Green Hypocrisy and Pauline Hanson's Election Challenge

The Greens have once again shown their opposition to genuine democracy and free speech by opposing Pauline Hanson’s right to challenge the NSW Legislative Council vote count in the Court of Disputed Returns.

I don’t want her challenge to be successful either because she would displace the 21^st place getter: the Nationals’ Sarah Johnston, who is at least part of a reasonably coherent party. However, if either of her claims below is even partially true, it is a very serious matter and should be heard in court. As would any candidate, she certainly has the right to ask for a review of the result, given how close it was.

The implication that she should not be allowed to challenge the result is absurd hypocrisy, typical of the politically pious left. If roles were reversed, the Greens would be kicking up a huge stink, but Pauline Hanson shouldn’t be allowed to challenge the result because we don’t agree with her politics. Thus, she is morally as well as logically wrong (if the latter concept exists amongst the Greens) and therefore should be stopped by any means.

Sarah Johnston and the Greens’ Jeremy Buckingham moved ahead of Pauline Hanson on preferences at the last stage of the count. He was the 3^rd Greens MLC elected, in 20^th place.

Buckingham’s position is that Pauline Hanson “should accept” the result. He was quoted: "Not only am I threatened, I think the whole of New South Wales is threatened by the challenge … I think it would be a bad outcome if she was to be successful."

Pauline Hanson only missed out on election by 1306 votes. A good analysis by Ben Raue shows the step by step progress of the preference distribution and candidate elimination. Notice that none of the final four elected candidates reached the quota of 185,274 = 1 + the number of formal votes (4,076,006) divided by 1 + the number of candidates (21). Even if extra votes were found, she would leapfrog Sarah Johnston because it is Gordon Moyes’ preference distribution which eliminates the 22^nd candidate.

Her claims in support of a recount are twofold:

1.      That at least 1200 votes for her were found in the blank ballots pile.

2.      That the randomized preference distribution system is unfair.

So why, exactly, would it be a bad outcome if her dispute were successful?

Since it is being heard in the Supreme Court, we might assume that a successful challenge would only result from at least one of her claims being upheld and at least an extra 1307 votes found.

This would be a good outcome in the sense of justice, because it would either:

1.      Prove that a substantial number of votes for her had been “misplaced” … and I really do mean the inverted commas.

2.      Prove that the randomized preference distribution system is unfair. I show this in a previous post anyway.

Of course, it would also be bad because it implies either:

1.      A flawed preference allocation system which must be fixed not just in NSW, but in every jurisdiction which employs randomized preference allocation with quotas.

2.      At the very least, gross incompetence in misplacing more than 1307 votes or, I suggest, criminal behaviour in “misplacing” them, even if the initial misplacing was accidental, then not rectified when discovered.

Hanson’s lawyer claimed that he has evidence of knowledge within the Electoral Commission of the misplaced votes via internal emails, as well as evidence of a subsequent attempt at covering it up. If they do in fact have such emails, the behaviour they imply is an extremely serious breach of the Electoral Act, possibly resulting in jail terms if anyone is found to have deliberately mishandled ballot papers and/or destroyed evidence.

If more than 1200 votes for Pauline Hanson are shown to have ended up in the blank ballots pile, what is the chance they got there (and stayed there) by simple incompetence, human error? 4/5 of 3/10 of fuck all, I say.

An alternative explanation is that some lefty(ies) at the NSWEC put them there to ensure she didn’t get elected. Cue howls of outrage … no supporter of left / progressive causes would ever do such a thing. We’re all such honest proponents of democracy. Like fucking hell you are.

If you’re morally right, well, what’s a little “bending of the rules”? The religious right would do the same thing. The further people's views from the centre, the more they tend to see themselves as morally superior and sadly, the less they feel they need to justify dishonest tactics.

I don’t want to see Pauline Hanson elected. Her time at One Nation and the absurd policies they produced show she is manifestly unqualified to govern (of course, it in no way follows her opponents are any more qualified).

She’s able to voice in simplistic terms some issues about which many people in Australia are unhappy:

·         That immigrants from significantly different cultures to the dominant, British derived, Australian culture (yes, it really is) are not required to assimilate.

·         That the politics of accusation and lack of personal responsibility seem to have dominated the Aboriginal agenda.

·         That large corporations are ripping most of us off.

Unfortunately, apart from deporting immigrants who commit crimes, she has very few credible solutions.

Being able to poorly articulate the grievances of a section of the community, regardless of how large is not in my view a sufficient qualification to enter parliament.

In spite of her lack of qualifications for the job, it does not follow that any Green candidates would be any better. It is certainly not a justification for electoral fraud.

If deliberate vote hiding is proven, even the non-rectification and cover up of an initially innocent mistake, the slippery little shit(s) who did it need to be punished: bankruptcy and jail.