Jim Stewart wrote on Monday, 1 March 1999 5:16:
|My 1st Q is: What is 'virtual malapportionment'?
|
|My 2nd is: Why would the electorate feel reassured if told by the media
|that Meg Lees and the Democrats would not oppose GST?
My relevant paragraph (in the thread Re: 'Autonarchy' and democracy) was:
"Thanks for the information about the EMC, Jim. I may put in a submission
about the virtual malapportionment which arises from (especially) the Senate
ticket vote and the media treatment of PHON policies. The most crucial
media intervention, however, was that which reassured the electorate that
Meg Lees and the Democrats would not oppose GST, alerting me that Meg had
done an out-of-character preference deal with the Libs."
Q1. Malapportionment is a means of assisting the election of favoured party
candidates by legislation or regulation which nullifies or reduces the value
of contrary votes. For instance, in WA rural electorates, members are
elected with only about one-third of the constituency of metro members. In
the 1998 federal election, the value of a million votes was almost nullified
by preference collusion of opposing parties who conspired to protect their
own interests by placing One Nation last.
I called this a "virtual malapportionment" because that effect resulted not
from legislated electoral boundaries but from calculations based on known
data about the manipulability of federal elections. It is known that, though
lower-house HTV cards are mere recommendations, a very high percentage of
voters feel compelled to act on them. In a Senate election, the almost
universal recommendation to place a '1' in a box above the line is
calculated to enforce a sophisticated flow of preferences which very few
voters can understand.
As we saw, it meant that the election outcome was mostly controlled not by
voters but by party apparatchiks and media 'commentators'.
The parties' Senate group voting tickets can be viewed at
http://www.aec.gov.au/next_elec/group_voting/main.htm
Q2. The Australian Democrats' tradition and policy is opposed to
Costello-style GST (notwithstanding the response of maybe 100 members to any
hasty 'national ballot' which may have been conducted on the issue). The
appearance of Meg Lees on national TV endorsing the Liberals' tax reform
disarmed the usual pre-election vacillation of many voters, possibly 20%,
who may otherwise have placed Labor above Liberal on their ballot papers.
The manner of Meg's announcement (together with my past knowledge of her
close involvement in preference deals) convinced me that she had discussed
the tactic with Liberals. This was later borne out by examination of AD
lower-house preference recommendations.
Both in the case of "bury PHON" and that of "promote GST", the mass media
were able to push their own vested interests through the mouths of party
puppets, a game at which they are very adept. As against these ploys, the
far more important issue of the MAI (climaxing at the OECD in October) did
not get a mention. When, later in the campaign, Meg Lees inevitably started
to hedge on her 'support' for GST, those speeches were likewise
under-reported. Eg, see
http://www.nla.gov.au/nph-arch/O1998-Oct-13/http://www.democrats.org.au/elec
tion98/pressspch.html
[You must paste the _whole_ url into the browser]
...where Meg says: "In summary, the Democrats believe that reform of both
the direct and indirect tax systems is essential, but that the Coalition's
proposals swing too far. They are unfair, too costly and too brutal to
attract our support without major changes.
"Only with major surgery, can the Howard/Costello plan hope to win our
support in the Senate. For instance, if food is not taken out, and if the
tax breaks for the wealthy are not reduced, then we will vote it down - even
if the Coalition bullies us with threats of another election.
"The Democrats did not back down on Wik or Telstra, and we will not back
down on this".
There may be honour among thieves, Jim, but not among preference
negotiators!
Re the (US) Alliance for Democracy, now at http://www.afd-online.org/ , I
think it is too soon to expect any interest from them in remote minor
nations' elections, let alone the minutiae thereof. I'm watching them for
reasons of comparison and have only just asked them whether they would
consider putting some Australian links up on their site.
Regards
Brian Jenkins
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