[BJ] Sorry, Luke--it's not possible. It's a natural law which can be phrased thus: "The world is full of willing people--those willing to work, and those willing to let them work!" Brian Jenkins [AL] Unfortunately there's also a third category - Neither! ;-) So far the group that ran the extremely successful Neither campaign in 1996 has been unwilling or unable to do the work that needs to be done to continue it, and unwilling or unable to let others do it. If any individual could be identified as personally responsible for that, it would have to be me as the current public spokesperson. I do not think it has been my fault, but am mentioning that to make it clear that the comments below are not intended as recriminations seeking to put the blame on anyone else. I simply want to place on record the current organizational situation from my perspective so that others are fully aware of the background and in particular aware that at the moment nobody is responsible for ensuring that anything in particular is done about anything. Either the people who join this list will succeed in using it to decide what to do, assign responsibilities and go forward, or nothing much more will happen. [LM] Luke asked: |Does anyone one out there have any coherent ideas on how Neither could |be structured to enable democratic processes and distribution of tasks. |So that the next time neither does something, the burden of actually |doing something does not fall on just a couple of shoulders. | [AL] Well, I'm utterly delighted to see John Paul Esposito's thoughtful response setting out coherent ideas on how to get started using this list. I strongly urge everyone to read it carefully and take it as a basis for resolving the question of organization through this list. (I will be quoting it in full with additional comments in a separate message, but people really need to re-read the original and keep it in mind throughout the current discussion. I hope John will setup a Member's page on http://www.neither.org and put a copy there so that people can put reminder links to that item in messages). It's also great to see that there are already offers to help get things organized in Adelaide and Armidale and Sydney. I'm confident there are enough people willing to put the effort in to work out what needs to be done and take on the various tasks that need doing - right around Australia. As I see it the background to the current situation is as follows: More than a decade ago, in 1987, a strategy was put forward for a "Don't Vote" campaign as described in my article: http://www.neither.org/people/dave/red_politics/rp19.htm (I strongly recommend that people read this carefully to understand where I and some of my friends are coming from politically - and hope to see some discussion of agreements/disagreements with that strategy in a separate thread here). There was a small campaign along those lines in the 1987 general election, mainly organized in Melbourne by Harry van Moorst, which the Australian Electoral Commission, attempted to crush in the interests of the then ALP government. The AEC took out an injunction claiming that Harry was "inciting" people not to comply with Australia's compulsory voting system (although in fact the campaign was urging people to vote informal rather than pay $50 fines so that the increase in the informal vote would register increasing opposition to the two party system). Vincent J of the Supreme Court of Victoria granted an injunction mainly on the basis that the name "Don't Vote" was at least ambiguous. He refused an injunction on the AEC's other claim that our actual campaign for voting informal was illegal because they said, compulsory voting requires voters to cast formal votes, and ruled that we were perfectly entitled to campaign for "a plague on all their Houses". I was joined with Harry as a defendant. We decided to just rename the campaign to "Vote Informal" and get on with it, rather than get diverted by legal disputes. At the same time the AEC was taking out injunctions to suppress a new "Industrial Labor Party" which a group of Victorian unions had formed to put pressure on the ALP by encouraging supporters of traditional labor policies to reject the ALP's adoption of Coalition policies by putting the ALP and Coalition equal last. The AEC used an obscure section of the Commonwealth Electoral Act - s329(3) - about "How to Vote" cards contrary to the directions on the ballot paper, to obtain an injunction against essentially the whole of the Industrial Labor Party's campaign. A similar injunction was included in the claim against Harry based on leaflets illustrating how to number the boxes with more than 1 candidate equal last, although they were not even actual "How to Vote" cards for any particular electorate. We made it clear that we would not comply with a broad injunction in the same terms as was used against the Industrial Labor Party so the court backed off and issued only a narrow one prohibiting "facsimiles of a ballot paper". As we were in fact primarily concerned with campaigning to "Vote Informal" we decided not to get diverted into a legal fight about that either, and simply explain how to put the ALP and Coalition candidates equal last for those who did want to vote for minor parties, without using illustrations of numbered boxes. The campaign made some headway but was fairly small as most political activists on the "left" still strongly preferred the ALP to the Coalition. There was no attempt to build an ongoing organization at that time - it was seen as just something to do when a general election happened to be on. During the 1990 elections I understand that Harry was involved in a campaign, mainly on talk back radio and mainly centered on voting for minor parties and putting the ALP and Coalition equal last. I don't know much about it as I was in Canberra doing research on the Internet and was not involved at all. The AEC sought to intimidate Harry's perfectly legal campaign by issuing a sheriff's warrant to seize over $9000 for "costs" of the injunctions issued 3 years earlier, but did not pursue me for costs at all and I was not aware of the action against Harry. Similar costs orders were effective in preventing any re-emergence of the "Industrial Labor Party". There was also a move by the Greens in WA to put both the ALP and the Coalition equal last but they backed off as a result of threats by the AEC. The ALP government had prepared for a more serious challenge than the 1987 campaign, resulting from the increasing disillusionment of ALP supporters. As well as unleashing their thugs in the AEC, they amended the Commonwealth Electoral Act so that the previous requirement that a candidate must have an absolute majority after all other candidates were excluded, was replaced with a requirement for an absolute majority after all but 2 were excluded. This would have resulted in a deadlock in any marginal seat where the gap between the ALP and the Coalition was smaller than the number of votes who put them both last - ie in any seats that might have been lost by the ALP as a result of a successful campaign defying the AEC's threats, so that they would get a chance to win the supplementary election (as many of their supporters willing to cast an initial "protest vote" might swing back in a supplementary election when faced with the real possibility of a Coalition government). As it turned out, the extent of disillusionment was not great enough, and the successful intimidation of the Greens and the Industrial Labor Party resulted in there being no such seats. So the AEC, who had drafted the amendments for the ALP was able to pretend that the few thousand votes rejecting both the ALP and the Coalition were "exhausted" instead of announcing supplementary elections. Consequently nobody was aware of that change in the Act. (It was presented as a purely technical amendment of no significance when introduced, so that the Coalition would let it through the Senate.) In 1993 the ALP faced almost certain defeat and decided to pull out all stops to win. Among other things this included crushing their opponents on the left. The 1990 campaign looked small enough to wipe out completely by legislation actually prohibiting it instead of just intimidatory threats from the AEC - especially in view of the successful intimidation of the Greens and the Industrial Labor Party by those threats previously. Section 329A was introduced just before the election, explicitly for the purpose of prohibiting campaigns rejecting both the ALP and the Coalition by putting them equal last. No mention was made of prohibiting campaigns to "Vote Informal". The Coalition and the Democrats both supported this legislation. The AEC had been spending millions on a campaign to shore up ALP support by reducing the deliberate informal vote - not just by educating voters as to how to avoid making mistakes - but by political arguments specially aimed at persuading people disillusioned with the system not to "waste their vote". They decided to use the new legislation as an excuse to suppress "Vote Informal" campaigns as well, and "interpreted" s329A as applying to encouragement of informal votes. I was still in Canberra but decided this would be a particularly good time for another "Vote Informal" campaign, issued a High Court writ and rushed back to Melbourne. Unfortunately there was very little time and very little interest. People who were inclined to "protest" against the ALP in 1987 were less inclined to do so when faced with the real prospect of a Coalition government. The media took no interest and there was a substantial reduction in the number of voters explicitly rejecting both the ALP and the Coalition. A "vote informal" campaign by two anarchist candidates running for the Senate was abandoned after AEC threats. In the end the ALP got back in by a total margin of 2000 votes. If there had been even a small campaign like 1987 they would have been defeated instead, visibly as a result of left opposition rather than just by the Coalition, and the debate aimed for in the strategy proposed in 1987 could have been achieved. The High Court sat on the writ until just before the 1996 election and no organization was established to fight any campaign, except in South Australia where Patrick Muldowney and Anita Hood kept something going. South Australia followed up on the Commonwealth legislation with an amendment to the State Electoral Act which explicitly prohibited "public advocacy" of an informal vote. Patrick issued a High Court writ against that, to be heard concurrently with my case. This enabled lawyers representing Patrick to put legal arguments in the manner the High Court is accustomed to, while I, unrepresented, could take a different approach... The AEC's South Australian equivalent retaliated against Patrick by taking out an injunction against distribution of "Vote Informal" leaflets during a State by-election on November 5th 1994. This was issued in Patrick's absence without enough notice for him to even attend, and followed by a contempt charge for distributing the leaflets. An article "The Lizard's Strike Back" on this is at: http://www.neither.org/people/dave/red_politics/lizard.htm Again, I strongly recommend that people read this carefully to understand the "attitude" being advocated. It's quite different from impressions one might gain from the media. Patrick, Anita and I worked hard preparing for the High Court case to be able to make full use of the resulting interest, but there was little other involvement. Since the legislation was so obviously unconstitutional, my aim was to make it as difficult as possible for the High Court to waffle about "implied rights of freedom of communication" and bury the fundamental issue of whether the 1993 election deliberately conducted on the basis of open intimidation would be allowed to stand. They were placed in a position where they would have to end up writing easily exposed absurdities in order to justify not declaring the election invalid. They chose instead to write even more ludicrous judgments pretending that the legislation was valid, and announced them after Parliament had already been dissolved and the 1996 election campaign begun, so that it was too late to simply repeal the legislation. The result was that the mindless thugs of the AEC asked the mindless thugs of the ALP's Attorney-General's Department to authorize taking out an injunction. The idiots decided to do so, a criminal judge issued the injunction and then gaoled me. That made it impossible for the media to continue ignoring what was still a very small campaign. We were sufficiently prepared for a very small group of friends and their friends to spring into action and respond to the enormous public outrage. An office was quickly setup and rostered answering phone calls from people wanting to help. Many Independent and Green candidates put out their own "How to Vote" cards defying the AEC's intimidation and small groups spontaneously organized various activities all over Australia. We were on the front pages and editorials of every newspaper and I was even able to broadcast radio and TV interviews by telephone from Pentridge prison. There was international interest too when Amnesty International declared me Australia's first political prisoner for 20 years. Lots of people stepped forward to help, including lawyers primarily concerned about civil liberties. Some background on that campaign can be found at Harry's web site: http://dingo.vut.edu.au/~westweb/politics/polit1.html This site has not been updated since, but still has more information than the current Neither web site. To understand the "attitude" and "line" taken in the 1996 campaign I recommend reading my own statements from prison: http://dingo.vut.edu.au/~westweb/politics/neither/albert5.html and http://dingo.vut.edu.au/~westweb/politics/neither/albert4.html For some information on the two High Court cases see the submissions at: http://dingo.vut.edu.au/~westweb/politics/neither/neither.html A Full Court of the Federal Court unanimously upheld the injunction and conviction for contempt and ordered costs of the appeal against me. Then there was what the AEC described as a "spectacular sixfold increase" in the number of voters who rejected both the ALP and the Coalition, to nearly 50,000. On appeal against the sentence, after the election, the same court held that my open and continued defiance fully merited imprisonment and concluded by ordering that I be released forthwith and rescinded it's previous order for costs. All parties announced that the they would repeal the "ridiculous" and "infamous" legislation used to gaol me, including the ALP, Coalition and Democrats who had unanimously introduced it. It would be difficult to imagine a more spectacular defeat for the Government, the Parliament and the Courts. But we didn't follow up. We didn't do anything to enable the many hundreds of people who had got in touch and organized initiatives of their own to actually participate and establish a genuine national organization that could be a focus for an ongoing campaign. It wasn't just the usual problems of cliqueishness and failure to involve people and establish democratic structures common to so many political activities in the current climate. It was as spectacular a failure to get organized as the 1996 campaign had been a success. It was literally impossible for anyone outside the tiny group of friends and friends of friends to get involved at all. So naturally it was also impossible for that group to get much done. The consequence was that there was virtually no 1998 campaign, despite our opponents handing us an almost perfect opportunity by declaring that they would not count the votes of the tens of thousands who voted against them last time. The reasons are complex and difficult to understand. I don't think there will be much immediate benefit in trying to analyse them at this stage, so I won't go into it right now. But it is clearly necessary for everyone to understand that is the current situation - we have to organize more or less from scratch. We have a web site available for member pages, and this mailing list, which makes it possible for anyone who does want to organize Neither to get in touch with others who do and take on that task. But there isn't any other functioning organization at present. There is nobody to make suggestions or proposals to. Nothing will happen that is not organized by the people who do participate in this list (including getting other people to participate in this list). I believe, for reasons I will explain in another message, that despite the missed opportunity of the 1998 general election campaign, the aftermath of that, and the political situation generally, is extremely favorable for getting a serious movement going now. I also believe that this mailing list and web site, together with the initial contacts made in 1996 and the minimal campaign in the 1998 elections, is a sufficient basis for us to be able to get our act together from now on - for reasons partly explained in John Paul Esposito's message in this thread. Finally, on a personal note, I don't believe there is much I can contribute to actual organization. I intend to actively contribute ideas and arguments, but I am quite useless at administration. Please do NOT send me personal email with ideas or suggestions. Although I will usually read any messages eventually, I rarely respond to email and do not have time or inclination to follow up on anything. Despite the media, I am not the Neither campaign and anything you have to say to or about the Neither campaign should be said in this mailing list and/or member pages on the web site. As for ideas and arguments, I ask again that people carefully read the items with links in this message as essential background for further discussion.
Albert Langer's Statement from prison to media.url
