[redcarpet]

Rundle mythbusts Abbott’s victory

It was a landslide! Tony Abbott has a mandate! The result was a repudiation of Labor’s dysfunction! Wrong, wrong and wrong. Crikey takes you through why Abbott’s victory is not what you think.

Part one — busting myths about the election result

1. “Labor’s lowest primary vote for a century!” Well, yes, but no. The point is that every Labor primary vote is going to be low from now on. The knowledge/culture/policy producer class has broken away and is voting for the Greens. Barring truly weird events, Labor ain’t coming back. That’s minimum of 7% — and as much as 12% — down from the mid-40s votes the ALP hitherto enjoyed.

That happened to the non-Labor forces of course in the 1920s, when the Country Party broke away. Out of that, we got the preferential system, and as a trade-off to Labor, compulsory voting. But the alliance with the Country Party didn’t turn United Australia Party/Liberal voters to Labor. Many of Labor’s voters won’t accept any sort of alliance with the Greens. Good luck working out that one.

2. “It was a landslide.” No, it wasn’t – 88 to 57 seats, give or take, isn’t a landslide. It’s a zero-sum game, so when five seats change hands, a 10-seat gap opens up between the two parties. Fewer than 50 seats and you can talk landslides. Mind you, getting 18 or so seats back to regain power at the end of a first term is a big ask and hasn’t been done since, oh that’s right, 1998, when Kim Beazley won a majority of the overall vote two years after Labor had been reduced to 49 seats. Despite a 5.5% swing to Labor and a 51%-49% two-party preferred margin in Labor’s favour, the Coalition held 80 seats to Labor’s 67. The next decade of our history was built on this manifest absurdity.

3. “It was a total repudiation of the Labor Party.” Wrong again. The two-party preferred vote was 53.5% to 46.5%, a serious enough margin in Australian politics. But the effect of two-party preferred in a single-member system is to amplify the gap. The previous vote was more or less 50:50. This result is the equivalent of one Labor two-party preferred voter in 16 changing his vote. That’s being made out as if it were on the level of say the ANC’s 63% vote in South Africa 1994, or Ramos-Horta’s 70% vote in East Timor’s first election. Those are expressions of a substantial public will — 53.5-46.5 ain’t.

4. “Labor will need to totally recondition itself to be electable and this will take a decade.” Labor needs to recondition itself for all sorts of reasons — and Australian politics may be in for a more comprehensive transformation — but let’s not awfulise this. Quite aside from the 1996-98 result, there’s the passage from 1975 — 44.3% to 1980 — 49.6%, and then victory in 1983. The telescoped relationship between the two-party preferred vote and seats won gives an entirely false impression of just how far there is to come back from. Whether that happening without a reconstruction of Labor would be a triumph or a tragedy is another question.

5. “Tony Abbott has a mandate, therefore Labor and the Greens should vote up his new legislation.” Where did this come from? Abbott has a mandate to govern, and therefore to introduce proposed legislation to Parliament. The 46.5% who wanted someone else elected their people to oppose it. The idea that a mandate abolishes opposition is totalitarian by definition.

6. “Australian democracy is the best in the world.” Yeah, a lower house that does not fairly represent the party vote, a compulsory voting/exhaustive preferential system/matched funding system that makes it easy for multimillionaires to get a seat and murder for anyone else, a Senate where the balance of power is held by five people with 4% primary vote between them, where the sheer size of the ballot paper sends the donkey vote skyrocketing towards a quota, where Tasmanians have five times the representation of New South Wales, two elections in 20 years with a majority vote not gaining government, and a prime minister-governor-general relationship that still hasn’t been clarified since it brought us to the brink of government collapse — and where blatant falsehoods in a near monopoly media is subject to no immediate sanction. Yeah, nothing needs to be looked at here, finest in the world. Nothing can possibly go wrong …

* Watch out for more mythbusting from our roaming reporter Guy Rundle in the coming days.

Our federal election system exposed with Crikey quality!

[foxdemon]

The knowledge/culture/policy producer class has broken away and is voting for the Greens.

The vainity of the left leaning component of the professional class never ceases to amaze me. Now they believe they have always been an essential part of the Labor party.


Actually, those upper middle class chardoney socialists crept into the labur movement during the 60's through to the 1990's. They took over the Labor party, marginalised 'old Labor' and thus disenfrancised the working class of political influence. The result in Australia, but also elsewhere in the western world, has been the reemergence of the rich and powerful to dominance in the west (ie: neo-liberalism). That movement could not have been successful if the "knowledge/culture/policy producer class" had not taken over the poor man's poltical movement.


So now Rundle claims that class of pseudo socialists, the usurpers of worker's political power, harbingers of doom for the welfare state, preverters of the movement against racism, feminism, charity and other good casues, the vainest of the vain have abandoned the carcass of the commoner's political party, having gutted it of worth, and flown to feast on their next victim: the environment movement.


Is there nothing safe from the deprevations of the left wing component of the professional class?

6. “Australian democracy is the best in the world.” Yeah, a lower house that does not fairly represent the party vote, a compulsory voting/exhaustive preferential system/matched funding system that makes it easy for multimillionaires to get a seat and murder for anyone else, a Senate where the balance of power is held by five people with 4% primary vote between them, where the sheer size of the ballot paper sends the donkey vote skyrocketing towards a quota, where Tasmanians have five times the representation of New South Wales, two elections in 20 years with a majority vote not gaining government, and a prime minister-governor-general relationship that still hasn’t been clarified since it brought us to the brink of government collapse — and where blatant falsehoods in a near monopoly media is subject to no immediate sanction. Yeah, nothing needs to be looked at here, finest in the world. Nothing can possibly go wrong …

Believe it or not, it is better than most democracies in the world. No one claimed it was prefect in an objective sense. It is just that most political systems, including deomcractic systems, suck.

[colliric]

Redcarpet is just jealous that Clive won his seat fair and square.....

Told you the recount would go his way.

This just sounds more and more like the usual bitching from the "side that lost".

Even the Liberals were guilty of this in 2007...

[redcarpet]

Not fair in my view. He won via preferential voting, I support FPTP. The victor that
should have counted as victor got 34,959 more than any other individual candidate.

Even though that means allowing a right-wing party winning, I'd accept that.

[Salohcin]

Winning via preferential voting is fair.

More people in the seat didn't want a Labor candidate than didn't want Palmer that is fair as it gets in an election. Vote splitting in first past the post is far more unfair.

Just to elaborate why first past the post is unfair.

Consider this situation where 3 candidates are standing fo election:
Right wing candidate 1: roughly 30% of total votes.
Right wing candidate 2: roughly 30% of total votes.
Left wing candidate: The other 40% of the votes.

In this case 60% of the electorate favored a right wing candidate but a left wing candidate gets elected. In the case of preferential voting because no candidate has secured 50% of the vote the right wing candidate with the least votes would have their votes reassigned to the second preferences (which would mostly favor the candidate with similar policies).

Even in the case of senate candidates like the 'Motor enthusiasts party' getting in. I don't blame the existence of preferences. This just means more people would rather have random independent candidates than another major party member. There is a problem with above the line preference distribution but I would still rather a faulty preference system in the senate than FPTP.

[Bounce]

Wining in a PR system is fairer.

[redcarpet]

Winning via preferential voting is fair.

More people in the seat didn't want a Labor candidate than didn't want Palmer that is fair as it gets in an election. Vote splitting in first past the post is far more unfair.

Just to elaborate why first past the post is unfair.

Consider this situation where 3 candidates are standing fo election:
Right wing candidate 1: roughly 30% of total votes.
Right wing candidate 2: roughly 30% of total votes.
Left wing candidate: The other 40% of the votes.

In this case 60% of the electorate favored a right wing candidate but a left wing candidate gets elected. In the case of preferential voting because no candidate has secured 50% of the vote the right wing candidate with the least votes would have their votes reassigned to the second preferences (which would mostly favor the candidate with similar policies).

So.....the majority is always right? Lol, just because a candidate for elected office gets most voter's votes
doesn't mean they'll be a good local MP.

[Bounce]

Why would the minority be 'right' in that case? More people supported one candidate over the other, whether they are 'good' or 'bad' is not really something that is found out until later.

[redcarpet]

And voters know very little. Maybe, per seat, 1% are politically active and know
anything about their local candidates. So why be so fixated on 51%+ gullible people
for some, obscure reason?

[Bounce]

Because it's a better number than 49%.

[redcarpet]

And why is that, Bounce?

[Bounce]

Because it is bigger and probably holds more of that '1% who know stuff'. It also shows that 51% prefer candidate A to candidate B.

Why is 49% better?

[redcarpet]

It also shows that 51% prefer candidate A to candidate B.

Most candidates win on preferences, not inherent majority vote. See,
you're talking trash.

Why is 49% better?

Look up FPTP online if you want, there arguments in favour of it are public,
and well known to even the mildly politically sophisticated.

[colliric]

The issues with FPTP are obvious:

Candidate may win with primary, but say there are 5 candidates, that means the winning candidate only has to mathematically get 20.01%(as the lowest possible winning margin) of the votes to win outright. Which is just plain NOT ACCEPTABLE, and should not be allowed to even be possible.

79.99% have effectively voted against this individual, indicating he/she may not be terribly well liked by the majority of people.

Preference voting is supposed to stop such a situation from happening by better representing the electorate's wider views.

FPTP is only truly workable in a One-on-one situation, with 50.01% being the lowest winning margin.

[redcarpet]

Not seen a victor win with that little. Maybe a third of the vote at least.

But a victor could still be a 'good' back bench MP despite such a
split vote result.

[Bounce]

It's irrelevant if you haven't seen it happen. It can happen and it goes to show that FPTP doesn't make sense. How can a third of the vote be preferable when 66% voted against? If they can't carry the necessary numbers to make that 50.01% they don't deserve to win.

[redcarpet]

Most voters don't know much, so why does it matter if you get say only a third of the vote?

Under PV people can get elected via preferences. And if we're talking about STV,
winning office with only a few thousand votes.

[Bounce]

Even in the simplest sense it makes 50.01% happier. It doesn't matter that 'most people don't know much', if you're going to have a democratic system they deserve an equal vote. Why does someone winning with a few thousand votes discount their win?

I'm so unbelievably confused how you think you're making intelligent points.

[redcarpet]

PV & STV voting doesn't provide equal votes for the voter. If you're going to
have a democratic system they deserve an equal vote. No candidate
winning with only a few votes because of some backroom deal.

[Bounce]

There are no back room deals done in PV. You literally have to list everyone on the ballot paper to be counted. The way the votes move is not up to some 'back room deal', they take actual preferences.

I think the upper house voting system should be changed. I think the PR system actually provides equality for the vote, and I don't see why it isn't in use.