Well poured out, Ric!
Yup, I think your maths are impeccable, and you are spot-on about the fear
harboured by incumbents over even a small number of orchestrated
preferences.
I have seen your scheme put into operation once or twice. In 1990, the WA
Democrats tried to use it as a response to a PHON-type preferences
gang-bang by opponents, but were forced to back off under pressure from
the (then) pro-Labor AD fed exec, which was in turn responding to ALP
pressure. The ALP MPs were sweating with fear. It was aptly entitled 'the
earthquake strategy' (so named by former AD senator Norm Sanders).
A similar thing was done in the 1993 WA State election (where Kernot, Lees
& Co had no ability to influence decisions) but with the specific
objective of ousting the corrupt WA Inc Labor Government. It worked like a
charm. That's why Kernot and Lees ambushed the WA Democrats, and why I
quit in 1993. You'll find the whole story on my website at
http://www.nettrek.com.au/~brian/wadem.htm
When you go that way, you open up a fascinating can o' worms. You see how
piss-weak the Laborials (and careerist Democrats) really are; you find
treachery all around you; you find large sums of money and dozens of bogus
members suddenly appearing to take over the ship. (Check out my footnote
at http://www.nettrek.com.au/~brian/F.htm#Ref_14 ) You learn a lot about
the connections between big politics, big money and not-so-big monopoly
media. It's an experience none of us deserves to miss!
Problem is, as you note, the result is still a House full of Laborials. (I
prefer that term because it also acknowledges those there Gnash-ionals,
too.) And a lot of blood on the floor, including that of yourself and
friends unless you own an armoured personnel carrier. Even then, you've
got to watch for the poignard secreted by the chauffeur.
Hey, we'll talk about this some more, but did you catch the way Paddy
McGuinness got stuck into the pseudo-republican bully boys in the SMH on
11 Nov? If not, you can find it at
http://www.smh.com.au/news/9911/11/features/features2.html#top
Let's go for more o' them referenda, eh? - preferably citizen-initiated!
Regards
Brian Jenkins
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.nettrek.com.au/~brian
Ric wrote:
|Thanks Brian,
|
|I'm glad my interests fit and I take your point about general
disillusionment since
|labor and liberal (I like to call them laberals) parties are so
entrenched.
|
|But the next federal election is not so far away. I'd like to air my
views and
|hopefully persuade folks there is some merit in them.
|
|As I see it the Neither campaign has the following structural problems.
|
|1. It is pitched to individuals.
|2. It is focussed on an issue that is not related to dinner on the table
or other
|things that get people upset and therefore is only ever going to be
important to a few.
|3. A 1-2-3-3-3 vote destroys most of the potential value of a vote (more
later)
|4. Ignores that whilst labor and liberal parties might be nearly
omnipotent, their
|individual candidates are very vulnerable in the House of Reps and that
is the way to
|hurt them.
|
|Last point first. Only 57 labor and liberal party Members of Parliament
can withstand a
|10% swing against them as individuals. The remaining 84 labor and
liberal Members of
|Parliament would take a holiday on the dole queue if they each had a 10%
swing against
|them.
|
|And it only takes 5% of electors to produce a 10% swing because a
changing vote counts
|twice. It is one vote less for the incumbent and one vote more for the
opponent. That
|is where a 1-2-3-3-3 vote loses power. It is only one vote less. It
only counts once.
|(Note there is a simplistic assumption that the 5% are all changing their
voting
|direction. In reality it is probably good.)
|
|Technically it is possible for 5% of the Australian Electors to kick out
of office 84
|labor and liberal MHRs (based on the last election results). That is a
high degree of
|vulnerability. It is a lot of leverage for 5% of the votes. It is a
lot of power for
|5% - forget the Senate. Sure they would be replaced with a new batch of
84 labor and
|liberal MPs and the liberal/labor parties would still be supreme but the
laberals would
|be badly hurt and destabilished.
|
|This could be achieved by getting the electors to direct their vote
AGAINST their
|sitting labor/liberal member. If 5% do so then there will be 84
labor/liberal ex-MPs
|gnashing their teeth. Even 2% of the vote directed against the sitting
member would
|unseat 34 of the laberal bastards. In contrast, to have the same effect,
you would
|need to have 10-20% of the vote going 1-2-3-3-3 to minor parties.
|
|What are the chances of this happening? Bugger all. Because 5% of the
vote is a lot
|of people to convince without a lot of money. And the issue is not
dinner related.
|Electoral systems will never be a populist issue.
|
|But the point is that there is no need to directly convince 5% of the
people to vote a
|particular way. At the last election the 22% of the national primary
vote went to
|minor parties. If minor parties could be persuaded to direct their
preferences in an
|appropriate way then potentially up to 22% of the vote could go to
unseating incumbent
|labor and liberal MPs.
|
|As a for instance take One Nation. You may not like One Nation's ideas
but the liberal
|and labor parties declared war on One Nation so it possibly does not feel
kindly
|disposed to either of them. Perhaps One Nation could be persuaded to
direct the
|preferences of its votes against the sitting labor/liberal member in
order to
|deliberately unseat them and damage it's enemies.
|
|What would happen? Well One Nation retains about 4-5% of the vote so
there would be a
|serious threat. Newspapers would rail about it and generate a lot of
publicity on
|electoral systems. Labor and Liberal parties would be scared. A lot of
ordinary
|Australians would enjoy that and perhaps be motivated to kick the
laberals in the balls
|just for the fun of having a bit of revenge.
|
|Now if other minor parties could be persuaded to join in the labor and
liberal parties
|would be up shit creek. Each minor parties vote would reinforce each
others against the
|labor and liberal parties. The threat of it would improve their
negotiating position.
|
|I think we would find the electoral system changed very quickly.
Probably to
|multi-member electorates which would be less vulnerable to the strategy.
|
|The key to electoral change is make the current arrangement hurt the
liberal and labor
|parties. Once electoral change is on their agenda it becomes possible.
|
|The key to that is to lobby and to find reasons to persuade minor parties
not to be part
|of the vote catchment area for labor and liberal by doing preference
deals. There
|wouldn't seem to be a great deal of value in that for minor parties
anyway. It just
|seems to be a convention that it is done.
|
|OK so this might not be easy. But I'd say it is a lot more likely then
for a small
|group to persuade enough individual Australian Electors to make a
difference without
|fistfulls of money.
|
|I would like peoples thoughts on how this strategy might be achieved. A
point is that
|the strategy applies to any single member electoral system so there is no
need to limit
|the scope to Australia.
|
|Cheers everybody,
|
|Ric
|
|
|
|
|
|Brian Jenkins wrote:
|
|> Welcome, Ric.
|>
|> Yes, your interests fit the original direction of the Neither list.
|> However, any public list can only reflect the views and disciplines of
|> those who contribute to it - and, as you imply, there's very little of
|> interest in Neither at present.
|>
|> OK, so there's a general disillusion about politics and electoral
|> matters. Esoteric spoutings of discontent are filling the vacuum. But,
|> don't despair - Rome wasn't built in a day!
|>
|> Regards
|> Brian Jenkins
|>
|> -----Original Message-----
|> From: rtechow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
|> To: Brian Jenkins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
|> Cc: Neither <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
|> Date: Monday, 22 November 1999 22:37
|> Subject: Re: Direct democracy proposal
|>
|> |Hi everyone,
|> |
|> |I've just joined this email list. I've seen some of the emails from
|> the start of
|> |langer's Neither campaign and seen some the past two weeks.
|> |
|> |Would somebody be kind enough to re-state Neither's objectives and
|> stratgegies for
|> |acheiving those objectives?
|> |
|> |Truth is I haven't seen much direction in recent emails.
|> |
|> |My objectives are that I want to screw the guts out of the labor and
|> liberal parties by
|> |breaking the electoral system we've got whereby
|> |
|> |1. Electors have to vote
|> |2. Electors have to vote liberal or labor as they must, at a minimum,
|> give a second last
|> |preference to either a liberal or labor candidate.
|> |
|> |Does that fit?
|> |
|> |Cheers
|> |
|> |Ric Techow
|>
|> ----------------------------------------------------------------
|> This is the Neither public email list, open for the public and general
discussion.
|>
|> To unsubscribe click here
Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Subject=unsubscribe
|> To subscribe click here
Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Subject=subscribe
|>
|> For information on [EMAIL PROTECTED]
|> http://www.neither.org/lists/public-list.htm
|> For archives
|> http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
|
