coin with an anarchistic cry of vote for nobody because if you do a politician wins.
Consider the example of Germany. Germany is an intermediate case. It doesn’t deviate from the simple ‘just-two-choices’ model as much as the Netherlands or Belgium, but it deviates more than the UK or Australia, and the present government is one such deviation. The fact that such a deviation is more of an exception to the usual pattern in Germany makes its significance more distinct. Nobody voted in favour of government by a coalition of the Christian Democrats and the Social-democrats. Any voters who want that kind of government have no way of voting in favour of it. And voters who want not to have that kind of government have no way of voting against it.
Would a status quo supporter please care to explain how the last term of Howard with majorities in the Reps and Senate was a desirable example of stable democracy?
So you can point out one country in Europe who’s government collapsed as a result of the financial crisis, and a couple of others Glen doesn’t like and that means the system used by almost 30 countries in Europe is inherently unstable.
Yes, I realised afterwards I’d used ‘choice’ instead of ‘control’.
It appears to me that the ‘control’ you’re talking about may be flawed. The clarity of the choice made by voters may be more stark when they are only presented with two options, but this says nothing about their ‘control’ over who forms government because the model, as far as I can see, says nothing about the process by which the two options are put before the electorate.
That is, who are the candidates, how are they nominated, and by whom?
It seems to me that you’ve invested a lot of thought in the logic and, perhaps, mathematics involved in this hypothesis, and I won’t pretend that I have. I know you make all the right kind of qualifications about the realities of complex society and choices related to behaviour, but exactly how ‘pure’ is this hypothesis? Does it start simply with two alternative government choices and no consideration of how these choices were determined?
steve –
No, I want an improvement on what ours has become. I just can’t see anyone outside the major party umbrellas thinking that the representation we get currently is the best possible.
That’s the process isn’t it to fix bad systems generally?: 1. recognise there is a problem; 2. define that problem; 3. look at possible solutions from around the world; 4. choose the best alternative; 5. implement change.
jaundiced view, if people opposed to the government have seats in parliament, they can’t be said to be completely disenfranchised. Obviously it makes no sense to have people opposed to the government included in the government.
Instead of arguing this purely in the abstract, it is essential to look at the evidence of experience. We know what the range of experience has been in a range of different countries and it makes no sense to me to ignore this.
PR encourages divisions in society, it encourages single interest groups to form and it destroys any sense of consensus within society.
If you want to look at ‘how good’ PR is then look up any history book on the Weimar Republic.
This is as stupid as saying “If you want to look at how good democracy is then look up any history book on the Weimar Republic.”
J-D @ 163
But the coalitions forming government in parliament come from the representatives of all groups with reps. If a member or members of the coalition representing a group act in a way contrary to what the voters generally want, the consequences will be felt next election and beyond. But the main thing is everyone is represented in parliament, and most likely two or more in the coalition. It means that issues are debated within and without the coalition government and in parliament on their merits and then determined by the parliament, which remains proportionally representative of the voters. This doesn’t constitute a lack of control.
Where’s the problem again?
Again, the problem is that some view the sole reason for parliaments existence is to create a government .
J-D @ 168
Makes no sense to me to do that either, and I don’t think I have. That’s one of the main reasons I support it.
It’s Time. The balance with Howard occurs by his defeat not during the term of his rule. Given that majorities in both Houses lead to his downfall, it has played a part in returning the system to stability but there is still a overhang from the terms in the senate being longer than the terms for the HoR members.
It isn’t just the Greens. Look at New Zealand, there have been the rise of a number of parties of different stripes, including the ACT party, who are now in government.
And the majority of stable western democracies use proportional systems. And what’s so bad about Italy? Sure, they have a lot of governments. But they have been peaceful and relatively prosperous for the last sixty years.
And when you consider the problems that Israel has, do you really think it’s caused by a PR system? Do you think the whole Arab-Israeli conflict might have something to do with it?
Polls show a large amount of disillusionment with political parties and our system of government. Most people don’t say “the problem with our system of government is the single-member electorate system”, but that’s largely because people aren’t aware of the alternatives and aren’t engaged enough to have an educated option.
But the truth remains that people are largely unhappy with the way that government operates, and would like to see parties have a little bit less stability in government and a bit more accountability. Ask most people what they think of our current system where a few “marginal seats” get all the attention while the rest are ignored, and the need for change becomes obvious. I don’t advocate for a single system, but it is clearly broken and we need some national debate about the best way forward. It might be a constitutional convention, or a citizens’ assembly, or a royal commission. After people have been educated about the options, we could then follow it up with a referendum.
But why are the defenders of the status quo so afraid of the debate? You always like to beat it down with ridiculous examples. Israel! Hitler’s Germany! As if those countries didn’t have bigger problems then their electoral systems.
Regarding British Columbia, I have posted a Google Earth map on my website that includes both the new redistributed FPP boundaries to be used for the 2009 election and the proposed STV boundaries that will be used in 2013 if the referendum is successful. You can find it at http://www.tallyroom.com.au/maps/
I suppose a Mount Albert by-election does make sense in order to do justice to the “Member” part of Mixed Member Proportional.
But to do justice to the “proportional” part, the party that wins (if its not Labour) ought to lose a list seat, and Labour ought to gain a list seat.
So you end up with zero sum game which renders the by-election completely pointless.
No they don’t. Not anywhere. There are always some groups that are in the government coalition and some which are against it. Now look at the example of any country you like and tell me what determines which groups will be in government and which will be in opposition.
There is a big difference between a majority government of a single party and a coalition of a number of parties. There is always the possibility that one of them will turn on the others, and usually it still opens up the possibility for a less monolothic legislative process.
Perhaps. But I didn’t say that.
Possibly. That doesn’t change the truth of what I’ve been saying.
J-D
Yes, I wasn’t denying that truth – I was simply pointing out that PR gets minorities into parliament where they are 1. In the mix with potential to be part of the executive, and 2. in a position to help vote down anything the executive comes up with that stinks. (instead of the current rubber stamp).
Ben R @ 175
Excellent exposition
And for those interested in genuine discussion on the topic rather than just defending the status quo from their respective big party citadels, a US site with some good background on PR and lots of links (I found the JS Mill link there) is Fairvote:
http://www.fairvote.org/?page=718
Call me old-fashioned, but I like the single-member constituency system as it operates in the lower houses of Australian parliaments, with the exception of Tasmania. There is very easy access to the political process for would-be MP’s, but to win they have to pass muster with a well-defined group of electors. As a voter – and not as a wannabe politician – this suits me. MP’s have to get to know their constituents and treat them with elementary respect or their legislative roles will not last long. This is great. It makes it possible to get rid of politicians who have erred or otherwise failed their electors. This matters to me much more than a purist idea of making sure that every shade of opinion is represented in parliament. Why should every minor viewpoint have standing in the legislative process? Legislatures – especially the Upper Houses, which tend to be drawn from lists and be comprised of multi-member constituencies – are already prone to inertia, populism and ratbag deal-broking. Privileging every minority interest group and single-issue outfit – which is what PR tends to to – will only make legislatures less democratic and less effective.
It never turned out that way when Labor had the majority in the council opposition before the last Brisbane City Council election. All that happened was the Liberals under Gridlock Campbell took the credit for anything they liked and the Labor councilors took the rap for anything the Liberals didn’t want to take responsibility for. Come the election it was the Labor Party that lost wards.The theory being expoused here just does not accord with observed practice.
That may well be so, at least sometimes, but it still doesn’t change the truth of what I’ve been saying.
Briefly@183
So you think that giving each party representation in parliament according to their proportion of the vote is ‘privileging ‘ them. Really? That’s a big call. So you would rather:
In a really equal democracy, every or any section would be represented, not disproportionately but proportionately.
in 186 the last sentence is also from Mill and should be with the quote above it.
MPs having to be good members is only a reality in marginal seats and seats held by independents. Safe seats have sufficient numbers of people who almost always vote with the one party because they think that party is best for them so that those who try voting out a bad member do not change whether or not that person is elected. In nations with voluntary voting and single member seats safe seats get significantly lower turnout. Parties also spend less resources on safe seats.
The genius with Robson Rotation is that those who want to vote only for a party can just donkey vote down their parties selection of candidates and this does not prevent those who wish to make a choice from within the parties selection of candidates from having an effective choice.
“Tom the first and best
Posted Friday, April 10, 2009 at 10:18 pm | Permalink
MPs having to be good members is only a reality in marginal seats and seats held by independents. Safe seats have sufficient numb…….”
This is even more of a problem with PR lists…..
Who’s talking about lists? We’re talking Hare-Clark, multi-member constituencies with Robson Rotation.
jaundiced view
“Posted Friday, April 10, 2009 at 10:15 pm | Permalink
Briefly@183
Privileging every minority interest group and single-issue outfit – which is what PR tends to to – will only make legislatures less democratic and less effective
So you think that giving each party representation in parliament according to their proportion of the vote is ‘privileging ‘ them. Really? That’s a big call…. ”
Big or not, giving minority voices swing-power in the legislative process is bad for policy and bad for the legislatures themselves….think of Senators Harradine and Xenophon….
Not when we are in a situation where ‘local representation’ has been traduced to the 2 party system to the extent that it is meaningless. Unless we want to perpetuate an historical anachronism, like, say, marriage, we’ll move to PR.
I suppose that’s why most countries use some form of PR, and the new eastern european democracies all adopted it.
The question is only really how we make it best for Aussie circumstances, with our large area and relatively small population – a bit like the broadband fibre problem.
Arr, how dare the 20% of people who don’t vote for Labor or Liberal think that they’re entitled to some kind of representation!
Don’t they know it’s bad for democracy!
Here is that Paul Murray Column on the NBN from the other day which compares Rudd to Whitlam.
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=9&ContentID=135399
“Oz
Posted Friday, April 10, 2009 at 11:06 pm | Permalink
Arr, how dare the 20% of people who don’t vote for Labor or Liberal think that they’re entitled to some kind of representation!
Don’t they know it’s bad for democracy!..”
Democracy is not about rule with the consent of minorities. It is about rule by the majority. Minor opinion is important, but should not be able to frustrate the will of the majority. It is that simple.
Theoretically yes
In the “real” world sometimes the majority can be less tham half of the “actual” electorate
Eg USA
Sorry briefly, I didn’t see your 191 before posting.
I try not to – particularly the former, but they wouldn’t be elected under any PR system as I see them. What party or registered group do they represent? PR would shake out the shonks like Fielding, fronting sects. You would just have sizeable minority groups of the left and right. There could be no ambush by hiding behind a name like ‘Family First’ if the thing were national. I doubt it happend much in Germany or the other European states enjoying PR. Perhaps Herr Dr Adam can assist on Germany?
j-v, local representation remains the best starting point in the political process. You might think it has been “traduced” but there would be even less role for local values, identities and personalities – and more room for celebrity, spin, money and crook deals – in a PR system.
The whole legislative-executive-judicial structure requires that people know who is responsible and that they can be made accountable when things go wrong. The closer that elected officials are to their constituents – the more they rely on local, personal legitimacy – the more likely it is that the system will be coherent, durable, flexible, self-sustaining and responsible. PR would undermine all this, in my opinion.
If in a legislative chamber with proportional representation a majority of members vote against a motion/bill/government then the representatives of the MAJORITY of formal voters* have voted against said motion/bill/government. All parties who vote against something are responsibility for its defeat.
Who says? You might have that opinion but it’s hardly the only definition of democracy or even the most accepted one.
Heavens briefly – I don’t think you’re getting it. It isn’t a threat to democracy; its an enhancement. Do you disagree with JS’s philosophical point?:
How can getting all substantial views into parliament diminish the will of the majority? It just means that when there is a vote, the ‘majority’ in parliament includes those views. Do you have a problem with that concept?
Why? You’re still accountable to your constituency in a PR system. In fact, because there’s more than one of you per constituency, you are actually under more pressure to be involved with the electorate rather than take if for granted.
*Most proportional representation systems exclude micro-parties either by a minimum barrier of up to 10% (but often around 5%) or by division into smaller multi-member electorates.
Well oz, democracy should at the least not be rule by the minority.
Surely the essence of democracy is arriving at an informed consensus. This implies that the views of minorities are taken into consideration. PR is a way, albeit not perfect ensuring that this happens.
Exactly, and that’s what we regularly get here these days. Think Howard govt up to 11/07. Much less than half the first preference, but with total domination of both houses. (Sorry to raise that awful spectre we are all trying to forget – although it did do them in)
I think JS was taking aim at a corrupt and unreformed Westminster, and that he would be quite pleased with modern parliaments by comparison. He might object to the role of party discipline – especially in Australian legislatures – but I’m sure he would find them free, fairly-elected, open to all the citizenry, and that all kinds of opinion are invited, heard and respected. They have faults, but creating a PR system will not solve them.
Well JS was speaking philosophically to all those with an open mind, and I note that no-one has cavilled with the principle of fair representation he espoused, because it is above criticism. All the negatives to PR today have been aimed at keeping the status quo without intellectually addressing the desirability or otherwise of the basic principle of equal representation. Methinks there are, well, just a few around here with ‘big 2′ party interests of the emotional kind.
Really, no-one could seriously say that the PR system as it has applied in Italy has been a good example of an open, accountable, honest system. Maybe the problems of systemic crime, running to the corruption of the highest offices in the country, cannot be attributed to PR. But the PR system basically has meant the parliament has been a static entity and that one crooked clique has been able to run the country to suit themselves for most of the last 60-odd years. There are many other examples…..
Oh FFS we’re past cherry picking particular countries.
“j-v…Methinks there are, well, just a few around here with ‘big 2? party interests of the emotional kind.”
I have no axe to grind. I just think the single-member constituency-based structure is a good one. I like the idea that the every one from the PM down to the most humble back-bencher has to be answerable to the ma and pa bloggs of the world. I like this idea very much.
[briefly @ 209}
refer early post in thread and let me know:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2009/04/10/keeping-it-holy/comment-page-1/#comment-259032
Italy, Schmitaly, why flog a dead horse?
The Victorian Upper house is a good example of a good cross representation of parties.
Labour, Lib, National, Greens, and DLP, are all represented in rough proportion to the number of votes they secured.
I fail to see how any of these parties could be unhappy with the seats they secured.
Victorias system should be assigned to all states in australia.
Leave the Federal System as it is as it has proved to be very successful, and has ensured stable government for many years.
briefly @ 211 [PM down to the most humble back-bencher has to be answerable to the ma and pa bloggs of the world.]
So PR increases the distance between voter and votee?
Have you ever, or do you know anyone who has, received a letter from your local member that means ANYTHING in response to one you’ve written on behalf of some local group, and hasn’t been derived from a template, or have you ever been to a public meeting at which the local member won’t answer directly but repeats like a mantra to every question the party line? Or have you ever had a meeting with your local member and had the ‘mirror and spew’ response (“I’ll look into it; I’ll bring it up”). You must either be joking or a member of one of those parties running those lines.
Oz, I’m not cherry-picking. I’m just pointing out what I think is a basic flaw in PR systems. While PR systems are arguably representative, they do not usually rely on a system of direct accountability. I like the idea that it is possible to get rid of politicians when they stuff up. John Howard was dumped at the last election. In a PR system, he would still be in parliament and could well still be PM. The trouble is not just electing politicians, it is disposing of the duds.
j-v, I don’t belong to any party. And the fact is local MP’s have helped me – and not helped me – from time to time. I’ve known quite a few. The good ones have been in lower houses. The lesser lights have been the sinecured Senators and MLC’s – selected from lists, beneficiaries of PR.
briefly @ 217
It’s OK because it isn’t an either/or choice. In South Africa at present as they are moving move towards PR (as do all new democracies these days), and they are looking to ensure accountability is imposed on representatives against the background of a Westminster based system like ours to date in which:
Sound familiar?
They have the opportunity to change and are taking it.
http://www.fairvote.org/blog/2009/02/full-representation-and-accountability-why-choose-south-africa-wants-both/
briefly – And by the way I apologise that I questioned your motives.
j-v, no worries. I’m not offended…..:)
No 144
Oz, I can’t believe you think Italy is a beacon of political stability. For goodness sake, they’ve had 60 governments since WW2.
No 206
The voters soon realised the error of their ways in granting one party a majority in both houses.
In any event, democracy is about majorities – I do not want the peace and good government of this nation threatened by the idiocy of minority special interests.
No 213
It’s not a dead horse. It’s still a good argument against introducing such lunacy in Australia.
Can’t believe people here – you’ve got your leftist gods in power and you still want to screw it up with PR.
This is not going to help the Rudd Government’s efforts to kick-start the economy:
‘According to estimates by UNESCO’s hydrology institute, the world’s largest net supplier of virtual water until recently was Australia. It exported a staggering 70 cubic kilometers of water a year in the form of crops, mainly food. With the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia’s main farming zone, virtually dry for the past two years, that figure has been cut in half.’
http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=1825
(‘virtual water’ is water used to grow crops or to manufacture stuff. The produce and the products then contain ‘virtual water’.)
They better start planning on GM crops that use sea water.
For once I agree with you GP – THe Centre Left Prodi Government only lasted 2 yearsbefore being forced to call an election which was won by Berlusconi.
From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romano_Prodi
And The Grrens call that Stable Government
And just in case people thought the Liberals were pretty silly. They are no match for the many ways the Republicans make themselves look stupid.
It has generated 117 pages of comments, mostly lampooning and derision.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/09/spencer-bachus-socialists_n_185364.html
The West Australian carries a second Westpoll survey of 400 respondents on the May 16 daylight saving referendum, showing 47 per cent supporting and 51 per cent opposed compared with 42 per cent and 57 per cent at the poll last month. The West’s report says this means “community support for daylight saving has climbed steadily over the last month”, but I don’t need to tell you all what a load of bollocks that is. Taken together, the surveys suggest the proposal is most likely headed for defeat by the same narrow-ish margins as in 1975, 1984 and 1992.
Yep, totally agree – and it will be lost in the same suburban electorates – though the vote will be closer with the inclusion of Ellenbrook, which wasn’t around as a suburb during the last referendum.
No 227
I would have thought the secret number to be higher given the propensity of the US congress to nationalise the financial system and spend $4 trillion they don’t have.
TP
I would guess that that is being worked on…
This man is the most powerful man on earth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyW9e5QdWxk&NR=1
A convincing argument against punitive tax rates on high income earners:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10113
Obama’s problem is that he is that he takes a moment to think before he says something.
If he could just regurgitate prerehearsed talking points like any normal politician he’d do away with that stuttering problem.
GP so now it is the voter’s fault for Howard’s abuse of power is it? The problem was not in granting a majority in both houses but the singleminded determination to foister Workchoices on the Australian people whether they wanted it or not.
GP, I read the article but you seem to have deleted the convincing bit. Are you sure that you posted the right article? Just the normal everyday Tory waffle as far as I could tell.
Are bloggers thinking of multimember electorates as the model for proportional representation or some other model? It’s difficult to know based on some of the comments made recently which seem to imply a lack of accountability in a PR system.
It’s Time, multimember PR is indeed the model favour by our Green friends as a substitute for doing the hard work of getting their members elected by doing the work necessary to get more Green members elected. It boils down to change themselves and the political strategies the Greens employ or change the rules for electing Parliamentarians. The Greens always have a tendency to think the latter is easier and more beneficial but I am not convinced.
If there is a swing on against the conservatives the Greens should be in a position to win seats and so far they have failed to transform what popularity the party has into seats. This is the problem and for some reason multimember PR always comes up as their solution but I think they might be barking up the wrong tree.
There is still the argument that Australia has more than enough politicians and tends to be overgoverned and not undergoverned as these arguments imply.
I find a debate a bit distasteful when taking a position immediately labels me as a party hack rather than someone with an open mind who’s sat down and thought it all through. Apparently, though, if I had done that, I would have a ‘eureka!’ moment and joined the Greens.
So, firstly, let me make it clear that I advocated very heavily for the system (which WB says is very similar to H-C) in the Victorian Upper House. I would still say that – if you’re going to have an Upper House, based, like the Senate, on broad regional representation – it’s the best system, recognising (of course) that no system is, or ever will be, perfect.
Secondly, I wouldn’t want it extended to the lower house.
The reason I say that is that, like the Senate, the area covered by each electorate makes it too big (in both geography and population) to be representative. In theory, this shouldn’t happen; the five elected members should be studded, like raisins, across the electorate. Each should have some geographical/demographic appeal which attracts voters and determines their consistuency.
In practice, of course, the votes are in the major centres and that’s where the members are based. They have no need to cater to the minority voters, because in electorates of this size, they’re always going to be up against it getting a quota.
My impression, too, is that these members are even more likely to be elected on party lines than lower house members. Most people have a vague idea of who their lower house member is; very few people have any idea who their UH member is (and the more choice they have in the number of candidates, by definition greater in a HC type electorate, the less likely they are to check candidates out). In this situation, people resort to voting along party lines.
Again, Victoria demonstrates this. The reform of the UH resulted in a lot of party hacks on both sides being shunted into electorates which they had little or no affinity for. It didn’t change the expected vote one iota.
So, to my mind, big, multi member electorates erodes individual accountability of MPs and thus the ability of individual voters to influence debate.
Another thing – sorry, guys, we don’t live in a democracy, we live in a representative system which is elected democratically. The whole theory behind this is that individuals will look at who will best represent them, and vote for that person. That person will then look at all the information before them when making a decision and make their decision in the best interests of their electorate.
This will always mean that the elected rep will make decisions which are unpopular. An unpopular decision is not necessarily a bad decision – when I voted a certain way as a (PR elected) local councillor, one of my friends who I knew disagreed with my decision said, “We elect you to look at all the information because we can’t be bothered doing so. We then trust you to make the right decision based on that. We assume that, if we had access to all the information you had, we would have voted the same way.”
The whole idea behind our system is just that – people ‘outsource’ their decision making, because it’s simply too much trouble.
If I was to reform the situation, my solution would simply be to engage the electorate more in the big decision – picking a local member. If parties knew that their candidates underwent genuine scrutiny and won votes not just on the party platform but on their own merits, no mere party hack would get preselected. That voters are too lazy or disinterested to do this suggests that, as far as they’re concerned, the system works just fine.
And in a democratically elected system, that means the voter has spoken.
zoomster, you appear to be be ignoring the effect of organised political parties. Voters today are more likely voting for the party whose policies they want implemented in rather than the individual person standing for election.
Having stood for election for the ALP more times than you’ve had hot breakfasts, It’s Time, I’m not. I know exactly what voters are doing. I’m simply saying that, if you wanted to reform the system, that would be the best way of doing it. It’s certainly how the framers of the system saw it working.
Of course, I may just be a jaundiced ex candidate who thinks that, if the voters had looked at us all on merit, I would have got up. But I like to think I’m a little more substantial than that!!
It’s Time,
Your assertion is unproven. The power of incumbancy is very strong in Australian politics. People often vote for the person they know rather than the Party.
I should add too, that the greater the size of an electorate, both geographically and in population, the harder it is for a minor party member or independent to be elected. It’s obviously far easier to leaflet drop, doorknock, streetstall, cold call etc an electorate of 80,000 than one of 400,000 people. You’re also going to be able to target your activities more effectively; the chances of wasting time on ‘rusted on’ supporters is greater the bigger the population you’re canvassing.
In Victoria, where minors got up, it was either a result of preference flow (a la Fielding) or in areas which were geographically compact and the party already had an established voter base. I don’t think there were any cases where a minority candidate gained quota in their own right, through hard work resulting in voter recognition.
Your assertion is unproven. The power of incumbancy is very strong in Australian politics. People often vote for the person they know rather than the Party.
Utter rubbish. The “personal” vote of sitting party members is minimal, usually less than 5%. Why do you think most electorates are safe seats for one party or another irrespective of the individual party candidate?
It’s Time, why then did the Liberals in Western Australia win so convincingly the seats where there was no sitting member? Why didn’t the Green take some of those seats?
It’s estimated that the qualities of individual candidates only influence election outcomes by 2%.
Over involvement in several campaigns, running candidates of different calibre, I’d say it’s 5%, tops.
I’ve seen candidates who saw massive swings against them (10% plus) stand for the next election and get over 5% to them. In other words, it was nothing to do with their appeal to voters but to how the party was travelling at the time. I have, however, also successfully predicted from day one that a candidate was going to result in a 5% swing against us, so the individual does have some (minimal) effect.
Sorry Steve, I don’t understand your point. Please note that I was arguing against GG’s assertion of a strong incumbency factor but forgot to include the quote marks so post 245 includes 2 contradictory statements by mistake.
It’s Time,
Quoting numbers without evidence means it is you that is writing rubbish.
John Howard was always desperate to hang on to his 96ers because he knew having them as a candidate was the difference between winning and losing seats and ultimately, Government.
GG, you are mistaking a campaign concentrating on marginal seats with a supposedly strong incumbency factor.
Howard was desperate to hold onto that generation of seats because they were the marginal seats which he won and generally had low margins, so he needed to retain them to retain government. The small incumbency factor of a couple of % was still small but significant when the margin in a seat is only a few %.
An incumbency factor does not explain the loss of a long-term, high profile incumbent such as Mal Brough.
How many sitting members of a mainstream political party succeed when they recontest their seats as an independent? Precious few, particularly if you exclude the ex-Nationals.
Hey Bludgers – what do you all think about George Pell’s latest contributions (condoms and AIDS, and faith being more effective than economic stimulus)?
BK, it’s exactly what I’d expect George Pell to say. Are you claiming to be surprised?
GP233
I just read that rubbish by Chris Edwards from the Cato institute, and have also read Prof. Piketty’s research paper he referred to. It is a misleading set of selective evidence and false analogies to reach a false conclusion that suits Edward’s Cato paymasters:
Several aspects of the Cato article are false (as usual):
- saying that there is a fixed pie of income is a “philosophy” is incorrect – it is one of the central facts economic models demonstrate. Increasing the size of the pie is difficult, and one of the main subjects of economic policy and debate.
- saying that the rich get richer at other’s expense is a European belief ” is false and misleading. It is not a belief but a fact. In fact, Piketty’s paper was mainly about presenting the evidence that proves this point.
- he refers to “Those at the top end—the entrepreneurs, doctors, and others with unique skills” as earning their money. Some in those categories do. The trouble is this is misleading because most in the “top end” – top 1% of income – as Piketty said, are business execs. There aren’t many doctors or people with unique skills in the top income group any more. Some CEO’s make more in a year than GPs make in a career.
- he refers to CEOs “Of course there are exceptions, such as those high-earning CEOs who perform poorly, but it doesn’t make economic sense to impose exorbitant tax rates because of the exceptions.” – in fact this group now makes up the vast majority of top income earners. They are not the exception, but are typical.
- the claim that tax evasion has fallen with lower top income rates is also false; there are several OECD papers on this. As long as there are tax shelters somewhere with lower rates, the richest try to cheat the system.
Lets not foist US spin on unsuspecting Australian audiences. We would do well to read Piketty’s research papers though; it is very relevant to parallel shifts in Australian taxation:
http://www.jourdan.ens.fr/piketty/fichiers/public/Piketty2005.pdf
http://www.econ.berkeley.edu/~saez/piketty-saezAEAPP06.pdf
Piketty’s main point is that the top 1% of income earners have gotten much richer in the past 20 years, and hopes that it would increase real incomes for the rest of the workforce and the economy as a whole have proven false. Rates of overall growth have fallen, and this was even before the GFC and evidence of fraud came to light. These people acquire wealth; they don’t create it.
Why did GP post this? I think its a recurring theme amoung the extreme right that they are motivated by personal greed, but don’t want to feel guilty about it. So they go looking for any justification for their actions like “it doesn’t hurt anyone else” or “it makes the economy work better” or “I earnt that money so why should I pay tax”. Its pure BS, sometimes bordering on self delusion. True liberals would turn in their graves (I don’t think we have any left).
Steve
Not at all. He is one piece of work!
BK
Pell would happily support practices that consign tens of thousands in Africa to their deaths if it kept “the show on the road” and his own career on track. What he and the pope said were obscene. They are both smart enough to know its false too – the lie is deliberate.
It was people like Pell who inspired my “conversion” to atheism. The Pells of this world are either delusional or careerist egotists and often hypocritical. I suspect that many don’t beleive in god any more than I do. Lest I seem a cynic, I was active in the catholic church for some years; at one stage I was even the token youth on a diocesan pastoral council and knew one archbishoop quite well. That is where I encountered the hypocracy and abuse of power that caused me to abandon my former beliefes. The catholic church scandals you hear about are just the tip of the iceberg; there are lots more they keep covered up.
Socrates.
Thankyou for that. I am pleased that you have survived the experience.
You are so right about their motives – it is all about the gaining, use and retention of power over the credulous.
Fiji is now in total military dictatorship:
* No constitutions
* No judiciary
* Ruled by decrees for the next 5 years
* The President is a puppet and controlled by the Military
* Total press censorship has been imposed
* The Military occupies the top 20 posts in the country
Fiji is at our front door. Have I heard outrage here PB? No.
What I hear is a double stand outrage like the easy picking on the current China regime. For all its faults, China has always been firmly ruled and controlled by the civilians, from the very beginning.
I recommend a military force led by Australia to invade Fiji and get rid of the Bainimarama dictatorship regime and restore the beloved DEMOCRACY.
What about it , Sir!!!
BK
I should add that I suffered no personal harm – life for me is good. I became dissillusioned though at the treatment of others I knew by the catholic church.
Pell was one of the youngest bishops ever appointed in Australia (46) and appointed cardinal only a few years later – he just says whatever he thinks Rome wants to hear.
As always, the lapsed Catholics and bigots choose to misrepresent the context of what was said to rationalise their view of the world.
“The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney said condoms “encourage promiscuity” and were not the solution to the AIDS epidemic.
“The idea that you can solve a great spiritual and health crisis like AIDS with a few mechanical contraptions like condoms is ridiculous,” he said on Sky News. The cardinal said the different rates of AIDS in Catholic and non-Catholic countries in Asia showed why spirituality, not condoms, was needed.
“If you look at the Philippines, you’ll see the incidence of AIDS is much lower than it is in Thailand, which is awash with condoms,” he said. “There are condoms everywhere and the rate of infection is enormous.”
http://www.theage.com.au/national/pell-stance-draws-fire-20090410-a2x9.html
Finns
I am strongly opposed to what Fiji has done but would prefer to see the government forced out by peaceful means. Also no military action without an international (UN) mandate – it was wrong in Iraq and it woudl eb wrong for us to do it too. If there was international support then OK.
That being said, I think we can force change; Fiji is far from self sufficient economically. We could cut off tourism as well as aid and that would just about bring down Bainimarana withi a year.
Socrates.
Yes, I have watched Pell’s progress ever since the emergence of cover-up rumbles in Victoria many years ago. It was obvious then that he was lining himself up for (corporate) ascension.
In those early times he came across as a particularly manipulative type.
Bit off topic, but I noticed Charlie Cook’s released his new “Partisan Voter Index” figures for every U.S. Congressional district, updated for the last election.
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2009/04/10/the_new_partisan_voting_index.html
It’s a bit like the Mackerras pendulum but with two differences: (1) it’s based on the results of the last two presidential elections; and (2) every figure is “adjusted” according to the national popular vote.
This second difference is the more crucial one IMO, it means that a “Republican” district didn’t necessarily vote for McCain; it might have voted for Obama, but less strongly than the nation as a whole. Or in other words, it would’ve voted Republican if the vote had been split 50-50. (Assuming uniform swing…)
Anyway, what interests me is that according to the Cook PVI, there are 234 generically Republican districts, 192 generically Democratic districts and nine “even” districts. You can see why this is when you go to the extremes of the pendulum. The best Republican district is R+29. (i.e. it voted for Bush and McCain on average 29 points more strongly than the nation as a whole.) At the other end of the pendulum, the 24 strongest districts range from D+31 to D+40. (i.e. they voted for Kerry and Obama on average 31-40 points more strongly than the nation as a whole.)
So plainly the map is gerrymandered against the Democrats. That makes it all the more remarkable that they should control Congress. There’s a lot of Democratic Congressmen in generic Republican districts. And conversely very few Republican Congressmen in generic Democratic districs. If you’ve ever wondered why the Blue Dog Democrats have such an influence, this is why.
Redistricting is coming up after the 2010 census. The Democrats will presumably be in control of a lot more state legislatures than they were at the beginning of this decade. One wonders if they’ll use this opportunity to construct a more balanced map. It’s not a given however. A lot of these super safe Democratic districts are racial gerrymanders, i.e. tons of minority voters packed into single districts. Ironically many on the Left actually support this; believing it improves minority representation.
Finns,
I don’t recall anyone invading China to impose democracy. I must have been at the footy.
Growler.
We “bigots” are not saying that condoms are THE answer. Rather we are suggesting that their use significantly reduces the risk of HIV transmission.
And to say that abstinence is THE ONLY ANSWER is fatuous in the extreme. Sex drive is a normal animal (of which humans are one species) characteristic. To deny this is beyond belief.
GG, They wouldn’t dare. In the Wall St speak: “They too big”. But they did try in the 1800s.
GG
I’m not a lapsed catholic – I’m not going back
The pope said a lot more than that – he said that traditional (church) teaching was the only answer to Aids. The context was directly about Africa – the Pope was visiting there when he first said this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4081276.stm
Also the choice of countries by Pell was very selective – no mention of places in Africa or South America with lots of catholics, no codoms, and lots of AIDS cases.
I think Pell said that AIDS is not solveable by simply issuing condoms. I don’t think he is denying anything.
BK, the Pope would love that african monkey tribe, cant remember what it’s called now.
All they do is bonking each other, all day and all night long, with anyone and anything insight. Apparently, they are a very peaceful, happy and contented little vegemites, they dont even wear condom.
Finns.
Celibacy seems to have worked well among the lergy over the years, too.
You don’t need to be a bigot to roll on the floor laughing when you hear that. That’s the only role left for organised religion these days and their local clowns Pell and Jensen – being a good source for humour of the absurd.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/fiji-power-grab-leaves-constitution-in-tatters-20090410-a2u1.html?page=-1
Soc, The UN can sanction the military option anytime it wants. Afterall, it’s only the puny Fiji with no strategic global geo-political significance, only the poor Fijians.
Pell’s obviously fond of strawmen. It’s like saying airbags won’t end road fatalities.
you means like:
* Popes & Cardinals with mistresses and girl friends?
* Priests with the young boys & girls?
Yes, very well.
Finns – yes that’s what I meant.
Their hypocricy has no bounds.
As Pell said, he is the CEO of the largest employer and organisation in Australia, $100 billion turnover per year.
A close friend of Howard and Abbotts personal confessor, he had a lot of influence during the Howard years, which saw the the wealth of the church increase through increased revenue to the hospitals it owned, via the private health care rebate, increased funding to church schools and their job agencies.
Funny, it was only after Howard went that Pell questioned why the church owned schools were not achieving their objective in getting enrolments from catholics. Pell complained that their schools were too expensive for the poor catholics whilst the rich catholics sent their kids to the grammar schools. Meaning Pells schools were mainly full of non-believers?
Pells talents are in generating revenue for head office, it is when he delves into the realms of the non-revenue aspects of organisation that his shortcomings are highlighted.
Hence his pronouncements on aids and condoms which lie alongside like pronouncements on paedophilia ad abortion.
JV,
Plenty of worshippers at my local Church yesterday. My observation is that religion is on the rise, if anything.
Perhaps it’s you that is out of touch.
Gee i am glad we are on the more exciting topics like religion, aids and fiji, rather than the boring PR
GG, Isn’t that a bit too early? i thought he’ll be arisen on Monday.
castle,
All you have done is highlight how relevant the teachings and works of the Church are to modern Australia. Those good works continue even after the demise of the Howard Government.
I’ll think you’ll find that Rudd is also a Catholic and that there are numerous Catholics and practicing Christians throughout Parliament.
Since when was HIV/Aids a spiritual issue? How bizarre!
Of course, it makes no sense to try to solve a health issue with moral posturing. And it makes as little sense to apply latex to mystical maters. It’s just a normal person would only describe an erect penis a spiritual problem if he or she were trying to be funny.
Finns,
I am not authorised to to reveal the ending atm. However, come to Church tomorrow and you’ll find out what happened. Can guarantee you will be in rapture.
I think the China model they have now is a good idea.
An all powerful government that lets business flourish but also ready to step in where they feel necessary.
Of course it can lead to favouritism and corruption, but from what I read , they deal with it very quickly, for VAT evaders, bribe takers, embezlers and swindlers alike. They do also appear to be moving to better working conditions and improved standards of living.
The alternative in the last communist country to turn “democratic”, Russia, could mean a corrupt ruling business class iwth no oversight.
GG a song 4 you and your flocks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQcQWpABjfw
Castle, what did we have with the Wall St ripping free market capitalism?
No, he is one of your horrible “lapsed” catholics GG.
But I think you missed what I was saying.
Pell increased the revenue of his organisation but post Howard he questioned why the organisation had failed in attracting catholics to their schools.
It is similar to the questioning of the Howard years, increased wealth, but where was the spirituality.
Or as one blogger used to post “I live in a society not an economy.
Besides increasing revenue for his organisation Pell was very good at limiting liabilities and costs.
The Pell model as it is known in Victoria after he introduced it, offered a limited payout for kiddies who were loved by employees of the organisation. Those who did not accept the payment faced years of court pitted against the organisations barristers and most eventually accepted the limited payout faced with this. The alternative model in other states was less confrontist and more healing.
Pell like Howard appears to lack empathy and compassion.
That is what is attractive about China Finns.
The Wall St rippers fly off into the sunset with their hundreds of millions, try the same in China and I believe they would get a bullet and their wealth confiscated.
Harsh, but they apply the same treatment to a bank robber as to a ripper. Both rob, both get the same penalty. In democracy the bank robber gets 10-15 and the proceeds confiscated whilst the ripper gets 18 months on a prison farm and hsi wife/ family keeps the loot.
What’s happened to Michelle Grattan?? Up until now she had been one of the few remaining bastions of balanced reporting and analysis.
“Despite the great opinion polls, a few ragged edges are emerging. The fight between the Defence Minister and his department is seriously bad news; the controversy surrounding Fitzgibbon and his undeclared trips, paid for by a Chinese-born businesswoman, has been an embarrassment.
Rudd handled this in a way that is strange for a PM: he left Gillard to get the apology from Fitzgibbon. Admittedly the issue blew up while Rudd was overseas, but Fitzgibbon said yesterday he and Rudd still hadn’t talked about the affair. A spokesman for Rudd confirmed they’d discussed national security (in the cabinet committee). A bizarre case of “don’t mention the war”! Can anyone imagine Howard or Hawke not speaking personally with a senior cabinet minister about such an imbroglio?”
So “ragged edges” are emerging? Based on what exactly?? The Age’s witch hunt on Liu? And the media just cant get over the fact that Gilliard handled the Fitzgibbon stuff, just like an acting PM should. Yes maybe Howard wouldnt have done that because he had to control everything, but that doesnt make it a bad thing
Disappointing really, as is The Age generally. At the verge of cancelling subscroption
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/rushrush-brings-risks-for-rudd-20090409-a234.html
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/when-the-pms-biggest-decision-was-up-in-the-air-20090410-a2sd.html?page=-1
Excellent background piece of how the FTTH NBN was won.
William, Antony, anyone else who might know – where is the 2009 first quarter Newspoll state polling? It’s 11 April now and we’re yet to see any sign of Jan-Mar state Newspolls! What’s the deal?
GP realises this Finns. Which is why he wants the govt to buy back his Telstra shares, of course at a price which means he makes a profit.
Castle, i have said many times here on PB and beginning to sound like a parrot.
Democracy in the Asian context can never be the Western style full blown democracy.
The context is the Asian culture and society that are still very much hierarchical, collective and fuedalistic (still very much so in some society). The key is “collective”, not individualistic.
The Asian people want democracy and freedom, but first thing first when you get to the water, freedom from hunger and thirst first. The rice bowls must be filled first.
And they want to be guided. That is why the late President Sukarno of Indonesia has been right. He said the Asian needs “Guided Democracy”.
castle,
I don’t think Rudd has renounced Catholicism and he still attends Church on a regular basis. I don’t get overly hung up about such things.
George Pell would be the first to say he is a less than perfect human being and that he leads a less than perfect organisation.
A lot of “lapsed” catholics blame the Church for their loss of faith because it won’t bend to their personal idiosyncracies, attitudes and behaviours. Somehow, it is the Church, which is always clear about what it stands for, that needs to change to accommodate them.
That’s not how life works.
GG, i am not a lapsed catholic. But i am a lasped person. i lapsed into everything. is there a salvation for me?
Ah yes, the dogma is greater than the individual, or even the sum of individuals.
Finns
I linked the Fiji developments. Adam and Glen wanted to send troops, no-one else was interested.
GG
Church attendance in Oz is decreasing, esp for the Catholic Church at least between 1996 and 2001. The “high-energy” churches are increasing attendance. Overall it went down by 7% in that time.
And it pains me to say this but Pell is sort of right. The presence of a factor which imperfectly mitigates a problem can increase the prevalence of the problem. An example is cholesterol lowering drugs, which work quite well. Everyone knows they are around and lots of people eat badly and say “I’ll just take the tablet if my cholesterol goes up”. A lot of them don’t get tested though. Oz spends more on cholesterol lowering drugs than on any other class of drug by a mile.
And now that I’ve been nice to Pell, can you tell me who’ll win the Derby today, GG?
Finns,
Agree that Democracy evolves as the standard of living rises across a society. In the west, the advent of the industrial revolution lead to a rising and increasingly wealthy and educated middle class and subsequently popular democracies.
China and much of Asia is still developing. While there have been significant economic advances, there are still hundreds of millions living in abject poverty. Western style Asian democracies may take hundreds of years to evlove, (if they ever do).
Diog, i was just being cynical here. Who me? Fiji is not important enough to be invaded. Except maybe by our Cuz the Kiwis, they need to flex their muscle beyond the All Blacks.
Yep,
Still missing the point GG
briefly @ 198
The whole legislative-executive-judicial structure obfuscates responsibility and interferes with accountability.
I agree with that. The smaller the scale, the easier it is to be democratic, and Federation was therefore a mistake.
For that to be the case, the availability of condoms would have to encourage more sex by a greater factor than which they prevent disease.
An article in slate – dealing with pregnancy, but the principle remains the same (even if the factor is lower than seven) – shot down this line of logic:
http://www.slate.com/id/2150557
GG, that is the point. The shackle is not those societies do not have the full western style democracy.
The shackles are their own social, cultural, customs and systems. They have to sort that out themselves, and that will take time, imposing western style democracy will not help. Look at Thailand.
JV,
“Ah yes, the dogma is greater than the individual, or even the sum of individuals”.
Strawman, anyone!
Just so we don’t lose sight of what is most important on this Easter weekend.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiKx6MGUfqA&NR=1
David Walsh
You’re right. I should have said been more specific when I said Pell was kind of right. He could be right depending on how the balance worked for AIDS. My guess is that overall condoms decrease AIDS.
jaundiced view @ 208
Nobody has cavilled? Well, I hadn’t until now, but that’s the sort of challenge I can’t resist.
I don’t think it’s possible to talk sensibly about what is the best system for electing a parliament unless you first have agreement about what parliament is supposed to be for, and I don’t believe there is any good answer to that question. In my opinion, Parliaments were a good idea and served a useful purpose in the contexts in which they first developed. Since then, the context has changed, and in the modern context I don’t think Parliaments are a well-designed tool either for their original purposes or for any other I can think of. Tell me what you think Parliament should be for and I’ll tell you what I think about the idea of using PR to elect it.
Since you’re quoting John Stuart Mill, it’s interesting to notice that he thought the way Parliament worked should be fundamentally changed. He thought that Parliament should not be allowed to draft laws. He thought that laws should be drafted by experts (like civil servants or parliamentary draftsmen) and that Parliament’s powers should be restricted to either approving the draft laws, rejecting them, or sending them back for redrafting–but not amending the drafts itself.
bob 1234 The quarterly Newspolls came out when due and was dissected in two parts here.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2009/03/29/quarterly-newspoll-part-2-satisfaction-dynamics/
Diogs,
Ah, there was me thinking you could finally make an argument without equivocating.
BTW, my observation on church numbers increasing was personal anecdotal not reliant on ancient and unreliable statistics. In 2001 the Twin Towers still stood.
GG
Jon Safran got into the spirit of the occasion.
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25319610-5006301,00.html
I’m sure I mentioned I was looking for the state quarterly Newspolls, not the federal.
briefly @ 216
Under the ‘most open’ list (see Wikipedia for details) form of PR (which would be my preferred form of PR, and which reportedly is used in Finland and Brazil), voters have an excellent opportunity to remove politicians–I think possibly better, on average, than under our single-member system.
Generic Person @ 221
Italy hasn’t had sixty different governments since World War Two. It would be closer to the truth to say that Italy has had the same government sixty times.
Things have changed a bit recently, though, and it’s interesting to note that the way the party system operates and the way governments are formed as a result has changed a lot and it wasn’t change in the electoral system which caused this–another example of how the electoral system is not a decisive factor by itself.
GG
Christian affiliation dropped between 2001 and 2006 by 4%. “Other” went up by 1% and no religion went up by 3%. So 9/11 doesn’t seem to have arrested the decline of Christianity in Oz. I can’t find any more recent figures on church attendance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Australia
J-D: it’s used in ACT and Tasmania too.
And you’re right. If the personal stock of an ACT or Tasmanian MLA were to significantly decline, they would be replaced at election time, probably by a member of their own party.
This wouldn’t always happen in a single member systems, where many voters are loath to vote for a different party. Howard only lost because he held a marginal seat.
Diogs,
Saffron clearly wants a simple and less painful road to spiritual enlightenment.
Most Christians choose the harder way of studying the Bible and trying to lead a good life.
Not a bad cavilling effort J-D. I didn’t know we needed to go back to first principles on this, but it never hurts to take a step back in the pursuit of objectivity.
To answer your question, from JS’s definition – that parliament is the democratic element for the purpose of “government of the whole people by the whole people, equally represented.”
So if that’s your starting point that’s where PR is the logical next step. I guess if your starting point is somewhere else, such as dictatorship or winner takes all, PR has no role to play. But if the aim is for representative government, PR is the best means. That’s why all the new euro countries have adopted it and why South Africa is going to as well. And why it is the leading model in the rest of the world, as discussed earlier in the thread. Cavill away though
‘cavil’ – ‘cavill’ is the avenue
QLD Greens complain about no state PR
http://qld.greens.org.au/200-000-queenslanders-with-no-political-representation
bob,
They would say that wouldn’t they?
Well why not? Every other state has a PR system. QLD is the only one that does not.
If there’s no upper house, then the lower should be PR. But it doesn’t. So a party which received 8.4% of the vote, or 200,000 votes, receives no parliamentary representation. That is unrepresentative.
Spot on bob – that is the incontrovertible point for PR.
But jaundiced, it only applies for QLD. Every other parliament (NT excluded) has a PR house.
David Walsh @ 313
No. The ‘single transferable vote’ or ‘Hare-Clark’ system used in Tasmania and the ACT is not the same as the ‘most open list’ form of PR used in Finland and Brazil. It is an excessively cumbersome and significantly flawed means of achieving most of the same advantages.
The ‘most open list’ form of PR works like this. Each voter has just one vote which can be cast for just one candidate. Every candidate is on a party-list and every vote for a candidate counts as a vote for the list that candidate is on. The number of seats which each list wins is in proportion to the total votes count for all candidates on the list. The candidates on the list who get the seats are determined by the number of individual votes cast for each of them. Simpler, easier, more efficient, and more transparent than Hare-Clark.
To go back to JS again, the Qld parliamentary model is a prime example of “government of the whole people by a mere majority of the people, exclusively represented.”
jaundiced view @ 315
Sorry, too vague and abstract for me. What do you think Parliament should be supposed to do.
Who devised this rule?
Yes, but the PR upper houses in the ther states and federally are skewered by the 2 party systems in the lower houses where the government is formed. Having PR upper houses doesn’t remedy the basic problem when the reps houses call the key shots.
If you have PR in all the lower houses, the upper houses are redundant, can be abolished, and the equality of representation is direct and pure.
JV,
Let me controvert it for you.
There is no evidence that the 8.4% are not represented in the Parliament, quite the contrary. The sitting member whomever it is, represents all his electorate including the ones who did not vote for him or her.
The Greens need to do the hard work and achieve majority support if they want Party representation in a particular area.
No idea. But we have it.
J-D: You’re failing to see the forest for the trees.
The essential difference between a closed list and open list system is whether the parties or the voters decide the order in which a party’s candidates are elected. Whether they do so with a single vote or a preferential vote is relatively unimportant.
Under the Senate voting system, the above-the-line option means that the parties effectively choose the order in which their candidates are elected. In theory, if more people voted below the line the voters could do the choosing; but we know this doesn’t happen in practice. So it’s a de facto closed list system.
But in Tasmania and ACT, using what we call “Hare-Clark”, the above-the-line option is removed. So it’s left to the voters to decide in which order a party’s candidates are elected. That’s why I call it an open list system.
I believe it does remedy the problem – the minors get representation in the upper and can have the final say on legislation, without going in to forming coalition governments and the inherant instability that comes with it. I’m a big fan of our federal electoral system. Not so much the group voting ticket in the upper, but it does lower the informal rate.
So 8% of the people will decide which of the major parties would govern in the case of Queensland for example. That 8% become the king makers. That’s a lot of power for 8%.
It’s the conceptual the starting point. Parliament would do the same thing it does now – make laws for the government of the people on behalf of those people. The added advantage of PR is the people are equally represented in the law-making parliament, so the laws are more likely to be for the good of all people.
You’re kidding me aren’t you?
It’s how Labor began…
And it’s only by choice of the two major parties that they would hold the BoP. The two parties can swallow their pride and form their own government and make the Greens the opposition. But they wouldn’t do that.
bob,
Well last time I looked, the local kindergarten, schools and roads were used equally by all.
That has nothing to do with which party one chooses to represent them in parliament.
bOB,
But, it incontravertible evidence that, “The sitting member whomever it is, represents all their electorate including the ones who did not vote for him or her”.
I also think there is a bit of sleight of hand taking place here. We have preferential voting, whether optional or not. To make out a party has won so many seats on primary vote alone is dishonest. They haven’t. That 8% had the option of preferencing another party.
The minor parties are minor for a reason. They haven’t gained enough votes to become a major player. PR makes them a major player with 8% of the vote. Is that fair?
How much of the statewide vote did Liz Cunningham, Peter Wellington or Peter Lewis get when they played kingmaker?
Heck, throw in the WA Nats. Less than 5% of the statewide vote last year.
David Walsh @ 329
No, I can see the forest. But I can also see the trees. Single transferable vote (‘Hare-Clark’) and ‘open-list’ PR (in its most open forms) both provide similar advantages. But single transferable vote combines those advantages with disadvantages which ‘open-list’ PR avoids.
How so GB? That would only be the case for the executive which has a smaller role with PR anyway- the parliament is the governing body, which is much healthier than it being a rubber stamp as it is now in our 2 party model. The executive here is exactly what excludes up to 49.9% of voters. Under PR, an 8% party would only have 8% in the parliament to vote on laws proposed.
In any case, with PR there would be many small parties, and I can’t see the fractured major parties remaining whole, so coalitions would be formed sometimes by several parties. If the behemoths did somehow stay united and strong, then there would still be several smaller groups to make up a coalition – no doubt some on the right and others on the left. Just look at the model as it works elsewhere, and you can see how it works.
Is the Senate fair?
Will it be fair when the Greens hold the BoP after the next election? They will hold the key to all Labor legislation.
Why should 8% of the electorate decide who governs the entire state.
That would happen at just about every election then. As normally the two parties receive similar levels of support.
Why should the minority get more power than the majority.
339 – David, if you’re backing my point up you’ve done it beautifully. That is a big feature of PR. It happens occasionally with the system we have. It also shows just how tenuous it makes government.
Is the government formed in the Senate?
David Maher gives a thoroughly deserved slapping to that suckhole Pell in today’s SMH:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/pell-rides-papal-bandwagon-of-death-20090410-a2sf.html
jaundiced view @ 332
‘Making laws’ is a complex process. Which parts of it do you think Parliament should be supposed to do? I don’t think that the system we have now for making laws is a good system, regardless of how Parliament is elected. I’m not interested in answering a question about how you should elect a body to perform the precise set of functions that Parliament now performs because I don’t think there should be a body with that precise set of functions, as I’ve already hinted.
If what you mean by ‘making laws’ is supposed to include detailed drafting, then I agree with Mill that Parliament should not have that job, which should be handed over to appointed technical experts, although they shouldn’t have the power of final approval.
I’m very happy for the Senate to be elected using PR. In fact any upper house. A review by all parties is a good idea. I am also happy to see the Greens hold the balance of power in the SENATE.
This is postively demagogic.
The minority would not get “more power”. They would in fact play second fiddle to a much larger minority. With the only “majority” being the combined strength of the two.
It might as well be. The Australian Senate is one of the most powerful upper houses in the world.
Because that’s PR?
If two people have $9, and want to buy something that costs $10, and a third person has $1, why should that person with $1 be the kingmaker?
If you advocate for PR in the lower house where government is formed then you are promoting the views of the minority over the majority.
Yes, I tend to agree, as long as the technical experts are not politicised public servants (another inevitable consequence of an entrenched 2 party system like ours). It can avoid the pitfalls of politicians drafting legislation with one eye on the lowest common denominator.
Kindly explain how a minority view can become a majority view in the parliament under PR.
You still need two parties to form a coalition. Not just the smaller party.
And I don’t advocate PR in the lower house. I advocate PR in at least one house in every parliament. I’m sure you’d love it if the ACT didn’t have PR, but as it only has one house, I think it’s a good idea. QLD is poorer for not having any PR.
David, if you allow minor parties to gain representation then you are weakening the 2 party system and would eventually force the major parties into Coalitions with minor parties and forcing them to advocate/promote the policies of the minority of opinions at the expense of the views of the majority.
If they have enough seats minor parties can decide who forms government which is dangerous.
Gee JV,
Seems like poor old George is the source of all your personal grievances. Did he knock you back when you suggested he introduce PR to matters of scripture?
Infact, you’re promoting more of a majority view.
Currently, the QLD government is Labor, on around 42% of the vote. In PR, the QLD government would most likely be Labor-Green, on around 50% of the vote.
So you’re actually going from a minority to a majority.
Sounds like the 1890s/1900s. I for one am very greatful we have the working rights and conditions we enjoy today thanks to the PR systems in use back then and the emergence of Labor, which without PR we may very well not have got.
Labor went from the fringe, to majority government.
Some people don’t get it – the concept of ‘government’ in Australia is quite dfferent to government under PR. The government is the parliament under PR, not the executive.
People are confusing the two.
With proportional representation things are genuinely debated on their merits in the parliament. This is what does not happen in Australia, but you can get an idea of it in the Senate and other upper houses when one of the big 2 does not have absolute control – there is debate, committees, scrutiny etc..
To understand PR you have to first let go of the treasured (by some here) concept of one or other of the dinosaurs having the numbers in the house of reps for the duration, so that the executive is merely made up of the one party devising policy behind closed doors to be shunted through parliament whenever they like. That doesn’t happen with PR. The executive loses its power. To me that’s a very good thing.
Glen would have definitely been one of the ‘so monstrous a travesty’ folk in 1904.
Glen, once the major parties adopt those policies then they’re no longer minority policies.
And they’re certainly not “forced” to pander to the balance-of-power party either. Look at Germany where both major parties wanted nothing to do with Die Linke.
That doesn’t happen here either. It’s called the Senate. It has PR. It can block legislation.
Exactly. The major parties could form a minority government, or they could let the party with the most seats govern without the minor party and just give confidence to that major party with the most seats.
JV @ 361 – you appear to have skirted the issue of who actually forms the executive.
Easy. “I’ll give my vote to you so that you can become the government if you agree to: 1…….., 2 ………….., 3……………
lol GG – In the case of the scriptures and the churches generally I would like to see ‘PR’ substituted all right – Prevailing Rationality.
And if all potential partners say “No thanks”?
It’s different altogether in the Senate. The Senate amends, changes, call it what you will, legislation. They don’t determine who the government will be. Plain and simple.
And if both parties say no, the party with the most seats can form minority government.
JV
Prevailing Rationality – That’s what we’ve got with our electoral system atm.
But again, the Senate is at best an occasional, indirect form of PR affecting government decisions. While the reps forms the government without PR that will remain the case. This is not to say the Senate isn’t worth having while the current 2 party system prevails (I have certainly changed my stance on that since Whitlam’s dismissal
Gary, I was replying to:
This cannot happen in the Senate (periods like 2004-07 excepted) with PR.
The Senate is completely PR!
371 – True, but minority government isn’t exactly stable government is it?
I don’t think any lower house PR is stable. Which is why I don’t support PR in the lower. But I do support it in unicameral houses.
David there is a reason for that they are a bunch of ex-communists.
bob – 375
Yes it is completely PR (if skewed by its stae by state basis). I didn’t say it wasn’t. I said it only has the occasional indirect effect on legislation form the reps, if you read the next bit after your selection.
Glen a socialist is not a communist. Though I admit the Liberal handbook says this.
That’s because in that case, the opposition is voting with the government.
Democracy at work.
All one needs to do is read up on Labor’s earlier history and their battles to remove communist influence within trade unions to understand how different socialists and communists are.
But it would probably explode Glen’s brain…
With all due respect Bob that view makes no sense whatsoever. On one hand you see the fault in having PR for a House that forms the government because you “don’t think any lower house PR is stable” but believe a state which has only ONE House should use the very system you describe as being as unstable for that House.
How does that logic work?
Glen seems to have lost the plot re this discussion.
Nothing further of use to add then Glen? Hmm?
http://www.geocities.com/commiett/difference.html
It means that I believe a party with substantial support (say, 8% for the QLD greens) should have representation. I think the QLD parliament should be bicameral. But working within the current confines of the QLD parliament, it should be PR.
I prefer the system used federally, followed by the system used in the ACT, followed by the system used in QLD. At least one house should have PR. I prefer it for the upper.
Here’s another good description between socialism and communism:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080926123620AALZzea
So a ONE House 3 year parliament should be confined to a PR system that makes government unstable?
I disagree. If ever a parliament needed stability it’s one that only has three years to run and one House.
and lol re http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080926123620AALZzea
before the answer, the person with the question says “I get that their both bad, but I really need to be able to differentiate between the two.” and after the answer says “Also, thanks EVERYBODY! You really helped! And to those who were affronted with my assumption that socialism was bad, please realize I’m a sophomore in High School, and Really didn’t know.”
Maybe we’ll just put it down to Glen doesn’t know.
The ACT isn’t exactly collapsing is it?
Yes, I believe in party representation over stability. The federal system provides both.
That’s what PR is – a group of smaller and larger minorities making up the parliament.
["Most countries use PR. Every new democracy in eastern Europe chose PR. South Africa will adopt PR. Of the few democracies using the U.S. system, all are either changing to PR or seriously considering it; only India instituted the U.S. system this century."] – from Fairvote.org
And you want to say PR is inherently unstable? I don’t get that point. .
So GG, in the last federal parliament, did your local member represent you in their position on workchoices?
JV, it’s all relative. You couldn’t get a more stable government system than we have now in Australia. The major parties make for very stable government. That surely can’t be argued. Having a hotch potch of governing parties makes for a greater chance of unstable government. Common sense and human nature tells us this is so.
Just haven’t focussed on it because it is less significant with PR for the reasons given already. However, I had speculated on ministries being elected by at least 2/3 of the parliament. I think that has potential, and might be better than ministries just being appointed by a coalition, because it would keep the power with the parliament. What do you think?
Having seen their supporters up close waving Soviet flags, I’m not so sure about the “ex” part.
Giving me a list of countries that have PR does not mean it is the perfect system. Give me a list of those states that still perform capital punishment and it won’t change me into a supporter of capital punishment either.
*cough* Country/National Party *cough*
The ‘stability’ argument was addressed early in this thread – my response to your point is the same as it was at post # 19:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2009/04/10/keeping-it-holy/comment-page-1/#comment-259030
JV, we’ll just ignore the fact that under Howard, we went from one of the highest to one of the lowest ranked amongst OECD countries when it came to health/education/infrastructure?
It used to be socialism (Labor) v keynesianism (Liberals). Whitlam came along and moved Labor closer to the Liberals economically, and further away socially. Capitalism came along in the Liberals in the 1970s with people like Howard, but we’d only see these views come to dominance once the Liberals were in opposition in the 1980s. Hawke and those since moved to Social Capitalism.
There are differences, admittedly less than there used to be.
So one example makes it the perfect system? Besides aren’t you going against your own argument that “I don’t think any lower house PR is stable”?
You have to start with the concept of equal representation, which our system does not now give us. If you want the status quo you have to justify continuing to disenfranchise a large proportion of voters. That is a very difficult thing to do when fairness dictates a system that provides representation to all in government, and that system is available and running successfully in almost all countries with greater than 2 million people with reasonable human rights, and is universally recognised by emerging nations as the best option.
Of course, if one’s starting point is the welfare of one or other of the big 2 parties, then the status quo looks attractive.
JV – All that confrims to me is that PR is more unstable. You just don’t see instability as a problem to be concerned about. I do.
A governing house that is PR is inherently unstable. That’s not to say it cannot be stable at a certain point in time.
And when did I say it was perfect?
I despise unicameral houses. But if it has to be, I prefer PR. As I said, party representation above stability. The federal system provides both.
socialist and communist!!
I guess in the modern political sense the Socialist are the ALP and the Communist are the Liberal Party.
Malcolm seems to think like a Commo by suggesting the Government should basically do nothing in the face of the the worst economic downturn since the 1930s, and only a Commo could support maintaining the Job Network system which is of course Malcolm does with his pathetic response to the changes Introduced.
Gary, you do realise that without PR, Labor would not have gained their first parliamentary representation in various states in the 1890s. And potentially without that impetus not go on to take more seats, and then federally, to eventually become one of the two major parties…
Under communism, there would be no economic downturn
PR works find in the Senate but I see no reason what so ever in Introducing it to the House of Reps.
The only people wanting change are the ones who cannot win an election, gee if only they put their energy into decent policy development and actually got out there and campaigned rather than wanting the rules changed.
Firstly, the Upper House caters for the minors very nicely. Something I am very happy about. Secondly, there is such a thing as preferential voting. Thirdly, it should be the aim of any minor to become a major. Get enough votes and you too can become the government. I don’t want a minor determining the government on the parliament floor. That is too much power.
It is a rare occurrence that I find myself agreeing with Glen but his comments at #169 -“PR encourages divisions in society, it encourages single interest groups to form and it destroys any sense of consensus within society” – are one such occasion.
What appears to be ignored is that the view of minor parties is also reflected in the views of the major parties. This is not to say that they dominate but they are held (be it to a lesser or greater extent) by a proportion of each major party. The major parties reflect the views of the population in general and specifically the views of their supporter’s and accordingly these “minor party views” get some support within the major parties.
Even today with our current system it is a major achievement to get a consensus for a particular view because of the diversification of opinions on a particular issue. I know myself as generally being a supported of the Labor Party that there are many issues on which I disagree with the party line and my guess is that there are many within the party (both Parliamentary and in the rank and file) that “disagree” on any particular issue. I support Labor at the ballot box because I generally agree with the “majority” of their policies and disagree with the majority of the policies of the conservatives.
When any legislation passes Parliament the best we can say today is that in their heart a majority of the government agrees with it. For any question put in Parliament there are only two (2) answerer, Yes or No, maybe is not an option.
What this means is that we get policies that very often cater to the lower common denominator than we would like because during the process of getting support for any policy that policy is amended/watered down as support is gathered for the that policy.
A prime example is the Greens whose attitude towards an emission trading scheme seem to be you either do it our way or not at all. Greens fail to understand that what might happen if this policy is amended (to suit their views), the Government may be unable to rely on support from within its own ranks so insuring the failure of this policy on the floor of Parliament because as there a climate change skeptics within the conservatives there are climate change skeptics within the Government.
Assuming that you believe that something has to be don to reduce out carbon footprint surely, regardless of ones attitude to this particular policy, than a chance to make a start is better than no start at all.
I would argue that the more varied the political parties are within a Parliament the less likely it will be to get majority support for reasonable policies. To carry on the ETS example above does anyone think that Labor Party members for the Hunter or from Queensland will support an ETS that basically closes down those coalmines in their divisions? I would argue that they would be racing across the floor of Parliament on motorbikes to vote against any such legislation.
I would argue that single interest groups or “minor parties” (for want of a better descriptive) add to the lack of consensus within Parliament that adds to an increase in the lack of effectiveness of legislation.
If an idea has arrived it will be reflected in the views and policies of one for the major parties.
Bob1234! Correct for the state would own and run everything! o wait the Russians went broke under Communist.
My point was the socialist Left of the ALP is home to the socialist whilst many university educated commo’s run off and join the Liberal Party i.e Eric Albetz
Look at the Country Party. And that happened without PR.
The Greens since 2007 have defied most people’s expectations. They are not a party that will hold legislation to random, saying do it our way or it won’t be done, they are prepared to and have passed legislation with compromise. Just like the Democrats.
405 – You surely aren’t suggesting you have to go through this process in this day and age of instant communication around the world to get recognition are you? Are you really suggesting people don’t know who the Greens are and what they stand for?
It will be interesting with the Greens holding the BoP when the coalition re-enters government.
For that to be a possibility, it means that no major party has a majority on the floor. What justifies such a major party forming government?
With due respect the Assembly of the Victorian parliament has never been PR! the Council was up til recently a two member per seat which for a while had both seats contested but for many years was on a rotation system.
The in itself never stopped the ALP from winning seats, what happened was over time the number of rural seats verses city changed and as the ALP have generally Improved their performance they have become more successful.
What has hurt the ALP has not been the structure of the Assembly but on occasions the seat boundaries.
The ALP formed Government in several places well before the WW2
Yeah, the differences between the big 2 is a very subtle in practice to say the least. It’s the same in the UK and the US of course, with a big 2 pandering to the same core constituency.
Here in Aus Howard’s legacy lives. The education disaster is continuing under Rudd’s alleged ‘revolution’, the environmental disaster is continuing under the world’s greatest apologist Wong and that will-o-the-wisp Peter ‘Brady’ Garrett, and social policy also remains unaffected (eg the indigenous intervention, taxation regimes).
In the meantime those who want real change can go whistle. I can’t see how anyone could say our system is working when the big elements of policy just continue going down the tubes, government after government of each variant party. It’s amazing the level of complacency and conservatism among the big party faithfull here on PB, when the situation cries out for change.
405 – The other argument against this Bob is that we have PR in the Senate. I don’t doubt what you say is true but why haven’t the Greens, who have been around many years now, improved their numbers in the Senate to where they are a major player in that chamber?
People knew who Labor were in the 1890s. It was the conservative press who would say and do anything to keep as much distrust alive as possible against Labor. Just look at 1904 under Watson. It took from the early 1890s, to 1910, for Labor to form a majority government after building their vote election after election.
Sydney’s Daily Telegraph described the 1904 Labor Government as “a political freak”, while another called it “so monstrous a travesty!”
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/05/14/1084289873720.html?from=storyrhs
Education is the responsibility of the State Governments!
jaundiced view
@354
Then you still haven’t answered my question about what it is you think Parliament should be supposed to do.
@361
I don’t know what you’re basing this on. It isn’t true in any country I know about. For example, the Constitution of the Netherlands specifically requires that elections be by proportional representation, and it also specifically defines what the Government is, and it isn’t the Parliament.
Did you not read me? Under Howard, we went from one of the highest to one of the lowest ranked amongst OECD countries when it came to health/education/infrastructure.
It’s called the GFC. We can’t do all of this at this time.
No, they can go back in to their cosy bubble and wait for the economy to pick up again.
415 – It’s Time – I’m not sure I understand your point. My point is that PR makes it very likely (given that the majors rarely get over 50% of the PV) a minor has to support a major to form a government. It’s for this reason I don’t support PR in the Lower House.
Bob1234! Yes the ALP were faced with a negative press response but guess what did they sit there and want the rules changed
NO
They got their act together and now are winning votes from the people who back in 1890s and 1900s would never have voted for them. (Types of people)
There are several factors to take into account,
Would a Watson be reselected in the modern ALP I suspect not but that would be like asking would Menzies or Deaking be pre-selected in the modern Liberal Party.
Tell that to Whitlam.
Ratsars
By gee, if that isn’t satire (I hope it is), it’s the most endearing piece of idealism I’ve seen for a long time. So the big parties take into account the views of all the factions, which reflect all the groups in society as a whole, and then ensure each is heard and its views incorporated nicely into policy when in government. So, there’s no need to change the status quo because the benevolent and altruistic 2 big parties give everyone a genuine go. I love it!
And here I was believing that the factions hate each other within the parties more than they hate the other major party, and when they have the numbers the prevailing faction kicks the heads of the losers mercilessly until they bleed.
But if you’re right, why does education, the envirnment and social justice continue to go down the tubes with either big pary in power? Now that’s a conundrum.
They have. They reached 5 seats in the Senate in 2007, enough to be declared a party and given parliamentary resources etc. The reason they don’t get more elected (see 10%+ in Vic in 2007 but no seats) is because they are on the left of the spectrum rather than the centre like the Democrats were. Election in the Senate is often defendant on preferences. Parties on both sides of the spectrum used to pref the Dems before either of the major parties. Some will not pref a major before the Greens. Some on the right pref the Greens last.
Bob1234!
Whitlam is before my time but lets look at what he actually suggested, opening up University to people who might otherwise have been unable to attend.
That in itself is not a bad policy
I have previously argued that we would be better off without State Governments.
Why would they want the rules changed when they already had lower house PR in the states to get them off the ground?
If Labor didn’t have PR in the states prior to the 1901 federal election, and didn’t have elected reps moving from the states to the federal, I wonder how many Labor MPs would have been elected in 1901?
419 – Come off it Bob. You know as well as I do that it was a lot harder way back then, with communications the way they were, to get the message out to the populus. These days there are far more and more efficient ways to get the message across. It was a vastly different world back then.
Factions may hate one another but lets be real for a moment both major parties have factions these factions are based on policy ideals and history.
For better or worst factions will exist for every more, the Greens need to and will come to realize that in order to take the next step in their political development they will need to adjust their policy setting to match the local community this in tern will lead to the creation of factions.
Exactly. So stop saying that education is a states responsibility, it’s a Liberal line. If the federal government wants to pick up the ball with education, they can do so, Whitlam was the example used.
I’m not denying that. But when you have all the media against your party it is hard to shake off distrust. Maybe we could trust the Greens? Who knows? They seem radical now, Labor seemed radical then, regardless of communication.
The point is that PR here would mean the break-down of the phenomenon we have of an executive/ministry made up of on or other of the big 2. Even if we had a mandatory executive structure like the Netherlands it would necessarily reflect the proportions represented in the parliament. This would mean no more one party executive/ministry.
I’m not arguing that PR didn’t help Labor back then, I’m arguing it doesn’t need to occur these days for the Greens to become more acceptable in the voters minds, which is what you seem to be implying.
One further point on factions while the ALP’s factions may hate one another there is a rule within the ALP that at the end of the day we are one big family and touch one you touch all.
The Greens don’t do factions. By definition, they and other Green parties around the world will always remain “grass roots”.
Whitlam was the one to organise Labor in to two factions. Now we have the situation where the Labor Right is the dominant faction and the Labor Left are left hung out to dry. Where’s the PR? LOL!
I’m glad I’m not in the party then, if it would mean being touched by Joe Tripodi or that Keneally woman.
I’m arguing people needed to see a radical (at the time) party assume power, to be accepted in voters minds as being able to govern in their own right. Labor had their turn in federal minority government in 1904 which demonstrated they were capable of running government.
Maybe the Greens would also do a decent job of running government? Who knows.
The factional system pre-dates Whitlam and it has way more than two factions.
The Greens cannot remain faction free for factions are based on people with shared ideas therefore if one branch believes all buildings should be painted Green but the branch down the road thinks all buildings should be painted Blue then that different is the sort of thing that leads to the development of factions
Or Stephen Conroy
Yes, Whitlam was the one to organise Labor in to two factions.
Weren’t the Greens in government in Tasmania? Have they been in government since?
Somehow I think there was a lot more to it than that.
Or Belinda – God, I’m getting daymares!
Their policy development is based on compromise and consensus.
Lets go back to the 1890s for a moment the thing that helped the ALP was the Victorian economy collapsed causing a major depression this in turn altered the political landscape creating the need for a Labor based party for before that crash we had a parliament of Liberals and Conservatives
It was a major factor according to the various books and texts i’ve read.
Every Labor voter should read http://www.scribepublications.com.au/book/somonstrousatravesty
Bob1234! In the early days the ALP based its policies on the Impact on Union members but that didn’t stop the development of factions.
You could also reword that for climate change/the Greens.
And it was the conditions that the working class endured that was the impetus for a Labor party.
So its official the Greens are a do nothing party for they don’t do something until everyone agrees.
Your point?
448 bob1234 – I would think a lot of hard work, the seeking to represent a very large section of the community (workers) and playing on a feeling that the workers were being dudded in a time of depression, may have had something to do with their growth as a party.
Consensus doesn’t mean that everyone has to agree.
If you want to see the Green policies formed on consensus then simply read:
http://greens.org.au/policies
Bob1234! your previous post was that the Greens were fraction free for they based their policies on community agreement therefore my point was if that means they are fraction free then so should the ALP for their main reason for existing is to represent the Union movement, but we both know that the ALP and the Liberal Party are both full of factions.
It’s one thing to get a decent level of support. It’s another to form minority then majority government. The press drummed it in to the populace that Labor were freaks who could not possibly be trusted running the government. Labor was around from the early 1890s, it took until 1910 before they were able to form a majority government anywhere in Australia.
O so consensus doesn’t mean agreement, then its who has the numbers, hello factions.
I don’t know if they are faction free as such, but there’s no evident factions, and definitely no organised factions. Two factions in a party tends to be good for stability but tends to be bad for good policy outcome.
Why can’t consensus be formed on a person by person basis, rather than what one faction and the other faction support?
O Bob1234 have the Greens been taking lessons from the Liberal Party on pretending factions don’t exist, o wait are the Liberals and Conservatives or Drys and Wets the Cosmpolitians verses the burbs factions.
jaundiced view @ 435
Once again, PR doesn’t guarantee multi-party governments–see the example of Malta, which I already mentioned, or Greece, Portugal, Sweden, Ireland, or Norway.
It is probably true that PR makes multi-party governments more likely. But a multi-party government doesn’t mean a government in which all the parties in parliament participate in the government. There are still parties in the government and parties opposed to it, and being in parliament doesn’t mean being in government.
There is documented evidence that factions exist in the Liberal Party. Care to point me to some for the Greens?
And I said I don’t know for sure that there aren’t factions, but if there were, they’d be very loose and non organised. And anyway, Labor and Liberal are a broad church representing many types of beliefs. Labor, from it’s socialists to social capitalists, Liberal, from it’s social capitalists to the extreme right. So of course they need factions. What range of positions do the Greens hold?
Show me some documented evidence that the Greens have factions.
Bob1234! Everybody joins a political party for they have ideas on how the country should be run and its these policy ideas that lead you as a party member to form relationship with people of similar views with this comes factions.
All a faction is are a group of people with similar views, it does not mean they all agree, lets take Julie Gillard, she is of the Left faction and one of her biggest political disagreement (Refugee policy) came with the Left faction.
So give me some documented evidence the Greens have factions.
The Liberal Party do not have official factions, yes we know they exist.
Lets go back to the start of this debate for a moment, the Greens are the most vocal in wanting PR in the House of Reps for they can’t win seats under the current system for they are so narrow.
My point was as part of the Greens develop into a political party capable of winning seats they will by accident or design develop factions, unless the Greens intend on remaining a narrow based political party that hangs around the fringe.
Ah hah! They aren’t official, but they are still well documented. There’s much documented evidence that factions exist in the Liberals.
So……. documented evidence for the Greens please
They are vocal in QLD as there’s no PR in their parliament. It exists everywhere else except NT, and are not nearly as vocal.
Bob1234!!
My evidence of the Greens having factions is simply based on normal human behavior where people seek to associate with like minded people.
If the Greens have more than three members then that tells me there is room for factionalism unless you are claiming the Greens all agree on everything but at one point you made the comment that Greens did not expect everyone to agree on a particular policy position.
The view that JV expounds seems to encompass the supplanting of “tyranny of the majority” with “tyranny of the minority”. Well excuse me if I prefer the former.
Another way of looking at it is am I do believe that a Brunswick based Green will agree a great deal with a Green from Penith. I’m sure the Greens are not that narrow a party that geographical and demographic different are not factors in local policy development but are those factors the very thing that create factions.
No 461
The Greens have factions? LOL. Bolsheviks, Stalinists and Castros, I would thik.
Believe me if the Greens get anywhere near government, factions will exist. Human nature at its best.
I think its been a long time since Mexcian and GP are agreeing what does that say about the PB factions
How is going from a Labor govt on 42% of the primary to a Labor-Green govt on 50% of the primary less of a majority? We know most Green voters would go back to Labor if forced anyway, so all they are doing is taking votes off Labor. There’s nothing to stop the LNP gaining a higher %/more seats than Labor/Green combined in a PR system.
No 471
thik = think.
GP we’ve already drilled Glen for his lack of understanding of socialism and communism.
HeHE
mexican, Gary, i’m not saying the Greens are incapable of developing factions. I’m saying that at this point in time, there is no evidence of factions existing within the Greens, unlike Labor/Liberal.
No 476
Two sides of the same coin bob.
Actually the Greens preferences flow about 80-20 towards the ALP but as the Greens develop political that number may change.
Even you have to admit GP that in your case that is the most delicious Freudian slip of the millenium
GP don’t embarrass yourself. Read posts 380, 382, 385, 387, 389.
It may. But at this point they heavily flow to Labor.
Supporting the Howard Government was embarrassment enough for GP
No 482
That would be a waste of my time. Socialism is elected communism.
No 481
LOL.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080926123620AALZzea
And GP, take heed from the questioner’s reply to the answer:
No 486
Wow bob. I’m glad you think Yahoo Answers is valuable. I do not.
Twice in one day!
Yahoo is not the bast place to find an answer to a question, those answers seem way above the normal Yahoo type answer.
No 484
I am not embarrassed to have supported John Howard. Strong economy, balanced budget, generally optimistic future.
I can’t say the same about Rudd.
Gp – Exactly how can a parliament that directly reflects the various bodies of opinion in society be ‘tyranny’? Go and re-read your JS Mill until dinner.
Standard response from you. Argue the publisher rather than the facts they put up. Just the fact you think communism is more or less, or the same as socialism automatically excludes you from informed debate. But then again, most of your statements do.
By slashing education/health/infrastructure spending, and getting in to surplus during the mining boom.
I can’t say the same about any government at the moment. Oh wait, we have a global recession!
GP, you’re sounding more like Bree than an average rusted Liberal at the moment.
No 491
bob, typical of you, chastise anyone who disagrees with your purported “facts” from a lowly source like Yahoo Answers.
The reality is that socialism is elected communism.
No 490
I don’t agree with Mill.
GP that is unless you are in Moldova but they are an extreme case.
Socialism is just a nice way of saying Communist.
I dont think the ALP are communists.
Thanks to PR in Europe Socialists do win seats in Parliament when their extremist policies are dated.
Bob1234! Howard did not cut health spending, actually the rate of spending for both medicare and the PBS also medical research were greatly increased by the Howard Government.
Its true Howard under spent on high education and Infrastructure but again this bring me back to the fact for that the Health system is the domain of the State Government as are major roads and other projects.
No 492
Rubbish.
No 496
Correct.
That’s your reality. Nobody else genuinely believes that.
http://www.conservative-resources.com/capitalism-vs-socialism-vs-communism.html
No 499
Bob, even this new source you’ve conjured is saying basically the same thing in two different ways. In either case, there is a big government which has exceptional influence on the allocation of resources. The “pursuit of social justice”, whatever that may mean, requires the same planning inherent within communism. It is the belief that central planning is superior to spontaneous order.
Yeah but you’re a hard right Liberal, so anything that isn’t what you believe is grouped in to the same basket.
Andrew Fisher was the first PM of a majority federal government (Labor) in Australia, and the first with a majority in either house too. Labor was socialist. Look at what they implemented. Compare it to communist states. COMPLETELY different! Labor put a referendum to the people to nationalise monopolies. Why didn’t they want to nationalise everything else? Could it have been, to allow competition? COMPETITION?!?! Communists wouldn’t know what this is.
GP, you stay in your hard right Liberal bubble and think there’s no difference between communism and socialism, and ignore the battles between Labor and communists in the 40s/50s. Meanwhile everyone else will disregard you from informed debate if you cannot even wrap your head around something as simple as this.
No 501
Ah, now that you can’t win the argument, you attack me personally. Bob, you’ve just reiterated why debating with you is a waste of time.
That’s a bit rich considering you haven’t even put one forth.
I naturally fall on the side of Capitalism but human nature as shown itself repeatable that there needs to be some form of regulation this beings me to the view that say Socialist are communist is a bit like saying those who support capitalism support facism or the exteme behaviour of the Wall Street banks who have turned a healthy economy into a mess and this is not the first time in histroy.
The best political set up is a capitalist but with socialistic over sight, this sounds very Menzies-Deakin like and in many ways is the under pinning position taken by true Liberals and Conservatives.
No 503
Pot, meet kettle.
What a lot of Free Market Liberal Party people forget is that the Menzies-Deakin view was developed not from some socialist view point but from what people saw happen after the economy crisis of both the 1890s and 1930s.
Its all very good to want money and nice things but if society does not have laws that govern behavior, you do not have a healthy society but leave yourself open to abuse f power.
A true fiscal conservative would never have allowed the sub-prime crisis to ahve developed but who ever said Bush was a fiscal conservative.
If you ignore the cites including the conservative one, and the Andrew Fisher example, and Labor/communist battle examples I put forth, then yes.
Exactly mexicanbeemer. By today’s defintion, Menzies and Deakin were socialists!
To so how silly this debate is, lets look at the PBS, is it socialist or capitalist in nature, the Americans would call it Socialist but in reality its capitalist for the drug company develops a product goes to the Government and tried to sell the product to the Government who in turn then debate the merits of having the product and how much they are willing to pay, this is capitalism in all its glory.
Communism on the other hand would demand that the drug company give the product to the Government and there would be no financial gain as a result also the Drug company would be banned from having its own band name or any form of ownership of a Drug it had developed.
Communism would also demand that everyone involved be paid the same amount, unlike socialism.
I’m sure the good people of Kooyong would be most Impressed with the news that the founding principals of Menzies is now viewed as socialist.
Menzies was a keynesian. Keynesians are socialists according to GP. Thus, Menzies must be a socialist!
And we’ll just skip over all those keynesian Liberals of the time having an extreme hatred of communism, shall we?
lol
The old “Rudd is to blame” for the GFC trick. Typical Liberal unsuccessful tactic GP.
Sounds like the set up in China today.
Bob124! The Irony is GP & co will not win Government without returning to some of the principles that have in previously times made them electable.
I don`t think that Pubs have to close in Victoria.
http://www.business.vic.gov.au/BUSVIC/STANDARD//PC_62300.html
At least if they meet certain criteria.
That’s an extreme. Most countries these days are capitalistic with a socialistic oversight.
Castle! I disagree for China is a Communist state that operates a fake form of capitalism.
China does not have laws in place that provide basic human rights to freedoms of the press, faith or basic workplace safety laws.
Unless they wait 13 years, do a Howard in 1996 and run on no platform.
This coming from a person whose signature tune was to call people names and abuse them for their opinions. Although I suppose it could be said that you’ve learned that that approach is not the way to go and that you’re now counselling others as to how to go about debating. I hope that is the case. You’ve certainly improved in that area.
I’m not sure if that tactic will work this time for the ALP in the 1980s and early 1990s turned politics in this country on its head with a set of politics which were supported by the Howard faction of the Liberal Party.
Rudd is a more conservative type of polly making him harder to beat with a small target plan but there again all Governments grow old in the tooth and are put out of office.
On PR, does anyone think there is a realistic chance it might ever be adopted for mainland lower houses? The only way I could see it happening was if the Greens picked up enough inner city seats to hold the balance of power in a tight election and then made reform, or maybe a referendum, a condition of support. If there was a referendum, I strongly suspect that it would be lost – witness the ability of the Tasmanian major parties to sway voters with “majority government” campaigns, not to mention the general reluctance of Australian voters to approve referenda.
On Green factions, for a long time there was a widely held view that the then two Green NSW MLCs represented an old-style far left wing (Rhiannon) and a more New Age or New Left wing (Cohen).
Of course there is a difference between communist and socialist.
Just ask Groucho Marx the author of that immortal work “Das Kapital” who once fabulously declared that: “I remember the first time I had sex – I kept the receipt”. Who had been investigated by J Edgar Hoover’s FBI and officially classified as a Marxist.
A character from his another immortal work the “Duck Soup” is provocatively named Pinky. He was also so ahead of his time he described the glorious motherland as the “United Snakes of America.” Eat your heart out, Hussein Obama.
Yes, as a self proclaimed Marxist according to William, I am a Marxist of the Groucho kind.
Finns,
That must be true because no else wants to be a member of your Party.
GG, that is fine by me. Please accept my resignation. I don’t want to belong to any Party that will have me as a member, including my own.
Finns,
But, but ……. I’ve got all these balloons and streamers.
GG, give them to the children of the revolution.
I’d suspect one major party would give confidence and supply to the other major party.
Finns,
My kids can’t be cheated. You won’t fool the children of the revolution!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29obokz1uxs
Happy Easter, the eggs are on me
Ok a few pages back there was talk of Catholics so here’s my bit, I was never a practicing Catholic but mum who had been brainwashed and had the bejesus scared outa her by the nuns when she was young kept her faith until she died. She used to be terrified that she would burn in Hell when she was a kid.
My one and only visit to church (other than weddings & funerals) was when mum took me to be Christened at the age of 7, it was a small county villiage church and we caused quite a commotion when our dog decided to come too, she ran amok up and down the aisle sniffing and snuffling the parishoners. We never went back again. Didn’t get an invite either
Rudd being a Catholic, practicing or otherwise was also mentioned earlier, well I found this wikipedia
Kev himself says he is “a garden-variety Christian of no fixed denominational abode”.
Bob @ 529, I’m not sure. I think both major parties would be pretty wary of a Grand Coalition style arrangement, for fear of shedding support on the right and the left (among other reasons). Grand Coalitions assisted the rise of the far right in Austria I think, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the German arrangement at the moment ultimately helps the Greens and the Left Party (though I haven’t looked at any polling).
I could actually see Labor agreeing to a referendum if it really came down to it, in the expectation that PR would lose.
I think both major parties would rather a temporary grand coalition in order not to move to PR, as PR would damage both Labor and Liberal.
But it’s all hypotheticals and opinions anyway.
Finns
how dare they say such things?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/11/2540908.htm
I’d be interested to see what they based that on.
Someone said:
This is wrong, The major problem we have in Health is the blurred lines between Federal and State responsibilities.
Absolutely, I agree it’s all far too hypothetical to make any sensible predictions. I do wonder whether the conservatives might be tempted though. On current voting patterns it would probably be Labor that loses the most seats. But maybe they would be too afraid of rural independents or some sort of rebadged One Nation.
There hasn’t been much said about Rudd’s most recent trip. Have the msm given up on their Kevin747 tripe?
He could be in for a wild time
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/11/2540897.htm?section=justin
Pre-merger the Queensland state Liberals would have been beneficiaries of PR because they were under represented compared to their vote (20.1% leading to 8 seats out of 89).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queensland_state_election,_2006
The Health system is clear cut
-Public Hospitals are owned and operated by the State Governments
-Staff to patient ratio is the domain of State Government
-The procedures performed in a Hospital are governed by acts of the State Parlianment
Federal Government is responsible for Medicare, PBS and Doctor numbers and Increasingly for Nurses and other Health Professionals though the funding of University places but again the State Government has a role to play.
I know the rest of you have moved on but the posts on the condoms issue seem to have missed an important point. It is the mostly Islamic countries in Africa which have the lowest HIV rates.
It is questionable that Pell is concerned about HIV rates per se rather than Sin per se. It is a sort of spiritual dog whistle. If it is HIV rates and the human suffering that is associated with it that really concerns them, Pell and the Pope should have been calling on people to convert to Islam rather than fussing over condoms.
This is the interesting question isn’t it? It’s all academic otherwise, as interesting as the PR discussion has been on this thread. I for one have thoroughly enjoyed it.
But there is hopefuly a chance, say if a big faction in one of the major parties decided to go it alone. I think the party in which such a split is most likely to happen is the Liberals – the far right from the centre. Also the Nats could possible see it as a way to effect government every parliamentary cycle.
My inclination has been to say PR has no chancehere because of the vested interests of the major parties in the 2 party rort, but when you delve a little deeper it’s (hopefully) a little more complex than that.
Also, I’m not sure a referendum would be required, because the mode of voting isn’t in the constitution.
Dog whistle. Is Pell dyslexic?
beemer.
Health is not Hospitals.
If you get a deep cut on a finger, you go to a Hospital emergency dept. State issue, you go to your GP, federal issue. They both stitch you up give you a tetanus jab and send you home.
here’s the physical proof. just ask Diog,
http://users.tpg.com.au/tjhpnq98//ktree2.jpg
GG, since it is Easter, i will forgive them
I’m aware that Health is broader than Hospitals
Dentistry is also part of health.
Medicare should be extended to dentistry.
jaundiced view @ 426
Please do me the courtesy of not putting words into my mouth.
What I said was that “that the view of minor parties is also reflected in the views of the major parties”. This in no way implies that they will be taken into account in forming policy unless there are numbers to support that view.
If a particular view is paramount within the population then that view will gain the support of a critical mass of the members of a particular party. This will result in that party’s policy reflecting the majority views of the population – particularly its supporters. Ideas that don’t reflect the popular view will not be “incorporated” in policy but this does not suggest that a particular issue has not considered and/or supported by someone within the party. Just consider the “mavericks” that each major party has hand over the years.
Political parties are referred to as though they are a singular unit. This I believe is way of the make in that they are an organism made of many smaller parts and it is the sum of these smaller parts that end up determine policy.
I will have to re-read my post more carefully in future but even so I unable to find the part of my earlier post that support you contestation that I argued that “there’s no need to change the status quo because the benevolent and altruistic 2 big parties give everyone a genuine go”.
For an idea/policy to get a “genuine go” you have to get involved and fight to get your particular view(s) accepted by the others members of you selected party. If the policy fail it does not mean that the idea has not had a “genuine” go. If you are not prepared to do that either your views are not worth fighting for or you are not as committed to those views as you profess. However, if you fail to carry the day the fault is not those who failed to support you but yours and yours alone for you are the one that could not carry to others the ideas and benefits of your policy proposals.
Maybe the expression of your adoration tacked on the end of that paragraph in you post has more significance than I realised – “I love it”
Maybe a little less love and a bit more thought would help.
I don’t believe that the factions “hate” each other but they are in conflict. There is a conflict of ideas and policy and priorities. It is this conflict that develops an idea into a policy that will be supported by the members of a party, the Parliament and finally the population. If the policy is not acceptable to any of these groups it will be stillborn eg WorkChoices
.
I do not accept that thrust of your last paragraph is valid. Simply by saying such things does not make them true.
What you have to realise is that a prime function of any Government is the allocation of scares resources. This means that unless we are a very lucky country (and we almost were for the years of the Howard Government) we will never be able to apply those scarce resources to all the areas we may believe are underfunded. Nor will we agree with the break up of the “pie”.
I would have to agree with you that all these areas are important and maybe are not getting the support that you think is warranted. But the question I would ask you is what would you change and how would you change it. How would you get more money for education – maybe raise taxes or cut social security. If you are a fierce environmentalist I could assume that you would like to close down all the coal mines. But could you get that through the Parliament. I doubt it. You have all the conservatives and the vast majority of the Labor party against you
I believe that this reflects the opinion of the general community.
I think the conundrum is only in you mind. This is not to say that things are perfect but they are improving. If the circumstances were right thy may improve quicker but I fail to see how the introduction of parties with a narrow polices focus will improve things. These smaller parties have no chance of having the task of implementing their polices as a government and as such don’t have the rigorous policy development that the major parties have. A prime example of this is the independent senator that sunk the “alcopop” tax and come out the other side claiming a victory
Do you think that the policies of the Greens in respect of climate change would get the support of a majority of Australians? I doubt it for I believe that if it did we would have social upheaval unlike anything we have ever seen. All those coal miners, their families and the business they support would raise merry hell that would make the protests against WorkChoices seem like a picnic at a pre-school
Medicare does cover dentistry in some circumstances. Labor has tried to extend this but the Senate opposed the legislation.
I can’t complain I get $4,000 worth of teeth stuff covered every 48 months under medicare.
JV, I agree that a referendum isn’t required. I was just suggesting that one of the major parties might agree to hold one and then agree to follow the result in exchange for Green support in a hung Parliament. I actually don’t think it’s a particularly likely scenario, just that it may be the most likely of the various unlikely scenarios. And like I said, I think the chances of a referendum getting up are practically zilch, even if there was one.
You wouldn’t survive long in the US.
Here we have preferential (instant runoff) voting in the lower, and PR in the upper.
‘Stable government’ seems a poor arguament for the current tyrany of the majority. I don’t want stable government, I want representation! If I wanted stable government i’d move to the DPRK. GOVERNMENT SHOULD FEAR THE PEOPLE. When it does not, services suffer and corruption grows. Democracy is rule of the people, PR helps with that. with PR we all have a say. People complain about Steve Fielding being elected but FF got 2% of the national vote and have 1.3% of the senate seats – thats fair. If you want democracy, then even people you disagree with must be represented proportionatly. HofR Nats get 5% of vote and 6% of seats (plus essentially Nats independents) whilest Greens get 7.6% of votes and 0% of seats. Undefendable! It is patisanship and a lack of dedication to democracy that is behind the defence of single member electorates.
In the lower house there are currently almost no lefties – and those that are there operate within the ALP party machine and are kept under the thumb of the rightists. This is not proportionate, a huge community of people have no say. I vote Green or leftwing independent. Some here suggest that the ALP represent me just because I (am essentially forced to) preference them but they do not pander to my demographic since they know they can relly on my preferences no matter how pi$$ed off i get with them, since they are comparitively better than the torries. Instead they pander to the same centre-right ‘working families’ as the torries that seem to have all the say just because they swing.
Finns
Regarding Fiji coments earlier today, I didn’thave a chance to say then but, if the UN endorsed action, then I would agree it was legitimate for us to go in. I agree it has become a gangster state that needs internvention, but after Iraq I jsut think its important to be seen to do these sorts of things in teh correct way, rather than as a Pacific deputy sheriff.
More to the point, if there is no sign of a peaceful settlement in Fiji, and there is international legal legitimacy to intervene, then we should. I’d just like to see pressure used first, before force is tried.
bob1234 @ 412
I based my statement on what the greens have said concerning the proposed legislation.
I accept you statement that the Greens behavior so far has not held Government legislation to random and maybe my understanding is incorrect but statements from the Greens like “doing nothing is better that the proposed legislation” tends to lead once to certain conclusions.
The question that has yet to be answered is what will the Greens do when push come to shove. What will they do when their choice is the Governments policy or nothing.
I’m not sure why we would even consider going into Fiji. It’s hardly the worst run country in the world. No-one has done anything militarily about Zimbabwe, Sudan or any other dictatorship in the world (except Iraq who had all those WMDs) so why get so excited about Fiji.
GG, who is fooling who here.
where is the effing lyrics?
Diog, Fiji is small enough to be bullied by NZ. :mrgeen:
Ratsars and Bob
There are always more than two choices. I think the Greens shoudl propose the amendments that woudl make the ETS acceptable, and then see if the government agrees. If not, they can vote it down with a clean conscience, because it was Labor’s chocie to propose an inadequate bill.
Amigo Vera,
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2370981.ece
Is this about you as well?
Agree, we don’t need another war.
Hey, if National turned Liberal Senator Julian McGauran retires/dies before the next election under the constitution/convention would he be replaced by a National or a Liberal? Also how do Independents like Mr X get replaced if he dies without a chance to nominate a replacement? Next on his ticket?
Finns
I gave up on T-Rex after “My People Were Fair and Had Sky in Their Hair, but Now They’re Content to Wear Stars on Their Brows”.
On Fiji, I’m with Diogenes. Unless they start slaughtering people there’s no justification for force. I don’t imagine it would necessarily be that easy either, if anyone decided to resist, given how many islands we’re talking about. And who knows what it would do to the ethnic tensions they have.
Rua, is that a leftover from T-SEliot?
Dio
I partly agree – earlier today I had said they should try to use pressure to remove Bainimarana. In 552 I was just clarifying what I would say if that was tried and failed. But I don’t think we should say we will never use force. Sometimes it may be the lesser of two evils, if done quickly vs someone doing actual harm to their own people.
Zimbabwe and Sudan are two examples of palces where external military intervention would be justified IMO. Likewise Bosnia, I thought the Nato reaction was rather cowardly, first agreeing to an embargo that prevented the Bosnian muslims defending themselves, and then refusing to defend themas well. Better do either not respond militarily at all or be decisive. Long indecisive conflicts are the worst possible outcome, because the death toll is greatest. I’m not in favour of war as a means of solving conflcits, but sometimes it may be the only way to defend those who can’t defend themselves.
Heysen Molotov, if an independent Senator vacates their seat, their replacement is chosen by a joint sitting of the state parliament.
And in response to your first question: what matters is the party they were running for when elected, so his replacement would be chosen by the Nationals.
Socrates
If it gets to the stage of stopping a genocide, I’ll be the first to agree. We’re a long way from there in Fiji. In Sudan we’re pretty close. There have been some positive steps in Zimbabwe recently although they have a long way to go.
I agree that force can sometimes be justified. I supported the interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo, even without UN approval. But those were situations where large numbers of people were being killed. Fiji is nowhere near that and doesn’t really look like going there. Sending Australian soldiers to kill Fijian soldiers and (inevitably, no matter how hard we try not too) Fijian civilians is a huge step. The Fijian regime would surely need to be doing much worse things than it is to justify killing people to remove it.
Socrates @ 557.
There is one other option you ignored
The amendments were inadequate.
I have heard politics be described as the art of the possible or it is all about numbers.
What would you expect the Government (of either colour) to do if the option was to close all the coal mines tomorrow or no ETS?
As we have seen from a particulate Senator just recently they are not perturbed from cutting off their noses to spit their face.
I expect that the ETS would disappear never to be seen again unless as a trigger to a double dissolution.
Hey Heyson! By Georgia I think you’ve got it! Spot on. JSM just smiled in his grave.
Lots of you have asked where Mr X’s support comes from. This is a breakdown by seat on Wiki. As you can see, the three top ones were the Southcott, Pyne and Downer seats. It’s safe to say that a lot of his support is from centrist Liberal voters. You guys should be cheering him on.
ASEAN cancelled
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25320884-5006301,00.html
Ratsars
As I said there are many options; I suggested one I thought would be defensible to their supporters for the Greens. They are not the government, haven’t drafted the legislation, and it isn’t up to them to get it through the senate, though obviously that is how those who have drafted it would like to spin it. If the Greens stick to their policy and say they wanted a tougher ETS then they could agree to go to a DD with little to fear; public opinion is behind them, not the CFMEU.
The second choice you constructed is a non-sequiter – “close all the coal mines tomorrow or no ETS?”
NO proposed ETS will close all the coal mines tomorow – this is hyperbole designed to cower opponents of the Rudd Emissions Trading Scam into submission. At worst an effective ETS will have an effect by 2020, closing brown coal mines first, limiting growth in black coal mines, and then seeing a reduction in black coal, starting with the most inefficient mines and power plants. Exports will continue, until the rest of the world takes tougher action. Even then, our black coal is very high quality and will be some of the last to be kept burning because it has lower emissions per unit of power. If clean coal works (well we both know it is a lie) then coal might last a lot longer. The simple fact is that it will take us at least ten years to find and build replacement power sources for coal, so the mines won’t close before then. So none of the ETS proposals will see more coal jobs lost in the short term (say before the current recession is over) than are being lost for economic reasons anyway.
All this is just blackmail – Rudd is saying its take this or nothing. I hope the Greens aren’t stupid enough to fall for that. IF Rudd will compromise there is no problem. If Fielding and Xenephon are the problem then lets call their bluff and take them to a DD.
Lets not use the recession as an excuse to do nothing on CC. It is a false argument because the recession is a short term problem and the ETS is a medium term solution to a long term problem.
Without Xenophon, the coalition would still enjoy a Senate majority.
To think, the Rudd Labor government has been able to pass legislation without coalition support thanks to an independent originally elected to the SA upper house on 2.9 percent of the vote…
bob
There were some booths in Adelaide where he outpolled the Liberals. Just imagine how badly the Senate would work with the Libs having a Senate majority. We would have had a DD by now for sure.
Indeed. But the SA Liberals are pathetic. They only polled 26% in the Senate in 2006.
But 20.5% for an independent in a statewide upper house vote is still unprecedented and very impressive!
Maybe we should have had a coalition majority, so we’d have had a DD and wipe the Liberals out hehe.
Evidently Rudd’s plane has been turned around mid-air en route to Thailand. I hope they’ve got enough meals for the trip back…
This is so right and cannot be repeated often enough. If the CC problem is put off yet again then it’s goodnight and good luck. However, I don’t think Rudd will follow through with sufficient leadership to drive the overall climate change agenda forward among the nations we can influence. So far it’s been nothing but the minimum, if that. I hope I’m wrong though, because that’s the only hope we’ve got.
With PR we would have a choice as to the minimum suppport required for a party to achieve a seat in the house. Nationally of course X’s local SA 2.9% wouldn’t cut the mustard for a seat, I would think.
12.4% of the population of Australia elects 28 Senators. 87.5% elect 48. This is an issue that the PR fanatics need to address.
How to ensure States keep their representation?
They should have got Rudd down on the ground to sort them out. He’d have set things straight.
ruawake @ 579 – [How to ensure States keep their representation?]
Why bother? In South Africa from what I can see they want to preserve local connections beteen representatives and voters, and that seems like a good idea to me in a big country, but do we really need to worry about state against state here any more?
God skynoos are pathetic. They said people are spending their stimulus money at Derby Day. Upon what research is this based on? And we’re only one week in to the six weeks of tax bonus payments?
Because some states still do feel threatened by the bigger states? Like WA and Tasmania?
Keep the states on an equal footing in the Senate.
JV
Agreed. The Greens should, as a minimum, hold out for Rudd to increase the ETS to a minimum cut of 5% without/20% with world action and reductions to account for any voluntary consumer measures. That would be the minimum defensible IMO. IF Rudd agreed the we coudl see if the Libs, Xenephon and Fielding agreed. It would at least force them to expose their position. If the Greens fold it lets Labor, Fielding, Xenephon and the coaliton all off the hook.
Bob or Dio
Do either of you know Xenephon’s position on the ETS? Would he vote for a 5/15 scheme? A 5/20 scheme?
If Mr X votes purely on state grounds there are ways an ETS can be sold to him. SA has little to lose and much to gain from an ETS. We have very little low-grade brown coal adn much uranium.
Does anyone know how Fielding will vote on the ETS?
People can daydream all they want about proportional representation and multimember seats but don’t go into complete fantasy in thinking that a referendum would pass that changes the equal allocation of Senate seats to each original State.
Xenophon would pass it in the end, possibly with concessions. I don’t think Fielding would be as easy.
Bob
Then what has Rudd/Labor got to lose boosting the ETS to 5/20 and reductions for voluntary alternatve installations? Why not expose that Fielding/Libs are the problem? Why look so weak?
A Senate reform plan would probably get a national majority and may get a majority in a majority of states but it would never get a majority in all original states (what is needed to strip original states of equal representation in the Senate).
Finns @ 558
No time for pondering rumpy-pumpy here during the footy season. We’re trying to watch union and league at the same time and the Swannies are about to kick in any minute.
[Then what has Rudd/Labor got to lose boosting the ETS to 5/20 and reductions for voluntary alternatve installations? Why not expose that Fielding/Libs are the problem? Why look so weak?
Because the GFC isn't the time for a 20% cut, and the coalition would exploit it for all it's worth.
Yes, Thailand do have democracy, and more to the point the best democracy, and even more to the point the best democracy money can buy. All you have to do is buy either red or yellow T-shirts.
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/asia-summit-cancelled-after-protesters-storm-venue-20090411-a3ea.html
Bob
They can put in an escape clause for it not to take effect till after the GFC. Coalition? What is it?
Mr X hasn’t been a big fan of the ETS in it’s current form. He certainly believes in CC. Dunno what he wants though.
How do you define that? Unemployment drops to 3.5%? Interest rates rise above 5%? GDP goes over 2%? Stock index over 5,000?
Hopefully Obama commits to 20% reduction by 2020 and pressures Rudd to match it.
Anyone watching the Brisbane-Sydney game on Fox? Bucketing down rain …..
Vera?
You guys up in Brisbane need to get your rowboats and umbrellas
…….
The CFMEU Greens won tonight.
Obama keeping one of his campaign promises
Don’t worry. It’s a very thin rain front. It will be over in 10 minutes and be pretty fine for the rest of the night.
juliem
We had 18 inches of rain in 6 hours last week. (Sunshine Coast). Tonight effort is a mere sprinkle.
Juliem, it ain’t looking good, another effin’ free kick grrrrr
Camberra Union Thugs
The Heysen Molotov @ 552GOVERNMENT SHOULD FEAR THE PEOPLE. When it does not, services suffer and corruption grows. Democracy is rule of the people, PR helps with that.In countries where they do have PR, do governments fear the people more than in countries where they don’t? I don’t think so.
Brumbies?
Raiders.
Camberra UNION Thugs
No it’s not another “Scores” type incident
Jasper’s a pussycat.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25319415-5007133,00.html
ruawake
Posted Saturday, April 11, 2009 at 6:43 pm | Permalink
12.4% of the population of Australia elects 28 Senators. 87.5% elect 48. This is an issue that the PR fanatics need to address.
Ruawake, Does the 12.4% refer to the combined SA, TAS, ACT and NT population? If so this distortion has nothing to do with PR and everythng to do with pre-federation bickering. I ask you Ruawake, do you know what proportional representation is? Seats to population ratios have nothing to do with PR. Just look at the US senate with a first-past-the-post system and a massive distortion towards the smaller states since they all get 2 (and DC isn’t represented at all in either house). I would imagine that most “PR fanatics” would want each multi-member electorate whether nation-wide, state-wide or Hare-Clark style region-wide to have an equal voter to member ratio across the board (as we roughly speaking already have in the HofR). PR isn’t about geographical distortions, its about the very opposit.
Hare-Clark for the lower house wouldn’t require any change in seats for any state.
Tas: 1 electorate with 5 mem.
SA: 2 electorates. one with 5 members and one with 6. (if a states deserved representation isnt devisibale by 5 then either a metropolitan electorate is made slightly larger and elects one more or a rural electorate is made smaller and elects one less)
WA: 3 elec. – each with 5
etc.
J-D “In countries where they do have PR, do governments fear the people more than in countries where they don’t? I don’t think so.”
I do think so. However I think that it has more to do with PR systems tending to have multi-party systems, whilest single member electorates tend to breed 2-party systems. The 2 parties tend to become identical outfits for political party hack career politicians and democracy suffers. The gap between public opinion and government action widens. Across europe the government fears the public FAR more than they do in the USA.
However I do conceed that there are many other important factors in determining how scared of the people the gov gets.
So it’s a blockbuster movie: ‘Proportional Representation 4: The Arguments Circle’ . . .
There are lots of electoral systems, and lots of theories, thoughts and maths about the various ways of constructing a manageable implementation of the ‘will of the people’.
I like our current Federal lower house system, because the idea of local members works for me. But regardless of the merits and de- of PR, it simply is never going to happen. It would be a VERY brave executive gov that did it by amendment, and our deep caution involving referendums would almost certainly nix the change (you’d have the entire centre, left and right, opposing it due to the marginal extremism concern).
Sure, our system has bars to reprenesentation: either a preferential majority in a geographical contiguous territory of around 100,000 voters, or 14.3 percent of the distributed vote in a much larger territory. That’s the bar, and it’s very unlikely to change.
Newsflash: The plane carrying the PM to Thailand has been turned back by the distraught pilot. Our correspondent on board, Glenn Milne, says: “a tasty morning tea comprised of hot cross buns was being served and everyone was happily getting tucked in. However, the pilot inadvertently left the intercom on and was heard all over the plane saying, ‘jeeze, they’re nice – can I have another one of those Kevins?’. Typically, the PM did not see the funny side, and entered the cabin, berating the pilot, calling him a total waste of airspace. The pilot is currently undergoing airbourne counselling by me, aided by a nice bottle of something from duty-free”. Emergency services at Sydney airport are currently on extremely high alert. End of newsflash.
“I like our current Federal lower house system, because the idea of local members works for me.” Indeed, katbloke and this point was reinforced in the Indonesian elections yesterday.
http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/ns_asia/2009-04-10/812669083373.html
Just been looking up elections in Finland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_finland
Amazingly even though the Centre Party and National Coalition Party together held a majority of the seats, these parties also went into coalition with the Greens and Swedish People’s Party, throwing them both a couple of ministries. I’m guessing that this was to broaden government support and build social harmony. Could you ever imagine the ALP just handing the Nationals a ministry out of the goodness of their own heart? Still I suppose if the Liberals ever get a majority in their own right they’ll probably still give the Nationals ministries. I note that the Finish Greens are at the Centre of the political spectrum but that there is also an eco-socialsit party called the Left Alliance.
My previous local member Downer belittled the MayoFerals and I assure you he and his family are jerks in real life. His replacement from the Right end of the Liberals is no better and in no way does he represent me or my principles. The Local Member concept does not work for me. I have more in common with another Lefty far, far away then i do with a tory from my neighborhood.
The Heyson Molo @ 612 & 613( & everytime so far from what I’ve seen) – You have just scored another 15 points towards the Noble Piece Prize with your fast Finnish. Well done son, again. Head and shoulders mate, head and shoulders.
This is the best political discussion thread on PB I have been involved in. How refreshing not to be picking through the entrails of the past and to instead be canvassing possible future political change. How pleasant it is to engage the (mostly) intelligent minds of the contributors here.
So much of political discussion generally involves wallowing in the apparently unchangeable. Someone once said to me that the world is divided into two groups: one tends to talk about the past; the other naturally looks to the future. Give me the latter, thanks, and I’ll have a schooner of Reschs.
vera, wtf with the tah and swannie tonite. Playing like old men in drag
Karlene Maywald remains in Rann’s cabinet despite Labor having an outright majority.
Walsh says:
Karlene Maywald remains in Rann’s cabinet despite Labor having an outright majority.
True, but the ALP pretty much had to promise to keep her on to shore up her support in the run up to the 2006 election, otherwise why would she be loyal. Furthermore the ALP can remain fairly confident that if after the next state election there is a return to minority government they can rely on her support therefore gifting them a seat in conservative heartland they otherwise could not obtain. Plus if after the 2006 election they broke their promise to keep her on then minor parties and independents would be more cautious about supporting the ALP in the future. Nevertheless point taken.
Didnt the ALP and country party form a coalition in the 30′s ???
cant remember which state.
In case anyone’s really bored, I’ve just done a post on all the failed federal election campaign slogans, from 1951 onwards: http://bitemylatte.blogspot.com/
In Victoria from 1935-43 Labor backed a Country Party government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cain_(senior)
Finns,
You were after the lyrics from “The Children of the Revolution by T-Rex.
Yeah
Well you can bump and grind
It is good for your mind
Well you can twist and shout let it all hang out
But you won’t fool the children of the revolution
No you won’t fool the children of the revolution, no no no
Well you can tear a plane in the falling rain
I drive rolls royce ‘cos it’s good for my voice
But you won’t fool the children of the revolution
No you won’t fool the children of the revolution, no no no – yeah!
But you won’t fool the children of the revolution
No you won’t fool the children of the revolution
No you won’t fool the children of the revolution
No you won’t fool the children of the revolution
No way, yeah, wow!
Mark Bolan was surely the Shakespearee of his time.
Here’s a story of Ted the Architect.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25320106-661,00.html
Looks like he intends to expunge politician from his CV at the earliest possible moment.
Tom
Cheers.
Gusface
LMAO, Acerbic and Vera.
Very informative debate, bludgers. Have been busy with other stuff and only today had a chance to catch up and as always will need some time to think about the propositions put about PR.
Courtesy of where quality journalism goes to die.
“In the 1988 mayoral election campaign in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the anti-establishment Brazilian Banana Party presented a chimp called Tião as their candidate. The chimpanzee came third out of 12 candidates, taking just over 400,000 votes. Known for his moody temper, his campaign slogan was “Vote monkey get monkey”. Tião passed away in December 1996, aged 33, in Rio zoo.”
“Michael R. Bloomberg, the Republican candidate for the 6 November 2001 New York City mayoral election, spent $92.60 for each of the 744,757 votes he won against Democrat Mark Green. According to campaign documents filed with the NYC Board of Elections, Billionaire Bloomberg spent a total of $68,968,185 on his mayoral campaign more than the $48.6 million Steve Forbes spent on his 2000 presidential campaign.”
( http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2008/11/081104.aspx )
The moral of the story:
Always deal with the organ grinder and not the monkey.
Socrates @ 572.
I think you are viewing the world through rose coloured glasses. The government may place a spin on any outcome however the implication that the Greens don’t spin is like asserting that dogs don’t defecate.
You are right to assert that there are many possible outcomes and the vast majority don’t suite the Greens.
If a DD is called the Greens may have little to “fear “as far as their seats are concerned but the environment has a lot to fear. If the Government is held responsible then the most likely result of an election (other than returning the Government) is a Conservative victory, not Green Government. The Conservatives will present their version of the ETS (whatever it may be) and there is a high probability of it been less favorable to the Greens than what the current Government is proposing. Of cause if the Government is returned a sitting of both Houses of Parliament would result in the current proposal being passed.
Again the environment misses out for the no reason other than making the Greens feeling warm and fuzzy while they protect their seat in the Senate.
I am glad you find my example amusing concerning the closure of mines. It reminds me of the attitude of those who discount Darwin in favour of intelligent design and please don’t accuse me of hyperbole when your post is full of it along with some bluster bombast intimidation.
Just remember the result of the referendum on a republic some years ago. Most people wanted a republic (according to the opinion polls) but those who wanted a “purer” version rejected it for a system that was far less democratic than what was proposed. It could be another 10 years before we get a chance to address this issue again.
With the environment we don’t have the time to muck around for the next decade before we introduce an ETS.
However, it would appear that you are prepared to delay the introduction of an ETS for however long it takes for you and the Greens to feel good about it. Sounds very much like that senator who rejected the” alcopops”. A grand opera by the Greens to toss the baby out with the bathwater.
The next change of Government will be to a Conservative Party not the Greens and any belief that the greens have a chance of forming a Government in the foreseeable future is a fairy story.
We have a chance to reduce our emissions by 5% to 15% nationally on 2000 levels or 27% to 34% on a per capita basis. This will achieve targets better than Europe, UK and the proposal in the USA. But we still have you standing in the rain demanding a bigger umbrella rather than accepting the one offered. By the time you get want you want it will have stopped raining.
In respect of you post # 557 I am afraid that I disagree with you contestation. There are always only two answers to a question on the floor of Parliament – yes or no.
There is no option for a maybe.
You may be able to change a question if the positions of the parties are very close but if there is considerable distance between them the Parliament is limited in its response.
In view of your description of the Government’s ETS as a sham you must believe that there is considerable distance between what you (and I assume the Greens) deem acceptable and what is being offered. The bigger that perceived gulf the smaller the chances of an agreement being reached.
Off topic but Roger Ebert’s piece on Billo @ faux and an appropriate last paragraph when writing an article on Bill (Shrill) O’Reilly.
R.Ebert- “That reminds me of the famous story about Squeaky the Chicago Mouse. It seems that Squeaky was floating on his back along the Chicago River one day. Approaching the Michigan Avenue lift bridge, he called out: Raise the bridge! I have an erection!”
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090407/COMMENTARY/904079997
Ratsars @ 630
‘We have a chance to reduce our emissions by 5% to 15% nationally on 2000 levels or 27% to 34% on a per capita basis. This will achieve targets better than Europe, UK and the proposal in the USA.’
Europe is proposing 20% by 2020. Critics claim that it is more like 6% real. The US Congress is looking at a Bill also looking at 20%.
If you think 5% would be worthwhile you would also be aware of the Global Warming consequences of the 5% ‘success’?
15% undercuts world negotiations on Global Warming. 5% is a dud built to meet an election promise that is past its use-by date. It will only operate if the world has failed to set itself a general target. In the latter case the funds invested in the 5% ETS should be spent on adaptation. I would suggest resettling irrigation farmers in the Murrary Darling Basin as first cab off the rank – we will get wet seasons again but the long-term predictions are for a significant reduction of agriculture in the Basin. Depending on the rate of acidification and the argonite (what corals are mostly made off) saturation levels in the sunny northern seas, retraining the Great Barrier Reef Tourism Industry workers might be a useful second priority for adaptation. Much more sensible than than fluffing around with a 5% dud ETS.
dogma @ 631
haha. Good link. The whole story is well worth a read and the Squeaky the Mouse story is a nice ending.
A Bolt of Hypocrisy:
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/green_hypocrites_example_726/
GP, two words that fit together extremely well – Bolt and Hypocrisy.
Tom
I find it amusing that otherwise intelligent people want to bring back the Legislative Council in Queensland. The abolition of that House of Tory obstructionists was one of the smarter things Queensland politics can be proud of. Any move that potentially puts less Tories into any parliament anywhere for any reason is fine by me. That is especially true when Tories vote themselves into seats for life as the Queensland Legislative Council did by the time they were scourged from office.
Some of the historical documents from this era are here:
http://www.queenslandfirsts.org/01_cms/details.asp?ID=36
The Heysen Molotov @ 608
I don’t see any evidence to support your opinion.
What’s more, if it’s true that ‘across Europe’ the government fears the public more than in the USA, that means they do so both in countries which have PR and in countries which don’t.
It seems to me just as likely that the more parties there are, the more pressure there is on them to work with each other, which means pressure to blur the differences between them.
If instead of talking vaguely about ‘across Europe’ you picked out one or two specific examples and explained how they support your case it would be more impressive.
If the Greens want multimember PR to form a 1922 style suicide squad to abolish the state upper houses and the senate then their proposals would constitute supportable reform. But could we trust them to follow the plan through to completion?
Socrates, Boerwar and Ratsars
The Rudd Government has ignored the science of Global Warming and are trying to get away with doing the least possible. All these frantic attempts by Labor hacks to say otherwise are spin to cover up for the “intelligent design” equivalent of CC policy.
If any Pb’rs get into social stragey and nation building type of online games, I’ve hooked up with what looks like a good one this morning.
http://www.erepublik.com/en
If anyone joins and wants to add me as a friend within the game, my userid is koalamum.
Cheers
HSO at 625. Thank you. Engrossed as I was in the discussion on the Finnish electoral system, and on the purported efficacy of Glenn Milne’s Tasmanian hare-of-the-dog recipe, I felt an urgent need to throw in “something completely different”.
640 – Of course it makes more sense to argue that it is better to do nothing than do something when in fact you want the government to do more.
Diog,
All that hand wringing. Don’t your arm ever get tired?
True Dio
On par with blaming the RAAF girl for not having right right meal for Kev and then crying when he blew his top.
Gary
The GFC is cutting our emissions by more than the ETS would. We can afford to wait two years and get a good policy in place then. It’s a very bad climate for a decent ETS at the moment.
GG
“Hand-wringing” is the spin used by Labor hacks for “pointing out that our policy is crap”.
BTW Does Labor have anyone in Cabinet with a science background? I can’t think a single one. I did find out that Conroy is a member of Opus Dei, which explains a lot.
Dio – you should read the stuff at tni.org. There’s a lot of interesting stuff about ETS.
Boerwar @ 632
I don’t know where you got you figures but mine come from the Dept for Climate Change.
See http://www. climatechange.gov.au/whitepaper/factsheets/pubs/009-what-the-rest-of-the-world-is-doing-on-climate-change.pdf
Can you show where the Government’s and UNFCCC’s data is incorrect.
When comparing any figures one must compare apples with apples. I find that a lot of people compare national targets with per-capita targets.
The initial problem is getting a start. We have a great swathe of Conservative voters that don’t support an ETS (if we take the policy of the Liberals and Nationals as a guide) On top of that there still are many Labor supporters that though prepared to accept Global Warming as an issue that needs addressing are more concerned with keeping or getting a jobs.
If you scare enough of the Labor vote with this hairy chested approach you could end up delaying the start of an ETS for many years. If that is the case it is the environment that looses out.
I do not and never had or supported any electoral system other than my own.
To me, its a measure of the people’s trust for Rudd that they support an ETS. Any digging whatsoever shows that ETS is merely a way of mitigating the implemention of targets. With the targets we have, it’s next to useless.
But the people trust Rudd, so they support it. The majority view on this page makes that much clear.
Yo ho ho
Thanks. I’ll have a look.
I saw this today. It’s an article about where our energy comes from. It’s getting harder and harder to imagine renewables being able to pick up the load of coal. I’m starting to come around to nuclear.
http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/04/11/climbing-mount-improbable/#more-1250
Dio 640
Agreed; that was the thrust of my 572.
In this case I don’t think it is better to do something than nothing because this something may give us a false sense of complacency and “locks us in” to a a situation where there are no rewards for voluntary reduction actions.
And again the GFC is a red herring on reasons not to do an ETS. IT wil take at least 5 to 10 years for an ETS to start closing coal mines, because that is how long it will take to begin to build alternatives. By that time the GFC will be long over. In fact, investment in new energy sources under a “real” ETS is one possible solution to the GFC.
I thought the stimulus packages would have been a perfect time for significant govt investment in renewable energy infrastructure. I was a little disappointed it wasn’t an aim of the govt.
Renewable energy isn’t a vote winner.
Agreed. Especially right now – it seems as though the only people concerned about the environment are the traditional constituencies. Climate Change was the ‘sexy’ problem throughout 07 and 08 but now it’s down the list of priorities.
One of the Essential Research polls recently put CC way down the list of voters priorities and also made it clear the voters were happy that Labor were better with CC than the Libs. It makes it hard to get traction on the issue but it doesn’t mean we aren’t right. It just means we aren’t going to win.
Labor hack that I am, I’ve consistently said on this blog that the targets set by Rudd and Wong are too low.
Does Labor as the government have at its auspices any amount of scientific expertise it wants? That Dio is just a cheap shot.
Well, if the GFC is “doing the job” right now maybe it is a good time to wait. Kill two or more birds with the one stone so to speak.
Fair point Gary – the ALP does have a lot of scientific expertise at its disposal….
Now if they’d only use it…
The GFC is not doing the job. It is temporarily SLOWING the GROWTH of emissions. We need to REDUCE the amount of emissions. Now.
As if you were ever against nuclear dio!
BTW your post reminds me of the poster leopold ,who before the 2007 election was always ending his posts with ‘I’m starting to come around to the liberals’
Gary
Why is it a cheap shot to point out that not a single member of the Labor Cabinet has a science background? There are 27 of them. It must be the least scientifically literate Cabinet ever. They have more members of a tiny fringe group like Opus Dei than scientists.
Your background heavily influences the way you view things. If you are not comfortable with an area, whether it’s science, law or economics it doesn’t matter how good your advice is, you won’t understand the topic in any depth. You will revert to what you know.
It’s also probably worth pointing out that the ALP hierarchy has many a former oil baron is their midst.
Gusface
I’m still anti-nuclear for Oz but less so. I’m in the Tim Flannery camp and think we have enough renewable options to avoid using nuclear. Other countries don’t have those options and will need nuclear. But if you look at that link of where energy comes from, RE needs an ENORMOUS boost in investment to increase enough to take up the slack. They should have used the insulation money in the Stimpac on RE investment.
And Gus, I’m even less likely to vote for the Liberals now than under Howard. I detested Howard but at least he could sort of run the country, albeit shoddily. Turnbull and the Libs couldn’t run a chook raffle.
GB
If Labor is against doing anything meaningfull about CC now, will you at least consider starting to put in place the infrastructure which will allow a CC solution in future? Two things come to my mind – developing expertise in nuclear (training some engineers and scientists) and improving our national electricity grid to better deliver new alternative energy sources to capital cities. The latter woudl have a dual benefit because in the short term they would also allow a better functioning national electricity supply market to function. An electricity link from Adelaide to Melbourne via the coastal wind sites (1000km = about $1 bn) would assist both.
Either way, Labor is certainly going to need to start to find a different economic strategy for the La Trobe and some other brown coal areas. They are basket cases now and will be flat out surviving in a competitive national market, let alone an ETS. Even the Rudd ETS will see them unviable to expand, and they are already inefficient. Hence La Trobe will need a new employment base, or better educated young who can migrate to jobs elsewhere.
I’ll tell you someone in Parliament who does have a science background. Dennis Jensen. One of the biggest climate change skeptics of them all.
By the way the Cabinet only has 20 members, not 27.
Where exactly is this meant to be heading? Do we need to make sure that every Government ministry has a token scientist, teacher, doctor, defence member, economist, farmer, check out chick, small business person, labourer, builder, engineer, tourist operator, etc etc before they’re allowed to make decisions?
If that’s a killer argument as far as you’re concerned, you don’t have much of an argument.
As for Conroy and Opus Dei, for a start I thought that it had been previously established he wasn’t. Can I remind you all here that this supposedly hard line Roman Catholic was a prime mover behind the push by Victorian Labor to give lesbians access to IVF? Regardless, I would like it explained why being a member of Opus Dei is so spooky as to immediately (without further elaboration) brand someone as irrelevant – do you people really give Dan Brown’s pontifications so much importance?
I’m also getting increasingly annoyed with the tendency by some bloggers here to label anyone who disagrees with them as a ‘Labor hack.’ It seems a lazy way of getting out of an argument. If you can’t demolish the argument someone puts forward, then that argument has some validity, whether it’s put forward by a Labor hack or by GP or Glen.
Please show some respect for the intellect of your fellow bloggers, and recognise that party allegiance does not mean putting your brain in a box.
Please extend the same tolerance you would like for your political allegiance to the political allegiances of others.
Dio 663
I agree with this issue (lack of science in cabinet) and your point generally. I think it is generally true that most people look at issues through the lens of their own professional background. The last government was full of lawyers, so coercive laws were often the solution to any problem. Likewise economists imagine some economic policy will solve every problem, engineers like me will oftne advocate infrastructure rather than behavioural change, and so on. There is an obvious danger of group think when a decision making body comprises only one type of background.
One of my favourite philosophers (Adorno) said that we were all biased by nature and couldn’t be completely objective due to our upbringing. The best chance we had to be objective was to be aware of our own biases first.
Because outside expertise is constantly relied upon by government that’s why. So now you want a government member with expertise in every area of government? Should the treasurer be from the finance sector? Should the sport minister be someone who has specialised in sport?
GB
Any cometn on progressing these other issues for CC action I raised in 667?
So one CC “expert” here is telling me the GFC is doing the job and another is telling me it isn’t. Which is it?
669 – Well put Zoomster.
672 Socrates – Good suggestions. I’m not a fan of nuclear though.
Must zip.
The Finnigans (649). LOL. If your first name is Michael, your electoral system would have to leave room for a Delaney’s donkey vote.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/04/12/politics/politics_30100309.php
The word “democracy” has become, like the word “love” and “god”, meaningless. It can be used to justify almost anything. Thai salad, anyone?
zoomster
About 20% of the population has a science background, whether it’s engineering, computer science, medicine or any of hundreds of fields. None of them have ended up in Cabinet. There are heaps of lawyers and union officials though.
To make the best decisions, you need a wide range of expertise. The Rudd cabinet is very, very narrow.
I should clarify my use of the phrase “Labor hack”. It does not refer to most Labor supporters. It refers to people who will back Labor on any decision or action they make in a one-eyed fashion. For these people, Rudd and Labor can do no wrong.
Gary
He should definitely be well-versed in economics, as Swan is. After all, he is running a $1T economy.
Diogenes,
We’ve had the argument about PR and your side lost, again.
You’ve been smoking that Greens Greens Grass again. Anyone can run for Parliament. It seems that Doctors and Scientists won’t do the hard work of accomodating different interests and points of view. This is a necessary requisite of being successful in the political sphere.
GG
I don’t know what my side is. I don’t have a “side”. I don’t think we should have PR. I think the way we have it with 2 parties in the HOR and sort of PR in the Senate is fine, although I think Senate seats should be based on population.
You are right about scientists. They don’t change their opinions just to accommodate others points of view. But that’s a good thing in science. I don’t think it’s that they avoid hard work or are less interested in the world than lawyers, quite the opposite. There used to be people like Barry Jones who had true intellect in politics.
Herr Doktor Diog, what do you call people like Piers Akerman, who “It refers to people who will never back Labor on any decision or action they make in a one-eyed fashion. For these people, Rudd and Labor can do no right”.
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/piersakerman/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/easter_bunny_rudd_walks_on_eggshells/
Finns
They are Liberal hacks by definition.
Voters tend to prefer graduates from the School of Life. Success in politics is about turning ideas into actions.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25323727-12377,00.html
Rudd condemns Bainimarama’s return to power in Fiji as ‘military dictatorship’
So Rudd condemns it but will allow Bainimarama to stay in power.
What a pussy!
He should be saying either you have Free and Fair elections or we’re sending in the Commandos!
FFS we have a responsibility in the Pacific Region and yet we have lost our will to do the right thing. I would be this upset with Howard had he won and sat on his hands about the Fijian Military Dictatorship…
Glen,
So your solution is to send our young servicemen and women to be killed and maimed.
Why?
The Fijian Military wouldnt fight.
Plus the people are on our side.
Fijians vote Liberal?
Yes but who’s side is the army on?
Glen,
People said the Iraqis wouldn’t fight, and that they were on our side. Foreign occupations, no matter how benign their intent, have a way of inspiring resistance. Australia doesn’t have the equipment to do it anyway. We could only do it in East Timor with considerable American logistical support. I doubt Fiji is high on their list of priorities at the moment.
Glen,
Also, didn’t the Fijian military originally take over when Howard was in office?
Diog
and having a science background is also no guarantee of good science.
Tim Flannery, for example, suggested that people in LA didn’t care about each other because after an earthquake they didn’t invite others into their homes, but let them sleep in the streets.
Anyone with a passing knowledge of earthquakes knows that this is correct behaviour after a shock – you’re safer outside in a tent. Flannery, however, interpreted it as a sign that Americans were uncaring.
Similarly, he recommended that the Australian bushland be ‘restored’ by importing a whole host of foreign species to fill vacant biological niches.
This ignored the huge problems caused in Australia in the past by doing just that.
I’m not saying Flannery is a bad scientist in his field, I am saying that being a scientist doesn’t automatically lead to good thinking.
I’ve had scientists tell me Darwin was wrong, that kangaroos are evolutionary deadends and that climate change isn’t happening.
Obviously I should have listened to them, like a good Arts student should, and accepted that they knew more than I did. I happen to believe that the ‘scientists’ in these cases were talking outside of their field of knowledge.
My point is that someone’s field of study is not as important as an open mind and a questioning intelligence.
Scientists are like other human beings – they act on assumptions and they are blinded by bias (just been reading how geneticists for thirty years counted 48 chromosomes in human DNA, when there were only 46. They saw what they wanted to see).
Much as I truly love scientists (never gone out with someone who wasn’t one), I know that there’s nothing magical about them or the way they look at the world.
A better question to examine, as has already been suggested, is why scientists are not interested in political careers, especially if there is a real role that they can play there.
Perhaps they don’t care enough about activities outside of their field to get involved.
Regardless of what Howard would do, Rudd should emulate what Howard did in East Timor in 1999 and step in and get rid of the gangsters that are currently running Fiji.
Swing Lowe,
If you’re talking about sanctions, that might be reasonable if there was a good chance of success. If you’re talking about killing people, how many lives (ours and theirs) would it be worth? Given they’re not actually doing physical harm to people, not many in my view.
Glen, i am on your side. let get Obama to nuke Fiji. that’s a clean and efficient final solution.
A somewhat paltry piece of attempted revisionism GG.
The main benefit of the debate has been to debunk some of the mantras of the main 2 parties and the MSM, like the ‘stability’ line, including the old Italy chestnut. The discussion has also illuminated the philosophical basis for PR (equitable representation in parliament) and thereby the reason for PR being first choice of nations around the world.
The elements established so far:
1.The 2 party system as it has developed in Australia disenfranchises many groups of voters.
2.Proportional representation means simply that all identifiable political agglomerations in society are proportionately represented in parliament.
3.PR is the major system of around the world, with 30 of the 36 democracies with more than 2 million population and reasonable human rights have PR.
4.All the new eastern European countries adopted PR.
5.South Africa is about to adopt PR.
6.There can be no’ winner’ or ‘loser ‘in this debate: PR is naturally supported by voters who see themselves as disenfranchised, and opposed by those who feel their political interests are represented by one or other – or both – of the big 2 centre parties under current conditions.
7. No amount of obfuscation by some ALP and LNP supporters protecting their interests will change the raw truth that PR would provide equitable representation, while the status quo does not.
Of course, the other reason to have the debate, from the point of view of a ‘disenfanchisee’, is to try to get some momentum into the idea of change, so the dead arm of the 2 party system can be removed from our shoulder.
As discussed earlier in the thread, changing to PR would not require a referendum. Hopefully the concept may be supported by sufficient factions within the big 2 for the change to be made at some time in the future, if they see benefit in it for them.
We dont need an elected govt,just a panel of experts. In fact experts are exactly what u dont want because of their incredibly narrow focus. This is why we prefer to elect humans. Good leadership is about marshalling all resouces. Experts are more often than not blind and ignorant outside their pet interest.
Diogenes is wrong at 663 about this being one of the least scientific literate cabinets ever. Moat Australian cabinets over the last 30 years have lacked a single member with a scientific education.
I’m not sure whether Greensborough Growler’s comments indicate he thinks this is a good thing, or just an irrelevancy, but its worth noting that this is not the usual situation worldwide. Most other developed countries have much higher rates of scientists participating on government. I remember seeing an article once bemoaning that the US Congress had only two physicists. I thought that looked pretty good since at the time we had none at all (admittedly with a smaller number of parliamentarians).
As the Jensen example shows, this isn’t always a good thing, but generally speaking I think a cabinet with a diversity of intellectual backgrounds will do better than one with only two, which is pretty much what we have.
Another correction to my own side – Tom tfab at 4, this won’t be the first provincial/state PR north of Mexico. Illinois had a form of PR for many years in their state house. It wasn’t nearly as proportional as I would advocate, but I think it deserved the name. It got abolished as part of a package of changes in the 80s. Ironically I think it was abolished by Republicans who thought they were going to command majorities for many years. In fact they’ve been the minority party in that state for most of the time since and now desperately regret it.
I have a feeling there were some 19th century examples as well.
Is anyone suggesting that Tony Burke is not a good Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry?
Why is it Australia’s responsibility to restore democracy in Fiji? It should be the job of the UN.
I would like to see every dictator in the world rubbed out, one by one, with intelligence and secrecy. First the little one (Mugabe), then everyone else in between (such as the heads of the Fijian military), and finally the big one (Putin).
YES WE CAN!
Also, congratulations to the NSW police and Rees on a job presently being well done. Keep rubbing out these bikies fellas. One major particular root of criminal activity in our society.
Conroy is a member of
Opus Dei
I wonder if that has anything to do with this.
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Germany_deletes_WikiLeaks.de_domain_after_raid
I read an intriguing story by Peter Hatcher last week that:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/weeds-for-the-poor-bribes-for-the-dear-leader-20090406-9utl.html?page=-1
So i was wondering why the Dear Leader’s counterfeit Viagra was so good. And then I saw the rocket that was launched by North Korea last week. It was called the NO-DONG.
Now, it makes sense, the DL has No Dong and he needs the Viagra to getup like his rocket. Looking at the latest video of the DL, he definitely has No Dong.
I wonder also if the No Dong rocket has a dongle? What a ding dong of a story.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/weeds-for-the-poor-bribes-for-the-dear-leader-20090406-9utl.html?page=-1
wrong link for the second story:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/dprk/nd-1-hist.htm
Those who say PR can be introduced without a referendum are technically correct, but to introduce it fairly means Tasmania must lose two seats. (This requires a referendum).
So, to be pure to the ideal, Tasmania would have one 3 member electorate. Which will always return 2 Labor – 1 Lib. ACT and NT would have one 2 member electorate again returning 1 of each major party.
If 5 member electorates are introduced the major parties would always have a majority. The only way to get what the minor parties want is seven member electorates.
Seven member electorates in a large diverse country is not going to happen.
Can you point to a reference for this?
Ruawake I point you to my post at 607. I have no idea why you think PR must mean Tasmania must lose the minimum five seats for a state, none at all!??? Please explain?
True, proprtional representation in the ACT and NT would disenfranchise those voters as they’d always be lumped with one representitive from each major party as is currently the case for them in the senate. I’d suggest that either the territories retain single member electorates or ACT is incorporated into NSW for such purposes and the NT into SA or WA.
One reason I like hare-clark over other forms of PR is it becomes possible for Independents to be elected whilest in the dutch nation wide PR system this is unheard of and parties become institutionalised. Nevertheless I don’t think single member electorates are much better for Ind.. Look at the US, currently 2 federal Ind. but usually less. One of them Sanders is the first openly Socialist senator, so much for 1 member electorates reflecting the will of the people! Does anyone know if there are any Ind. in US state parliaments? I know Vermont has a 3rd party linked to Sanders.
If it was not in the constitution that original states have 5 seats the AEC would have reduced the Tassie seats to 3.
How can you advocate PR if each electorate is not of a similar size ?
This will never happen so it’s not even worth considering.
ruawake
I think Tony Burke is a very good Minister for Agriculture. He is smarter, more energetic and more open than the self-interested National Party dunderheads who preceded him.
Boerwar
Exactly – Burke has no baggage and while he may not know one end of a cow from the other he is doing a good job.
So to my mind this disproves the experts in dept advocate wallies.
701
and Fredn, so what if he was?
The House is not representative in that both parties have a disproportionately high representation of legal thinkers. Like any good team, the current Government would benefit from having a better spread of thinking types at the decision-making table. Yes, it has the world of advice at its finger tips. That does not necessarily mean that it knows what to do with scientific advice, as the 5% ETS demonstrates. It is too little, too late before it is even introduced.
The correct policy response to the science is therefore not a 5% ETS but a heavy investment in adaptation.
BTW, while I get frustrated at times by the people who disagree with me on this blog, and I assume that that the reverse is the case, I do feel that posters here post in good faith.
Whether tasmania has 5 seats or what it deserves has nothing to do with PR. Ruawake, I point you to the Spanish system which has electorates of different size or, closer to home, the ACT that has two electorates of 5 and one of 7.
I don’t see your point and judging by your icon can only assume you are taking this line because it benefits the ALP (also how do i change my icon?).
As J-View said earlier: “There can be no’ winner’ or ‘loser ‘in this debate: PR is naturally supported by voters who see themselves as disenfranchised, and opposed by those who feel their political interests are represented by one or other – or both – of the big 2 centre parties under current conditions.”
Taking this point into account I ask you to philosophise the meaning of democracy. Ruawake, as a social democrat or “3rd way” stooge or whatever it is you call yourself I ask you if you think the disenfranchised have a democratic right to be franchised even if you disagree with them?
William
Wiki refers to it but doesn’t have a citation. I saw a petition to QANDA suggesting that a question be asked whether Conroy is in Opus Dei so it must be a moot point.
zoomster
True but it gives you a much better chance than without a science background.
feral sparrowhawk
You can’t get any less than zero.
I’m including medical as having a science background so Nelson and Herron are included. There is also Barry Jones. But there are very few compared to the US. I don’t know why there is a difference.
The Heysen Molotov, Who’s disenfranchised and how?
ruawake
I’m not saying that you HAVE to have a background in the field but I think it is highly preferable. It’s more the incredibly narrow background the Cabinet has that concerns me. Union officials, political staffers and lawyers are about 90% of them. That gives you a very blinkered view of any problem.
Not any more, it doesn’t. It’s clearly nothing more than scuttlebutt.
Sign up here, and the icon you upload will appear here and at most other blogs where you use the same email address.
Diog
I respectfully disagree. Good thinking is good thinking, it’s not unique to a particular realm of knowledge. Most faculties teach ‘scientific method’ as a basis for investigation – I found it ludicrous when they tried to do this to me in my History courses, and could see that there was some kind of inferiority complex operating that said that ‘thinking like a scientist’ was the only valid form.
As someone who regularly talks with scientists from a range of fields – physics, maths, medicine, biochemistry, climatology, to name a few – I understand scientific thinking. Nearly anyone with a university degree should (I realise that being taught something and knowing how to use it are not necessarily the same thing).
I do know that one of the problems Barry Jones had as a Minister was an inbuilt arrogance that assumed that he needed to explain things in very simple terms to his colleagues and that even then they wouldn’t understand him. I think that is a common problem with scientists – it certainly is with medicine! – and probably explains why they don’t go in for politics and don’t succeed when they do (I take it you’re not arguing that Nelson and Herron were successes).
Molotov
The issue is that the major parties received 85.15% of the primary vote at the last election.
This is likely to happen no matter what electoral system is in place. So if people want PR bring it on. It will result in less independents and minors.
Plus stooge is not a constuctive term in a discussion – refute my “facts”.
Steve: “The Heysen Molotov, Who’s disenfranchised and how?”
Perhaps I used that turm a bit liberally. I tend to exagerate a bit in order to illistrate a point. I simply mean that supporters of the Green, FF and any old Ind. are massively under represented in the HofR and that these people have a right to be frustrated.
Dio
i am checking the veracity of that 90%
ps i understand what your getting at
What percentage of seats did they get?
ruawake if under PR the major parties get 85.15% of the vote then they will get 85.15% of the seats, not the current 98% in the HofR (with the remaining 2% Nationals in all but name). With 85.15% of the seats the major parties will also get a roughly equivelent % of the power in this country instead of almost all the power.
My point being that PR need not be feared. Capital will still rule, the ‘watermelons’ and ‘happy-clappies’ will not takeover, there will be no revolution. But these people will be heard.
No they will not. It comes down to the majic quota. If Australia was one electorate with 150 candidates you may be correct, is anyone seriously suggesting this?
William
That’s amazing. I looked at it today to see what Conroy’s background was (he has a B Ec) and was surprised by the Opus Dei comment.
zoomster
I looked up Barry Jones and he was a bloody lawyer! He’s an imposter! Still, he’s a good example of your argument about critical thinking.
I’ve long argued that doctors make TERRIBLE politicians. There has NEVER been a good doctor cum politician. Lots of the ME Presidents have been doctors. Ayman al Zawahiri is the most “successful” one if you use his measure of success.
I really think that the Treasurer needs an economic background. The Attorney General has to be a lawyer (I believe).
Illinois used Cumulative voting which is a semi-proportional system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumulative_Voting
South Africa uses pure list PR and has an ANC majority because the ANC gets a majority of the votes.
Not exactly – it was me who removed it.
Gusface
I looked at all 20 of them. Joel Fitzgibbon is the only one who wasn’t a lawyer, political staffer or union official before becoming a politician. And he’s the one we’re closest to losing.
William
Can you tell how long it had been there or who put it there?
Okay so if we had electorates with 5 members. A quota would be 16.666666666666666666666666666%. FF might fluke 1 or 2 upsets somewhere, maybe in SA, back-of-envelope probably roughly what they are entitled to. The Greens would manage that quota in tas, maybe perth, 3ish in melbourne, 3ish in sydney electorates, maybe an upset in brisbane or adelaide, which would add up to 10. Lo and Behold: 7.6% (greens vote last time) of the 150 HofR seats is around that figure.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKTRE53B08A20090412
This is what happened when you want to give away $10B but nobody came.
Somewhere somehow ‘net censorship’ has moved from protecting little kiddies, to ‘net censorship’, where are the links that have the German government interested in a little political storm in Australia.
I noticed with interest that it was a William that removed the ‘scuttlebug’, could be scuttle bug, but as Stephen Conroy is pretty right wing conservative catholic I’m not so sure Conroy would see it that way, might be right up his alley, he might consider it a complement, seems strange that no one is willing to ask.
Anyway william, one down you have, 1479 google returns for -Stephen Conroy Opus Dei- to go., 19600 for -Stephen Conroy Opus Die-.
Those bloody lawyers, political staffers and union officials have obviously never had an education or lived life away from their chosen vocation or even experienced higher education. Certainly their jobs provide them with no useful skills and they have lost the ability to ask “those in the know” for necessary information. They have also lost the abililty to learn. Jeez they’re useless.
See I told ya’s WB was God or at least a demi-God
If I can just play devils advocate for a second, hasn’t the current Fiji government gotten rid of apartied? I think the previous mob were pretty bad to the Indian-Fijians, or am I getting confused?
We don’t need another imperialist war, we are not Team America: World Police.
Diogenes
It was added on the 19 March 2009 by a Jay Fitzgerald, he is a pretty active editor but he has no user page.
zoomster
I agree with you to some extent about the notion that good thinking is good thinking, but would argue that there are limits to this around the issue of judgement. Folk with a lot of experience and expertise in a particular field will tend to have better judgement in that particular field. They can, and often do, fall flat on their faces when they move out of the field. They may also have difficulties reconciling judgements arising from expertise in various fields. (A lot of the discussion around the 5% ETS in this blog have actually centred around judgements about what will work politically and what will work according to the science).
My main point would be that a good team will include people with various bits of expertise as well as people who are skilled at synthesizing the expertise and judgements to come up with a workable solution. A corollary would be that a team of lawyers is almost by definition not an optimum team.
Gary
That’s a straw man argument. They will all have useful skills but they will be the same skills. They are an extremely homogeneous bunch.
Ruawake Says: “So if people want PR bring it on. It will result in less independents and minors.”
You are doing your side of the argument a great dis-service. The flaw here seems too obvious to point out.
If we are talking about referendums to introduce electoral fairness between states then we should have a vote on changing the distribution criteria from population to number of electors so that the situation where some states have less voters per electorate because they have more children, foreigners, disenfranchised prisoners and persons without the vote due to mental health issues.
Try here. Some further insight into how it got there here (scroll down for comments by Rhys Needham and Jay Fitzgerald). It was falsely put about that NSW Labor MP Kristina Keneally was a member of Opus Dei while she was seeking preselection in 2002, and I would say the most likely explanation is that the same thing is being done with Conroy.
Molotov
You should try being a creative accountant. The Greens cannot win a senate seat in the larger states with a 14% quota, yet you expect them to win more lower house seats with a higher quota.
Get real.
With 30, 5 member electorates the major parties are guaranteed 120 seats, they will probably pick up another 20 easily the last ten will be a toss up.
The result – same as it ever was.
Tom- 1st & B
I agree. However I think its not important enough an issue to hold a referendum on, untill something more important comes along that can be held at the same time.
How do they determine who’s mental health is too poor to vote? Being in a facility?
George M from the OO has a new blog entry analyzing voting patterns – well worth the read
Arrr so in Labor circles is it case of being a member of Opus Dei is instant political death?
Multi-member electorates for the HoR would, in the mainland states be subdivisions of the states and these subdivisions would be along community of interest lines which would lead to Victoria`s federal seats approximating the Legislative council boundaries which have elected 3 Green MLCs. Similar things would happen in other states.
What? Are you joking? Lawyers, union officials and political staffers all have the same skills? How do you know what else they have done in life? How do you know what each individual has ostudied or is studying? How do you know what each does for a hobby?
The trouble is Dio not only do you lump some ALP supporters with the term “Labor Hacks”, you want to lump people according to their vocation without any thought as to their own individual qualities. Amazing stuff.
With 5 member electorates Victoria`s seats would approximate the Legislative Council boundaries.
As unlikely as it may seem at present, I wouldn’t be too sure of this when the big parties are so riven. If some factions see no way of implementing their views within one of the big 2 but could foresee potential alliances with other parties under PR to form government, they may break ranks on a vote on it.
But, if you turn out to be correct and we are stuck with the current system, would that be more or less equitable in terms of representation?
Ruawake, the greens senate vote in inner sydney is high enough, its just lowered by their vote in rural areas, In 5 member electorates the rural voters would be in different electorats and with more members per electorate the quota would go down further. There would also be preferences so they or any other group could get in with 10% or so.
Ruawake says “With 30, 5 member electorates the major parties are guaranteed 120 seats, they will probably pick up another 20 easily the last ten will be a toss up.
The result – same as it ever was.”
Well I disagree with those numbers but even if you are right, 10 seats away from the 2 big party machines would not be the “same as it ever was”.
Look, my image worked!
Tom
Sorry but thats ballcocks – Victorian state elections have nothing to do with Federal Elections.
ruawake
Tom just made a bloody good point. I am starting to think that you are out of your depth in this conversation. Perhaps you need to re-read what tom said
Gary
Most of the lawyers were union lawyers. Being a political staffer and being a union official require very similar skills. They also studied very similar degrees at Uni. You could hardly get a more alike group if you tried. Fitzgibbon sticks out a mile.
Molotov
That is the whole friggin point. Geez some people are dumb.
I can well understand people thinking minor parties’ chances of winning seats decreases if the quota is higher, but as this paper demonstrates, it ain’t necessarily so. If the 2004 election had been under the old system of 10 Senators per state and a 16.67% quota, the Greens would have been a better chance of winning seats in NSW, Victoria and Queensland (although they wouldn’t have won their seat in WA). This is because Labor’s surpluses over the second quota would have been lower, giving the Greens a lower hurdle to clear to overtake them and win a seat on their preferences. Whether the number of seats on offer is odd or even has a significant bearing on minor parties’ chances of winning – so the five-member system for the Victorian upper house is on balance better for the Greens than the six-member system in WA.
Gary
Do you think the diversity in the Cabinet (and/or Shadow Cabinet) could be improved? If so, in what ways?
Thanks kleewyk
George Megalogenis latest article is a good read. George is pretty much saying what possum has been saying for ages, the Liberal vote is literally dyeing. They are safe for now but it might be wise for the labor extreme right to take note as to why.
Sorry didn’t get the link right
George Megalogenis latest article
I reckon the gossip stems from both persons’ religious authoritarian streak; their apparent belief that they are entitled to impose their faith’s version of morality on others. Keneally’s example was her infamous attempt to outlaw and punish people who ‘offended ‘ Catholics with slogans on T-shirts etc. around the Catholic ‘world’ youth day rubbish in Sydney. Conroy’s example is his crusade against the internet.
When people are acting on behalf of an irrational force such as religious faith, they find it difficult to see what they do in objective light, and the results can be ludicrous, as in those two examples.
Personally, I don’t care if they belong to a cult or not. It’s frightening enough to see their actions as politicians and wonder what they might try to legislate next.
You could say the DLP lives on through people like that.
Actually, it was a slightly different case in Victoria – the Greens would have had a better chance there because Labor’s smaller surplus would have meant fewer preferences for Family First, so they would not have been able to overtake the Greens on their preferences. The Labor preferences would have passed on to the Greens when Family First were excluded.
757 – To be honest I haven’t at all investigated each member of the cabinet’s past vocations, education, interests and abilities. Nor have I personally had anything to do with any of them. Given that, I cannot comment on what they can or can’t do but then I’m not the one pretending that I know what they can and can’t do am I?.
ruawake, yes some people are dumb.
Lets put it this way. NSW statewide upper house, Greens won two seats in the last 2 elections for a total of 4.
Vic upper house with 6 elect. of 5 mem. and they won three.
Either way they’re doing better than in single ember electorate, where apart from Cunningham by-election they have never won. To suggest that the Greens are better off with a 50% quota (which u may or may not be saying) is bollacks.
Gary
Fair enough. If you could construct an ideal Cabinet what would it look like?
What I would hazard a guess on though, Boerwar, is that many are capable of listening and learning from “those in the know”.
Anyone know of any scientist itching to get into parliament?
Yes, I would certainly have in my ideal cabinet at least some people who are excellent listeners. I wouldn’t have a Cabinet full of them. It would be too quiet in Cabinet meetings.
Australian scientists do love their science for better or worse and most of them would die rather than get into politics…
Has there ever been any talk of Tim Flannery going into politics? He’d be the most obvious one.
764 – I suppose if I really thought hard and long about that Boerwar I could give you a reasonable answer but I really can’t see the need. My beef was more to do with lumping a group of people under the one heading and saying they all have the same skills and abilities. I don’t believe that to be the case.
Okay maybe it all depends on who you want in. A really high quota is optimal if you only want ALP/Coalition. A mid sized quota is good if you want to also include groups with some sizeable backing such as the Religious Right, ecological parties and progressive centrists like the Democrats and if you want the Shooters Party and the Socialist Allaince in, you’d lower the quota further. Does this sound fair enough?
Molatov
If you wish to fallaciously extrapolate state results to federal results be my guest.
PR federally would ensure the Greens have a maximum of 3 seats, one each in Sydney Melbourne and Brisbane.
Then thats 3 more than they’re currently getting.
ruawake and heyson m
My first thought was that under PR the big 2 would break up. The benefits for, say, genuine lefties in the ALP, and the wets in the Libs, of being in a position to form government coalitions with other small groups would outweigh staying powerless in a fractured behemoth with no chance of the numbers.
Molotov you have to look at how many seats each state has, WA 15, SA 11? So 5 member electorates has to be the maximum, 3 member electorates would result in 2-1 to the major parties.
So it is only in the 3 largest states where there would be a capital city based electorate. In Qld it may be more complicated.
Gets complicated doesn’t it? “I am starting to think that you are out of your depth in this conversation.”
Boerwar, I think any ideal cabinet would depend on both internal and global factors a government needs to confront. For instance, I think there were very few who saw the Global Financial Fiasco coming and probably no-one who who understood just how it would unfold, or even, if it has entirely played out as yet. I suspect not, for what it’s worth. And while I’m of the view that climate change is not far off being just what the Pine Bark Beetles will think is Christmas, I suspect people have been so spooked by the Global Financial Fiasco, they’re not paying attention at present.
Jaundiced View,
yeah there would probably end up being 5 or 6 or 7 or so parliametary parties
Green, Social Democrat, Centrist, Secular Conservate Pro-Business, Agrarian, Christian Democrat, Reactionary Popularist Far-Right.
Need i remind you all that Australia is not Europe.
We have the Westminster System of government and it has worked well throughout its history in Australia since 1901.
So why the hell should we change to a European model that has proven to be a failure and creates unstable government???
There is nothing wrong with our current system. The minor parties can gain representation in the Senate and leave the Lower House where government is formed to be the bastion of the 2 party system which has proven to create stable government.
PR simply destroys major parties, all it will do in Australia is create hundreds of new minor parties with single interests try to win seats in Parliament. That doesnt create consensus that creates division.
If you want PR in the lower house of Federal Parliament go to Europe and stay there!
Our system works and works well! Only a fool would try and change something that works!
Didn’t Dr Karl Kruszelnicki run in the federal election? Senate I think.
Tom.
ruawake
It doesn’t get complicated at all.
When in doubt go back to basics. The concept of proportional representation means a % of seats in parliament equal to the % support in the community. In other words, if a party got 10% of the vote they would be allocated 10% of the seats in parliament.
Any system devised here, whether simply national or state-by-state, must have that fundamental aim. If the outcome does not result in proportional representation, then something has gone wrong. It isn’t ‘disproportionate representation’. I don’t think that is a problem in the working PR systems around the world.
Molotov and JV
There would be two kinds of parties – ones who get elected and those who do not.
Ruawake
I discuss this at 607.
Tas 1x 5
Sa 1×5 + 1×6
WA 3×5
NSW 8×5 + 2×4 (or you could make fewer electorates, some with 6)
JV
Can you envisage a situation where your eutopia can be put into practise? If so, what is it?
Need i also remind you that the Nazi Party would not have won seats in the German Reichstag in the 1920s and probably would have been folded up had it not been for PR.
In 1928 the NSDAP got 2.6% of the vote and won 12 seats. Under a preferential single member constituency seat system like we have the NSDAP would have won 0 seats.
So if you want extremist views to get a voice in Parliament just think about how many seats One Nation would have got with almost 10% of the vote in 1998!
That’s right, just like the monarchy, which works very well – especially for monarchists
The 2 party system only ‘works well’ for those who get what they want from one or both of the 2 major parties. That doesn’t include me. I prefer an equitable system of parliamentary representation, although naturally elitists don’t. The elite in our system is the constituency the big 2 cater for.
JV your views get represented in the Senate.
Minority views are just that the Minority and shouldnt be given large amounts of sway over who forms government.
Glen, I think the problem with your proposition (spoken like a true conservative though) that our system works, so why change it, is that a society, nation is not a static thing and does not exist in a static environment. A hundred years ago, I would not have had the vote and would probably be doing things that would outrage you in order to say I should have the vote. (Imagine smiley thingy indicating benevolent comforting of small boy by aunty type, here).
Molotov if Tasmania has five seats it is not proportional representation. This would deprive other states two seats they legitimately should have.
Glen said:
Once again, I completely agree (that makes 2 things in 2 days!!!) If it ain’t broke (and it doesn’t seem to be broke), don’t fix it…
ruawake Itep raised this up the thread, saying ‘This will never happen so it’s not even worth considering.”
My response was:
HSO look if you think PR is so fantastic just how many seats would One Nation have won under a PR system in 1998?
Now if she had say 15-20 MPs dont you think it would have made it easier for that Party to continue to win seats if not more!
Read any History book on the Weimar Republic. PR destroyed the pro-Weimar Parties (SDP, DVP, Centre) at the benefit of the anti-Weimar Parties (DVNP, KPD, NSDAP).
PR as a voting system in lower houses only make political parties more likely to be based on single issues and more than likely extremist views as they wouldnt have to compromise to win seats in Parliament. Thus all you are doing is giving extremist views a voice in Parliament at the expense of political parties who preach consensus politics.
Tom
You’re right. And his full name is Karl Sven Woytek Sas Konkovitch Matthew Kruszelnicki! From wiki
JV if you are male then you are my ‘brother from another mother’ and if you are female then similar sentiment but with a feminine tone.
I dont want stability I want democracy. Who wants stability when the world is going to hell with this ecological crisis GFC and global inequality. If we had a little more instabilty and a little less authoritarianism, maybe we could make more positive reforms if the people took to the streets a bit more.
ruawake, I suspect Molotov has just realised s/he’s in the corner of the room, with the door on the other side, and the floor is wet with paint.
Do these elites also drink latte’s
Heaven’s above, Glen, I’m no defender of PR. It’s an interesting proposition to consider, that I reckon has Buckley’s and Nunn of getting anywhere. All I’m pointing to is the need to think of human organisations as dynamic and changing things. It’s true that some components of culture will endure for many centuries, even thousands of years, and that cultures can be obliterated (Easter Island, a lot of thew Mayan) by their own behaviour.
jv
So a faction of a major party has to somehow get together with others to pass legislation, it would not happen under Labor (ask Cate Malloy) so you have to pin your hopes on the L-NP.
This is getting more farcical by the day.
That’s a fair point. The only problem is that there is currently no great demand for PR – either from the general public or any of the major parties (not counting the Greens). People seem to like the Westminster system – it creates stable governments and provides for decisive elections.
IMHO, whenever people in Australia look at elections in countries with PR (e.g. Italy, Israel, Germany) and see the protracted negotiations required to form a government, as well as the resulting political instability that forms when such coalitions are formed, they make an instant decision that while our current system may not be perfect, it’s better than the other ones out there.
Snapper, you mean like this?
http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/tbr/lowres/tbrn168l.jpg
Dr Karl Kruszelnicki has stated that he accepted the number two position because that way he could not be elected.
Didn’t seem to work out that way in Queensland.
Thank you, Swing Lowe. Beyond stability of government, you/we need people who can and will act on our behalf both proactively and reactively. As zoomster pointed out, you need people who can think clearly and impartially.
Ewwwwww, Finns. Want him/her to be able to get out.
What if, in addition to the Queensland state election result in 1998, the ONP had won 10-15 federal seats (including Pauline and David Oldfield).
It would have been seen as a successful entrance of the ONP onto the mainstream Australian political scene instead of the defeat it became after the ONP couldn’t win a single lower house seat.
I’m sure the ONP would have lasted longer if Pauline Hanson had been reelected in 1998. That said, it’s highly unlikely that someone like Pauline Hanson would have been elected in the first place under PR, as it’s unlikely she would have been able to make a quota in the 1996 elections.
With respect SW, that’s the age-old classic statement of the conservative resisting any proposed change that may dimish a position of privilege.
It may not be broke for you. You may or may not be part of, or support, one of the big 2 and are satisfied with what results from the system. However, the political hopes of many are not realised through the current system of representation and people such as myself feel totally without political representation the way the House of Reps and the state lower houses are elected. Government is formed from the lower house, so although the upper houses are PR and can occasionally have some influence (thankfully), mostly they are ineffective. It requires PR in the lower houses to achieve equitable representation.
What I find interesting is that no-one – not one blogger – has attacked the fairness of PR as a concept and in practice around the world (except good old Italy of course!)
If it is unassailable that the PR concept is fairer and more equitable than what we have, from what concern does the opposition hereabouts stem? In the absence of any real attack on the basic concept itself, the only conclusion to be drawn is that the real imperative is the protection of one or both of the 2 big vested interests.
jv
PR will change nothing. The major parties will still form majority Govt.
The only answer is for “minor” parties to increase their primary vote, unless they do it is irrelevant what system we have.
How about the political instability that dogs countries with PR systems? Look at the problems the German grand coalition have had in deciding policy over the last term. And the fact that Haider was once included in a coalition government in Austria. And, of course, there’s good old Italy…
No but that was mainly due to her State MLAs resigning to sit as independents. Their loyalty to One Nation was not so strong obviously.
But her party would have won more than the 11 i think seats it won with 22% of the vote in 1998 in QLD.
Obviously here it was a matter of no strong internal party structure.
Snapper, sorry. once you have painted yourself in a corner. you farq. But i will give you a window as i am in a generous mood here.
http://www.jcpaintingandconstruction.com/images/home_image.jpg
Is there an democratic intangible here: that the winner in Australian politics is expected to rule for all Australians?
Everyone knows that that winner is more likely to rule in the interest of some parts than of others but there is also a general expectation that there will be no terrible losers. In this way, the government in a two party system is acceptable at a basic level to just about everybody. This system works fine as long as there is plenty of cake. It also depends heavily on large slabs of social, political and economic inertia.
All this works fine until a Government is expected, or should, think significantly outside the square. An examples of the latter is Menzies early in WW2 (England is at war, therefore we are at war’) How stupid. It is also probably why the Australian system is inadequate to deal with climate change.
I think that I’m not convinced, jaundiced view. It’s not that I think forms of government and how they are elected, or even what the purposes of government are, should not be questioned, particularly at times of evident change, I’m just not convinced.
Boerwar you can easily handle ‘climate change’ if you are willing to dump coal fired power stations in Australia and build nuclear power stations instead.
The centre-left just doesnt have the gumption to do it and the centre-right havent got the balls to pursue it!
Good point, Boerwar. Have to be elsewhere shortly, so ta-ra and Happy Easter to all. See you later.
ruawake says
“Molotov if Tasmania has five seats it is not proportional representation. This would deprive other states two seats they legitimately should have.”
Ive been over this too. We are going round in circles. The US senate does not have PR but has a massive distortion in favor of smaller states, in the past QLD and other states had rural weighting but without PR. It has nothing to do with a PR electoral system. I agree tasmania deserves 3 seats but that would require constitutional changers. When I say proportion representation I mean that a party’s seats should be prepautional to its vote in a multi-member electoral devision. I do not mean that the population of a geographic location should be represented by members proportional to its population, though this is also incredibly important and something that should probably be introduced into the senate.
SW – It seems you weren’t around for the early part of the thread. The ‘stability’ chestnut was dealt with early on, and found to be baseless on the facts, as opposed to the standard lines of the vested interests. To avoid repetition, the links:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2009/04/10/keeping-it-holy/comment-page-1/#comment-259032
and:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2009/04/10/keeping-it-holy/comment-page-1/#comment-259030
And I repeat, all the new eastern european states adopted PR, and South Africa is also about to adopt it. That is not because they expect ‘instability’, but because they want all political groups represented in parliament. It is the major system around the world. As opposed to our exclusive arrangement, and I’m one of the many excluded.
I expect your co-conspirator ShowsOn will magically appear soon enough to help you push your nuclear barrow
Hi Harry. Fair enough, but at least you aren’t putting up the canards of the status quo proponents in the big pary citadels that keep being trotted out.
You must admit it’s hard to argue against the the concept of PR because it’s so transparently, simply, inexorably damn fair.
JV the ANC are a monopoly political organisation. Virtually South Africa is a one party state.
Look at Romania JV and you’ll find about 10 parties on 10% or less of the vote.
Harry “Snapper” Organs Says
“ruawake, I suspect Molotov has just realised s/he’s in the corner of the room, with the door on the other side, and the floor is wet with paint.”
Not at all. Take the stability of the DPRK and the current instability in Iceland. Which is more democratic? I would argue that the instability in Iceland is a facet of democracy. The people there took to the streets and took down an inept government, Direct Democracy in action. Now there are fresh elections later this month. The Social Democrats look set to win the most seats and the Green-Left Movement looks set to come second
. Together they will form a grand coalition.
Glen
I would be happy to undertake anything that will address climate change properly, including trashing all the world’s coal power fired power stations and replacing them with nuclear-powered stations. Proliferation, and what to do with the nasties are simply second order issues, important thought they may be.
My issues with nuclear are quite practical and non ideological:
1. With a lead-in period of about 20 years we have run out of time for building the hundreds or thousand of nuclear plants required. The reality is that even if the whole world decided tomorrow to replace all the coals with nuclears you would be looking at much longer than 20 years – for one thing there isn’t the nuclear expertise in the world.
2. There isn’t the spare capital in the world to do it. (Britain is struggling to rebuild the small number of nuclear plants that need replacing).
3. We have about a generation’s worth of fuel at current prices. The supply would increase as the price increases but we would be looking at replacing the nuclears in about two or three generations. Very short term thinking.
4. Nuclear is a useful spoiler for people who really want to do nothing.
I like that quote.
In fact I think that sums up the Nuclear Option succintly.
BW we do have 30% + of the worlds known reserves of uranium i dont think we should have trouble with fueling our reactors
If we cut out all our coal fired power stations and replaced them with nuclear we’d be saving billions if not trillions of tonnes of emissions over a long period of time.
I don’t think we should build new nuclear plants but those already in existence shouldn’t be dismantilled until we reach their used-by-date.
Glen 816 – they haven’t adopted PR in Sth A yet. Wait for the glorious divisions to come, like amoeba rending themselves into multiple new organisms to swim free in the political medium. I can’t wait.
And we can work to see the LNP and ALP do the same so that the scarred and weary factions are released from their purgatory to stand unshackled and proud before we newly empowered voters.
Alright, I will play the game of PR
Would voting be compulsory or voluntary?
Would voting be compulsory or voluntary?
Thats a different issue.
Actually we we have about a quarter of the world’s known reserves at current prices. That proportion is dropping as new reserves are being discovered elsewhere.
The proportions are also irrelevant to an individual country, except for trading purposes. On the other hand, the global quantum is important because it would need to be done on a global level to work.
Actually it’s intrinsic to the operation or non-operation of PR.
The Heyson Molotov @ 817
Agreed. The use-by date is coming up very rapidly for lots of nuclears around the world. I would not know for sure but I would guess that as the pressure to maintain older and older nuclears in production grows, the risk of something going wrong with ageing machinery would also be increasing. Just guessing.
Gusface, okay.
I don’t realy understand. In the words of one infamous fish and chip shop owner “Please explain”?
Gusface
I don’t see why we would want or need to drop compulsory voting in a change to PR. It is intesting though that turnout in PR countries is much higher than district style elections. Have a look at this list (in which – surprise, surprise – Italy is not categorised as PR, but as ‘mixed’):
http://www.fairvote.org/turnout/compare2.htm
Recognizing the imperative of climate change, the Greens in Europe are abandoning their opposition to nuclear power. Australia should certainly export uranium to safe destinations. Perhaps we should build our own nuclear power plants if there are suitable locations. And we have a moral obligation to take back nuclear waste and store it safely in our vast, geologically stable continent. All these things should contribute greatly to our nation’s wealth and the world’s wellness.
I believe compulsory voting in ANY system is the “value” measure.
In regards to PR I believe that non-compulsory voting leads to a lessening of the representation, compulsory PR would ameliorate some of its percieved problems.
Also i am in agreement with glen and others regarding the stability and fringe group arguments pertaining to PR.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_parliamentary_election,_2009
This has a selection of rescent polls from Iceland. The conservatives are stuffed. The current PM is the first openly Lesbian (or for that matter homosexual) national leader ever. Sweeping changes often start at the peripheries.
Gusface -The ‘stability’ argument doesn’t wash. Look at the list of countries at that link above and cosider whether PR causes instability. You don’t get much nmore ‘stable’ than those euro countries on the list. Italy and Israel are often cited as PR countries causing instability but Pakistan and India and Algeria are examples of countries with non-PR systems that are politically unstable, whereas the UK and Astralia are not. The only conclusion to draw is that ‘instability’ is not caused by the system of representaiton whether PR or other, but by other factors such as the ethnic, geographical, cultural, religious or social elements.
j-v, regarding fairness, I for one don’t think a PR system is intrinsically fairer than a system built on single-member constituency. What is fair about a system in which an assembly of minority views can frustrate – for any reason, whether good or (typically) self-serving and opportunist – the intentions of the majority?
So-called ‘fringe groups’ are people too and even if we disagree with them they have a right to be heard in proportion to their support, no “fringe group” can ever take the majority of seats. Besides most systems either have a national threshhold (5% in NZ and Germany, with exceptions) or Hare-Clark style multi-electorates that increase the quota.
So, we have the tyranny of the majority. Why should a majority be able to disregard the views of a significant minority?
It’s Time, look would you have been happy for One Nation to have won 15-20 seats in the 1998 Federal Election and then ask whether the tryanny of the majority is soooo bad
Toorak Toff
What we take for gratned in relation to geological stability may not survive climate change. A brief look at what is happening in northern areas now as a result of the weight being taken off since the last ice age shows that seas form, rivers change their courses and the height of the land shifts. The impact of all that weight coming off Antartica may or may not affect Australia’s geology. Who knows?
See what can happen, oppositions get wipped out. There are other examples in other Carribean islands with 1mem electorates.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigua_and_Barbuda_general_election,_1984
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_grenada
let us question the superiority of judgement of the majority. I’ll say at the outset that i do not know the electoral system in Rwanda or Burundi. But in many such countries, people vote along race-lines/and or religious lines. Imagine if Tutsi’s and Hutu’s lived pretty evenly throughout a country but that there were slightly more Hutu’s. Then there would be no Tutsi’s in parliament at all! Its enough to make you …..
‘It’s more the incredibly narrow background the Cabinet has that concerns me. Union officials, political staffers and lawyers are about 90% of them.’
Diogenes, this is a very selective, cherry picking way of interpreting their past histories. I make it that 11/20 have ‘pure’ lawyer/union backgrounds. That’s not a minority, sure, but it’s also not 90%. It’s more like 55%.
The others started off in other careers before becoming involved in either political activity or unionism. Their backgrounds include lecturing, teaching, research, singing (guess who), sales and diplomacy (guess who, again).
Most unionists begin in a profession/trade and then work up. Even those who don’t, but take the leap straight into union administration, come from diverse backgrounds – there’s a lot of difference being a rep for the Shopfitters, for example, and for the CFMEU.
Also, to lump unionists, electorate officers and lawyers together, as if these three occupations are exactly the same, is obviously fallacious.
As for the Conroy/Opus Dei thing: I repeat – this is a man who campaigned actively for lesbians to have access to IVF. The Opus Dei accusations appear to be based on a train of reasoning that goes: Conroy is for internet censorship. Therefore he believes in imposing his ideas on others. Therefore he belongs to Opus Dei.
This is tinfoil hat territory.
As I’ve also said, I’m not sure why it would be wrong if he DID, not being one who places much reliance in the wilder fantasies of Dan Brown.
I’ve never understood why we should have a moral obligation to take back the waste. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t but we don’t have to. No primary producer takes back the waste from any other product so I can’t see why uranium is any different.
gusface
Are you opposed to Oz exporting uranium?
Yes!
and no just cos its labor policy to export, doesnt mean I have to agree with it.
Can’t think why we should take back something toxic and useless when what we sent wasn’t so – unless we do it as business. If you run a nuke power plant then its your business in dealing with the waste and safe guarding any weapons grade stuff.
Should we take back china’s slag from its steel mills??
Some light relief.
As usual humor reveals absurdities the best.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lee-stranahan/gop-politicians-pundits-f_b_185915.html
Why, when the single-member constituency model has been hijacked by a 2 party system, with the result that minority views are not represented in parliament to anywhere near the strength of support for those views in the community at large.
PR fixes that inequity in one go. That’s why it’s popular, and the modern model adopted by all the new euro states and South Africa. Unless you want to support inequity in parliamentary representation, you support PR.
That’s democracy at work. When issues go to the vote in a PR parliament, just like in any other the majority opinion wins. The difference between what we have now and a PR parliament is only that under PR the broad spectrum of society’s views are represented, instead of under-represented. How can this by definition ‘frustrate … the intentions of the majority?’
zoomster
The only one who hadn’t worked in those fields was Fitzgibbon. I didn’t add up how long they had been in each job though but 95% had been lawyers, trade unionists or political staffers for long enough to appear on their wiki CV. I think Fitzgibbon was the only one to run a small business.
gusface
I think it’s pretty dodgy to say we shouldn’t consider having nuclear power in Oz while being happy to export uranium to countries that make nuclear weapons like India, so I’m certainly not going to criticise you for your stance.
Just heard John Saffran and Father Bob on JJJ discussing the posibility of homosexuals in the senior Liberal leadership. Apart from Penny Wong and Bob Brown, who else is homosexual in federal parliament? Anyone care to through around some unsubstantiated possibilities?
We will not be having any of that, ta very much.
Anyone care to through around some unsubstantiated possibilities?
should read “Anyone care to THROW around some unsubstantiated possibilities?”
Actually, it should read: “…”.
Okay William, your the boss, even if thats no fun at all. Also am I allowed to swear on this site?
THM
Does it matter?
Dio
U232 and its siblings should be used only for medical research, like say X-rays
HM, it’s more fun than defamation court. Mild swearing is allowed.
“Tyranny of the majority” – what a quaint piece of double-think. What is fair about the various splinter groups and rumps that make up accidental majority in the PR-selected Senate (itself mal-apportioned and generally safe from dissolution), frustrating the government, elected by 53% of the people?
William is actually Tony Danza?
William
Back to the false Conroy “Opus Dei” on wiki, how come Conroy’s staffers hadn’t deleted it? They must have seen the reference in that OO blog from a few weeks ago. Or I seem to remember that staffers have been banned from altering wiki in political offices.
Diog…
I do think you’re being a bit twee. After all, it’s only logical that once you decide to enter parliament, you begin getting involved politically, and this leads to work as an electorate officer, adviser or research assistant.
By that reasoning, 80% of Greens Senators have purely political backgrounds and I can safely ignore the rest of their life history.
As the debate rages on here at PB about the merit of PR. Meanwhile back at the ranch, Thailand is on the verge of chaos, many thanks to democracy:
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/04/12/headlines/headlines_30100345.php
Dio, I suspect keeping malicious interjections off Conroy’s Wikipedia entry has been abandoned as a lost cause. You should have a look through the history logs, there’s some good vandalism there.
zoomster
Don’t lots of the back-benchers have non-union/lawyer/staffer backgrounds? There are teachers, policemen, farmers, soldiers etc on the back-benches of both parties. They don’t seem to make the front bench though.
The Senate is not the body in which the government is formed. It is however sometimes a handy ‘brake’ on the big 2 while we have the current system. If we adopted PR, the Senate and state upper houses would not be required (unless there are some un-reconstructed states’ righters still around).
Remember one person’s ‘splinter group’ or ‘rump’ is another’s proud standard bearer. You’re not suggesting that smallish groups (such as those just above the 5% cutoff in NZ) do not deserve representation are you?
Give them time, Dio, give them time. There’s not much room up there.
Oh, and there are two ex teachers on the front bench and the Treasurer is down as a lecturer (and chalkies have done well in the Victorian Parliament, accounting for the last three Labor Premiers – so perhaps the best political career path for teacher is State?)
zoomster
I suspect it’s a factional thing. The staffers and unionists would have better factional support than a “clean-skin”. To demonstrate my ignorance of such matters, I’ll ask a dumb question.
Are all the union leaders in the Left faction or are there Left and Right unions?
…and in the Coalition, there’s always farmers on the front bench.
I think there might be one or two, JV.
That George Mego blog that was posted up on here was sobering reading for any diehard tory
its not going to get any easier from here on out and i guess while we are a centre-right nation the ALP have been able to successfuly shift enough from the left to appeal more to the centre and this has left the Tories hanging on on one side of the spectrum.
William @ 867 [I think there might be one or two, JV.]
Yes William – especially over there in the wild West, eh?
There are left and right unions, very strongly so. I do avoid being involved in factionalism as far as I can so I preserve a deliberate ignorance about which union lines up where. Conroy worked for a union whilst he was waiting for his parliamentary gig.
The ALP believes very firmly in an apprenticeship system, whereby the best and brightest are encouraged to devote their energies preparing for life in politics and are thus given gigs as union officials, advisers, party officials or electorate officers. Doesn’t stop people coming in from other areas, of course.
I think it was Rann who said, when accused of being a professional politician, ‘What do you want? An amateur?”
There are left and right unions. Right unions include the SDA, which is run by the Catholic right, and a most of the unions associated with mining, so the Australian Workers Union, the National Workers Union, and the forestry and energy parts of the CFMEU.
JV, Tasmania and SA wouldn’t be too keen either, and Queensland only a little more so. A referendum to abolish the Senate would need to be passed in every state, and would be lucky to get 10 per cent of the vote in the smaller states.
tyranny of the majority
zoomster
I was just going to point out that Rann and Carpenter were journalists in a past life. And wiki tells me that Mike Rann was on the Executive of Greenpeace when he was in NZ.
Looking at Rann’s olden days at wiki, he’s almost unrecognisable now.
SA mines more uranium than anywhere in the world, allows schools to refuse to employ gay teachers and bangs the populist “law and order” drum more fiercely than any Labor or Liberal Government I can remember.
Diog – I think you get a greater range of backgrounds in State politics than Fed. State politics is very much about service delivery – schools, hospitals, police, roads, water. Federal is more about ideas/values, setting agendas. So they attract different kinds of people – the State guys tend to be more practical, hands on, outcome driven in outlook and the Fed types more into vision stuff.
Of course I’m broadly generalising, but I know that I agonised over which level to concentrate on and basically went for Fed because I prefer broadbrush to minutae.
William @ 872
It’s an interesting point that the upper houses would in all likelihood remain even if PR in the lower assemblies was somehow achieved. They could possibly concentrate on committes, reviews and enquiries more so than currently. If the parties fractured into their disparate components, as would seem likely, then the upper houses should have a close correlation of representation to the lower, depending on the voting system adopted – state-by-state, national, regional or whatever.
Actually the Senate probably shouldn’t be abolished as it does serve the useful purpose of keeping Barnaby Joyce, Ron Boswell and co out of Queensland once in a while.
I would have thought the Parliaments contain a very wide cross section of views, values and opinions. They certainly contain plenty of views with which I disagree. Politics has been described as a retail business, meaning politicians are constantly trying to refine, refresh and put relevance into their offerings. This means political representation is not a static tick-a-box kind of thing.
Furthermore – unless people were being called on to vote every week (in which case, why would political decision-making be contracted out to representatives) – political representation involves selecting individuals for terms intended to run into the future. Who can know today what the issues of next month or next year will be? PR can’t solve this temporal issue, because when voters choose their representatives, they cannot know what all the issues are or how their representatives will perform.
Finally, I would venture the view that PR-or-not, nearly all views common in society are represented in some way, shape or form in our Parliaments. Afterall, in retail politics, the elected are constantly trying to get and keep the favourable attention of the electors. Practically the only means available to do this is to give expression to the interests of as many electors as possible.
For mine, the issue is not whether a wide complex of views exist and are heard. It is a question of which views are acted on and which ones are put aside. The most important thing here is to have a constitutionally strong legislature – one on which the Executive relies for its right to exercise power. As far as I can see, strong legislatures exist where majorities can be formed readily and can be relied on to check – or not – the Executive. Where legislatures are prone to instability and early dissolution, extra-constitutional means (bureaucratic, military, oligarchic or even kleptocratic) will usually be found as a way of running things. The system we have is based on the sovereignty of Parliament, not of the people or the crown or the state more generally. Least of all does sovereignty – power, authority, legitimacy – derive from “opinion”. So the question should be whether or not the electoral system helps produce parliaments that are strong, effective, durable and will have the support of the governed. PR and other systems should be measured against these systemic necessities.
William will you be covering the EU elections later in the year?
No, HM – if you want an international focus, Ben Raue at The Tally Room is your man.
zoomster
On the union official thing again, from my very limited knowledge of union officials I thought that they moved around from one union to another at the higher levels depending on vacancies. That impression may be wrong but that made me think that the job of a union leader was very similar from one union to another.
What’s wrong with mining uranium?
Oh, I forgot, uranium is inherently bad, no argument is required.
As were Claire Martin, Brian Burke and Bob Carr
Shows, I think we are making progress toward your enlightment
…and finally, once again, ad nauseam, the method of electing parliamentarians to single-member constituencies, really works. MP’s are almost invariably chosen from the communities they seek to represent; and Parliaments are composed of members who know they not only have to answer to each other, but to their own electors as well. This is a really good system, because those who fail to listen to their own electors or to their peers in Parliament almost invariably get thrown out. In the end, this is the best test of the system: How does it deal with the misuse of power? How does it deal with the obtuse, the anachronistic and the plain crooked? PR systems seem to me purpose-built to protect such candidates.
No, they aren’t. Minority views are sidelined when it comes to parliament passing legislation because both big parties pander to the centre. Groups wanting more action than we get from the 2 party system on, for example, environmental issues, social issues and a strong public education system are not in the house of reps. Some on the left of both parties might privately want these things but they are beholden to the dominant faction in each party.
The point is the only way to ensure the full range of the community’s political views is represented in parliament is via PR. I don’t know what you are afraid of. Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, New Zealand et al have equitable representation, South Africa is about to. It represents a fair go.
Briefly, a system of Hare-Clark has many of the same benefits of MPs drawn from their local communities that single-member electorates have. In addition, you effectively abolish safe seats. Look at the Republic of Ireland, which by the way also has plenty of stability, with the current government in office since 1997.
But sometimes it’s good to have a bit of instability. We could use some instability in NSW now, and it’s good that, when a government is particularly unpopular, as Fianna Fail/Green Party is in Ireland now, there is a real possibility of the government falling.
PR systems only protect “the obtuse, the anachronistic and the plain crooked” if you use a pure PR-list system like Israel or the Netherlands. I haven’t see anyone here pushing for such a model. Most of the pro-PR people here have supported the Tasmanian/Irish model, which is one of the hardest for politicians to win seats in the world. Pretty much the only people with safe seats under Hare-Clark are the super-popular figures like Jon Stanhope, Jim Bacon and Bertie Ahern.
If we’re gonna start cherry-picking examples, what about all the hacks who hold safe seats in the NSW parliament? They don’t just sit in the Legislative Council: Frank Sartor, Joe Tripodi and Reba Meagher have long held on easily in safe seats in the Legislative Assembly.
And if we’re gonna start going after Italy (which despite everything has managed to avoid any wars for the last 60 years and is reasonably prosperous), how about Pakistan? India? Zimbabwe? All countries using single-member systems.
How many gvts has Italy had post WW2??
Well Said Ben Raue.
No safe seats means solidly right-wing and solidly left-wing areas receive attention during political campaigns.
Exactly what i’ve been saying. A bit of instability in NSW would breath new life.
Yep, the argument in favor of PR seems pretty well tight.
Agreed. I think our case rests. The jury won’t need long.
?”?….Minority views are sidelined when it comes to parliament passing legislation because both big parties pander to the centre….”
Are you arguing that majority views should sidelined by enabling small parties to pander to the extreme? In the name of fairness?
I don’t think there is any evidence to support what you’re saying. You might well feel that what you say is correct, but that doesn’t make it so…..
Democracy Thailand style. When the party you don’t want wins power have the courts declare the party (Thai Rak Thai) illegal and persecute the popularly elected PM (Thaksin).
Thaksin’s problem was and is two things – he became as popular as the palace (as you can still see with the continuous demonstration of people supporting him after all this time and, the continued support of a number of politicians) and two he actually tried to do some things the legal way without the corruption ( including FTAs that cut across palace and military income).
The Palace with that old stalwart OngaKa montri – Prem set about returning the old balance which pretty much included claiming Thaksin to be what they all were, corrupt. It doesn’t help that a ‘certain’ other palace member happens to be one of the heads of Thai crime.
The real drama Thailand has is when the King passes on (he isn’t very healthy). The Crown Prince is hated by many and the Crown Princess adored. But the general public and politicians may take that opportunity to end or diminish palace power.
Been away delivering eggs, didn’t miss much it seems PR is still in full swing
Time for a bit of frivolity, You should be dancing yeah!
http://www.crossroads.com.au/
“j-v @ 887….I don’t know what you are afraid of…”
I’m not really afraid of PR. I just don’t think it has the merits you claim it does, and I don’t think the current single-member constituency system has the flaws that trouble you. Parliaments already contain all kinds of opinions. I know, because I make the mistake of listening to the broadcasts.
jaundiced view
Posted Sunday, April 12, 2009 at 11:08 pm | Permalink
THM @ 890 – Yep, the argument in favor of PR seems pretty well tight.
Agreed. I think our case rests. The jury won’t need long…
…….
except that PR won’t remove safe seats. It will indeed make some even safer….but otherwise, sure, it is a done deal…..
Nope. I’m saying that the parliament should be representative of the community when it votes. Again, how does that sideline the majority views? The majority view emerges when the house votes, as it does now.
Am I explaining things poorly here?
Thailand is a good reminder that problems in a country’s democratic system often have a lot more to do with culture and history than the electoral system.
@892, just because both major parties agree with something doesn’t mean it has popular support. Indeed, often an issue with popular support gets nowhere because, in our political duopoly, neither party is interested in supporting the issue. A greater diversity of views forces parties to address these issues.
As well as this, PR ensures that a majority in parliament reflects a majority in the electorate. If major parties have the support of a majority of the electorate (and preferences don’t count) then I’m happy for them to have complete control of the Parliament and thus government. But this is extremely rare.
When a party wins 45% of the vote, they are close to getting government, but they need someone else to join them to bring them up to majority support. Hence the role of small parties.
Every time you talk about minority opinion, remember that (a) all parties are minorities, some are just bigger minorities than others, and (b) even in a hung parliament where small parties have influence, the big parties still control the vast majority of government power and privileges. While the Greens, Xenophon and Fielding can occasionally influence government legislation and make demands on the government, the ALP (and the Liberals before them) take the ministries, control the purse-strings, write the budget and have a singular veto on all legislation through their House of Reps majority.
So if the individual voter can only end up having their choice to vote for or against whichever party or no party diminished under PR. Surely it means that it is a more indirect form of voting than currently exists.
“aundiced view
Posted Sunday, April 12, 2009 at 11:17 pm | Permalink
briefly @ 892 Are you arguing that majority views should sidelined by enabling small parties to pander to the extreme? In the name of fairness?
Nope. I’m saying that the parliament should be representative of the community when it votes. Again, how does that sideline the majority views? The majority view emerges when the house votes, as it does now.
Am I explaining things poorly here?”
…..what you’re saying is perfectly clear, j-v. The thing is, in my opinion, the current system already generates representative outcomes. They may not be the outcomes that I want, but I am not a bell-weather for representative opinion. I just don’t think PR systems are half as good as you do. Legislatures constantly disappoint, compromise, defer, delay and diminish all kinds of otherwise good ideas. This is the way things work, regardless of the electoral system.
On the other hand, think of a single-issue that has run for years – the campaign to eradicate smoking in WA. It has taken years and been opposed and watered-down and frustrated. But it has worked without PR. It is one of the great legislative and public health achievements of the last 30 years. No PR. Tel me it could have been done differently…I’m happy it has been done at all.
ShowsOn
In your haste to comment on uranium mining, you didn’t read my post. I wasn’t offering an opinion one way or another about uranium mining (for the record, I am pro-uranium mining). I was commenting that Mike Rann was known in his early days for his anti-uranium mining position, and that he was now mining more than anyone in the world.
The legislature can do what it likes as long as it is truly representative of the community. Currently it isn’t. We can gain that fundamental right with PR. What do we lose by changing to PR? Nothing.
j-v, take a similar issue – hypothetically. Consider the issue of alcohol abuse. It is a leading cause of preventable disease and and premature death in this country. All kinds of harm results from easy access to and misuse of alcohol. Consumption should probably be cut 80-90%. We would all be better off. I’d very much like to see this happen. I’d support a single-issue party that campaigned for the virtual elimination of alcohol from public places and east retail promotion and sale. My candidate could probably get 3% of the vote in WA and narrowly get elected the Senate with One Nation preferences. The safe-grog party would then join with Fielding, Xenophon, the Browns and a cynical Liberal party and force the Government to accommodate this wildly unpopular policy. This would be morally defensible yet completely unfair…….
Briefly says: “?”?….Minority views are sidelined when it comes to parliament passing legislation because both big parties pander to the centre….”
Are you arguing that majority views should sidelined by enabling small parties to pander to the extreme? In the name of fairness?”
Firstly in PR the majority have the majority of the seats and the minority have the minority of the seats (as apposed to none currently). So the majority still control parliament.
Secondly, though the centre may disagree with the ‘extremes’, the ‘extremes’ disagree with the centre. It is not objectively true that the centre is right or just, though that may be a view held by the majority. If it could be proven that the centre is right or just, then maybe we should sideline the ‘extremes’.
I’d also like to point out that right now w are ruled by a minority. It was a minority that voted for the ALP (first preference) yet they hold the majority of seats. With PR then the Majority would always be in government (through coalition) and the minority would always be in opposition.
I’d say there would have to be a big risk of a conservative bias in PR too. If big tracts of rural areas end up having a lower quota than big cities, it’s going to turn out similar to the Joh zonal system or the risk of it being turned into something similar must be high to very high.
“…truly representative…”
j-v, how do you get a truly representative assembly? You have to have a cut-off somewhere. 3%, 5%, 15%, a senate quota? Fielding was elected with some minute fraction of the national vote. How is this fair? But for sure he represents a persistent strand of public opinion. This is more than a statistical exercise. By a fluke of circumstance someone who won hardly any votes gets to exercise a really big say over things. This is not fair. It is perverse.
The safe-grog party would not have the majority of seats and could be sidelined. Infact to take an almost identical example take Mr X. 20% of the vote on a no-pokies plateform in SA parliament. Did he get rid of them? Nope because the 2 big parties had the numbers and didn’t want to get rid of them so they could line the treasures pockets with the soles of the unfortunate gambler. The parties with the majority of seats got their way.
FF got 2% of the national vote and hold 1.3% of the senate seats. When spun in that way, its not so bad. Although shame on the ALP for preferencing them.
“..Firstly in PR the majority have the majority of the seats..”
Firstly, under PR, there is almost never a single majority, only an endless sequence of floating deals on offer: minorities in flux, competing for attention and temporary alliance…corruption, inertia, decay the only constants…
None of our PR enthusiasts have yet told us why PR has such an atrocious record when it comes to electing women to parliament especially in Ireland and Malta. Even having the LNP united factions increase their vote share in the Queensland Parliament has been detrimental to the amount of female representation in the parliament.
Steve
In PR Rural conservatives, would be represented prepautionally. I can’t see why it would create a gerrymander?
Briefly, perhaps not a ‘single’ majority but a majority can always be produced through coalition. the ALP did not have majority support at the last election but have government. Thats what I call control by the minority. But this cannot happen with PR
THM @ 907….but the day comes along when the government really need the safe-grog vote….and then the balance of power is all that is needed..it could be the Australian Rifle Association, or the Capital Punishment Party, or the Campaign to Abolish Medicare…. this is bad bad bad!!!
briefly – Well it’s a semantic point. ‘Truly representative’ in the sense of giving all identifiable groups who want to stand for elecetion seats in parliament proportional to their level of support. There must be a minimum cut-off for simple reasons of practicality. Parliament can take only so many.
As someone said earlier, PR countries have cut-off point down the bottom of the scale, for example I think 5% in NZ. Under that PR scenario Fielding would not have been elected because his percentage of the primary vote was way below the minimum required for a seat, and primary votes would be all we’d be counting.
If the governments having trouble getting support for this legislation from the other parties and so must contact the safe-grog party then the legislation obviously sucks. They could try bargaining with a party they have more in common with in exchange for something they could accept but if none will support it then the bill is probably deeply flawed.
Steve – Rwanda uses proportional representation and has one of the highest level of females in parliament of any country (though for unrelated reasons). Iceland with PR just got the worlds first gay head of state. The people are better represented with PR.
JV, and in the 2002 Turkish elections 50% of voters voted for a party that won no seats because of their ten percent cut off rule.
Sorry Steve, you can’t knock PR for any lack of female members. Just as in our system it comes down to the parties deciding to select female candidates, and I assume that is the problem in the places you mention.
Once female candidates are selected though:
This is another way to improve female numbers:
http://www.fairvote.org/?page=2337
Sounds like a 40% buffer there to me! Looking at the results it seems to me like the two parties with more than the cut-off of 10% of the vote shared the seats?:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_general_election,_2002
By the way, I reckon 10% is too high a cut-off, and would favour 5% myself.
Yes that Turkish vote was a bit of a shocker but that is not a system I would advocate. That would not usually happen with Hare-Clark, nor Mixed-Member Preportional (NZ + Germany) or D’Hondt. Still roughly 10% voters here don’t get any seats for their party of choice.
I’m starting to feel like a hang-over from the last century, but the more I think about it, the less I like the sound of PR. I don’t really care if the gun-lobby, the anti-abortionists or the party for public flogging are never ever heard from again. I don’t think there is a fit place for them in our Parliaments. I really don’t want to make things easy for them.
Having a view – in itself – is not enough of a reason to justify a place in Parliament, even if that view is quite widely shared. There is more to it, and that is the ability of stable majorities to form and exercise power while being constrained by a responsible parliament. This is what politics in a democracy should be about.
With a 5% cut-off there would have been 7 parties in the Turkish parliament, which is more like it. The Felicity Party would have been 8th and missed out on 2.9%.
Oh I see: “we know whats best, so to hell with you”.
I would suggest that the gun-lobby, capital punishment nuts and anti-abortionists are doing quite well for themselves in the USA with its 2 party system, wouldn’t you?
Brief says “Having a view – in itself – is not enough of a reason to justify a place in Parliament, even if that view is quite widely shared. There is more to it, and that is the ability of stable majorities to form and exercise power while being constrained by a responsible parliament. This is what politics in a democracy should be about.” This is what authoritarian psudo-democracy is about, more like it.
j-v, the interesting thing is your PR system still relies on parties to aggregate votes and organize candidates. If a problem with the current system is that it is dominated by parties, how can it be an advance to franchise the creation and support of a whole lot of new ones?
Of course, this is particularly a problem when you consider that no-one joins parties these days. What you will be doing is licensing new political machines and getting the taxpayer to fund them. How can this be a good idea?
briefly
Perhaps that National-Socialist view should be enough – in itself – to disqualify youself from a place in Parliament. I mean, really! 8o
Next you’ll be suggesting the cancellation of citizenships.
If the community is going to be equitable represented than you have to take the good with the bad – that’s democracy. A lot of the fringe groups you want to disentitle wouldn’t get 5% of the vote under PR anyway, but if they did they would be entitled to representation. You can’t pick and choose. Or maybe you could.
JV either you are going to have full PR or none at all you cant pick and choose.
But just remember what nuts you will allow into Parliament based on a fraction of popular support!
You talk about a government being stable if 1 party has the majority of the seats. I talk about a government being democratic if it is composed of a party or parties supported by the majority of voters.
THM the ALP were the most preferred political party to run Australia that is good enough for me.
THM, I think politics in the US is often very crooked and fragmented. Political engagement is low. Parties are weakly defined and leaky structures while legislatures are often constitutionally weak in relation to the Executives; even the US House is not in control of its districting and method of election. It is hardly a good system. Think how much worse it would be if PR were added to the recipe.
briefly [Of course, this is particularly a problem when you consider that no-one joins parties these days. What you will be doing is licensing new political machines and getting the taxpayer to fund them. How can this be a good idea?]
Is that really a problem for PR over other systems? I don’t think so. What about Switzerland, Sweden or Denmark? Has it caused chaos in New Zealand? Was it a problem in the new euro states? Has it prevented South Africa from embracing PR?
I think you know the answer.
briefly – it seems to me you are casting around rather desperately for something – anything – however flimsy, to throw at the idea of this concept. Do you have an interest in one of the majors perhaps?
Glen says “JV either you are going to have full PR or none at all you cant pick and choose.”
Different systems have different quotas, they can range from 33% to less than 1%. With Hare-Clark or the NZ system the total wacko’s dont make the cut. You guys talk as though these minority groups will take over. NO, they will be the minority!
Glen @ 924 – You tell me – how many would we get with a cut-off of on 5% of the primary vote – No Fielding for a start. Again the euro PR countries and NZ don’t seem to be swamped by fringe nutters. Where’s your evidence? Why not start with Switzerland?
Perhaps with PR the peoples political involvment would increase as they could find a party they identify wth and feel part of the system.
THM, I’m no authoritarian pseudo-democrat. I have a different view, that is all. I like the system of single-member constituencies for a lot of very practical reasons. I don’t think PR is a such a great system. Nor do I think it is especially fair on what are completely defensible grounds.
In particular I like the idea that to succeed in gaining and holding office, candidates generally have to be able to appeal beyond the sectional and the selfish. They have to have broad support and they have to be able to sustain that support. I think that is healthy and durable and serves the community over time, in spite of its faults. That is what I like about the current system. I don’t see how PR is compatible with the system or would improve it.
THM your 931 is a bit of a long bow, especially as your whole argument has been about the carving up of political parties to make way for other minor parties. From what I’ve read it pits one party member against another and lessens the relationship between the constituent and the elected representative.
Think of a dysfunctional parliament elected by PR…..the European Union Parliament…they have an electoral system that amounts to the granting of generous traveling allowances and pensions, but as yet no functioning constitution. The public do not trust or support the system, and it is run instead by bureaucrats. But it is very pure.
Thinking of Nazis, consider Austria, where a neo-nazi grouping were elected by PR and managed to form a government. Really, a great system??
For those interested in the facts about PR instead of the myths this information from Mt Holyoke College is quite well presented:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/BeginnningReading/PRsystems.htm
briefly says:
“THM, I think politics in the US is often very crooked and fragmented. Political engagement is low. Parties are weakly defined and leaky structures while legislatures are often constitutionally weak in relation to the Executives; even the US House is not in control of its districting and method of election. It is hardly a good system. Think how much worse it would be if PR were added to the recipe.”
You must remember who you are talking to, I favour PR remember?
I suspect the situation in the US would improve with PR. The gap between public opinion and government action there is huge, if you’ve seen the statistics its vaster then any other western nation and a good many other ones too. Perhaps single-member electorates are part of the problem?
briefly [I don’t see how PR is compatible with the system or would improve it.]
So equitable representation of the community in parliament would not improve the system?
Given you are comfortable about the exclusion of political groupings from being represented in parliament, I don’t know that I can assist further. I assumed the starting point was the acceptance of the principle of direct equitable representation of the range of community views in parliament as much as possible, but not for you, it appears.
Reactionary far right groups come and go. With PR Austria has the FPO or whatever and the Dutch had Pim F.. Yet with 1 member elctorates we had Pauline and the French had Le Pen. If the FPO stick around I would guess this would have more to do with the polarization that always comes with recession/depression than with PR.
Steve at 933, I said “perhaps” because it was just a thought, I have no evidence and it is not an important part of the argument. Also PR needent nesceserily bring a billion parties into the fray. Germany for a long time had 3, then 4 and now seems content with 5. So its plausible the ALP could hold together like the Social Democrats have there.
“…..the starting point was the acceptance of the principle of direct equitable representation of the range of community views in parliament as much as possible…..”
…
j-v, as I’ve mentioned, I think parliaments contain a wide-cross section of views. But I think you have an idealised view of things. “Views” are not the beginning and end of what parliaments are about. Parliaments are about power and everything that goes with it: ambition, money, position: about getting it, using it and keeping it. Parliaments need to be responsible. MP’s have to be accountable – not merely for what they say but for what they do and who they do it with. They should be accountable to the people who put them there: their electors. Single-member constituencies do this rather well – better than list-driven PR systems. Call me old fashioned, but I don’t think “opinion” is to be trusted.
I am at a loss to understand all the hissy fits that are being thrown about concerning the WikiList, and the proposed trial by the Government of a censorship regime for the internet.
The way I see it the criticism can be broken into two areas. Firstly, the technology and secondly, the appropriateness of censorship.
Dealing with the technological problems first, I though this trial was designed to evaluate the technology and determine the suitability of such technology to do this job. If it fails, it fails, but if the technology is successful then we move to the other issue of what is to be censured if anything.
The fist question we have to address is should certain things be censured because they are considered so anti-social that they should not be available to the public or is censorship so odious that censorship should be resisted at all cost.
If you consider that the evils of censorship far outweigh the evils of certain published items that I will have to disagree with you. I am sure that I don’t have to list those items that I believed should be restricted but I expect that in any group of Australians you are very unlikely to get 100% agreement on what should or should not be restricted. However, just like the censorship regime for other items besides the internet, we can achieve a process that satisfies most of the people most of the time.
It would appear from comments that the so-called “secret list” was incorporate in legislation passed by the Howard Government and regardless of the outcome of this trial that nothing can be done short of an Act of Parliament to change it.
In respect of “new sites” being subject to censorship the big question for most appears to be – which sites. Maybe what we should be asking is how are “new sites” to be listed or delisted. I believe that the proposal is that the same system that applies to all other material will now apply to the internet.
This appears reasonable.
It is also worth considering why material that would be restricted in other area should not be restricted on the internet.
However, just as there is disagreement over items that are restricted in areas other than the internet there will be disagreement about items the may well be restricted on the net. As an example I only have to refer to the kerfuffle over the Bill Henson photographs some time ago. Regardless of you attitude to the circumstances surrounding these events I think they show that there are systems and procedures in place to adequately deal with this question.
One argument against censorship on the net that seems to get much support is that it will not stop the transmissions of these anti-social items. From what I have read I believe that even those strongly supporting this censorship regime agree with this. However, can anyone list one law that has been 100% effective in eliminating that problem that it was supposed to address?
People still speed on the roads regardless of the laws against such behaviour. Female family members are still bashed and killed regardless of numerous legal hurdles against such things. People still steal and murder regardless of the legal prohibitions against such behaviour and tax avoidance is rife regardless of the many reams of legislation addressing this issue.
Because these (all) laws fail to eliminate such behaviour is there a valid reason to argue for these laws to be excised form the statute books. An argument suggesting that a lack of success of a particular law is a reason to abandon such a law appears to me to be a cop out.
Some appear to be concerned about “political” censorship arguing that political rights will be impinged by such a regime. However, are political views restricted now for other mediums such are the written word or for films.
I would think not but maybe others have a different view and examples where political views are being restricted.
By the way, I live in an electorate that has never in 109 years returned a member from the party I usually support. But I don’t feel hard done by. The people round here think a different way, that’s all. But there preferred party fouled up the pre-selections, they were quick to reject the party’s choice and replace him with a local party-free figure. Everyone was happy again, even me.
But I certainly don’t “feel” unrepresented. The parliament is very diverse in its membership and attitudes. Replacing the local member – even though I voted for another candidate – with names on a list compiled by a committee somewhere would not be a good idea (imho)….fair? democratic? good for the parliament? good for government? i don’t think so….
The HofR does not contain that wide a cross-section of views. Where are the people who believe that things should be run along green principles? You could hardly call them an insignificant preportion of the population.
Party lists are unimportant with Hare-Clark, the order of names are random on the list. Also Ind. can be elected. Don’t alot of ALP/Lib candidates for single-member electorates get selected by a committee? At least with Hare-Clark you can choose which party member to vote for.
THM, j-v seems to want lists while you like Hare-Clark. The Tasmanian system has produced a seldom-interrupted run of Labor governments. Stasis is the word that comes to mind. I’m not so troubled by Hare-Clark, though it would be very interesting to see how it would apply in more populous electorates. Just the same, you could hardly say it has produced diverse parliaments.
One of the reasons that the parties are weakly defined is because a majoritarian electoral system tends to give rise to a two-party system.
So instead of having a diverse range of parties, the either/or electoral system produces just two umbrella groups instead.
Ratsars @ 940
Not sure how long you have been lurking, but we mostly don’t do hissy fits on this blog. There have been a couple of long and detailed discussions on the issues you mention in recent strings.
A situation where the Greens regularly get two or three times the popular vote compared with the Nats, and the latter get many seats in the HOR and the Greens get none, is a significant failing of our first-past-the-post system.
This anomoly has probably contributed significantly to Australia losing a decade in terms of Global Warming policy. For much of that time, the Greens have been the only Party at all serious about Global Warming. The Nats reverso. Similarly, Global Warming has been of much greater concern to the Australian people than the Howard Government reflected in its actions.
It can therefore be argued reasonably that there is a significant failure in the first past the post electoral proces, which has not been truly representative, and that Australia will pay for it in terms of the consequences of Global Warming.
In relation to a comment William made, I have a question: ‘Is there an option for minority parties with representation only in the Senate to join the Govt in coalition and to have Ministerial representation?’
Boerwar, there would be nothing to stop that from happening if the majority party in the lower house felt like doing it, but I can’t imagine why they would. Having said that, I wouldn’t normally be able to imagine why a majority party like Labor in SA would have a Karlene Maywald in its cabinet, but there she is.
At the end of the day, the government gets to be the government because it’s that group of MPs which commands the confidence of parliament and can thus secure the passage of supply. However, in Australia we have an upper house that has the power to block supply, but generally refrains from doing so by convention. Perhaps one could conceive of a situation in which a minor party used its balance of power in the Senate to demand positions in cabinet lest it combine with the opposition to defeat the government on supply.
Thank you William.
Assuming that the Greens hold the BOP in the Senate after the next election they would therefore appear to have two broad strategies.
The first is to respond to Government Bills as they arise. This maintains their negotiating flexibility on a case by case basis but it is a very reactive approach and the bargaining seems to involve either minor amendments or relatively minor trade-offs (often in non-related areas.) The timing is also almost entirely in the control of the Government.
The second broad option is to do a trade with the Government and say something like: ‘We want to be central to policy formulation. Therefore we would like you to form a Government with us in Coalition. We would like one or two senior Cabinet positions (whatever seems more or less fair). In general we will support the Government’s mandate but in the following area (specify which), we have our minority mandate of sorts and we want to be part of a Government that develops and implements something sensible on Global Warming.
Given that the case by case Senate bargaining largely delivers on the margins, the Greens should be giving very careful thought to their preferred strategy. One reason for doing that thinking now is that the Greens would be wanting to increase their ‘legitimacy’ by informing the electorate of their preferred approach in the run-up to the election.
In this context, the way the 5% ETS plays out will be very interesting.
In considering the strategies available to them, the Greens would also be wanting to keep their brand separate and this would, presumably, mean that they would not want to go into Coalition.
OTOH, if there is no serious action on Global Warming by the end of the next Government, brand schmand.
Toorak Toff – some more minor points related to not making assumptions about geological stability in the context of global warming:
Associated sea level rises will most likely occur well within the half-life of the nuclear nasties.
There are three points arising:
1. Don’t bury the nuclear nasties in places that are going to be below sea level in next 50,000 – 100,000 years or so. Sounds obvious, doesn’t it?
2. Water is much heavier than air. Nuclear nasty dumpers will need to take into account that if substantial areas of the continent do go under water over the next 50,000 – 100,000 years of so, then there will large water weights added to the continent, and the large water weights will be very unevenly distributed. These may or may not have a disruptive effect on our ‘geological stability’. We are conducting a one-off experiment on the planet here, so who knows?
3. Do include, in the whole of life costings for the dumping, some provision for shifting the nuclear nasties if, as may reasonably be expected, the unexpected does happen some time over the nuclear nasties half-life. Dumping must not be a get-rich-quick fire and forget scheme.
Boerwar – if the Greens were so serious about global warming, why did they allocate their preferences in 2004 on the basis of forest policy in Tasmania? (I’ve been here before, I know, but I’m not letting that furphy pass).
In 2004, the ALP platform identified climate change as a major issue.
On PV: this system operates in Victorian local councils. I was foolish enough to campaign for its introduction. Because gaining a quota means that every councillor is elected in their own right and has their own discreet constituency, consensus is very difficult to achieve. Public opinion can be ignored as long as you remain popular enough with your 12% or so of voters – so a councillor who lies in public, drink drives, etc was easily reelected because he hangs round the local footy club where such behaviour is acceptable. It also means that decisions are not made in the public good but according to the whims of each individual councillor (if you are elected on the basis of personal popularity, built up over a generation of community involvement, or because you are a native language speaker whose constituency relies on you telling them what’s going on, you have a pretty solid buffer).
Because preferences don’t have much influence in these elections, no councillor is obligated to another for their election.
It is all very democratic and representative, but it doesn’t result in good outcomes.
Previously, council had been elected as a ‘team’, usually with a couple of members not on the ‘team list’ getting up. It was a lot more cohesive, with the team being able to agree on a long term agenda and implement it. There were still big differences in opinion and approach, and there seemed to be more attention to community opinion (as 100% of them counted for every councillor, rather than 12%).
Having also had experience with the new Victorian Upper House, again, although it is elected on a more democratic basis, it is less representative. A big electorate (which is what you need if you have multi members) makes local representation more difficult, gives each elected member more area to cover (and thus less time for each area) and makes them more remote and inaccessible.
Everyone in my area knows who their local member of Parliament is, and the name of at least a couple of local councillors. They have no idea who their Upper House members are, or how to find this out, let alone contact them. If they don’t know who they are, then come election time they are far more likely to vote along party lines than they are in a smaller electorate where they can easily find out who they’re voting for and what they’re like.
http://business.smh.com.au/business/telstras-300m-upgrade-in-doubt-20090412-a40d.html
The Ruddnet is looking better and better each day. The critics who said that Ruddnet will cost a fortune to build and implement will have to eat their own cable very soon. Telstra is crumbling in the face of strategic importance and necessity of Ruddnet.
If existing cables own and run by different telcos are folded into Ruddnet. It “would mean that fibre-optic cables would not have to be linked to many homes and businesses in the cities”, therefore cheaper and faster implementation of Ruddnet. Steven Conroy, all is forgiven please come back.
Finns
Ziggy has said this about the Ruddnet
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25325554-5015664,00.html
Democracy updates:
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/04/13/politics/politics_30100374.php
The struggle in Thailand has taken on the tone of a class struggle. Between pro Thaksin, poorer, rural class (red shirt) Vs anti Thaksin, more wealthy, city based, middle class (yellow shirt).
The Yellow shirts really cant complain about the current tactics of the red shirts because the red shirts are using the same tactics that were developed and effective used by the yellow shirts to oust the pro Thaksin Govt that was democratically elected.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/warning-that-pakistan-is-in-danger-of-collapse-within-months-20090412-a40u.html
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25325816-25837,00.html
Democracy is fine as long as the participants understand the difference between the rule of law vs the rule of power. Otherwise, like Love and God, Democracy is just another meaningless word.
Diog, a song for the nuclear man:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a-8Zs5yXI4
Coming from a state without an upper House, Zoomster, I can add that once every ten years or so when members of the Southern Upper Houses breakout onto our Queensland TV screens, the usual reaction of Queenslanders is shock, followed by pointing and laughing.
The Upper House members always come across as old, fuddy-duddies from a bygone era trying desperately to prove they somehow have relevance to the modern world.
I have never heard anybody from Queensland after being confronted with the quaint working of a states upper house rush out into the streets demanding that we get one of those now.
Interesting analysis of voting patterns in George M’s new blog entry. He asserts that
“The seeds of despair were sown in Howard’s heyday when he mistook Labor’s weakness for his vindication.”
Apparent re-evaluation of JHW’s political expertise?
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/meganomics…..
Not my point, Steve – multi member electorates by their nature need to be bigger geographically. I am simply using the V Upper House (elected with 5 members to each region, so very HC) to illustrate the problems this creates.
Does anyone wish to speculate on the identity of the five “Big (or Little) Swinging Dicks” the Poison Dwarf refers to in today’s OO?
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25325558-7583,00.html
I’d guess Christopher Pyne would have to be one.
Finns 955
Sadly so very true. Democracy comes after somethign else more basic comes first – respect for human rights and the rule of law. It took england 7 centuries to get from the magna carta to what we would recognise as democracy. You can’t just graft it onto countries with no tradition of respecting the previous values. Australia hasn’t had much more luck intrducing democracy into Papua New Guinea either – still a corrupt basket case, in some ways worse off now than it was 35 years ago at independance. Better to go for stability and functional, just courts first, then democracy second. Plus people need to be educated on why conventions are important.
Regarding upper houses, when I lived in Qld it wasn’t an issue. There was one issue in the Joh era – the jerrymander. You need fair lower house bundaries and not too much variation between seats. The rest is incidental after that IMO.
Ozymandias and we sit here and wonder why the Federal Liberal Party have turned into a joke???
If they spent that much effort in attacking the Rudd Labor Government as they did undermining Julie Bishope perhaps we wouldnt be sooo far behind…
Milne ought to have named them.
Yes, I saw what your point was Zoomster and totally agree.
What I have problems with is why any state would even want an Upper House and I have serious doubts that for all the reviews of the Senate the legislation doesn’t seem to be any more convincing than than if the legislation was left as passed by the Lower House.
Given your point about PR taking in a larger geographical area and the little that is actually gained by Senate debate and amendment anyway, it’s very difficult to see that there would be much support for multimember PR outside of the Greens.
Soc, yes it’s very sad. especially those who think just because we facilitate and give them “ELECTION” then they have democracy. I remember David Frost once said that many countries do have general election, to elect the GENERALS.
Glen @ 964
If Milne started naming such people in his columns, his sources would dwindle very quickly, to the point that he’d have to do some thinking for himself -and he’d have nothing to write about.
But then these scumbags can get away with what they did???
Finns
Yes good point. I still remember one dictator (Kabila I think) taking over in Zaire years ago, and immediately renaming it the Democratic Republic of Congo! Its a farce when people like that (or the Vatican) get to vote at the UN. Keating’s description of the Senate woudl be quite apt.
Finnigans, it’s looking more like yet another Military coup might be on the cards in Thailand.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ap_on_re_as/as_thailand_politics
The Electoral Commissioner wants to find 700,000 eligible voters before 2010, by removing the need for hard-copy enrolments.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/04/12/1239474747956.html
Why doesnt the King step in??
That is the whole point in having a monarch so that in a time of crisis they can come in and set down the law.
I don’t think the King is very well at present Glen.
Boerwar @ 946
I was contributing to the “The Poll Bludger” well before the last Federal Elections. It just that I have not been in a position to contribute for some time. Regardless, even if I only discovered this site yesterday that does not preclude me from contributing nor does it give you any special privileges as “a long term contributor”.
Yes I have seen “hissy fits” here but that is not what at I said. There has been a general “hissy fit” over this issue for a while on a wide spectrum of media.
The problem is I just don’t get the basis for some of the arguments put forward nor the manner in which the discussion has been carried out.
From some the attitude seems to be is that the world is coming to an end, which to me seems an extrema position. It is clear that there are, and should be come concerns but they are at this stage concerns not, as far as I can see, issues that will bring an end to the world as we know it’
Gus, if you are around.
Just love this story.
Glen
If Milne’s source is sprouting crap like this
he/she is clearly deluded. The best thing the Libs have done since going into Opposition was to dump Bishop from Shadow Treasury.
Dio if you saw her performance on Insiders you would agree with Milne.
Very good posts Ratsars. I agree, there does seem to be an abundance of extreme views opposing the filter, which are either incredibly ill informed or deliberately ignorant. Behind it all seems to be this pillar that the Internet is some kind of untouchable entity where freedom of speech should reign above all else. It’s comical at times.
Glen
She’s clearly better at Foreign Affairs than Treasury. The BSDs did her a favour.
Glen, since when did a single ‘performance’ on Insiders become the sole yardstick for rating pollies? She’s a disaster, and has more stuff ups in her short time as an Liberal deputy leader than most I can think of.
In Thailand, the crises are often of the King’s making. The monarch is the problem, not the solution.
Dario
A lot of the concerns about the filter were Conroy’s fault. There were quotes of him considering blocking all sorts of legal sites, like gambling etc, as part of the package. He has done a huge back-pedal now in saying that only “refused classification” sites would be filtered. Most people just don’t trust what he says anymore.
That may be the case, however IIRC there was plenty of hysteria long before that
“..he/she is clearly deluded. The best thing the Libs have done since going into Opposition was to dump Bishop from Shadow Treasury”.
Agree Dio, Milne is forgetting Bishops woeful reply to the GFR – “wait and see”. She or her staff did plagiarise and if I strongly suspect that she was put in place to counteract Gillard … then Bishop is doing a very poor job, as is the leader and most of the front bench of the opposition. Milne attempts via this anonymous liberal emailer that one performance is grounds to keep Bishop in a leadership position is a joke and can only happen when everyone gets temporary amnesia and doesn’t remember her overall performance.
I think Bishop did show dignity and loyalty; I don’t think she is evil. However that is a matter of personal character. Her performance in parliament was poor, she didn’t know her material, and she gave Swan an easy start in the period he needed to become confident as treasurer.
Forgot about Bishop’s plagiarism – that is a bit of a black mark on character too! Lets just leave it at dignity and loyalty.
dogma
It was even worse when you look back at it. Under Bishop, the Liberals lost their “most able to handle the economy” status. That was probably Rudd’s biggest win over the Libs IMHO. They don’t look like getting it back either. When your trump card gets trumped, you’re in a whole world of pain. Bishop really had to work very hard to lose that in a year and a half.
Socrates
You didn’t see her on Good News Week doing a Sharon Stone impersonation and talking about swinging an axe at her sister. That ended the dignity argument.
In Fiji ABC correspondant Sean Dorney has been asked to leave the country voluntarily but has declined.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/13/2541478.htm?section=justin
If we sometimes bag the MSM, we should also contragulate those who do sometimes dangerous and unpleasant tasks with courage.
Milne’s article is a classic.
First, he builds Bishop up as a strong performing Shadow Fopreign Minister on top of her game, on the strength of a cuddly interview during a Liberal Party supporters’ love in, The Insiders. One that occurred “a couple of weeks ago” so that those of us who might have seen it have already forgotten her insipid and soporific regurgitation of the Party’s nonesensical mantra of the day, talking points and all.
Secondly, having thus created the desired protective aura of sanctity around her, he proceeds to bludgeon the political detractors from within her own Party by adopting a catchy pejorative collective name for them, “big Dicks” without of course providing any basis for the abusive adjective, in the simplistic fashion of a small child poking his tongue at his classmates.
Thirdly he creates the imaginary scenario of how the plot to “destabilise” her is to be effected. As if her past record as a clueless political dunderhead hasn’t already damaged her irrepairably!
And what kindergarten stuff, so worthy of the Liberal Party. Arrange and then cancel speaking engagements for her. Stirring stuff indeed, and totally believable. Anything else? Er, not really.
But think of the Dicks. The five big Dicks! Humungous Dicks! And that mad Dutchman from the WA teachers college! He doesn’t like her either. He’s obviously in on it too! He’s a stalker, isn’t he?
This whole beat up, on the strength of what I believe is an email concocted in Milne’s febrile, has, in reality precious little to do with Bishop or her moribund political career.
It does however have a lot to do with Costello’s push for the leadership. The plan seems to be to demoralise the Liberal membership, and Turnbull’s leadership, to such an extent that the faithfull will clutch gratefully at the robes of the putative Messiah when he choses to arrive.
Milne at his disreputable finest.
Dio
OK it looks like Bishop just has her loyalty left! I agree with you on her role in Libs losing lead in economic management. She gave Swan a walk up start until he realised he knew more about it than they did and had Treasury to help him as well. Hard to lose from there.
The ABC and BBC are now reporting troops have opened fire in Bangkok:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/13/2541400.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7996241.stm
Dozens are injured; no deaths reported. Makes our vigorous campaigning look relaxed.
Febrile mind. Damn, I miss the editing option.
Socrates, it’s looking like the crooked little vote in Moldova is up for recounting too after a week of non acceptance of the result by the locals.
http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/ns_europe/2009-04-12/562560891200.html
There is a debate about the new bushfire safety code for buildings with Standards Australia:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/13/2541394.htm?section=justin
To any policy people present, may I say that the CSIRO and firefighters complaints about this are entirely consistent with my own (negative) perception of Standards Australia when I was a government rep on a committee just a few years ago. SA are NOT really a technical organisation. They are excessively concerned with appeasing people (industry lobbies) and maintaining their own existance.
We have some very good standards but also some that are very poor, and some where I wonder why we even bothered to develop a standard, and didn’t just adopt a suitable one from another country.
Thanks Steve.
Work to do; have a nice day everyone.
Glen, I did and I don’t.
It’s not back-pedaling… it’s just rolling out a new type of spin.
I think the only people who agree with Milne are I hope, his wife,and whoever he is trying to suck up to,Van Onslon seems to have replaced Milne as Cossies chief spear carrier.
Diogs at 988.
I hope she didn’t cross her legs, I missed it.
In the early 1980s I was traveling from Bangkok to Chiang Mai by train and ended up in a conversation with a youngish woman, a lecturer at the Uni. She looked around, their were some Military Police on the train, lent forward and whispered…’there is only one problem in Thailand, the monarchy’
It is an offense to mention the Monarchy in a negative way. A Thai MP who made a partially negative reference to the Palace in Parliament ended up with 2 years.
I present this article, not as something backing my views (I am not a CC sceptic or denier) but for debate.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/beware-the-climate-of-conformity-20090412-a3ya.html
William is it alright to call them Liberal big dicks and Liberal little dicks if they call themselves these classic terms?
Terry McCrann was on Skynews yesterday giving his opinion on Ruddnet. He thinks it will end up costing the taxpayer 70 – 80 billion plus an extra 7 – 8 billion a year in interest, and nobody in the private sector would be willing to invest in the venture given the high risk cost blow out and high risk revenue returns for their investment.
I hope Terry went to church on Friday and Sunday to give thanks for the opportunities he has been given in the media over his life and for being able to put his two brain cells together.
I can’t think of one thing Rudd has done that McCrann has thought was a good idea. McCrann is your typical News Limited Labor hater.
Dario @ 978,
Thanks for your comments.
The thing that worries me is I just don’t get the basis of the apparent hysteria surrounding this issue. Is it just a case of the loud voices of some drowning out reasonable debate or is there some devil in this proposal that we all should be very afraid of.
The first time I came across this in any detail was on “Insight” and the again on “Q&A”. Conroy’s answers were sensible and moderate. However, comments here and other places paint him as any thing but.
I find myself generally agreeing with his arguments and unable to fathom the arguments of those apposing this proposal.
There was on instance on one of those programmes were Conroy tried to explain the circumstances were the dentist was placed on the ”black list” There was no sensible debate or comments about this point and no real interest in the Senator’s explanation. The impression I got was that those apposing the trail believed that they had found a fatal flaw in the proposal and they were not interested in any explanation. There was just a gale of forced laughter that to my mind was implying that the Senator was lying.
However, this is an important issue because one of the tenants of a free society is the freedom and ability to view, read what we like – as a counter point just look at Fiji at the moment..
But I think that most would agree that this right has some limitations. It is also important how these limitations are enforced.
In e-mailing and questioning McCann one day I received in part this reply -
So it’s an opinion, it’s just strange that that opinion is always contrary to what the Rudd government does.
Why would you bother with McCann he like the rest of Murdock’s minions just does what he is told,I full expect them al to move to FIJI as they know how to keep the Press and Judges in line
McCann, I don’t think realises that he is often so ridiculous as to be humorous.
Gary B, what a poor cop out from McCrann.
McCrann has got form believe me. A few years ago when I used to occasionally buy the Daily Telegraph, McCrann used to have a column in their business section. I can honestly say that McCrann was proven wrong in every column that I ever read of his. He was never right about anything (that I ever read anyway).
But maybe I will take McCrann’s advice, I will not read his column or buy it. An excellent savings of time and money.
I posted this yesterday…they should add News Ltd
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lee-stranahan/gop-politicians-pundits-f_b_185915.html
McCann’s figures are obviously so funny as to be intended as satire. I wonder who is taking off, himself? I which case he should stop. How are the Chaser going to make money when the McCanns of the world take their sketches?
Centre @1004
I would like to see the back of whatever envelope McCann used to get those figures.
As an explanation he must be arguing that there will approximately a 100% overrun on capital coats. The announcement the other day proffered the coat at $40 Billion (approx). So double that and we get the $80 billion McCann is talking about.
Next he must be assuming that there will be no private investment in the NBN and that interest rates in the future will rise to at least 10% ($8 billion is 10% of the cost of $80 billion)- remember that interest rates will always be lower under a conservative Government that under a Labor Government. He seems also to be assuming that the NBN entity will borrow the entire amount of it capital at day one, I would expect that capital will be raised as and when required.
He must also be arguing that the project will not provide any profits (which means that it will be selling access to the NBN at less than cost) as I was of the impression that the Infrastructure Bonds would be financed out of operating profits to some extent.
He must also be assuming that the Governments share will be worthless when it come time for the Government to sell down its holding.
As has been hinted at elsewhere it appears that McCann is working from Turnbull’s talking points.
Is anybody allowed to criticise the Rudd government without being said to be taking Turnbull’s talking points??? This is a lame response to criticism from journalists if you merely fob it off by saying it is straight from Liberal Party HQ.
Yes Ratsars, he also stressed on Sky that Rudd was not only wasting taxpayer money on a “rolls royce” option, but there were more useful alternatives that would provide practically the same benefits.
Yes, because Liberal supporters would never lay the same sorts of criticisms at the door of the ABC…
Ben @ 888
I’m not sure that Hare-Clark really abolishes safe seats. You are definitely correct that it makes it difficult for first time candidates to get elected, in that they can’t rely simply on party loyalty. But, by the same token, by making candidates of the same party compete against each other it places a very high premium on profile and name recognition. This gives a huge advantage to sitting MPs, who are usually re-elected. I haven’t done the statistical analysis but I doubt that Tasmania sees too much more in the way of MP turnover under Hare-Clark than it would under a single member system.
Bule if you read my posts prior to the 2007 election you’ll find i blamed the ABC for a lot of its bias in favour of Rudd.
Glen
some facts
1.Mccrann is a commentator NOT a journo (see GB’s) post
2.My kids write a better story than this penny dreadful merchant
3.facts seem to repelled when a commentator like mccrann takes up his cudgel.
Now for some real journalism,with the added bonus of impartiality, go for someone like George M
Now for some real commentary,with the added bonus of impartiality, go for someone like Mumble
Nuff said
George M does have a political preference though Gusface!
#1018
Pretty sure I won’t be trawling through threads from 18 months ago looking for your commentary, but thankfully you’ve ‘fessed up to ABC bashing when it suits so there’s no need to.
Dogma @ 1003: Yes.
And can I refer to tnhem as a “Cazzo Malato” (Sick Dick in Italian ?
Glen @ 1014
Fair enough point there Glen.
So how about some alternative explanation, that will support these ridiculous assumptions that McCann appears to have made and their similarity to what Turnbull has been making.
The point that you overlooked Glen is not that McCann is critical of the Rudd Labor Government but that his arguments appears so far removed from the facts as we know them and so aligned with Turnbull’s talking points.
Who else is suggesting cost overruns of these proportion, who else is suggesting interest rates will be so high in the future. Who else is saying that the public will not invest in such a project and who else does not have a good word to say about this endeavour.
The only answer is TURNBULL.
Well look at it this way Glen, you are know by the company you keep,and so far anyone who writes for NEWS keeps company with Ackerman, Blair, Bolt, crazy Janet,Beck, O’Reilly Hannity, and Faux NEWS.
All owned by Murdock, who at the moment in the US seems to be pushing the militia line,we are all in danger from Obama, the mad right on US TV and Radio will have there infulence here with large sections of the Liberal Party,who seem wedded to Murdock and the extreme right and take they lead from Limbaugh and the Republicans.
If your happy to support people like that Glen ,I don’t know what to say,also since when have facts ever bothered the NEWs LTD papers or TV in the US and here
John Ryan if you are willing to crusade against the mad right then by logic you should be against the made left!
Newsflash: FBI Thwarts Opus Dei Plot
A spokesperson for the Federal Bureau of Investigations has reported that a dastardly plot by Opus Dei operatives to infiltrate the White House has been thwarted. According to the spokesperson, an Opus Dei cell was caught red-handed in the act of transferring a Portuguese water dog from that arch-Catholic, Ted Kennedy, to the unsuspecting Obama children. “Portugal is a well-known hideout for these Opus Dei types, and, as it is a water dog, it is suspected to have undergone secret baptism training also”, the spokesperson said. Asked whether terrorist religious dyslexics are also involved with this dog plot, the spokesperson cryptically answered that the investigation of this aspect of the matter was still a WORK in progress. End of newsflash.
1027 AC –
Daresay the sect was dobbed in by an imaginary friend to whom they had revealed the plot.
I don’t know Glen do I have to kill someone to be a made man,It works in the Mafia
JR you cant just criticise the mad right if you are going to ignore the mad left.
That would make you a hypocrite which i dont think you are.
Glen Milne seems to get a few emails from un-named sources revealing conspiracies to usurp members of parliament, first the NSW Right and Fitzgibbon, now the Swinging Dicks and Julie Bishop.
Both are probably bollocks but at least he cannot be accused of bias.
Gary Bruce @ 1002
Thank you for the link.
Sheehan’s article is interesting. The Global Warming Sceptics (sorry for the label, but see below), including Plimer, sometimes present themselves as robust/free thinkers struggling against a stifling scientific conformity. Some assert that Global Warmer scientists are in it for the research money. If they go a bit further, as they do on the carbon industry sites they may also have a swipe at the UN, mad greenies, socialists and anti-free marketeers.
So the statement that needs testing is that only sceptics are really thinking about Global Warming in an open manner and, by further implication, only sceptics can have access to the truth.
The notion that climate scientists generally treat Global Warming as a universally received truth is, of course, a straw man.
The reality is that all good scientists are sceptics by profession. (Small ‘s’ sceptics!)
Good climate scientists (for and against) are constantly testing, validating or refining or changing their views. A recent example would be research showing that Greenland’s glaciers probably speed up because of calving rather than the other way around. Another example is the observation that the speed of many of Greenland’s main glaciers has slowed, if not reversed, in the past year or so. Obviously, these bits of research have important implications in terms of the near-term stability of the Greenland iceshelf.
They also help to demonstrate that with respect to Global Warming, good science is alive and well.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/beware-the-climate-of-conformity-20090412-a3ya.html
The was the red shirts (thaksin), yellow shirts (anti thaksin) and now apparently there is a new shrirt, the blue shirts.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25325072-25837,00.html
The Thais seem to take literally that this is really DEMO-CRAZY. What’s next? Pink Shirts for the Monarchy?
Say what you like about Hitler, at least he only went for the Black Shirts and Brown Shirts.
Thai Salad, anyone?
JV 1028.
I daresay your guess on how the plot unravelled is probably spot on. Moreover, I have it from a usually reliable source that the dobbing in was not down to the Portuguese water dog itself. I’m told that, in spite of undergoing prolonged sessions of waterboarding, the tough mutt refused to break. In fact, reports say it kept rolling over, inviting the interrogators to tickle its tummy instead. Clearly, waterboarding a water dog is as efficacious as jumping into a polar bear’s backyard pool and expecting it to engage in some amorous tongue kissing.
Finns
Yes, what is happening in Thailand is an absolute tragedy. It is almost as if somehow there has to be blood shed in order for a new and more durable status quo to be established. One good thing is that so far the military have more or less kept out of it. I think the Monarchy supporters wear yellow shirts.
BW, the Military is staying out because they are wearing the Green Shirts. It will only confuse the issue further.
Maybe, we should train the Thais to stick to their green, red and yellow curries. Yummy Thai curries, anyone?
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/imagedata/0,,6576493,00.jpg
It seems that every electical appliance I have bought recently was manufactured in Thailand.
There is a very interesting slide of grammar in the Milne article. The relevant quote is:
‘My interlocutor explained that they had been part of the internal campaign to destroy Bishop as shadow treasurer in February this year, describing themselves as having “been privy to some of the meetings and events”.’
To be internally consistent, shouldn’t that read: ‘My interlocutor explained that [(he/she (???)] had been part of the internal campaign to destroy Bishop…’
The other bit of the email that simply does not have the ring of truth is the notion that a politician who was supposed to be vicious enough to employ thoroughly slimy and vicious personal attacks suddenly develops a semi-public conscience. Sure.
At the time of Bishop’s destabilization as Treasurer (almost entirely her own doing) there was talk of a group of young turks. Some of them were named at the time and would be reasonably easy to identify. Their main motivation appears to have been at the time that Bishop was incompetent as Shadow Treasurer and was hurting the Party. That motivation gone, there might still be a question about their views about her role as Deputy Leader. But there has been little real indication that there is an active campaign to get her.
If all that is more or less right, then the scenario here is more like the pre-emptive strike by a Bishop/Hard Dry person against the young turk group of mildy-damp small ‘l’s and semi-arid Dries. A side benefit would be to catch Turnbull in the net. (Milne’s line that Turnbull should act may be instructive here). The semi-arid Dries probably understand something that the Hard Dries do not get at all – that a move to the Centre is the only realistic hope for the Liberal Party.
Also, if I have most of that more or less right, the email was not sent by a rat in the ranks of the Famous Five Biggus Dickus, but is a plant by a Pseudo Biggus Dickus. Milne presumably phoned the five, was told that it was rot, but went ahead and planted the potato anyway. He probably had nothing better to write about.
I suppose that it is all a useful displacement activity if you do not actually want to do any work on policy development.
Ruawake @ 1037
You are lucky. You would have been considered a spy if they had been made in China.
Milne gave the game away when he referred to the email coming from a Liberal penitent with a conscience. As oxymoronic a reference as is possible.
Fulvio Sammut
lol
Thailand has two economies, rice and electical goods. The electical goods could easily move to another country if the instability continues.
So economic power returns to rice. Thai politics in a sentence.
The Western Patriot:
Is it possible that the emailer is who Milne claims they are, and has realised that Costello is very close to having the numbers? Altruism, obviously, couldn’t cause sufficient guilt, but could well-informed self-interest?
Having just caught up, I would like to express my appreciation for the very informative and interesting debate on PR. I consider myself to be a pretty savy voter who takes my democratic responsibilty seriously. I always take the time to vote below the line on the senate ballot paper after consulting senate group tickets election documentation. I also attend ‘meet the candidate’ forums for local government elections and analyse each candidate’s preference flow before casting my vote.
I look to PB to obtain diverse vews which are not represented in the MSM and am always appreciative of other sources for further reading cited here.
After reading all the posts about PR, I have reached a view, one that I did not hold before coming to this debate.
In particular, JV and HM – your intelligent and reasoned points together with your rebuttals of those who disagree with you have convinced me of your case. I am awed by your fortitude and stamina in the face of overwhelming odds
I think it’s just the former. The loud voices are primarily the ‘civil libertarians’ who kick and squeal at any inkling of a loss of freedom. It’s a pretty dumb tactic, as when they are really needed (e.g. anti-terrorism laws) everybody has had enough of their bleating so it largely gets ignored.
Well I didn’t see the episode, but I can imagine that there was probably not a single filter supporter amongst it, given the propensity for such discussions to only bring out the opposers. The dentist’s site deserved to be blacklisted, whether it was his fault or not that his site was hacked.
This seems to be the main thing that the loud voices you speak of cannot come to terms with
Prem has had a many decades close relationship with a certain royal. He would never act to do anything unless instructed. And then that intention would go down to the military.
The use of they in the singular is not a grammatical error.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
Who were featured in Inside Cover in Today’s West, and one of the people behind it John Theodorsen was the ALP Booth Captain at Upper swan Primary School at the last State election
But it was a bit rich of IC to call it an Anti ALP Blog.
So the general effect of the original plan to oust Thaksin has at the end of the day made the rural sector even more important which is Thaksin’s passionate base. Even a lot of the tourist sector relies a lot on cheaper village employment.
Frank, anti Labor Left blog would be more accurate. Witness this highly creative take on WA’s recent electoral history.
#1049
Frank, for the benefit of those of us outside WA, what else did IC have to say?
I thought that Costello would always have had the numbers if he had challenged. And again now the Liberals have nothing to lose. I think the issue has always been does even Costello know what he wants. If he challenged I am sure he would win if not just because people will want to hog tie him before he wimps out again.
But as time goes on any natural ‘reputation’ advantages Costello may have had are fading.
The problem for advocates of PR is that they cannot propose a model that achieves their stated aims.
How do they ensure that if a party gets 8% of the vote, they get 8% of the seats? They don’t, maybe its an aspiration.
Molotov and JV cannot agree on how this may be achieved.
Do we increase the size of the HoR? Does SA have one MM electorate?
Its all well and good to have lofty intentions but I have yet to hear how these may be introduced.
Looking at small homogeneous states is not a solution in Australia – just because PV works in some tiny european country does not mean it will work here.
So PV advocates, how many seats? How many members per seat?
William @ 1043,
It will be hilarious if Julie Bishop is subsequently revealed as the one and only “big swinging dick” in the Liberal Party.
I’d never heard of the Western Patriot before William’s reference to it above, but it’s nice to know someone was channeling my thoughts at post 990 above. Or was I channeling theirs? (And I don’t want to enter into a gramatical argument with Tom a la post 1048!)
I could refer to the Sharon Stone comment earlier – but the image is not pleasant after picking kaffir lime leaves from my garden to make a nice Thai meal for dinner.
True, but the way IC described it, you’d think it’s anti ALP holus bolus.
And I’d never heard of the Western Patriot until I’d read Inside Cover this morning, or rather until I hunted it down on Google because IC doesn’t mention it by name. Mind you, it’s only been going about three weeks. For Bule’s benefit, here’s most of Kate Campbell’s IC piece:
Bugger, I don’t feel so smug anymore, William ….
Thanks William.
Apropos PR in the lower house(s), it is blindingly obvious that it is the best way of getting parliament to reflect the community (assuming that voting is compulsory). Any system of PR is better than single member electorates which produces the most “wasted” votes.
Unfortunately, PR would completely change the character of election nights, thus ruining one of my favourite past-times. Not only that, but it would also undermine all the work that our Antony has done.
Democracy be damned! I want my election night coverage to stay the same!
lol, too true. I also like the idea of forced distribution of preferences under a full preference preferential system to calculate a 2pp vote.
Antony Green does coverage of Tasmania and the ACT election on their election nights so it won`t change that much.
Flaneur
PR with 5 member electorates would ensure that Labor or Liberal will always have a majority.
Tasmania, SA, WA, ACT and NT would never elect a member other than ALP or L-NP. Why bother to have elections?
PR with a country of 21 million?
I suspect the average electorate would elect 2 ALP, 2 Lib, 1 Grn.
In Asia economic power is rice
Today marks one third of a century since Gough Whitlam was defeated in the 1975 election. It’s time Labor got over its obsession with the Dismissal and stopped letting its rage at the Senate’s blocking of Supply get in the way of constitutional reform. History tells us that the Australian people understand that the Senate is the more representative House and that they will always defeat referenda undermining the Senate, even when supported by both major parties, so the path to reform requires something for everyone.
Fixed terms remove the ability of governments to call elections when it is to their political advantage. Four-year terms allow governments to concentrate on governing on a long-term basis. Having only half the Senate chosen at each election moderates the results of the temporary and later regretted enthusiasms voters feel for one side – and then the other – in politics.
Labor should go the next election with a series of referenda for four-year fixed terms for the House of Representatives and fixed eight-year terms for the Senate. It should accept the Senate’s right to block Supply and replace the double dissolution provision with a referendum of the people on any legislation passed by one House and not by the other. If a referendum on Supply were carried, the whole Senate would face an election. If a referendum on Supply were defeated, the House would face an election. In each case, such elections would be for the remainder of the fixed term, not for a new fixed term.
To further enhance democracy, proportional representation by the single transferable vote for the Senate should be entrenched in the Constitution (as Victorian Labor has done for its Legislative Council). Preferential voting in electorates of reasonably equal numbers of voters for the House of Representatives should also be entrenched.
To deal with truly awful governments, a recall provision should be entrenched such that the majority of electors could by petition recall their local MP and force a new election.
Labor should support these proposals as they mean real reform. The Coalition should support them because they do not take away the Senate’s power to block Supply. The Greens and other minor parties should support them because they entrench STV for the Senate. Voters should support them as they make our nation more democratic.
What a pile of rubbish and synthesis.
ruawake, isn’t that what the voters want? 80%+ vote for one or the other of the major parties. Let the parliament reflect that, I say.
Though, as I said, I like the current system but wouldn’t defend it as better from a representative democracy point of view.
Wrong if the Greens only get 8% of the vote when 16% would be the quota.
What is the success rate of the ‘yes’ in ‘referendum’?
I think that Tasmania would often elect 1 member to under a five member system.
The Perth electorates would sometimes elect a Green too.
Roughly 1 in 20 from memory, TP?
Yes, but it all depends on the distribution of preferences. None of the last Green candidates elected in the ACT got a full quota before preferences were distributed.
With the Quota at 16.67% a vote of 8%+ is going to stay in the count long enough to pick up some preferences. Labor surpluses would usual be a source of preferences. The Green vote is alot higher that 8% in many places.
Exactly.
Nothing to do with politics, but has any one else had the misfortune of glovelessly moving a pot plant stand in order to clean up the leaves beneath it, dislodged a large cactus plant, and instinctively tried to catch it from falling?
I don’t recommend it …
I once tried to catch a knife that dropped from the kitchentop, lol…
Ouch
Was it one of these ?
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1251/1308746737_21cbf671d8.jpg
Stop thinking about the ACT and Tasmanian “state” results and look at the Federal results.
The ACT would only have a single 2 member electorate, one each. The NT would have the same. SA would have 2 five member electorate and WA 3. Looking at prior federal election results the Greens, or anyone else, would get zilch.
The Greens do not hold a Senate seat in NSW,Vic or Qld with a 14% quota, how do they win with a 16% quota?
This is why I have asked those in favour of PR to propose a system where 8% of the vote equates to 8% of seats.
Ru,
unfortunately it is a case of brick meet wall ,with some posters here, with regards to getting across your valid point.
No Frank, you don’t grow prickly pears in pots. It was a “ball” cactus, with a million small needle like spines.
Hey do you think I should send a couple of dislodged prickly balls to each of Milne’s big dicks?
That is true but a larger multi member electorate would dilute this vote – the Greens best bet to win lower house seats is to have good local candidates in the seats their vote is highest.
PR via MM electorates means oblivion for them and other minor parties.
SBS news
1in9 homes is vacant in the USA
thats 14 million,yes million, homes unoccupied
Hmmmm
#1069
It seems counter-productive to me, Chris, to include Labor baiting in a post that I can only assume you would like seriously considered by Labor supporters.
That said, I can’t see the utility in most of what you propose.
Fixed terms doesn’t in itself require constitutional entrenchment, and your proposal to overcome double dissolution elections seems overly complex and unnecessary. Why wouldn’t it be sufficient that a government elected after a double dissolution election would merely serve out the remainder of the fixed term? Sure, this may mean that elections are quite close to each other, but, then, Senators should have this as one of their considerations.
I’m not sure why STV for the Senate needs to be constitutionally entrenched: is there any question that it would be abandoned?
Perhaps your proposal to entrench preferential voting is the most concerning and internally inconsistent. I’m pretty sure that’s what most of the PR advocates here would argue against, but just on the realities of how single member 2PP distributions work out, your notion of a ‘recall provision’ doesn’t stack up with such a proposed constitutional amendment.
If in many instances a local member receives less than 50% of the primary vote, surely it is notionally possible that a majority of voters who didn’t vote for the winning candidate could be rounded up to turf out the winner. Bearing in mind that this winner got across the line on a 2PP system you want constitutionally entrenched, it seems to me a very strange idea to create a means to overturn this election which could be, depending on the wording of the provision of the constitution entrenching preferential voting you intend, ultimately unconstitutional.
I should clarify my Sharon Stone reference to Julie Bishop which seems to have excited or disturbed a few imaginations. She was wearing slacks at the time and was lying on a couch when she did it. She was quite conscious of what she was doing but it was all quite “proper”, although a bit flirty.
As I tried to explain yesterday, minor parties if anything have a slightly better chance with five seats and 16% quotas than they do with six seats and 14% quotas, because the higher quota means the major parties have a smaller surplus after their second candidate is elected which is easier for minor parties to clear. If the 2007 half-Senate election had been for five Senators per state instead of six, the Greens would definitely have won seats in Victoria and Tasmania and quite possibly would have done so in New South Wales and Queensland as well, while Xenophon would still have won his seat in South Australia. In 2004, the Greens would still have won their seat in Tasmania to which they would probably have added one or more out of NSW, Victoria and Queensland.
Surely the New Zealand system would come closest to achieving this – assuming we
have ruled out having 100+ seats per state.
Not that I want it though! I want the likelyhood of ministers losing their seat. Should we mandate that Senators can’t be ministers?
Mrs Dio flexing her anti sexist chauvanist pig Doctor’s wife muscles, Dio?
Diogenes,
There you go again!
Accusing Bishop of lying now are we.? I know she got sprung for plagiarism and getting a friend to do her homework, but blatant untruths on national TV, I don’t think so.
There’s a fine line between political BS and lying.
#1065
Just re-read your post and see that you intend the recall provision to also be constitutionally enshrined, so disregard my criticism on that count. I still think that it’s inconsistent, and problematic, with a system that often relies on 2PP to overcome the problem where no candidate wins sufficient first preferences to win a seat.
wouldnt 5 seats =20% quota??
While McCann is playing with his crayons others have gone onto other discussions.
The Whirlpool forums are on the 7th thread of the RuddNett issue and have been getting into the nitty gritty of it all.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1181411
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Is-Nation-Building-enough-to-justify-the-cost-pd20090408-QW7SC?OpenDocument&src=is&is=IT&blog=Tech%20Central
William
If you agree that the ALP and L-NP would recieve about 85% of the vote in the vast majority of PR MM seats. That means that 21% of their vote goes to the last seat in play.
So about 10% each , needing 6% of preferences to make the final quota. If the Greens recieve their traditional 8% they must be the least likely to win.
Two parties require 6% one needs 8% it would be unusual for the Greens to get over the line ?
No. “100% divided by (number of positions + 1) + 1 vote” gives the quota. Might be wrong about the “+1 vote”.
No the quota is 1 divided by the number of seats up for election PLUS ONE. So it’s one-sixth for five seats and one-seventh for six seats – and, for that matter, one-half for one seat, which is what you need in a single-member electorate.
WB,Flaneur
Ru said it better than i meant
ps missed inserting after “wouldnt”
Why are we debating PR it will never be introduced in Australia anyway?
PR is the fantasy of all those who support minor parties and single interest groups.
That’s the thing – I don’t. If you look at the recent record of PR elections – for the Senate, mainland state upper houses and the Tasmanian lower house – it’s very unusual for it to be that high. Look at the total national 2007 Senate vote: 40 per cent each for the majors and 9 per cent for the Greens. Labor’s surplus over a second 16.67% quota equals 6.67%, which pushes the Greens to 15.67%. They need only 1 per cent in preferences from the 11 per cent still floating around to get a seat.
Bule,
I think Labor supporters need to accept that insistence on removal of the Senate’s power to block Supply could ensure that any referendum on constitutional reform would be defeated due to Liberal opposition. Even referenda supported by both major parties shave been defeated. I therefore think Labor has to give up its opposition to the Senate’s power to block Supply.
I prefer a referendum rather than a DD election because that would focus the public’s mind on the issue in dispute rather than the election of a new government, though your idea of a DD election leading to a government filling only the remainder of the fixed term is worth thinking about.
Both major parties have threatened the Senate over the years, though only when they are in government. One day, they might decide to gang up on the third parties and bring in the constitutionally permitted single-member electorates for the Senate. Think of the way both parties ganged up on the Greens in Tasmania to increase the quota for election.
The recall provision is to answer the argument that is put against fixed term elections that really bad governments cannot be gotten rid of. In this way, they could be. It would not be that easy to get a petition of the majority of voters in an electorate as people would be unlikely to sign if simply because their preferred candidate did not win – they would need a stronger reason.
Looking a 5 v 6 seats quotas. Assuming the ALP and L-NP get 85% of the vote.
the last seat scenario 5 seats – 85 -(4×16) = 21
the last seat scenario 6 seats – 85 -(5×14) = 15
With 5 seats it is likely the Greens would be in 3rd position for the last seat.
With 6 seats it is likely the Greens would be in 2nd position for the last seat.
William surely we are hypothetically talking about HoR seats. So results in other areas are not really relevant?
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/04/13/headlines/headlines_30100420.php
What is really sad is that it is happening now, the days of Songkran. Songkran is the Thai New Year and normally celebrated as the Water Festival to wash away the past sins and troubles. Where most Thai people go back to their hometowns to meet their elders and family.
Experience suggests that PR elections encourage a higher vote for minor parties because there are more of them to choose from (when looking at the aggregate national vote in the House of Reps, you need to remember that some voters aren’t able to back their preferred party because they haven’t fielded a candidate), and because there’s a greater chance of them winning a seat. The major parties’ share of the party list vote in New Zealand elections is lower than at Australian House of Reps elections, and the Greens get a higher share of the vote in Tasmanian state lower house elections than they do at federal elections.
ruawake.
Whilest I totally disagree with you on the prospects of minor parties and independents being elected to five member electorates, could I at the very least get you to admit that the probability of one being elected would increase in comparison to the current state?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_the_Netherlands
this shows how 8% of the vote can bring 8% of seats.
In australia though:
ALP 43.38% of vote with 55.33% of seats
Liberal Party 36.6 of vote with 36.6% of seats (fair enough)
Australian Greens 7.79% with no seats
National Party of Australia 5.49% of vote with 6.6% of seats (pre-by-election)
Family First Party 1.99 with no seats
Independents 2.23% with 1.33% of seats (made up of disgruntled Nationals)
Other 2.51% with no seats
Why should National Party supporters get overly represented and Greens unrepresented just because Nationals all live in the same areas. If all australia’s Green voters converged on a few locations, then they could get a dozen representitives or so! Absurd to have geography so central!
Well bloggers are certainly having an influence..
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/5137489/Goldman-Sachs-hires-law-firm-to-shut-bloggers-site.html
http://www.goldmansachs666.com/
Simple,get the greenies to all live in one electorate
Melbourne and Sydney…
If you really think PR is the way to go then expect to have single interest groups as irrelevant as the Party for the Animals winning seats in Parliament as they do in the Netherlands.
Wake up!
Glen, if a party has a sufficient base, then they should receive appropriate representation. You wake up.
Do you think 179,988 or 1.8% of the votes deserves 2 seats in Parliament?
I sure as heck dont!
Glen, (or for that matter anyone who might know) what % of the nation wide vote did Bob Katter and Tony Windsor receive?
Glen
I think some of our green friends are starting to suffer delusions of grandeur
LOL
They are representing electorates THM as Independents so your point is spurious…
yeah okay. I suppose only 1/150 had the option to vote for them as apposed to all dutch for the Party for the Animals.
That’s absurd, THM. They stood for a seat as Independents and won them that’s all there is to it.
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2007/guide/kenn.htm
Fulvio
I didn’t want to spoil anyone’s dinner. Mrs D saw the GNW show and was appalled by Bishop’s lascivious behaviour.
Well, I agree with Glen 100%. Minor parties have got their chance under the system we have.
Not in the unicameral parliaments we have.
TP
I note that site has 76,000 hits in 48 hours. Now everyone will want to know if what the blogger says is true. Journalists will investigate. It’s all good for our society and bad for Goldman Sachs. Actually, I’m reading “Den of Thieves” about Milken, Boesky etc at the moment. The more light shone on those miscreants the better.
What about One Nation and their 11 seats in 1998 bob?
They got 22% of the statewide vote, so naturally with seat by seat variation you can expect them to win some (11 of 89 seats).
But did they get 22% of seats?
Who’s to say that in a different political climate someone else could win at the next election in either or both seats or the voters might choose to elect the same two members. I just can’t see why this religious type fever to not accept that voters can choose whoever they like to represent them and if they don’t like the result, the voters can make a different choice next time if they so desire.
Why are our parliaments unicameral?
I wonder if Labor would be one of the two major parties of today if they didn’t get their seats in state parliament with multimember electorates…
Qld and NT.
ACT is also unicameral but has PR.
In Queensland because a mob of Tories appointed for life made the Queensland Parliament unworkable.
Finns you better add India to your democracy updates.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/13/2541815.htm?section=justin
OK, let’s say a whole group of people wanted to vote for the Greens but did not want the Liberals in government. So you either take the risk and vote Green or play safe and vote Labor. It’s ridiculous!
Maybe each voter can allocate a number points to how much we want a particular party to be elected? What next?
Your example confuses me.
Here’s the Qld Parliament’s official record of the Abolition of the Upper House in Queensland.
http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/view/education/documents/factSheets/Paper%20-%20ABOLITION%20OF%20THE%20UPPER%20HOUSE.pdf
http://www.grapevine.is/home/electionfever
On where the Icelandic parties stand. Of particular note are the ‘democracy movement’ who propose direct democracy – without the “middleman”. The corrupt and inept Independence Party who’ve generally been the biggest party look likely to come 3rd behind the Social Democrats and Green-Leeft Movement in the April 25th elections.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_parliamentary_election,_2009
http://www.grapevine.is/Features/ReadArticle/icelands-rainbow-revolution
On the revolution – A great read
http://www.grapevine.is/Features/ReadArticle/Things-Falling-Apart-Tuesdays-Protest-In-Photos
Photoes of the demo’s.
So you criticise the QLD upper house because it was based on the House of Lords?
Scissors,paper,rock???
PR is clearly the electoral system which results in the highest % of people voting having a candidate of their choice elected. The current system in HRep results in a say 55% of voter getting “their” candidate elected. In the Senate its something over 80% and in Tasmania for example it would be over 95%. In UK with first past the post its probably around 40% and in PNG with FPTP its probably around 20%. Thats not the only measure of a good electoral system but its a useful point to consider.
Ruawake you are throwing in red herrings by arguing about 5 member and 2 member electorates etc and demanding they be equal for Tasmania etc. Any PR system has its problems in balancing national voting trends with the need for some local representation and in deciding the threshold which a small party needs to meet to get representation. Compromises need to be made and sometimes unpleasant people will get elected – but remember Pauline Hanson was the Liberal candidate.
PR also ensures that you dont get very one sided Parliaments. Imagine South Africa with single electorates. Wall to wall ANC which would remove sensible debate. Cf Singapore where majority party squashes out opposition voices. Not very democratic.
Trend overall is clearly towards PR but will be slow in Aust given the attitude of 2 major parties.
Bob I just reckon that the Green vote would not be anywhere as high without 2PP.
1127,
Centre, unless I’ve missed a piece of the puzzle, we have a bi-cameral system in Oz. In the US, we have a Senate and the House. That is bi-cameral. Why would the same set up be labelled any differently here? I’m not talking about the system as a whole but the legislative side of it.
No, Glen, because it was an irrelevant waste in every sense.
Julie, Bob said so at 1122.
As Wakefield correctly points out 1 member electorates mean a much higher % of people do not get ‘their’ candidate elected. Whatsmore it would probably be the same people not getting ‘their’ candidate elected election after election after election.
Adam must have got swallowed by twitter.
It’d make more sense for the Greens to argue for the abolition of Upper Houses than to try to defend the indefensible with an Easter long dummy-spit.
OK Gus, scissors paper rock.
Make a post at exactly 10.10 with your choice, it’s now 10.06
Vera, Indian politics have been dominated by the Nehru Family since Independence, although it has been branded as Gandhi, but it has nothing to do Mahatma Gandhi. Strange but true. It was from Jawaharlal Nehru, the first India PM, to his daughter Indira Gandhi, then her two sons Rajiv and Sanjay.
Sanjay was Indira’s chosen heir but died in a “flying accident”. Rajiv who has been trying very hard to stay out of politics, was persuaded by his mother to enter politics in 1981 after the death of his brother. Rajiv, like his mother, was also assassinated. His widow, Sonia, Italian by birth not Indian, is now the head of the Congress Party. Whereas Sanjay’s widow, Maneka, has been shunned by the family and the Congress Party.
At the moment there is a huge feud going on between these two families and being played out in the next generation of the Nehru-Gandhi Dynasty.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5998650.ece
So much for the greatest democrazy in the World. Dynasty rules OK.
scissors
centre
PAPER
Damnation
I win.
Night Bludgers
Same. If we had first past the post rather than instant-runoff/single transferrable, i’d be voting Labor rather than Green.
We are getting no where with this PR discussion. Those who profit from the status quo defend it, those that feel unrepresented by the status quo want change. Thus is life.
I wonder if after 24 pages of it, a single person’s mind has been changed one way or the other?
i said that two days ago
It’s a developmental fact that youngsters are getting interested at an earlier age than did previous generations. The male Rugrats, amongst them Tommy, Chuckie, Phil and two others, have hijacked a corner of the toddlers’ room and pulled down their nappies to show off the size of their private members. They are the BSD’s – the Baby-Sized Doodles! Angelica Bishop notices something is going on and gatecrashes the show.
Angelica: Haha! – call them doodles! You must me joking – they’re so small, they look like the contents of the till at one of my fund-raising nights…
Peter: Hey, Julie babe…I can do better than any of these clowns…want to jump into the hammock with me in the nigh-nighs room and I’ll show you mine?
Julie: Mmm…maybe I will Peter…but I won’t be expecting much – after all, you’ve been looking for it for the last eighteen months now without much success …
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7074781622991454300
In the first round of a PSR contest over half of amatuars will go with scissors coz its the funnest. Rock means doing nothing with your hand and paper looks like a sign of peace not war (and is used alot less when a player is on the defence after a long string of losses). Therefore unless you have reason to believe otherwise a first round move should generally be rock.
I wonder if after 24 pages of it, a single person’s mind has been changed one way or the other?
Yes the PR side got a convert about 2 or 3 pages back.
I went for scissors because Luke Phillips went for scissors when he was contesting a try with a Mnly team-mate
In regard to Greens vote without instant-runoff/single transferrable. I’d guess if I lived in the US i’d vote for the Democrat if the polls were really close or if they were generally descent but if the polls sugest a landslide I’d “throw away my vote” with a 3rd party candidate.
Im still trying to figure THM’s analysis of SPR
ps double or nothing??
Is that a Rugby reference coz im from SA.
Then some might argue it was all worth it.
Just to reclarify my position as I sometimes like to play the devil’s advocate – I support the system used in our current federal parliament, however in unicameral parliaments I prefer the ACT over the QLD model.
Gusface: “Im still trying to figure THM’s analysis of SPR”
What needs further explanation?
Gusface’s sense of humor THM, but you’ll get used to it.
curse you fulvio
I was about to launch into a diatribe about paper not getting the representation it obviously deserves as 1/3 of a set.
will of the people and all that
At 3-5%, the informal party should definately have parliamentary representation
So what do people think about the parliamentary study that reckons we should do as NZ does and devote X number of seats to indigenous people? Despite the fact it would be hard to work in single-member electorate system such as ours.
I’m undecided on it. But i’m sure the Glen/GP/Bree cabal are dead-set against it.
Thats why god/dog created the senate
so schoolyard games had a place to retire to
It could work if it was restricted to either the Senate/Upper House, or in Remote/Rural Electorate where there is a high indigenous Population, ie in the Tiwi Islands, the NT and the Kimberley.
bob if you had that for indigenous members of parliament any other minority may want seats then it is just very messy.
If there is a problem about not having idigenous members of Parliament it is the fault of the major parties who dont preselect aboriginal candidates in winable seats federally.
1142, sorry Centre, have been out all day and spent most of the pm between lunch and dinner caught in traffic jams of people just like me returning to Perth after the long weekend …..
will try to do better next time and read all posts before I reply to any
…
night
3 NT
3 Vic
3 WA
3 NSW
3 QLD
2 SA
1 ACT
1 Tas
Tho considering how much a ‘whitebread’ nation Oz is, we are lucky to even discuss,let alone consider such a proposal.
It works in NZ…?
Bullbutter…
It ends up being politicised.
The NZ Labor Party and the Maori Party fight it out to win the seats.
Gusface if they are going to have as many seats as you propose i think they should only be able to vote on issues relating to aboriginals specifically otherwise they have non voting rights in Parliament.
Glen
quiet tip, the aboriginal people are not “any other minority”
please dont confuse the argument with piffle
Ta
The NZ indigious seats are single member electorates as part of the MMP system and were 1mem electorates before the reforms too. Indigionous seats are a good idea but the logistics are difficult. whether electorates have 1 member or PR they may have to cross state borders. Perhaps nationwide PR?
24 pages of discussing electoral theory – THROW US A BONE AUSTRALIAN POLITICS!
A record streak of sky-high polling for Labor since December 2006 becomes so droll after a while. Brenda and Malcopops continue to bore us to death with only the occasional funny. There’s barely any whiff of scandal on either side of politics at the moment.
I’d have loved PB to be around during the Keating years. Oh the discussions we could have had on things like his classic parliamentary performances, and shenanigans like Gareth Evans and Cheryl Kernot!
Glen
V. good, now the fact that virtually EVERY issue affects the aborigine, maybe the seats should be “full” seats as opposed to “partial” seats.
Gusface those seats should be like the MPs for NT and ACT who had limited voting powers if you are proposing positive discrimination in favour of a small section of society they should not be given a large amount of power and they would then possibly decide the formation of government if given as many seats as you propose which is proposterous as they would never support a Coalition government.
Gusface 19 seats seems a bit much. From memory indiginous Australians make up about 2% of the population and not all would choose to sign up for the indiginous electoral role as apossed to the other one. 3 to 5 seats would be more like it.
Glen
THM
Gee people, I expressly said that Oz is a land of whitebread views, you didnt have to confirm it in the space of 12 minutes
.
.
.
Glen,
Just cos one is aboriginal doesn’t mean one is anti-coalition.Surprise yourself and check out some history,it aint all anti liberal
THM
Oz suffers from an imbalance in electorate No’s.
19 seats in a 200 member parl is not an inordinate representation
also we would enshrine in our parliamentary process, what we profess to enshrine in law
Yep, Neville Bonner and Cederic Wyatt (father of WA Labor MP Ben) are two examples of indigenous folk who have either stood or were elected for the Liberal Party.
Gusface i know that the first Aboriginal MP i think was for the CLP in the NT, but i know that the vast majority support the ALP.
I think that our Parliament is too small.
Canada has 30m people and in 2008 13m voted.
Australia has 21m people and in 2007 12.5m voted.
Canada has a House of Commons with 308 seats.
Australia has a House of Representatives with 150 seats.
19 is way over the acceptable proportion of Aboriginal seats in a 200 seat parliament (which we don’t have atm and won’t have until they increase the number of Senators).
If the Aboriginal population constitutes 2% of the Australian population, they should have (if Aboriginal-specific seats are created) 2% of the seats – that is, 4 (maybe revised up to 6, given that Aborigines tend to be undercounted in the census).
19 seats (whether under 150 or 200 seat parliaments) would give the Aboriginal population a disproportionate amount of power over the rest of the population.
If we had a Parliament of 300 how many Senators would we have then?
The Constitution says that the House of Representatives should be roughly double the size of the Senate.
As a result, the Senate would need to effectively double from its current size of 76 to around 150 for the HOR to have 300 seats.
Somehow, I don’t see the Australian public being all that eager in creating jobs for another 220 federal politicians…
I do not oppose Indiginous seats like Glen does. I was thinking that 2% of 150 seats is 1.333 seats. 5 seats therefore aint bad. However I suppose the there is the senate too so maybe a few more. Are there currently no indiginous federal MP’s? If so 5 is a marked improvement. I also think they should have full voting rights, pointless otherwise.
frank
and of course an honourable mention for pastor doug (tho his “side’ was the blackfella)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Nicholls
That just shows how out of touch your mob has become. After all, it was them who did http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_referendum,_1967_(Aboriginals) and introduced to parliament the first aboriginal MP.
Swing Lowe i think it is stupid we have seats where 90000 people are represented by 1 person!
The Canadian model is much better and 300 seats would mean better representation as electorate sizes would be halved to around 40-45000.
Swing
In what way?
Bob the Aboriginal members of the Coalition got there on merit and they deserved their spots they werent gifted seats because they were a ethnic minority!
That is the way it should be.
The major parties just need to pre-select more aboriginal candidates with proper qualifications in winable seats. Problem solved
With impeccable timing, Ben Raue at The Tally Room publishes a post on increasing the size of parliament.
Quiz: Can anyone say what the most important effect of the 2:1 ratio of House to Senate members is/was meant to be?
So Senators wouldn’t get drowned out at joint sittings after double dissolutions – in other words, as a means to protect the smaller states from the larger ones.
Well, at least we’re doing better than the US House (1 rep for every 693,000 residents).
That said, I agree with you – except that it will be extremely difficult to convince the public that it needs more politicians in Canberra…
So the HorR people can outvote the Senators in a post-DD joint sitting. Thus kinda making up for the larger states missing out in the senate???? Maybe???
Yep!
Ben Raue is on to something.
The Australia HoR should have at least around 200-250 MPs in the not to distant future.
Of course which side will benefit most is anybodys guess.
That is if we are going to compare ourselves to similar countries as Ben Raue does with the UK and Canada.
oh, I got that exactly wrong.
In a way, yes too.
Gusface,
Simple – if there were 19 Aboriginal seats in a 200 seat parliament, the Aboriginal seats would constitute 9.5% of the voting power of the parliament. It would be more for a 150 seat parliament. However, they would only be representing 2% of the population.
As a result, the Aboriginals seats would hold a disproportionate amount of power compared to the number of people they are representing.
Not really. The Senate contains half the number of those in the House. When a joint sitting is called after a DD because a majority in the Senate on legislation can’t be reached, the two houses come together to vote. Senators have less power in a joint sitting like 1974. Whitlam couldn’t pass his legislation through the Senate after the DD but he could and did with a joint sitting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Sitting,_Australian_parliament,_1974
So the Parl should be indicative of the racial profile of the country ??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Joint2.jpg
It’s hard to believe Phillip Ruddock was amongst them!
back then he was a sprightly 70 yr old
If you’re creating specifically racially-based seats (which is what designated Aboriginal seats in Parliament would be), then yes – those racially-based seats should be indicative of the size of that racial group in the country.
It’s hard to believe that today he is only 66. He doesn’t look that (relatively) young.
Alcopops,old son,alcopops
Ruddock must be spitting chips at Malcopops…
regardless of History or Law ???
Have religion based seats in Lebanon been good or bad for social cohesion??? (serious question, though probably one imposible to answer without a control)
Its about getting the balance right. 0 indiginous pollies is too few, 19 is too many. We have 226 pollies so 2% of that is umm 4.5 seats maybe? However some slight weighting to address all the shit indiginous face to say 7 might be in order but certainly not 19.
It seems the Liberal Party in power can make any of their MPs a bigot.
An increased parliament would be produce better governence but the politics might make it hard to enact. Shock-Jockets will oppose it (“we’re in a recession and they want all these new pollies scrounging off the tax-payer!) and with a lower quota more minor parties and independents will get into the senate, something the ALP will not like.
bob
at last check P Ruddock was still in amnesty
?
?
*vacant expression*
I thought they kicked him out?
I noticed there was someone talking about increasing the number of federal MPs during the PR discussion, I’ve written a post on the topic at http://www.tallyroom.com.au/1066
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesty_International_Australia
Yes, we know. William pointed it out earlier. Could not wanting to increase the size of the senate and thus lower a quota be the reason Australia has been slower to increase its lower House?
Yes, they asked him to remove his badge.
SHAME…
you know wilson is only in his early forties
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25331336-5006301,00.html
Alcopops have ruined my life… i’m thirty-one years old!!
-Moleman.
Howard was the boy with his finger in the dyke.
hopefully rudd wont follow his shameless example.
My daughter is in yr 6 primary (public),where she is minister for aboriginal and multicultural affairs. (her brother was PM last year btw)
And I can tell you that she puts me to shame in terms of her, and her schoolmates, appreciation of “who we are”.
I think we should be aware that our kids are way more ‘socially’ aware than we ever were.
And they dont take kindly to ‘whitebread views’
Can someone go to the effort of finding out the ratio of Maori seats to Maori voters and how it compares to the other roll, i cant be bothered doing it myself.
in that Maxine Mckew article notice the word GUIDELINE. It ain’t compulsory and I doubt many would take it up.
Then again it is all probably a beat up. It sounds fishy to me.
This is News Ltd we’re talking about – this article is ideal fodder for tomorrow morning’s talkback hosts like Steve Price and in Perth Simon Beaumont to indulge in some labor and “B***G Bashing”
HM:
General roll: 2,753,811
Voters per seat: 24,370
Maori roll: 228,134
voters per seat: 32,591
Oh and expect calls from outrage parents complaining about their kids being forced to sing the “Sorry” song and other faux outrages – this has Howard Sattlers name all over it
Frank,
they don’t really matter.
Listen to Sattler’s preview tomorrow afternoon on 6PR and then get back to me
Howard loves these types of political correctness gone mad stories.
Read the comments section:
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25331336-5006301,00.html#comments
Already they’re out there condemning her.
Do Glen/GP/Bree support the Liberal pressure on Labor that Swan, on behalf of the government, should be interventionist and sit down and “eyeball” the heads of the banks in a bid to pressure them to pass on RBA interest rate cuts?
Thanks William
See Gusface, the Kiwi’s don’t rediculously over-represent indiginous peole, yet they do ensure Maori get their say. So in NZ no one can say the indiginous are over-represented. Infact a Maori that doesn’t care whether their representitive is Maori or not will have a more powerful vote if they choose to vote in the general role. Yet Maori are guarenteed parliamentary representation. Seems a good system to me. Do the Canadians have something like that too?
Also William Thanks for calling me HM i prefer it to THM coz the ‘The’ isn’t particularly important to me
. Oh, I am fussy.
looks like monetarism failed
Yep, Party HQ has already sent out the sms/email alerts
And Bob Francis is next on the agenda.
hey glen and GP please get your hands off my Todger
swing loooooow sweeeeeeeet charioooooooot
anyway.
Whats this choosing between keynes and hayek, marx and friedman stuff anyway. cannot we be pragmatic and pick and choose bits and pieces from all of them…and others ?
Monetarism failed? When?
sometimes, though not always, they contradict each other. If you accept Marx on workers controlling the means of production then you can’t accept the Neo-Con view that private profit=good, and vice-versa.
An ideology starting with one point of reference tends to breed new beliefs that it implies.
Marxism: workers control of production therefore: proletarian revolution
Neo-Con: private profit=good therefore: privatize, privatize, privitize, invade countries with natural resources and outsource to your buddies, privatize the gains and socialize the losses.
Still, you could do Keynseyan stimulas in the bad times and cold-lifeless Thatcherism in the good times, but you wouldn’t be doing both simultaniously. One could argue however that the ALP’s “third-way” ideology is, either a bit of a contradiction, or sensibly pragmatic coz it grabs chunks from the Tory handbook but keeps some Social Democracy it likes.
Sorry we failed you
Social Capitalism is where it’s at.
Europe knows best, cut back on spending when the DEEP RECESSION hits, that always works, remember Adolf, you smart dudes:) monetarism is the wise tools choice :O)
we failed you silly socialist tools
hehe
stick mao up your clacker
Is that you rupert?
I predict a few posts will be deleted and our “FRiend” wil be banned
But have you noticed that GP hasn’t posted since around last Thursday ?
On the Indigenous Represenation Issue
The first point to make is that Indigenous voters will do what other voters do – consider their self interest when voting.
The second point is that Indigenous voters are like National Party voters – they tend to be highly concentrated in certain seats – although there is also a wide spread in other seats. Gaining a high proportion of their vote could therefore make a significant difference in a number of Federal Electorates.
1. There are a large set of good reasons why the Opposition Parties are not currently supported by Indigenous voters. But there is no reason why this cannot change. One of the useful things the Opposition Parties could do in Opposition is ask themselves why they do not get much of the Indigenous vote, what policies they would need to introduce to gain that vote, and what steps they could take to include Indigenous voters in their party membership. Most of it is not rocket science. Indigenous people are used to trade-offs and would be open to the discussion. Trust would need to be estbalished over time. Difficult. But not impossible.
Realistically, on recent behaviour (China as yellow peril), I would not expect the Liberal Party to carry out this bit of self-examination. If so, it is yet another opportunity lost to them.
Just to focus the issue a bit, here is a question for the Liberal Party to consider: Given the demographics of rural and regional Australia (which include long term declines in Natfolk and long term increases in Indigenous folk) when exactly will it be in the best interests of the Liberal Party nationally to team up with Indigenous voters – even if it means splitting with the Nationals? (In some electorates this is already clearly the case.) If the Liberals were really smart they would broker an approach that was inclusive of Nationals farming, national mining and Indigenous interests. My view is that this would be difficult, but not impossible, to do. While there are significant differences, there are also large areas of overlap which have been little recognised within Liberal Party ranks.
2. The discussion in the blog above about special Indigenous representation of some sort seems to me to be largely lacking an important element – that is to say, broad scale Indigenous contribution to the discussion. (If I am wrong on this, I apologise). The salient point is that such a scheme would only work if Indigenous people agreed to it in the first place. In my view, such agreement would probably be a substitute for a Treaty and the negotiations for its introduction would include considerations well beyond mechanical considerations about how many representatives, how elected and so forth.
3. There is a somewhat fraught sub-text to this issue. The questions are: Who is an Indigenous Person? How would Indigenous people gain that status? Who would validate membership? This is resolvable, but would require a careful and considered approach.
4. On an issue somewhat separate issues, while they are at it, the Opposition Parties might also ask themselves the serious question of why they lose in so many seats with high proportions of overseas-born electors. In terms of values, many of these electors are closer to the Liberal ideology than the Labor ideology. Yet they vote Labor. Why, then, the kamikaze approach by the Liberal Party? In Opposition they have the luxury of examining the statistics, meeting with community leaders and working out what policies and approaches they need to take to reclaim significant bits of the o/s born vote. Again this is not rocket science – in fact, a lot of it is plain common sense. I know that it will be painful to redevelop an inclusive view of Australia’s history and values, an inclusive approach to multiculturalism, and developing an aversion to dogwhistling the xenephobes. But these are not impossible. The alternative, current approach is one of the Liberals more ludicrous approaches to electoral suicide.
Put simply: ‘Why piss off a whole lot of voters who would rather vote for you than the other mob?’
Another hypothesis for the Liberals to consider is that the swinging votes they might have been gaining with their dogwhistling to xenephobes have mainly been lost to them for many an election because of Work Choices. The hardline xenephobe vote that is glued to them they will probably have whatever else they do. At the very least they might drift off to a right splinter party but second preferences will mostly drift back to the Liberals in that case.
The AEC already has that information as part of the old ATSIC model and apart from Tasmania it would be fairly to work out who is indigenous and who isn’t. Also, you could easliy data-match with Centrelink etc.
Frank
I agree that a fair bit of the ground work has been done. Even so, with the lifting of the stigma of being Indigenous, more and more people are identifying as Indigenous. However, I question that such people at times whethr such people would meet the requirements of the old ATSIC model and this would require some very careful consideration. I agree also that Centrelink data would be useful. Also agree on Tasmania.
Cf 1255, In case it is not clear, I should emphasize that I would favour strongly an inclusive approach to this issue.
So where have Adam and GP gone?
I am prepared (a) to promise to vote Liberal in the next election# and (b) to promise not to discuss *sr**l and P*l*st*n*## if they come back.
#subject to certain conditions
##subject to certain other conditions
‘Labor Party is preparing for Peter Costello as Liberal leader’
Steve Lewis…
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25330462-661,00.html
One hour draws near… Costello will have to declare his preselection hand in the next couple of months…
Thailand democrazy update:
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/04/14/politics/politics_30100484.php
Meanwhile Thaksin calls for “revolution” and the return of “True Democrazy”. He might just as well call for the return of “True Love” and “True God”, afterall it is Songkran.
Yes, between, true democrazy, love and God, everything will be solved. Just ask Mel Gibson.
So soooorry, we also need “True Monarchy”.
Ruddnet 10 Tesltra 0
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25330985-601,00.html
This news on GM sounds grim and is sure to have repercussions for Adelaide
http://business.theage.com.au/business/gm-readies-for-fast-bankruptcy-20090413-a4ud.html
Finns,
“The radically different and more conciliatory approach is part of an attempt to ward off the threat of much greater government intervention in Telstra’s business. The company’s board has set up a special committee of directors and executives to come up with a new approach and to negotiate with the Government”.
The Labor response should be,” Bring me Donald McGauchie’s head on a stick”.
Just to clarify 1262, US Treasury has asked GM to prepare a bankruptcy plan to protect GM workers pension plans. They would create a “good company” with all of the good assetts and leave a “bad company” (i.e. the current one) with all of the “bad assetts” to be slowly liquidated over the next few years. Obviously they will put unprofitable brands in the latter. From the NY Times, the critical bit is as follows:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/business/13gm.html?_r=1&hpw
“Less desirable assets, including unwanted brands, factories and health care obligations, would be left in the old company, which could be liquidated over several years.”
The purpose of “bad GM” would be to protect US worker pension plans, not Holden, or for that matter Opel, Saab and all the rest. So unless Holden is profitable, it could be sunk.
It’s Easter ffs. Some people take time off. Even from the net.
LOL, Andrew Bolt thinks Rudd will be one term wonder.
have officially sworn off ABC radio. Today, a story on Turnbull’s piece on the NBN in the OO. No balanced view, no comment from the government, just a full unchallenged airing of Lib talking points (bearing in mind state libs not to mention much of the industry is falling in behind it)
Turnbull playing a high risk hand, given much of the detail has not been worked out. Appears to have decided that opposing it gives him his best chance of holding onto the leadership, and that he probably wont be around to be embarrassed if/when it succeeds. The most stupid thing about his strategy is that he tries to portray Rudd as someone who makes rash decisions, doesnt consider the options and will lead australians up the garden path. Unfortunately for him, the majority of voters do not susbcribe to this view, and will conclude that either Turnbull is playing politics or that he has plainly got it wrong. Now I know that most opposition leaders will struggle against a popular PM and government, but Turnbull has completely stuffed it up
Telstras new stance could be good news. They do have some fibre optic assetts, and existing connection hubs, that would be useful to RuddNET, saving time and money in its construction. If they can be forced to the table and these bought for a reasonable price, then its not a bad outcome.
In principle I have no objection to Telstra getting a fair price for their existing assetts that are worth something, I just object to their extorting monopoly profits. But with the monopoly broken, it shoudl be possible to stop them now. The negotiations should be along these lines:
Telstra what have you got to offer (fibre assetts) and what’s the price?
(get assetts independantly assessed)
Is the price higher/lower than the cost of RuddNET doing it separately?
Will the asett work in a FTTH system?
If yes, OK here is your cheque; that is now part of RuddNET
If NO, sorry Telstra youa re on your own and can forget being part of RuddNET.
I don’t see what we have to lose.
Further on Telstra, there is one thing that is funny politically. IF according to Turnbull “the NBN can’t make a commercial profit”, then why do Telstra want to be part of it?
So what do the Opposition plan to do with broadband if they are elected at the next election… nothing? There policy is… vote for us and we’ll give you nothing? I don’t get it.
ltep
Their policy could be “we will decide what you download, and the speed with which you receive it”.
Socrates, Turnbull’s point is that like the cross city tunnel in Sydney, the risk of failure rests with the government while the upside goes with the private investors. His problem is that, unlike the cross city tunnel, fast broadband is a project that will be well used and much sought after.
True Kit though, as I have said before, there is no reason to believe the NBN government stake will lose money. Just because it may not make the obscene profits private investors have ripped out of our infrastructure sysmtes in recent years, doesn’t mean it won’t pay for itself at government borrowing rates for prices around $80/household or less.
Itep i agree this is bulldust from Turnbull.
You cant just keep attacking Rudd’s policies if you havent got your own policy that you can promote as an alternative.
Hehehe – Macquarie’s bid to stop BrisConnections voting to wind itself up has been denied. The meeting will go ahead. Serves them right.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25331744-952,00.html
The problem with indigenous representation is that they are a much smaller proportion of the population than Maoris are in New Zealand. Maoris are more than 10% of the New Zealand and elect 7/70 electorate seats. Actually, to be clear, Maoris on the Maori roll are more than 10%, as William’s stat showing that the ratio of voter/seat is higher on the Maori roll then the General roll.
According to Wikipedia, 2.6% of Australia’s population is indigenous, which would come out at 1-2 seats, which then clashes with our federal system.
1265,
agreed
……. Another thing could be at work too and that is simply that the topic(s) of the day is(are) not of interest to everyone. I think that we all (at one point or another) have read the postings and thought to ourselves “oh, no, here we go again on topic ‘X’” and then just had to hang around until that topic of discussion was over with (for the moment).
My $900 arrived this morning from Kev. Do others have it yet?
Kit & Socrates
Is it true that the cross city tunnel downside falls on the taxpayer? I thought the opposite was the case, ie when usage turned out to be less than expected it was the private operator that took a huge hit and the state didn’t need to compensate them.
The problem of indigenous representation isn’t as bad as it looks. Obviously a group of 2.6% cannot exert much influence if they are evenly distributed but they are not. About 32% of the NT population is indigenous. The next highest % is WA which is about 3.5%. Vic is the lowest at 0.6%.
Lingiari in outback NT must be more than 50% indigenous. It would be the obvious seat to have an indigenous politician win in.
Nah, we guaranteed revenue like we did with all these stupid PPP’s.
Minnesota SC seats Franken …
Coleman is taking a page out of Eddie’s book, big crybaby whinges this week when two of his beloved players get sent to the tribunal.
Both Coleman and McGuire need to grow up.
Okay, I think we’ve finally sorted out Australian democracy: At the next election we shall have:
* Proportional Representation in the HofR
*An increased number of Parliamentarians
*Some of those seats to be reserved for indiginous Australians.
Piece of piss, when I am king i’ll enact all this emediatly (before removing the monarchy and appointing myself interim president. I’ll then postpone elections for a year or two untill the electoral commision is ready. When that date arrives I might find that I still have so much to do and that the polls aren’t looking so good, so i’ll just postpone the elections a few more years…)
My memory is that the NSW government has kept very quiet about the details of how much state money was spent/involved. This is a lesson, whatever the case, that any contracts with private comapnies involved with the NBN should be very transparent.
If Costello takes over now though, he’ll probably lose at the next election. He’s gotta find a way to take over after turnbull or hockey lose at the next election so he can win in 2013.
Actually I have a question for William or Possum or anyone else in the know. A poll taken 24 hours before an election can almost always predict which party will win, say mabe 97% of the time-ish. However with elections in SA and Tas roughly a year off, how certain can we be that the party the most recent polls predict will win will infact win? Does the likelyhood drop to around 67%? How often does the party winning one year out end up winning on election day? I realize that any analysis would have to be based on data from more stable times and that currently with all this GFC etc. a prediction 1 year out might be more worthless that usual. Also if you take this game to the extreme and use polls from 10 years ago would they have no better than a 50% chance of being right due to the natural up and down between the ALP and Lib brands?
;( ;P 
Thank you for your co-operation
Labor party strategists on their game plan this week
….
1279 True Believer
On Cross City Tunnel, a good question but, like Kit, I don’t know. One of the many problems with PPPs is that unscrupulous governments can keep the deals secret as “commercial in confidence” long after the bidding period has closed. So we may not find out for 25 years.
Overall though I don’t see why the cross city tunnel is relevant to the NBN. Its a non-sequiter. The cross city tunnel was a misconceived project, for which there wasn’t a need (most people want to get into the city, not through it) and the road network was distorted to try ot artifiically stimulate demand. Nobody familiar with the industry would suggest you needed to stimualte demand for the NBN if it was built.
juliem the ALP are just leaking this to start up another Costello witchunt in the media because it has died down for a little bit.
What sad tactics this is from the ALP!
It may be sad tactics but the ALP wouldn’t be able to use the tactic if Costello announced his retirement.
1288 Glen,
P e r h a p s …………, but no different from the concept of dog whistling by the Libs in so much as the timing of the release of the information is deliberately chosen by the party who wants the information out in the media …..
Glen,
With “big swinging dicks” everwhere in the Liberal Party, do we now get to call Costello the Big C?
GG mind your manners
Coward?
Codpiece?
Corpse (as in singing in the wind)?
Catatonic?
Crock?
During the election in 2007 when John Howard anointed Mr Costello his successor, a great piece of graffiti appeared in Sydney – a picture of Peter Costello with the words “booby prize’ underneath.
I still can’t think of a more fitting label for our beloved backbencher.
Socrates
I did a bit of googling and apparently they did release the tunnel contract (a summary beforehand and the full thing when it became an issue). I couldn’t find any reference anywhere to a revenue guarantee, which makes sense as the original operator actually went into receivership and had to flog it off.
I totally agree that it doesn’t have much bearing on the NBN. In any event, private investors won’t start kicking in their half (or much more than half if you include the infrastructure bonds, I think) unless they see a demand and a good return, so we should know pretty early what the experts really think.
Wow, you’re the first person i’ve heard from that’s received it!
Because the Liberals would never do this Glen!
Pull your head out of the sand. It’s politics.
Costello is the ultimate big swinging dick. He swings so well in his hammock he’s occupied since 1996.
Reforms? What reforms. Keating did all the reforms. Costello just sat back and waited for the mining boom.
The world is truly changing
Great so Obama is propping up a Communist dictatorship well done Mr President!
Gus,
Nothing like stamping out right wing zealotry to get progress in motion
….. and Obama has guaranteed Florida to stay in the Dems column for years to come as
well
You better get used to this sort of world for a while Glen. These sorts of paradigm shifts in thinking only come along every 20 years or so.
Juliem a lot of hispanics in Florida vote Republican because they DONT want to help Castros in Cuba.
What the world needs is a good dose of Thatcherism.
Glen, in case you haven’t noticed, both Fidel and Raul are well past their useby date. Once both have passed on, the Cubans left in this world haven’t a succession plan to save themselves. Cuba is coming apart at the seams, albeit slowly and not quickly as did the Berlin wall and the USSR. I’m willing to wait for it and I suspect Obama is too
. Once these various factors (money, technology, etc.) start filtering into Cuban society, it will most definitely have the desired effects after the Castros are gone 
Given her fondness for “tough love” I wonder what the Baroness would do to the Australian Liberal Party right now if she was in charge? I’m sure she’d compliment their skill and electability
Love the hypocrisy of Janet Albrechtsen claiming the Chief Justice’s personal opinions in the field of Land Rights might influence his professional behavior on the bench. I wonder if her personal political opinions influence her decisions as a member of the Board of the ABC?
Just askin’…
Not going to happen mate
No Maggie would kick most of them up the behind for what a joke they have become and rightfully so.
If only Julie Bishop could be such a person.
Glen at 1274: “i agree this is bulldust from Turnbull”
Has a great ring to it, doesnt it?
Can ANYONE explain WHY he has done this from the start of his leadership??? He’s squandered any chance of leading the party in the long term. Is he just thick? Is he being advised badly? Is he trying to protect himself from the right? Granted it was at a totally different part of the political cycle, but Rudd’s tactics of agreeing with some of the governments policies (the dreaded me-too), and having clear alternatives on big ticket items, worked really well. You cant just carp and oppose, because the public will rightly ask “what would YOU DO?”
I cant help it, i cant help it, i cant help it.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/pair-caught-having-sex-while-speeding-at-133kmh-20090414-a526.html
Those in the Liberal Party are just pretenders, yes, pretenders. This guy is the real McCoy, the real BSD!!!! No wonder Turnbull cannot see forward because those BSDs’ back were in Turnbull’s way. Not to mention the Big Costello’s.
BB, I actually enjoy reading Janet now that she has gone from a barely relevant government cheerleader to totally irrelevant opposition cheerleader. Love to see that anger, hatred and resentment shining through. When is her stint on the ABC board over??
Andrew 1309,
answer?
EGO …. he is the only one within the Libs who can compete with Costello and have a reasonable shot at beating him in that department …..
Easy. Because if he puts out policies, whose does he put out? His own semi-moderate policies, or hard-right policies of the unelectable, living in the past Liberal Party?
He can’t stomach putting out the latter, and the former will see him lose more support in the party.
Yes, one can almost feed and be sustained from the anger and emotion emitted from the likes of Albrechtson, Bolt, Ackerman…
Albrectsen might run for the Libs in the next election. Good replacement for Bronwyn Bishop.
I feel their pain, long may it last
I wonder if i will be as bitter as you when Greg Hunt wins in 2016.
A decade of Labor in power hey?
Well at least you’re more realistic than some.
Bolt: Rudd’s a one-term wonder.
LOL!
Hair and all
len,
You ought to do stand up comedy
…….
glen
Believe or not I reckon someone like fiona nash will end up running the combined union of rabble remnants or CURR for short.
Of course by then,2016, it will be labor V green
Glen, clearly you don’t mean the 2016 federal election. So I assume its the 2016 Olympics.
Has Greg Hunt entered the 30m backflip?
No his entire team does that.
Malcopops: I support the pensioner stimulus! Oh wait, no I don’t!
The Greens will never run the country from the lower house and neither will they gain representation there enough to decide who forms government and for that i can rest easy.
An ALP govt is bad enough but one that relies on the Greens to form govt god help us all.
Glen
If we had to have a Liberal PM, I’d be happy if it was Greg Hunt.
GG
Albrechtsen is just the kind of screaming nutter that the Liberals need to alienate another 30% of the remaining 35% who still vote for them. She’s got some serious issues regarding the judiciary. She’s quite unbalanced.
never say never in politics, Glen
It’s hubristic
lol
Diogenes,
She’s the best and brightest they’ve got!
The Maori seats have a history of being treated differently to other seats.
The were a token four from 1867 until 1976 when Maori were given a choice of electoral rolls and the number was to be floated at that time but there had been a change of government the number was fixed a 4 again until 1996 when MMP came in.
Secret ballot was introduced for the general seats in 1870 but in the Maori seats in 1938 and they did not get electoral rolls until 1948-9.
More Maori seats may have changed results such as 1969 and 1981.
Just imagine if a Green was elected in the seat of Melbourne (completely possible) and held the balance of power in a hung parliament!
I was afraid of that…
Bob1234,
The Greens should change their name to “The Gunners”.
Every election we hear the Greens are “gunner” win a seat and it never happens.
This is because the electorate is made up of “druthers” They’d druther vote for common sense and stability.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7996983.stm
God made him do it, so it’s alright then.
GG, enough already, we know you hate the Greens. Move on.
The Greens need to find a new leader soon too watch the factions come out there lol!
I like Bob.
Bob is too old.
You need to appeal to people who actually vote Greens the younger generation.
Well that only leaves two choices – first termers Ludlum or Hanson-Young.
LOL
Who is the Greens deputy leader atm? Is he/she viable as an option to succeed Brown down the track a bit?
As a member of the younger generation who occasionally votes Green, I can say that Bob is alright with me.
NSW MLC Lee Rhiannon hopes to enter the breach by moving to the Senate at the next election, but she’s no certainty of winning a seat (and IIRC correctly, she’s not even a sure thing for preselection). Failing that, I would have thought Christine Milne had seniority.
The best way for Greens to win HoR seats is to run second to the L-NP then get in on ALP preferences.
It would be very difficult for them to win any seat with L-NP preferences.
Christine Milne is deputy leader.
Even if Lee Rhiannon wins a Senate seat she’s certainly no shoe-in for leader, or even deputy leader.
Maybe from some perspectives that’s an ideal outcome, but it’s pretty clear the best chances are in Labor seats.
Also I don’t think leadership is really a big issue for The Greens in the sense that most people vote for “The Greens”, not Bob Brown, whereas when voting for Labor or Liberal people vote for Kevin Rudd of Malcolm Turnbull or whoever.
1343:
Sorry, I misread what you said. Same thing as me.
Look at Melbourne. ALP 54% v Green. ALP came first, Green second, Liberal third.
For this to happen the Greens would need to be ahead by a fair margin on primaries. The ALP would, in my opinion, get more preferences from the L-NP than the Greens.
Agreed.
Pegasus @ 1045
Why thank you Pegasus, that’s very gratifying indeed.
Catching up on the last day or so’s posts. Those among the big party faithful frightened of PR appear to have at last acknowledged the basic equity of the concept, and have been reduced to either:
a) declaring that it is right and proper that supporters of smaller groups should be disenfranchised – that is, continue to be under-represented in parliament (which is a shamefully indefensible position for any alleged supporter of democracy to adopt), or
b) attempting to quibble about the difficulties of implementing a system that would result in direct PR. (Glad to see that was dispensed with pretty quickly – it’d hard to complicate something so direct and simple as PR)
Hi there Flaneur, how’s things up your way?
The Liberals ran dead and preferenced the Greens in Melbourne.
The Greens best chances at the moment are in seats that were safe Labor until the Greens came along.
For example the four seats most likely to be won in the Legislative Assembly in Victoria are the fomer safe Labor seats of Melbourne, Richmond, Brunswick and the safeish Northcote. The first seat fitting into the overtake Labor is the possible fifth, Prahran where the Greens are on 20% and Labor 36% with an ALP tpp of 53%.
Big call, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility that The Greens outpoll both Labor and Liberal in primaries in the NSW state seat of Balmain next election.
As I’ve mentioned earlier in this thread, after the Icelandic general election later this month the Green-Left Movement, who are pretty similar to the Aussie Greens (although the GLM is not a member of the Global Greens) will most likely finish second after the Social Democrats but before the Tories. True, the circumstances are different and the electorate tiny but if it IS happening there then it COULD happen here.
bob
Lindsay Tanner got 49.5% of the primary vote. Plus the Libs may not run dead in every electorate?
The Libs will run dead in safe Labor electorates. If they can’t win it, they’d prefer another party rather than Labor to hold it.
Tanner may have got 49.5% of the primary, but what happens when Labor’s popularity fades?
Tanner only got an extra 5% on prefs. Greens went from 22.8% primary to 45.3% 2pp.
What is the lowest percentage in Melbourne that Lindsay T needs to hold the seat.
I would hate to see him go.
Had the mob here for Easter and all of them – kids, teenage grandkids an oldies were in high excitement about Kev’s broadband plan. Grandkids all happy to fork out for years into the future for it.
So – next issue, Mr Turnbull? You lost this one.
Ruawake, you may not like the prospect, but that doesn’t have any impact on the Greens chances in Melbourne (unless you’re from that electorate in which case it makes 1/90,000 of the outcome). Greens were tantilizingly close in Freo, Mayo + half a dozen sydney and melbournce state electorates. I suspect there will be another swing to the Greens as there has been at every federal election since 1996 I think (?), in which case they would get over the line sooner or later.
Bob1234,
Can’t stand the truth! Tough!
JV,
Just because you keep regurgitating the same rubbish, does not make it true. There is no equity argument and PR is never going to happen. Deal with it.
People are not disenfranchised, they are just on the losing end of the democratic process. Work harder.
Tanner is better than most in the ALP and i’d rather see many other faces go before his but them’s the breaks, he’ll have to make way for progress.
Newsflash: Janet Albrechtsen Gets New Job Offer
Reports are coming in of a new position being offered to The Australian’s Janet Albrechtsen. Ms Albrechtsen is currently exploring other employment opportunities, having alienated even the management of the paper by describing the Chief Justice of the High Court as, “old prophylactic head”. Ms Albrechtsen is said to have received a letter from the CES offering her a position as a Black (?) Letter Judge. However, due to a faulty printer, there is a question mark over whether the letter in fact refers to “Black”, as the word in question is virtually indecipherable. Ms Albrechtsen is presuming it reads “Black”, as this would be totally in keeping with her approach to all matters legal.
Updated newsflash: Janet Albrechtsen Dudded
Reports are now coming in that the CES letter to Ms Albrechtsen actually refers to a vacant position, not as a Black Letter Judge, as previously reported, but as, in fact, a FRENCH Letter Judge! The Sydney-based Managing Director of the Durex subsidiary involved, also a relation of the Chief Justice, says he is very happy to have Ms Albrechtsen as their chief franger tester. “After all”, he said, “as blowhards go, they don’t get any better”. End of newsflash.
THM,
You really think that the electorate will turf a senior and respected Government Minister out of Parliament to accomodate a group of radical non entities.
You are delerious comrade.
As much as I like preferencing the Greens after Labor I certainly wouldn’t call the loss of Lindsay Tanner progress if he was replaced by a Green.
Bob Brown has shown a vast improvement in this Senate but many of them still lack a bit of responsibility in many ways.
Have you not been reading what i’ve been saying?
I support our current federal system. We get minor representation in the upper. I want to keep preferential single member electorates in the lower.
Sheesh.
Indeed.
Tanner won’t lose Melbourne in a fit.
The Greens ran third on primaries, scraped ahead of Libs by 61 votes on CEC, SEP and Indi preferences. Stayed in front by 26 votes after FF preferences. Hit the lead for second by 590 votes courtesy of the Dems.
Then lost easily.
If Tanner loses Melbourne it is unlikely to be his own fault (unless he was a downward pressure on the governments greenhouse gas reduction targets or a rightist on some other Labor to Green vote switching issue) and may get elected/appointed to the Senate.
I’m sure people said Labor wouldn’t lose Cunningham either. Strange things happen.
bob @ 1363 – I think GG was aiming his elaborate, finely honed, elegant, sophisticated, and rational exposition at me on this occasion.
Bob,
Read my post and you will see that particular comment was not directed at you. Follow your own advice.
So Bolt’s prediction of Ruddy being a one term wonder could be right then and it will be The Greens who form Govt after winning all these Labor seats and kicking out the likes of Tanner,
LOL fairies at the bottom of the garden living in fantasyland. Next thing we’ll be told the ALP and LIBS/Nats will have to form a coalition to survive.
I can just about put up with Bob Brown but the minute that Milne woman takes over Greens go to the bottom of my preferences.
Heck Glen I’d even put your mob higher up the list!
He got a 4.71% margin at a good election for his party so his seat is quite a target. That margin is more precarious because as Labor`s popularity goes down both the Green and Liberal votes go up meaning double trouble for him.
No one is saying that the Greens are going to win government or main opposition status at the next election. Just that they are in with a chance in one or more seats (but still a single digit number).
Although leadership isn’t important in the Greens, I’d like Milne to take over from Bob. Milne is also from the old guard, she was there from the begining. The formular is working. So let us move from Fidel to Raul, we can have our Deng in the distant future or hopefully not at all, by Deng i mean give up principle for pragmatism. Generational change can wait.
I think Gorbie was the first USSR leader uninvolved in the revolution or something like that. I can’t decide whether thats a point in favor of generational change or not.
Labor holds Cunningham with 53% primaries. After Organ lost it in 2004.
by-elections are weird things.
But, Tom, the estimation of Tanner’s ability has risen heaps since the election so his electorate will rightly feel proud of him and then re-elect him in 2010 with a higher margin.
Altho the other mob are thinking that Labor will hit the skids before the next election there are no signs of that now.
We all know who looks after people better during downturns and it isn’t the other mob so I think poor little Boltie will be crying in his milk again in 2010. This ain’t a one term Govt.
Ruawake do you just dismiss out of hand the possibility of a Green ever winning a seat? Even when we were discussing PR for the HofR you still had this notion that it could not be done?
With Labor sitting on a TPP up near 60%, how many seats are they likely to lose to the Greens?
Brezhnev was the first uninvolved in the revolution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Brezhnev
In our feel good moments we think the Greens could be the answer so most of us hand them our preferences.
In our moments of reality we know they won’t be.
yes i knew they were all old jokers but that would seem a bit of a stretch. I’m thinking of something else. Either born after the revolution or not in the party till after all that Stalin clap-trap.
I did not say that the fall in the Labor vote would occur before or at the next election. The Labor vote will fall at some point in the future.
7%+ out of the 60 % tpp is from the Greens.
Molotov.
I think I said the Greens would not win enough seats to influence who formed Govt. They would probably win one seat in Melb, Syd and Brisbane.
This would give them similar influence to Katter, Oakshott and Windsor.
As horrible as it is, I agree with the Labor team here ahead of my Green friends. Tanner would be a terrible loss and he’s much more valuable to the country than having a Green there. And if Milne takes over, I’ll be much more likely to vote for Labor if they can fix up their ETS strategy. She’s a shocker.
Cunningham was lost in a by-election after Martin retired, there was a messy pre selection process by Labor and lots of in-fighting, people realised it wouldn’t make a difference who was elected as Howard would still be in power reguardless. Thus the protest vote and Greens elected but were booted out 2 yrs later in the 2004 election. When they couldn’t even beat the Libs outa 2nd place.
2004
ORGAN, Michael The Greens 14,747
LARTER, John Liberal 21,115
BIRD, Sharon Australian Labor Party 29,041
2007
ORGAN, Michael The Greens 12,326
FOWLER, Colin Liberal 22,438
BIRD, Sharon Labor 44,835
Juliem – a quick one about the umps as I have to go shortly.
They were truly AWFUL on the weekend and I watched quite a few matches.
I think we need to start a PR about those blokes – they are spoiling the game.
Nostradamus predicted big thing for the Greens. So it must be true then that The Greens will form the Govt soon.
http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?qwork=5969927&matches=56&browse=1&subject=Nostradamus&cm_sp=works*listing*title
Diogenes we agree on something!
I agree with Dio – I can’t help but turn off when Christine Milne starts speaking. It’s a pity but Bob needs to find someone else to lead when he retires.
She can be totally aggravating.
Looks like my joint will be moved into Oakeshott territory. Even tho he won’t be getting my vote I am not unhappy about that because he is a good pollie. If the Greens are looking to win a seat they need to take a leaf out of his book.
Oz at 1352: it’s possible. The Liberals haven’t got such a low vote there, though… they’re still above 20%. (And next election, when Labor takes a beating, some of that vote would go to the Libs.) Where their vote’s really died in the arse is next door in Marrickville… they’ve been hovering around 12-13% for a while now, and have been coming third ever since 1995 when No Aircraft Noise came second (for those who whinge about the Greens being a single issue party…
). Carmel Tebbutt gets a much higher vote, but if her popularity gets hit by a truck for whatever reason, that’s probably the best chance the Greens have of winning on primary votes. (Then again, maybe I oughta look at the local govt election for a better idea of what’ll happen to the Liberal vote.)
As for the conversation about winning on Liberal preferences: I reckon after the Greens first win a seat (Fremantle / Balmain / wherever), if the Liberals are smart (note bolding
), they’ll start thinking seriously about who they’d prefer out of Labor and the Greens, instead of just putting Labor last because they’re the main opposition in every other seat. I’m not convinced 70-80% of Liberal voters put the Greens above Labor because of shared political ideology… that’s the HTV card talking. It’s always nice to win seats, but the Greens are gonna have to do better than just aiming for second place ahead of Liberals if they’re serious about becoming a fixture in the lower house.
74 Lab + 74 Coalition + 2 Greens could well make them more powerful than
76 Lab + 54 Coal. + 20 Greens. It all just depends.
I like Tanner, you get the feeling he’s a human when he’s interviewed, unlike Wong. Its just he’s the most marginal, perhaps Sydney or Graydnier. The ALP need a good scare so they need to lose seats. We need to move towards ecological sustainability and they aint doin it. Your old road is rapidly aging, please get out of the new one if you cant lend a hand, for the times they are a’ changing.
To be fair to Christine Milne she argues a policy position well, but compared to Bob she has the personality of a house brick.
And yes, personality is important in politics unfortunately.
Strueth! They’ve only been in power for half a term! I would have thought 11yrs in the wilderness was scary enough
Finns,
Just sampling all the Green Optimists here today, you could cut up all their ifs, buts and maybes, put them in the hat they are talking through, throw the lot into the air and the prophecy would be revealed.
“If wishes were fishes, we’d all cast nets in the sea”.
They need to be scared of the Left, not scared of the Right.
You mean scared of not having what, 8 or 9% of the vote?
Well Rachel Siewert’s voice aint winning too many votes and the other two are too young so its either Milne or a first termer.
It is unfortunate that Christine Milne is often confused with Glenn Milne. People think they are a husband and wife duo.
The Greens have a really good member in SA called Mark Parnell. I’d like to see him move into the Federal Senate.
Interesting to note, via Google News, the different emphasis given to the coverage of business confidence by certain media’s headline writers.
[Business confidence on the up
Brisbane Times – 4 hours ago
http://business.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/business-confidence-on-the-up-20090414-a5e1.html
[Australian Business Confidence Gains for Second Month
Bloomberg – 4 hours ago
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=arVi8_boarkk&refer=australia
… then there’s this:
[Business confidence still weak, survey shows
ABC Online – 4 hours ago
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/14/2542299.htm?section=business
Good old ABC!
Ruddnet 100 Turnnet 0
Skynooos has done a poll dancing on the Ruddnet:
Yes yes yes: 54%
No: 24%
Maybe: 21%
Just checked the Sky News homepage. There’s the story about QANTAS cutting jobs accompanied by a picture of Julia Gillard. I don’t understand. Why is SHE
Milne was elected at the 2004 election so Senatorially she is a first termer.
Just checked the Sky News homepage. There’s the story about QANTAS cutting jobs accompanied by a picture of Julia Gillard. I don’t understand. Why is SHE being asked to explain / account for this? Surely the company’s CEO should be the one under the pump. They axed the jobs, not the government.
As long as he doesn’t quit mid-term (long, long SA 8 year term)… Nick Xenophon already did that not so long ago. It might start to annoy the SA-ites if upper house pollies there use the state as a launching pad for federal careers.
Essential Research’s weekly survey found 54 per cent of Australians approve of the public-private partnership to build a national broadband network, with 16 per cent of those strongly approving.
The online survey found 24 per cent disapproved of the project, of which 10 per cent strongly disapproved.
Bye Bye Malcolm.
I would not think it would be a good idea for the Greens to move their only SA MLC to the Senate. Although there will probably be another Green MLC by the next federal election they will be new (March 2010) so another new MLC to replace a sitting member so soon after would not be a good idea.
The current system sees only federal MPs have a vote on the Greens leadership (like the other Australian parties, but quite an anomaly internationally). As far as I can see, the only possible contenders are Milne, Siewert or Rhiannon if she can get elected. I personally think if it’s Milne vs. Siewert then Milne wins easily, but I could see a scenario where Rhiannon pulls out ahead of Milne.
The leadership election won’t happen until after the March 2011 state election, and if the NSW Greens do as well as polls now are suggesting, Lee Rhiannon will be in a much stronger position. But at the moment you have Christine Milne as the clear frontrunner.
As far as the NSW Greens Senate preselection, the candidates haven’t all announced yet, but I would be very surprised if Lee Rhiannon loses. She will have a massive name recognition advantage over her rivals amongst the 2000+ Greens members voting.
Also we have a preselection at the end of 2009 which will fill Lee’s seat in the Legislative Council as well as preselect 2-3 winnable seats in the Legislative Council for the 2011 election. At the moment it is very possible that both Ian and Sylvia will retire, which would leave four open winnable seats. Most of the Greens talent will focus on that, and will either skip the Senate race or simply use it to raise their profile.
Well far be it from me to point out how inherently flawed any poll conducted using the internet is when the subject of the poll questions are to do with the internet…
Dario
You may well be right, but Essential has acheived a pretty good reputation in their short existence. (Despite my inital doubts).
It is likely that many of the Rudd Government initiatives will come sort of cropper, minor or major. Something as big and as expensive as the NBN will almost certainly have cost overruns, unions playing silly buggers, and engineers and managers cocking various things up. It will come in late. It will cost more to run than people thought and it will cost more to use than people thought. For a big project, that is all par for the course. Rudd knows it. Turnbull knows it. Ditto the ETS. Ditto the cash and splash response to the GFC.
The problem for Turnbull is that he has to get these points across now when punters are besotted by the hope of it all and the prospect of spending the $900. By the time they become obvious to the punters, Turnbull will be long gone.
If you take the 8 year construction time and the five years before the Govt. starts selling off its share – the Qld State Govt will have spent $41.6 billion on road projects over a similar time frame.
If you take all state and federal govt. spending on roads, it would be close to $120 billion. If you look at the nations GDP it would be $15 trillion.
Heck its half of the Future fund that was accumulated in 8 years, its peanuts for what it returns.
Rhiannon might be toast in a Senate election – she would have to get votes state wide including rural areas and I’m pretty sure other parties will be more than happy to let people know of her past associations with the Communist Party of Australia and that her mother was a Central Committee member and notorious Stalin sympathiser
ruawake
There are a couple of big differences. Highways, bridges, tunnels and the like are well worn engineering events. They are repeated many times and the wrinkles are obvious to all the participants.
NBN is a huge one off. It will be learn as we go. (Nothing unusual about that, but my point is that Turnbull will not be able to gain much traction from it by pointing out the problems before they actually appear, and that he will be gone by the time they become obvious to everyone.
There will also be the irritation factor. I assume that landholders and home owners will find that the fibre in some way may affect them negatively – for example, they may have to lop trees for the fibre to fit… I don’t know what-all, but I would predict that there will be people who become irritated or annoyed…
Further to the irritation factor, I assume that will be when really, truly serious MSM shock jocks start ‘getting it’. They will interview single parents whose children can’t sleep because of all the humming and other such-like horror stories. They will also apply their standarded tactic: Step 1: look for somebody, anybody to blame. Then blame them and they’re off. It saves on thinking.
Turnbull needs them now, not then.
“As long as he doesn’t quit mid-term (long, long SA 8 year term)… Nick Xenophon already did that not so long ago. It might start to annoy the SA-ites if upper house pollies there use the state as a launching pad for federal careers.”
The elected Democrat retired, so too did one of the Family First members though neither is heading federal. 3 replacement appointees including Xenophon’s replacement plus his silly runnng mate, the SA upper house is an odd place.
I’ve given my first prefs to the Greens for a long time and am happy for them to get some BOP in the senate. But if the Greens are going to start declaring war on Labor MP’s well they can forget my vote and I dont think I’m Robinson Crusoe on that. I think the Greens fail to take into account just how much of their primary vote comes from ALP voters who dont mind giving the Greens a leg up.
jaundiced view:
I’m thirstier than one should be.
HM: It’s odd from the outset, when you can get elected on a 8.3% quota and stay in for 8 years.
In most cases the fibre will be dragged through the exisiting pipe where the copper is already, Telstra and Optus will swap their existing fibre networks for equity in the RuddNett.
Many new housing developments already have fibre to the home (it is cheaper than copper – my parents new house in Caloundra has a fibre connection).
reawake
I agree it will not generally be nasty.
My point was that someone, or some group, will be irritated for some reason… they are the last cabs off the rank, the copper was rotten. It will happen. It will be publicized. Turnbull will not get the benefit.
Labor and the Greens are separate parties that are not in any coalition arraignment. So it is only fair and natural that they compete for seats especially where there is real competition between them. Like in Melbourne and various Legislative Council seats. To not challenge Labor in such seats would be wrong, stupid and anti-competitive. The Labor party is wrong on many issues where the Greens are better and it is our democratic duty to try and win to improve things.
Boerwar
The big problem will be the wireless stuff – no towers in my backyard – brain tumors. I do not have GSM mobile phone coverage because of tower phobia.
The Greens aren’t “declaring war” on any MP. They are a political party and want seats, seats must come from somewhere. The Greens would take North Sydney or Wentworth from the Liberals if they could. An ALP seat converted to a Green seat is a zero sum game in the battle against the tories. But it would mean an end to the duopoly on power and it would promote the Greens’ ideals and their party, which they obviously want to do.
ruawake
Yeah… interesting. Are you likely to be in line for the NBN? The other unknown is whether the tekkies come up with something faster, cheaper and better half way through…
Especially if they are near a school, kindergarten or other place where children congregate – but you don’t hear the parents complain when there are Wireless hotspots at their local Maccas.
And watch the Greenies kick up a stink when the fibre will be passed in an area with an endangered plant or animal is located.
Possum has Essential.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/files/2008/11/35-essential-report_140409.pdf
61/39
The Greens can’t declare war on any Federal seat. They can’t even win a Senate seat in the larger States. (Something the Democrats achieved).
How do you expect to win Senate seats in Qld, NSW and Vic by scrapping the coal industry? They can’t win HoR seats in Tasmania – why?
Why is the Green HoR vote higher depending on the amount of concrete and bitumen in the seat?
Ru @ 1421
Is there any reason why they can’t run the cables through the drains and sewers? They do in the UK.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7104011.stm
Because the voters there are insulated from the mortgage belt and outer suburban seats where things matter.
The latest 3 month drought report on the MDBA site. Hanrahan would enjoy it.
Bugger-all water in the system. Bugger-all flowing into the system. Record low inflows. Met forecasts are not too flash for the next three months. Algal blooms from Hume to Swan Hill. Some wetlands are being wetted for biodiversity purposes. (The Report does not give an estimate of the % of Red Gum forests that are dead or dying). Acidification of the two big lakes in SA being staved off. Standards for Winter minimum flows will be breached deliberately. Water has been set aside for town drinking purposes next Summer.
The report has an interesting graph showing peak storage, long term average storage and the actual storage over the last 9 years or so. There is another graph showing inflows. This year’s inflows have been appropriately red-lined.
http://www.mdba.gov.au/system/files/MDBA_Drought_Update_April_2009.pdf
Boerwar
Yes 30,000 people in my bit of LNP paradise.
Can’t get ADSL 2+ because Telstra says there is not enough room in the exchange for the equipment.
Frank @ 1428
One suggestion would be this.
There is a bit of a correlation between Green voters and lack of green in the environment. Where there is absolutely nothing left of the environment but introduced pigeons and sparrows, plants in pots, tainted water flowing through concrete drains and poor air quality, the Greens presumeably get to thinking about it all…
The Greens almost won the Mayo by-election and there’s plenty of green in the Adelaide Hills.
Which can be solved by building a largerr exchange, or even better building smaller sub-exchanges which would solve the problem of distance. Oh and other ISP’s won’t put in their own ADSL2+ infrastructure unless Telstra puts theirs in first so until then you are stuck with either the big T, or an ISP which resells Telstra Wholesale.
Diog
The Greens almost won lots of stuff, the Democrats almost won Mayo. They almost won Indooroopilly in Qld, they almost ….
They did not.
Diogenes, there’s plenty of green on tarnished copper too but over the past three months the price has increased 40%. Hopefully another sign that some things are starting to improve on the global level.
http://www.lme.com/copper_graphs.asp
but I wonder how many of those voters were Greenchangers, who had moved to the Hills from the inner city (rather like those Hills residents who are in Mundaring and Darlington in WA )
You know, Doctor’s wives and others who think the Greens are Trendy.
They all resell Telstra Wholesale if you connect through a phone line.
And I’ve pasted this clip before, but it does decribe the Greens to a T
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUD4sfNqLF8
There’s no greenery in Byron Bay either…
I’m not sure why everyone is in a state of “shock horror” over the fact The Greens get a lot of votes in inner-city areas. So does Labor, and they’re hardly full of blue-collar union folk.
Quiz Question: Can anyone guess why I am an expert on the Green demographic in the Adelaide Hills?
They are locals.
Possum held an Essential Research Poll party, and nobody came …
Justine did a great job in Richmond
Because you’re a locust?
But the Union Movement also covers a lot of White Collar workers as well
Such as Teachers, Office Workers etc.
Oh and note that a lot of the “Blue Collar Unions” such as the ETU, and the CFEMU in WA are now turning a shgade of Green
Talk about Pots and Kettles Mr Oz
The Heysen electorate is in the Adelaide Hills.
And if you think The Greens will pick up Fremantle in the State By -Election – may I point to this
http://westernpatriot.com.au/?p=539
“© The Western Patriot Pty Ltd (westernpatriot.com.au). Used by Permission.” *
*Pasted as per the site’s Terms and Conditions.
Diogenes,
The Greens almost winning a seat is like a bloke who claims to have sex almost every night. He almost had it on Monday. He almost had it on Tuesday………..
Frank Calabrese if you think any major proportion of people in inner-city areas are unionised, regardless of the colour of their collar then you’re on crack.
There’s two simple points: 1) “Where green stuff is” is not, has never been, any criteria for voting Green or even supporting environmentalism.
2)Younger, more affluent people in the inner-city are neither historical Labor voters or what some here think are “historical” Greens voters. They’re just progressive, so they vote Labor or Green.
Not really. I wasn’t ragging on unions, just showing it’s completely stupid and a waste of time to attempt to make any connection with the numbers of shrubs in an area and what people vote for.
Frank
Lots of them are Greenchangers. They escape the city for the leafy Hills. I’m going to do it one day.
Oz
A little test.
What HoR seats did the Greens get the highest primary vote?
Unless a high concentration of said shrubs contain THC
GG
I was merely saying that the Greens polled well in a leafy, green electorate which was evidence that the assertion that Greens all live in concrete jungles was suspect.
Diogenes “Lots of them are Greenchangers. They escape the city for the leafy Hills.”
This is news to me.
I’ll pay that.
Not to mention there’s scores of concrete jungle seats were The Greens get nothing.
But like I already said, any such correlation is useless. It’s like saying the Nats get seats where you can see the stars at night.
Yeah, sure they do, but it doesn’t mean anything.
Too far away from the Uni dorm areas ?
The Heysen Molotov
I’ve got quite a few friends who moved up to the Hills from the plains and have become Greenies. Obviously, lots are doctor’s, doctor’s wives and doctor’s husbands (most doctors are female now).
Oz,
Progressive is Greens code for card carrying Communist.
GG,
So you didn’t almost get sex on Monday, Tuesday………
Our medical needs are more than met up here, it’d be better if some of those doctors moved to areas with less services.
GG, Never on Sunday…….
Between the Bras and the Condoms, they have to be two of the greatest inventions of the human race. Just think of the pleasures and ecstacy that they have brought to millions, not to mention saving million of lives, or at least one:
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/World/Story/STIStory_363408.html
freudian slip?
gus,
As you know, sex is all right. But, it can’t beat the real thing.
New thread.