Optional preferential voting allows
voters to number 1, 2, 3, ... as many of the candidates as they choose. One
option is to just put a 1 next to a single candidate. Many voters in fact do
this. Some indicate their most favoured with a 1 and a second preference with a
2, then leave the rest blank. Some preference all candidates right down to the
last.
Each voter gets to say: “I prefer
these candidates, in this order and further, I don’t want to see any of these
ones elected at all.” If they wish, voters can preference a few minor parties,
then have their vote exhaust if those are not elected.
Compulsory preferential voting forces
all voters to rank all candidates from first to last, or not have their vote
counted at all.
The point is that optional
preferential voting gives voters an extra choice: abstention. They can still
preference all candidates if they wish, but they don’t have to.
Which system do you believe is more
democratic? I suggest the one which gives more choice. The fact that the
choices of the compulsory preferential system are a subset of the choices in
the optional preferential system strongly supports this argument.
So the grubbery of Queensland’s Labor government
pushing through legislation to replace optional preferential voting with compulsory preferential voting is a genuine attack on democracy. With no upper house
in Queensland, the changes are now law and will be in force for the next state
election (and preceding by-elections).
The real reason the ALP changed the
system is to force previously exhausting Green votes back to them. This may
well get them across the line in several marginal electorates and help them
retain government. It is well known that if forced, the overwhelming majority
of Greens’ preferences flow to Labor, while as many as 40% exhaust under the optional preferential system.
The two Katter Party and two
independent MPs whose support was required to see the legislation pass did so
out of pure self interest: compulsory preferential voting usually assists minor
parties and independents because many people who vote for them put the major
parties last, allowing preferences to flow between minor parties and
independents, rather than exhaust.
This legislative change was rendered
all the more farcical by it being pushed through with 18 minutes notice, after the LNP had succeeded in adding an extra four seats to the Queensland parliament (with the help of the Katter Party and ALP defector Rob Pyne).
The most ridiculously dishonest claims
came from Attorney General Yvette D’Ath, who accused the opposition of
hypocrisy, given that it had forced the vote on adding the four seats, then
followed up with the claim: “These amendments are about reducing the number of
informal votes that we see at state and federal elections.”
Really? How, exactly, would changing a
system people are used to and forcing voters to number MORE boxes REDUCE the
number of informal votes?
The claims of LNP hypocrisy are also absurd:
the legislation adding the extra four seats had already been debated twice. The
previous debate meant the changes had sufficient time to have been discussed in
the media. With the help of the cross bench, they forced a third debate, which
saw the legislation passed. Slightly different to blindsiding not just
parliament, but the electorate with obviously self serving changes which I
suggest most voters don’t want.
Complaints that adding an extra four
MPs will cost Queensland taxpayers around an extra $1M p.a. are legitimate,
however Queensland has had 89 MPs since 1986. During the past 30 years, the Queensland population has grown 85%, from 2.6M to 4.8M (3M of which are
eligible to vote). That’s an average increase of 3.0% p.a., compared to the Australian population growth rate of 1.75% over the same period.
Queensland has grown a lot since 1986,
so increasing the number of MPs from 89 to 93 probably is not all that
unreasonable.
What motivated the LNP (and the Katter
Party to support them) is the change in population balance toward SE Queensland
over the past 30 years. Looking at population changes by LGA, the greatest growth since 2005 has been in Brisbane, Ipswich,
Logan, Moreton Bay, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Townsville and Cairns. Thus, if
the number of seats was kept at 89, any electoral redistribution may well have
created extra seats in the south east and amalgamated some in rural areas. Not
something they would have wanted.
Adding an extra four seats, probably
all in SE Queensland, will allow the LNP and Katter Party to avoid a
significant redistribution of rural seats. Given that the ALP could well gain
at least 2 and possibly 3 of the extra 4 seats, they really have no reason to
complain.
However, all Queensland voters have
good reason to vigorously complain about the return of compulsory preferential
voting, because it takes away an important choice: the right to choose none of
the bastards.
I’d like to see the non-ALP voters of
Queensland protest by preferencing Labor last. But realistically, it won’t
happen. The outrage will have died down and be harder to revive by the next
state election in 2019 and most Greens voters will preference the ALP second
last and the LNP last.
The only real hope is to see the ALP
lose seats in by-elections between now and 2019, lose the support of the cross
benches and lose government.
Of course, if Campbell Newman hadn’t
run such an arrogant, unconsultative government, the ALP would never have been
elected in 2015. It takes a real tin ear to lose government in one term from a
78-7 majority.
Thanks Campbell, you fuckwit! Now look
what you’ve done for Queensland.
