Thanks Brian, and I agree Meg Lees on national TV endorsing the Liberals'
tax reform disarmed the usual pre-election vacillation of many voters,
although she could have lost enough primary votes to Labor to offset any
extra Liberal seats from Democrat prefs.
While the election outcome was mostly controlled by party apparatchiks (of
all parties) and media 'commentators' (all but ABC for the coalition), thats
not new. However your 'virtual malapportionment' is made much harder as
more and more electors protest at both sides, until we reached the 1998
result of the coalition seizing government with only 37.7% of the Senate
vote, the lowest for any government since the Commonwealth started.
The value of a million MHR votes were as much nullified by AEC deliberately
denying (with the court's
collusion) s 268(3) of the electoral act, as by preference collusion of
opposing parties.
Its no wonder that coalition propagandists are planning further subversion
of the Senate, but what will it take to arrest and reverse this subversion?
Much more than an avalanche of submissions to the JCEM!! And there's no
sign of even that. Hence my call for comments on the 'failed' election
scenario.
Regards
Jim Stewart
phone/fax: +617 3397 4420 (with Messagebank)
mobile: 04 1427 4420 (with voice-mail)
-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Jenkins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Jim Stewart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: Neither Newsgroup <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Monday, 1 March 1999 15:32
Subject: Re: 1998 Inquiry and Electoral Reform
>
>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.
<snip>
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