Optional Preferential Voting Will Stop The Grubby Preference Swaps In The Senate

I voted in a pre-polling centre on the way to work this morning. It’s much more convenient than trying to on the day.

I voted on election day a few years ago. I had to go early because I was on my way to play cricket. I turned up about 15 minutes after the polls opened and there was already a queue of 50 or 60 people, mostly old age pensioners. What the fuck were they doing? It’s not like most of them had a day full of activities ahead and really had to be somewhere very soon.

“Oh well, we thought we’d better vote early and get it done” … and then go home and have a cup of tea and read the paper, you selfish old coffin dodgers. If I had my way, I’d make the old age pension half the dole and force you all to survive on cat food and boiled potatoes.

Anyway, there were no queues this morning. Just mark off my name, fill out the two ballot papers to reflect my wishes and be on my way. At least, that’s the way it should have happened.

How many candidates were on the Senate ballot paper?

110 … and you only have two options: choose a single party above the line and have them allocate YOUR preferences according to THEIR tactics, or allocate your preferences according to YOUR wishes and be forced to number ALL 110 boxes below the line.

If you want to encourage some of the minor parties or independents, but don’t like the preference deals they have done, or most likely, don’t know what they are, then be prepared to either:

1.      Spend 10 – 15 minutes filling out all the boxes.

2.      Let your preferred minor party get away with whatever preference deals they have arranged.

3.      Give up and vote for a major party above the line.

The problem with options 2 and 3 is that the party you choose will eventually have their preferences distributed to other parties, mostly as a result of negotiated deals. Your vote will be transferred to another party who is ahead of your chosen party in the count. If they are eliminated, your vote will then be transferred to your party's next uneliminated strategically chosen preference and so on, possibly along a chain of more than 10 minor parties.

Is this what you intended? Can you even know where your vote is likely to end up?

Not prior to voting, because it depends not just on the order in which the minor candidates finish in the primary vote, but also who leapfrogs the others as preferences begin being distributed.

Each party is required to lodge its preference allocation order with the Australian Electoral Commission some weeks prior to the election. You can see them here if you scroll down to Senate Group Voting Tickets. If you voted above the line, find the party for which you voted and compare their official preference order with your own wishes. I bet the two will be some distance apart.

Your vote will move from candidate to candidate, down your first choice's list of preferences until all senators are elected. Its path only depends on your first choice's preference order; it does not become a proxy for another party once your choice is eliminated. However, how do you know where in this chain it will finally come to rest?

This is true even if you vote Coalition or Labor above the line. Suppose they obtain 3.2 quotas. The overhanging 0.2 of a quota will all go to whichever party they have preferenced and eventually end up … who knows where?

Blocks of votes are traded amongst 30 – 50 minor parties and independents as part of a game theoretic strategy which each believes (rightly or wrongly) will maximize their chances of winning a seat. The chance the particular path eventually followed in the complex graph of preference swaps is even close to your own preference order is minute.

The ABC has tabulated the full distribution of preferences in each state, showing how the preferences were allocated as each candidate was eliminated. The Victorian example of Ricky Muir from the Australian Motoring Enthusiasts party continually being near last and rescued from elimination by another candidate's preferences makes for an excellent case study.

We’ve seen lefties Wikileaks preferencing the Shooters & Fishers and the white nationalist Australia First Party ahead of Labor and the Greens, followed by those arch hypocrites the Greens doing a preference swap deal with Bob Katter and self promoting coal mining baron, Clive Palmer. Each is prepared to do deals almost certainly contrary to the wishes of the majority of their supporters, risking their enemies being elected in order to better their own chances.

What a grubby farrago of rorts! An insult to democracy … and all to save time and expense when tallying up the votes.

I filled out all 110 boxes. I thought: “Fuck you. I’m going to put everyone in the order I want”. When I got to about 20, I had exhausted all the minor parties I wanted to encourage, such as the Liberal Democrats and Drug Law Reform, so put the Coalition 21 – 26. After that, my preferences can exhaust, for all I care. Yet I had to go through the largely meaningless exercise of filling in boxes 27 – 110. I put the Greens 105 – 110, where they belong.

Had I been in a hurry, I wouldn’t have bothered. I suspect this is how the overwhelming majority of people react. That’s exactly what the people who designed this system are counting on.

Forcing this choice on voters, knowing full well the majority of them will respond by voting 1 above the line is in direct contradiction to the fundamental purpose of a democratic election. Voters should be able to choose as many candidates as they wish, in the order they wish, without being punished for it by being forced to exhaust the list in a meaningless set of choices from 30 to 110.

There’s an easy solution: optional preferential voting in all elections, with the choice of numbering groups above the line or individual candidates below the line in the Senate. Add to that the option of not choosing any candidates at all and we’d be a lot closer to a genuinely democratic election.

Optional preferential voting should also allow preferences to exhaust, rather than defaulting to proxy preferences. An example of what I mean by this is the following:

Suppose a voter numbers 3 minor parties above the line and leaves it at that. They are effectively saying that they don’t like any of the remaining parties and would rather their vote go unallocated if it cannot be to any of their 3 choices. Suppose now that their first choice is eliminated in the count, but their second choice is also already out. Their vote is then transferred to their third choice.

Suppose this third choice party is subsequently eliminated. Should the vote exhaust and not be allocated to anyone else, or should it then follow the official preference order of the third choice party, or maybe the official preference order of their first choice, effectively allowing one of those partys a proxy? I believe exhaustion would be the intention of most people voting in such a manner.

How much simpler would it have been to just list as many numbers as you want above the line on the Senate ballot, then vote 1 in the House of Representatives if your preferred candidate is going to win a safe seat, or maybe 1, 2, 3 if they aren’t? How much simpler to exercise your right to reject all the candidates by staying at home, rather than turning up under duress and voting informal?

How much simpler to both vote and count the votes if you could log in and do it online? There could even be automated checks to prevent people accidentally voting informally.

The tax department has sufficient security to let you submit your tax return online. The RTA lets you sort out pretty much all aspects of your vehicle registration online. People do most of their banking and share trading online. If this is all acceptable, how is it we cannot vote online? How many of our tax dollars would it save?

If citizens are sick of feeling gypped in the polling booth, then we really need to campaign for optional preferential voting in all elections to stop being corralled into these cynical and grubby preference swaps.

Coalition By 32 On Sept 7

Using implied probabilities from Sportsbet and Centrebet odds to simulate the result of all 150 federal seats, I estimate the Coalition will gain a 32 seat majority in the House of Representatives on Sep 7.

Both bookmakers give odds on every federal seat. One can use the payouts to estimate the probabilities of each candidate winning in each seat. The method I used is discussed here. Then it is a matter of calculating a probability distribution for the election outcome by running many simulations of the result of all 150 seats simultaneously. In this model, the most probable outcomes are 91 or 92 seats for the Coalition, 56 or 57 for Labor and 2 or 3 for independents.

Interestingly, when I first ran the simulation on Friday night, the most likely results were the Coalition 90 or 91, Labor 57 or 58 and 2 or 3 independents. However, the odds for the Coalition have shortened in many seats over the past few days, especially in Queensland. In particular, the Liberals are now favourites in Brand and Eden-Monaro. On Friday night, the ALP were.

There will almost certainly be at least two independents in the lower house after Sep 7. Bob Katter is an overwhelming favourite to retain Kennedy and Andrew Wilkie is paying $1.15 on Sportsbet and $1.10 on Centrebet to win Denison. That implies an 85% probability of winning the seat. The other independent could either be strong local candidate and rural consultant, Cathy McGowan in Indi or the Greens’ Adam Bandt in Melbourne. The betting on both of these has lengthened in the past week, but it is possible one will get in. There are a couple of other seats with a strongly rated third candidate: Clive Palmer in Fairfax and former Gosford mayor Lawrie McKinna in Robertson, although these two are paying $8 - $10. Between the four candidates, there is a significant chance at least one could get up (though I believe, less than 50%).

Here is how the simulation works:

1.      For each of the 150 electorates, get the payouts from Sportsbet and Centrebet, then separately calculate the implied probability distributions as per my article.

2.      Average the two implied probability densities. I grouped all candidates other than the Coalition and ALP into a single “third outcome”, or fourth outcome in the three Lib – Nat – ALP three cornered contests: Mallee, Durack and O’Connor. These three seats will all be won by the Coalition anyway.

3.      For each run of the simulation, draw 150 random numbers between 0 and 1. For any particular seat, suppose the calculated probability in Step 2 of the Coalition winning is P₁, the ALP winning is P₂ and someone else winning is 1 – P₁ – P₂. Then if the random number R < P₁, the Coalition wins the seat. If P₁ < R < P₂, the ALP wins the seat. Otherwise the shortest priced other candidate wins. This gives us the distribution of seats in the lower house for this particular simulation run.

4.      Run Step 3 many times. I used 1,000,000. The frequency of each possible make-up of parliament is an estimate of its probability.

A brief note on generating the 150 random numbers:

Generating them independently assumes the events and voter decisions which will lead to each candidate winning or losing are independent between seats. This is clearly not the case. Between now and Sep 7, local issues will combine with an overall “electoral mood” to decide the results. The changes in electoral mood (currently swinging toward the Coalition) will influence seats toward either Coalition or ALP candidates and thus produce correlations in outcomes.

The way to model this is to generate a single random number R₀ in the interval (0, C) for the mood, then 150 independent random numbers, R_k in the interval (0, 1-C), representing local factors.

The random number in Step 3 for electorate k is then R₀ + R_k. The common factor R₀ in all 150 random numbers represents the overall electoral mood in that particular simulation. Raising the value of C increases the correlation of outcomes.

I used C = 0.1. Lower values of C favour the independents. A higher value than 0.1 may even be justified: I have no data on which to calibrate a choice, so have decided to err on the conservative side (scientific, not political).

It is important to understand that C does not reprsent the correlation between current voting intentions in different seats. That is provided by the correlations between the current payouts.

What C reprsents is the correlation between changes in voting intentions in different seats between now and the election date. Higher values mean changes in the overall electoral mood will have a stronger influence on the outcomes in each seat.

A run just prior to this post gave Coalition – Labor – Independents 91 – 57 – 2 as the most likely outcome. Last Friday night, it was 90 – 58 – 2.

Even though the Coalition has moved ahead in the betting in both Brand and Eden-Monaro in the past few days, the most probable outcome is still that they will pick up one of these seats, although there is a significant chance they could win both.

Nate Silver had great success forecasting the 2012 US presidential election using betting and polling data. The latter was easier to obtain than polling data by individual seat here, because in the US presidential election, the “seats” are actually the states, with the winner of a state taking all allotted electors.

I don’t really have the time to get such data and probably couldn’t anyway, unless I was embedded in one of the major parties’ campaigns. I’m assuming the changes in betting odds will correlate highly with changes in local polls, even though they are actually determined more by the amounts bet on each candidate.

Anyway, given the data currently available, my call is an easy victory to the Coalition, with a 32 seat majority in the House of Representatives. I strongly doubt they will get control of the Senate.

I'll run an update on the night of Friday Sep 6 to see how much things have changed.

How To Make A Certain $116 When Joining Sportsbet and Centrebet

This post was written before I worked out better methods of using free bets. I have left it live to illustrate a simple strategy which does not involve lay betting.

Sportsbet offers a free $100 bet to new members after their first bet. Centrebet offers a free $200 bet. Strictly, each offers to match your first bet with a free one, up to a maximum of $100 for Sportsbet and $200 for Centrebet.

The question is: Instead of potentially wasting your free bets and losing money on the initial wagers to earn them by just taking a punt, is there a strategy which ensures a guaranteed profit?

The answer is yes. You can earn a guaranteed $116 from an initial outlay of $448, or with very minimal risk, $136 from an initial outlay of $348.

There are some conditions around the free bets which affect the strategy, so I’ll explain them first.

Firstly, Sportsbet gives you the free bet as soon as you lay your first one.  The free bet can only be used on sport or racing, not the election, for example. Centrebet on the other hand gives you the free bet only after your first one has crystallized eg. after the football match you bet on has been played, but lets you use it on any event. You can even split it over multiple events.

The catch is that both companies don’t let you bet on an event where you have used your free bet. Thus, you can’t pick a sporting event and just pay to cover the other side.

An additional condition which affects the strategy is that with both bookmakers, the free bet only pays you the profit if you win, not the wager as well. That is, if you use your $100 free bet on Sydney to beat Hawthorn with +10.5 pts start at $1.92, a win will only see you paid $92, not the $192 you would get if you actually bet your own $100.

A final point to be aware of before starting is that both Sportsbet and Centrebet offer to use a credit card to make your initial deposit because it’s easier for them to identify you as per their legal obligations. If you pull the money out of your credit card, the bank will treat it as a cash advance and charge you 1.75%. Better to choose the EFT option and wait one day for the funds to clear. The saving will be $7.84. That’s almost enough for 2 schooners (or one at a fancy bar)!

I’ll firstly describe the pure arbitrage ie. zero risk strategy. This will gain you a certain $116.

Step 1:  Deposit $248 in Sportsbet and $200 in Centrebet by EFT.

Step 2:  Find a football match or similar event where there are only two possible, evenly priced outcomes and no third possibility of a draw. Points start is a good one. It must be an event which will occur straight away, because this game is going to earn you both your free bets. Most importantly, Sportsbet and Centrebet must be offering exactly the same points start. There is a risk of loss if they are not. There are always plenty of such matches. Sydney has +10.5 pts start against Hawthorn on both sites right now.

Step 3:  Bet $200 on one team, say Sydney on Sportsbet and $200 on the other team (Hawthorn) on Centrebet. I’m going to assume the wager is paying $1.91. Points start wagers on some games will pay $1.92, but we’ll be conservative and assume $1.91. No matter what happens in the game, you will receive $382 from one site and lose your $200 on the other.  Overall, you have spent $400 and gotten back $382, but it doesn’t matter: you’ve spent a certain $18 to earn $300 in free bets.

Step 4:  Wait until the game is finished to receive both your free bets. If they were of equal value, you could just find another points start bet as in Step 2 and take each side on the two sites. But because Centrebet’s free bet is $200, you can’t use your Sportsbet $100 free bet and lay off the extra $100 on the same game because Sportsbet won’t let you bet on the same event as your free bet. Hence, we need to find two games in which the points start bets are identical on both sites. That will be easy, particularly if your bets in Step 2 are on a Friday night game. Then you have all Saturday and Sunday’s NRL and AFL games to choose from.

Step 5:  Suppose the first game you find is St Kilda +36.5 vs Fremantle at $1.91 each. Bet $100 of your Centrebet free bet on St Kilda at $1.91. Now bet your $100 Sportsbet free bet on Fremantle at $1.91. One of the bets will pay out $91 (remember the free bet conditions) and the other nothing. You’ve earned a certain $91, regardless of the result.

Step 6:  Suppose the second game you find is Carlton +6.5 vs Port Adelaide at $1.91 each. Bet the remaining $100 of your Centrebet free bet on Carlton at $1.91. Now you’ll need to bet your own money at Sportsbet on Port Adelaide at $1.91. It will need to be enough to match the Centrebet payout of $91. So, bet $48 on Port at $1.91. Remember, since it’s a bet with your own money, a win will pay out 1.91 x the bet, not 0.91 as for the free bet. One of the bets will pay out $91 (remember the free bet conditions) and the other nothing. Again, you’ve earned a certain $91, regardless of the result, but this time you’ve had to lay out $48. Thus, you have a certain $43 profit.

Step 7:  Count your winnings. A certain $91 + $43 - $18 on the first game = $116. Thanks Fingo! Funds for 2 cases of Reschs or Coopers longnecks (or one of each), with enough left over for a couple of take away curries.

Note that both Sportsbet and Centrebet also give you a free $50 bet for referring a friend. If you receive these, since they are equal amounts, you can just follow Step 5 above. Take each side of a single game on each site for a certain $45.50 from your two free bets.

That’s how to do it in complete safety. You can make a little more if you’re prepared to wait a couple of weeks for bets to pay off and take a couple of very small risks. This second strategy is not a pure arbitrage, but the risks are minimal and you’ll earn $136 for an initial outlay of $348.

Step 1:  Deposit $148 in Sportsbet and $200 in Centrebet by EFT.

Step 2:  You’re going to bet on individual seats in the upcoming federal election. Find two different seats in which the sitting member has a massive majority, say Bradfield and Wentworth. Choose different ones for Sportsbet and Centrebet to minimize the risk.

Step 3:  Bet $100 on the Libs to win eg. Bradfield on Sportsbet at $1.001 and $200 on Wentworth on Centrebet at $1.01 (Centrebet is not quoting $1.001). If you’re an ALP supporter and can’t stomach that, choose a pair like Charlton and Gellibrand instead. If you’re a Greens supporter, you probably didn’t read this far because you think gambling is evil.

Step 4:  You’ll have to wait until after the election to claim your free $200 bet from Centrebet. But you won’t have dropped $18 securing the arbitrage. In fact, barring some freak event, you’ll be $2.10 ahead. Now you’ll need to find two games with identical points starts on both sites as in Step 4 of the first strategy.

Steps 5 and 6:  Exactly as in Steps 5 & 6 in the first strategy.

Step 7:  Count your winnings. A $91 + $43 + $2.10 = $136. Enough to get a six pack of a winter beer like Squire’s Amber as well.

Jump onto your favourite porn site after consuming your winnings and you’ll be lying back, saying: “Aah! My belly’s full and my balls are empty … life is good!”

And remember ... gambling is only fun when you think carefully about what you're doing.

How To Calculate Probabilities From Bookmakers' Odds

If a fair bet on a horse or football team is paying $4.00, that implies a probability of winning of 1/4. That’s because for every 4 such bets you take at $1.00 each, you’ll expect to win one. So the general principle in an unbiased bet is that the probability of the outcome is 1 / the payout. Alternatively, the payout should be 1 / the probability of the outcome.

But bookmakers always pay less than this. That’s how they make a profit: by biasing the wager in their favour. Equivalently, the probabilities implied by bookmakers’ payouts always add up to more than 1.

The simplest example is the points start bet between two football teams. It’s always set such that the implied chances of either outcome are 50/50. But the payout is somewhere in the range $1.90 - $1.92 per $1 bet, depending on the bookmaker. In such cases, even though the probabilities, say 1/1.9, add to more than 1, it is clear from the equal payoffs that the true implied probabilities are 50% for each team. Note that points starts are always halves eg. +3½, so there is no third possibility of a draw.

An asymmetric example is a bet on the winner of a football game where one team is expected to win. They might be paying $1.50, their opposition $2.50, with $15 for a draw. The implied probabilities here are 1/1.5 = 2/3, 1/2.5 = 2/5 and 1/15. Notice that they add to 17/15. To get the true probabilities implied by the payoffs, we could naively just multiply by 15/17, so the actual probability of a win for the favourite is 10/17, their opposition 6/17 and a draw 1/17.

Another example might be a horse race in which the runners are paying $3, $4, $6, $8, $8, $12, $24. If you add the implied probabilities, you’ll get 9/8. So, we could just multiply them all by 8/9 to get the actual probabilities implied by the bookie’s odds: 8/27, 2/9, 4/27, 1/9, 1/9, 2/27, 1/27.

Seems easy. Just like picking the winner in the football game, there’s no overwhelming favourite and the true probabilities are all in the ratio implied by the bookmaker’s payouts.

Now consider the case of a two horse race with an overwhelming favourite, for example betting on the election result in a safe seat. Let’s suppose the favourite is paying $1.01 and the challenger $20. The implied probabilities are 100/101 and 1/20. If you look at betting on the federal election on Sportsbet or TAB, you’ll see the challenger is typically paying even less than this.

Let’s try our previous method. The implied probabilities add to 2101/2020, so multiply each by 2020/2101 to get 0.9519 and 0.0481. By this method, the outsider’s true probability is roughly the 5% implied by the $20 payout, but the favourite’s true probability is estimated at just over 95%, despite the odds implying a chance of winning of approximately 99%.

Is this a reasonable outcome? No.

The reason why is that the $20 payout figure is essentially made up. To protect the bookmaker against a freak loss, this payout is well under the payout implied by the true probability of the outsider winning. There is a big difference between a 95% chance and a 99% chance. The odds of the favourite winning really are much closer to the latter.

What this situation is really telling us is that, unlike in the football game or horse race, the two payout values do not contain the same amount of information. In a fair bet on a two horse race, the probability of one outcome contains all the information about both, since the probabilities add to 1. However, bookmakers’ payouts in a two horse race contain independent components of information, since their implied probabilities add to more than 1. We need to adjust the improper, payout implied probabilities to reflect the fact that the $1.01 payout contains more information as to the true probabilities than the $20 payout ie. adjust the favourite’s probability by a little and the outsider’s by relatively more.

One way to do this is to use the log likelihood function. It is the log of the product of the probabilities of all the possible outcomes.

If the payout implied, improper probabilities are q₁, q₂, …,  then the (improper) log likelihood function is

            L_imp = Σ_k log q_k

If we assume the log likelihood function of the true probabilities is a constant times the above function:

            L = C * Σ_k log q_k

this implies the true probabilities are p_k = q_k^C, with the constraint

            Σ_k q_k^C = 1

We can solve this equation for C and thus determine the true probabilities, assuming that larger implied probabilities contain more information.

Applying the method to our {$1.01, $20} race, we obtain C = 1.4234 and actual probabilities of 0.986 and 0.014. Notice that the favourite’s probability is still close to the bookmaker implied 100/101, but the outsider’s estimated probability is now approximately 1/70.

Let’s take payouts for the perfidious Tony Windsor’s electorate of New England, almost certain to be regained for the Nationals by his arch nemesis and inveterate dill, Barnaby Joyce. They are $1.01 (Joyce), $13 (ALP), $41, $51, $81 for the rest. The implied probabilities add to 1.1234, but simply dividing by this value estimates a true probability of 88% of Joyce winning the seat. This is clearly wrong: he is almost certain to win.

Using the log likelihood method, we obtain C = 1.6936 and fair payout values of $1.017, $77, $540, $780, $1700, with the actual probabilities being the reciprocals of these amounts.

Sportsbet has payouts of $1.001, $15, $26, $34 for New England (the $26 being for any candidate but Joyce, the ALP and Palmer United). Applying the log likelihood method to these gives fair payout values of $1.0024, $600, $2195, $4135, much more realistic, given the bookie’s payout on Joyce of 1 cent per $10 bet.

The main point here is that dividing the improper, payout implied probabilities by their sum to obtain the actual implied probabilities (as in our first few examples) only works as a reasonable approximation when there is no clear separation of the outcomes into two groups such that the winner is overwhelmingly likely to come from one group. The case of a single, overwhelming favourite and a group of also rans is the obvious example. In such cases, the log likelihood method works well. It properly uses the information in the favourite payout and more realistically estimates the total probability of the outsiders.

In cases where there are multiple favourites and the remainder are long outsiders, the accuracy of the simple division method is less clear cut. Consider the example of three equal favourites, each paying $3 and the remainder paying long odds, say $25, $50 and $100.

In this example, the improper probabilities add to 1.07. Dividing by this, we obtain actual probabilities of 100/321 for the favourites and 4/107, 2/107, 1/107 for the others. This gives fair payouts of $3.21, $3.21, $3.21, $26.75, $53.50 and $107; not much different to the originals. At a glance, it’s not obvious there is anything wrong, perhaps because the long odds payouts really are accurate representations of the relative likelihoods of the outsiders versus the favourites winning.

But perhaps they are not. Perhaps the chance of the winner coming from one of the 3 favourites is very high, say 99%. There is simply insufficient information in the payouts to differentiate approximately accurate payouts for outsiders from unrepresentative ones.

For cases with multiple favourites and the remainder long outsiders, the value of C in the log likelihood method is not much greater than 1. The estimates of the actual probabilities of the outside chances are therefore not much greater than 1 / the payout values.

In the 3 favourites case above, the log likelihood method gives C = 1.054 and revised payouts of $3.18, $3.18, $3.18, $29.75, $61.75 and $128. With one overwhelming favourite, the method tacitly assumes its odds are approximately correct and decreases the probabilities of all other outcomes. With multiple favourites, there is no evidence to support this and so the actual probabilities are close to those obtained by the simple division method.

Such cases require a decision as to whether we believe the ratio of the long to short odds is approximately correct or alternatively, does the bulk of the excess probability in the improper prior come from understating the outsiders’ payoffs?

If the latter, we need to estimate the tail of the distribution separately ie. choose a threshold payout beyond which the information content reduces rapidly and adjust the payouts upward to decrease the size of the tail prior to applying the log likelihood method. Such a procedure is systematic, but necessarily subjective ie. not derivable from a priori principles.

Suppose we choose some threshold payout Q and multiply each payout q_k by max (1, q_k/Q). Note that this function is subjective and requires calibration to beliefs about the true tail probabilities, or equivalently, the true chance of the winner coming from the group of favourites. Other functions will achieve qualitatively the same result.

For example, let Q = $10 in the 3 favourites case above. Their payouts are unchanged. However, the others become $62.50, $250 and $1000. Applying the log likelihood method then gives fair payouts of $3.06, $3.06, $3.06, $67, $275 and $1130. These are commensurate with the belief that the winner will almost certainly be one of the 3 favourites.

Note that this payout threshold transformation can be applied prior to using the log likelihood method in the case of a single favourite if there is a firm belief the long odds have been understated. The effect is not so great, however. In the case of the odds for the federal seat of New England, firstly applying the threshold multiplication with Q = 10, the result after the log likelihood method is $1.015, $71, $2250, $4340 and $17500. Interestingly, the probability of the ALP candidate winning increases from 1/77 to 1/71. This typically happens: the second shortest priced candidate comes in a little if the transformation is made. This illustrates the importance of only applying such subjective transformations if there is some external evidence to support doing so.

Stay tuned … the reason I’ve given this topic so much thought is that I’m about to apply it to sports betting odds on individual seats in the upcoming federal election. This will allow a simulation of the overall election and an estimation of the chances of various outcomes, including the parliamentary majority gained by the winner.

The HREOC Is Not A Vehicle For Redressing Personal Insults

Why has the Equal Opportunity Commission been allowed to believe it has some role in assisting people seeking redress for insults delivered in a private context?

Speaking as a libertarian, that is the most concerning element of the handling of former Monash councillor Kathy Magee’s 2002 complaint against recently dumped 2013 federal candidate for Hotham, Geoff Lake.

By his own admission, Geoff Lake said to Kathy Magee, in private:

"I can't believe what you did you fucking bitch. You are a fuckwit for doing that."

There is a strong suggestion he actually called her a “fucking slut”. Reading the quotes from both parties:

“If I had used any word other than 'slut' this would not be an issue”

“When someone calls you a slut, it tends to be offensive”

One might reasonably draw the conclusion that Geoff Lake really did say “fucking slut”, but even if he did, so what?

It’s highly unlikely wheelchair bound Kathy Magee is actually a slut, but perhaps he meant she was whoring herself out politically. Then again, perhaps his insult was more base and he was just being aggressive toward a cripple.

What did Kathy Magee do that so aroused Geoff Lake’s ire? We’re not told, however I doubt it was nothing. Pretended to support an initiative or motion and then changed sides? Broke a confidence (explicit or tacit)? That tends to be the sort of behaviour which would elicit Geoff Lake’s angry words.

If someone is in a wheelchair, do they suddenly become a saint? Are they suddenly incapable of dishonesty? Are they immune from censure for dishonesty?

It looks very much to me like Geoff Lake was counting on fellow lefty Kathy Magee’s support on something important and she withdrew it without letting him know beforehand. I wasn’t there; that’s just my reading of the situation.

It’s the sort of behaviour which will get you called a “fuckwit” or a “fucking bitch”. Perhaps Kathy Magee really is both of those things. Being in a wheelchair doesn’t mean she can’t be. It also doesn’t exempt her from being told she is if that’s what someone thinks.

There are gender specific insults because there are gender specific behaviours. Women often do shitty things in different ways to men. A woman will be a stupid bitch, a man a stupid prick. Geoff Lake could hardly have called Kathy Magee a “fucking prick”, could he? But he would have said it to a man.

The important issue here is not whether what Geoff Lake said was “demeaning and degrading” or “offensive to women”. So what if it was?

I called someone a useless piece of shit the other day (because they are). That’s pretty degrading and offensive. Do they now get to run off to the Equal Opportunity Commission? Or do they only get to enlist its help if they are brown, because I must be racist for likening a brown person to a shit? If they are a brown woman, am I a double oppressor for being aggressive as well as racist?

It’s not even that “oppressed” people are playing the discrimination card to enlist the EOC’s aid in settling personal disputes at taxpayers' expense. If the EOC were properly governed, it would have a sufficiently strict ambit so as to immediately reject such complaints.

It’s that the unelected cabal which staffs the Equal Opportunity Commission has managed to gain sufficient power and influence so that not only do they believe it is their role to involve themselves in such matters, but instead of telling them to fuck off, people like Geoff Lake end up acquiescing to them, imbuing them with even more self righteousness.

What types of people want to work at the EOC? There wouldn’t be too many Liberal voters, would there? It’s full of left wing social engineers. Card carrying members of socialism’s great rule making enterprise. People trained to seek out all forms of privilege but their own and make regulations, policies and procedures to overturn it.

One of their chief tactics to increase their influence is to extend the specific to the general via non sequitur. This matter is a good case study.

It’s not merely a case of a bloke swearing at someone who pissed him off. Geoff Lake, being a privileged, white, university educated male has aggressively used “demeaning, degrading and offensive” language to a disabled woman, and probably a lesbian as well, if her picture is anything to go by. Therefore, his conduct is demeaning, degrading and offensive to any oppressed group in the Venn diagram represented by Kathy Magee.

Actually, you couldn’t concoct a better caricature of a left wing political “trophy candidate”. She even looks like Millie Tant from Viz.

Whether the ALP thinks swearing at disabled lesbians is sufficient to disqualify a candidate is their business. But that’s a completely distinct matter from it being the business of the unelected, left wing activists in the EOC. If you agree that these people and their agenda need to be curtailed, then vote Liberal or National, because Labor and (especially) the Greens are their facilitators.

Mana Mamau: The Greatest Show On Earth

Is there a better show on TV than Mana Mamau? I doubt it.

Mana Mamau’s professional wrestling from New Zealand’s IPW harks back to the old school 1960’s and 70’s World Championship Wrestling, but with the added treat of commentary in Maori.

Until I saw Mana Mamau, I had believed they just don’t make wrestling like they used to. Here’s a WCW clip from the early 70’s of the “Golden Greek” Spiros Arion vs Abdullah The Butcher. Where else would you hear commentary such as:

“Because the Butcher’s Axe from the top rope has been declared illegal in 17 countries”.

Here’s another WCW clip from 1973: Abdullah The Butcher & Bulldog Brower vs Mark Lewin & Killer Karl Kox in a tag team match, which of course ended in chaos.

And of course, my all time favourite, Bruiser Brody, seen in this video clip against Texas Red, who would later appear in the WWF as The Undertaker.

Now here’s Kingi vs Dal Knox for the IPW heavyweight championship, with an awesome, modern variant of the aeroplane spin, plus a tag team match.

You don’t get entertainment like this in the NRL without a streaker.

Looking at the IPW’s roster, what they are lacking is a couple of big, fat blokes. They have a man mountain in 6’10” former MMA fighter Reuben De Jong, but what they need to round out the stable is an old school fatman like King Kong Bundy.

Surely there are sufficiently many Bundy sized Islanders in NZ to rectify this problem. Slamming them would be a true test for Reuben De Jong. In spite of this oversight, in Mana Mamau vs the WWE, it’s TAHI! RUA! TORA! to Mana Mamau!

After Sept 7, Will We Still Have The Government We Deserve?

“Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite” ¹

The bulk of this post was written in late June, just after Rudd’s successful leadership challenge, but I didn’t get around to finishing it. Now the official date for ridding ourselves of this three ring circus has been set for Sep 7, perhaps it is time to contemplate Joseph De Maistre’s observation.

Is this really the government we deserve? Is it even a government at all?

With the second deposition of a prime minister in two terms, after a long period of calculated destabilisation in the run-up to a federal election, the ALP have been for months more interested in fighting amongst themselves than governing the country, or even fighting the opposition.

It is not that uncommon for an opposition to select a more electable leader prior to an election, often in the best interests of the party (and sometimes the nation). Bob Hawke deposed Bill Hayden prior to the 1983 federal election and beat Malcolm Fraser, becoming one of the better prime ministers Australia has had. Ironically, he introduced the economic liberalisation Fraser had promised, but was too gutless to deliver. Fraser had also knocked off Billy Snedden as Liberal leader eight months before the 1975 election.

But compare the transition of leadership from Hawke to Keating with this current fiasco. At least both Hawke and Keating had some personal gravitas and command of their party.

This is not a government which even wants to govern. Look at the host of senior ministers who are now retiring at this election. Add to that the independent MPs who kept this farce going: Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, gutlessly slinking off without facing their constituents, knowing full well their majority conservative electorates will turf them out for supporting a minority ALP government. Their perfidy was such that they chose to hang on to their jobs, rather than have the integrity to do what their constituents wanted: join a no confidence motion to allow an early election.

In particular, Tony Windsor has supported this minority government out of spite: namely, his long running feud with the Nationals and primarily, Barnaby Joyce. He represents perhaps the MOST conservative electorate in the country, New England. In the 2010 federal election only 11.7% of its voters chose the ALP or Greens.

I find it difficult to understand how people cannot see through Kevin Rudd. He is such a slimy little weasel of a man (if he could be called a man at all). Half his policies are stolen from the Liberals, as they were in 2007. Everything he utters is overly rehearsed and delivered with that nauseating, self satisfied look on his face. He is the archetypal “executive manager”: all committees and Power Point presentations. But it’s all a smokescreen, as his overweening ego prevents him from genuinely listening to advice.

I’m not a particular fan of Abbott and the Coalition is looking a bit weak on talent, but consider the alternative: Rudd and a team of largely inexperienced nobodies. Julia Gillard, Simon Crean, Craig Emerson, Martin Ferguson, Greg Combet, Robert McLelland, Nicola Roxon, Steven Smith, Peter Garrett … all retiring.

Many people would be popping the champagne corks at some of these announcements, particularly the unctuously spineless Steven Smith and the well meaning, but utterly incompetent Peter Garrett. However, the retirees are the bulk of Labor’s experienced ministers. Who is left? The turncoat Bill Shorten? Penny Wong? Tanya Plibersek? Wayne Swan to return the favour and white ant Rudd before a challenge in 2015? God help us.

If you think the past 3 years have been a testament to poor government, to vote the remaining rump back in would be tantamount to criminality.

I’m disappointed that Greg Combet is leaving parliament. I don’t agree with many of his political positions, but he is a solid intellect, clear on policy and a competent minister. In my opinion, he is by far the most credible ALP leader. Yet he’s had enough as well. What does that tell you about the functionality of any prospective ALP government?

So, the choice on September 7 is a gutted, inexperienced ALP, led by a vengeful, egomaniacal balloon, or an opposition who are at least comparatively disciplined, but compared to the Howard government, are weak on economic policy.

If we really can’t get better quality than this in Australian politics, perhaps we really do deserve to have, effectively almost no government.

And whatever you do, don’t vote for the Greens, unless you think being preached to by moralising, university educated, middle class socialist hypocrites is actually a form of government.

¹ “Every nation has the government it deserves.” Joseph de Maistre in Lettres et Opuscules, writing in 1811 about Russia’s new constitutional laws.