Does anyone here want to talk about Australian politics?

'Bandit' is an anagram of 'I, Bandt'.

off to a great start

Chris Bowen has slapped down Greens demands for a more aggressive decarbonisation pathway amid fears over projects such as Woodside’s $16.5 billion Scarborough gas project. https://t.co/3pnoopcnWg

— Financial Review (@FinancialReview) May 23, 2022

(@trayce - yep, couple of hot Polish with cream cheese & sauerkraut, eaten in the batting cage at the corner of the CHAZ/CHOP: true fucken blue m8)

This parliament is going to be a real argy bargy between Labor and the Greens, but I expect the Greens will win at least some of the battles.

guillotine time

i <3 toto albanese, there i said it

you can line up the account holder though, that’s another matter

Still the best 15+ minutes of TV a week, if you haven't seen it yet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANeqEi0xcxw

labor are not going to immediately concede to the greens on anything so i'm not surprised by the rhetoric (though there has been some slightly softer language elsewhere)

the reality is that labor is forced to negotiate with the greens if they want to legislate and this is the reality going forward for them in government that they need to get used to (it was the case in 2010 too but that was a more complex situation). they've shown they can be pragmatic in the past so we just have to wait to see how parliament will play out. labor being underwhelming in government is also a very good way for them to lose further seats to the greens

I suppose the makeup of the Senate will determine how tightly the thumbscrews are applied (and bring it on). They'd have to read a surge in green sentiment in the national outcome too, it might embolden them to tiptoe left of "Liberal Party Lite" policies.

the makeup of the senate is clear enough to say that labor + greens + david pocock (a left-wing independent) should be a majority. an alternative option to working with pocock (though he shouldn't pose many problems to anything labor & the greens support) is jacqui lambie & her newly-elected second senator who should also not be too difficult for them to work with.

if labor wants to pass something extremely shit though they can of course try to get the opposition's backing for things the greens oppose.

not going to immediately concede to the greens on anything

yah, but it’s also clear that the new Minister For Coal is not going to be living up to any broekn labor voters’ fantasies of “they have to campaign on things they don’t believe in in order to win votes! they’ll just do good things instead once they’re in office!”

ty for the MW S- -- I also enjoyed last week's breakdown of Morrison's total failure to whip up a culture war about trans ppl, let alone a victory from one

Are we going to have some UAP nutter in the senate¿?

https://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2022/05/2022-senate-postcounts-main-thread.html

here's a detailed overview of the senate prospects, it's possible we get a uap senator from victoria but it's probably not going to be clear until the senate results are finalised mid-june. would only be potentially taking a seat from the liberals so not a great loss.

That Vic UAP guy appears to be an antivax/antilockdown nutbar. Not the greatest platform to run on when its not even an issue anymore yeesh.

Delightful that Victoria can't claim a Steve Fielding-like "it's byzantine preferences deals wot done it" situation with the Palmer candidate. The UAP primary vote *was* actually relatively strong here and a win for them would appear to be a pretty fair approximation of what the people asked for. *weeps*

Labor + Greens + Pocock = absolute majority in the Senate though, so as long as the right compromises can be made on the Left side of things (big 'if' I guess), they don't have to deal with any of the other morons.

UAP primary vote *was* actually relatively strong here

no, it was still very weak (only 4%, less than 1/3 of the quota for a senate seat), it's just that the Liberal primary vote collapsed enough in Victoria for them not to have a clear path to the 3rd seat that they'd usually be able to get, and the UAP is simply the strongest of the minor parties so they have a chance at it. the result is going to come down to preference distributions so it will be a fair outcome, unlike the case of Steve Fielding which was a product of the completely broken GVT system

there isn't any way for One Nation or any potential UAP senator to be a decisive vote with the way the senate looks now. if Pocock opposes something (not sure why he would but regardless) that's supported by Labor & the Greens then Lambie is a very reasonable alternative, and if Labor wants to pass something completely opposed by the Greens their only option is the Coalition.

We largely appear to be agreeing. I was referring to the Bonham link. Still a small portion of a quota but *relatively* high by national standards. Such that even with a crude allocation of senate slots on first prefs alone (hopelessly artificial but arguably kinda sorta 'What The People Asked For' in many minds) you be giving it to UAP. It certainly wouldn't be scandalous if that's what actually eventuated after distribution. That's basically all I meant.

UAP would need to leap-frog others, via preferences, in most states. Admittedly they'd be leaping over One Nation or whatever, which is arguably a more hideous outcome. Maybe I'll try to take some solace from Palmer at least being preferable to Hanson here, lol.

Lambie is reasonable as long as it's a problem she's personally experienced, otherwise she doesn't give a fuck.

I was all "who or what the feck is a Pocock", having not paid much attention to the indies/ACT votes bcs why would I.

Question about Aussie preference voting from a lefty American: my impression from the instructional pages and other sources is that you get to "vote your heart" (say, a Green candidate), then add a second vote for Labor over the Liberal/National Sadness if the Green doesn't win, so you aren't splitting the left-of-center vote. Is that basically the situation?

Also, I read in the AU version of the Guardian that state legislatures still have some horrific-yet-legal malapportionment and gerrymandering. Any chance a Labor/Green coalition puts a stop to that? Thanks!

Yes, that is basically the situation. It means you can vote Greens without worrying that you're splitting the centre/left vote, because you can put Labor as your second preference. So much better than the first-past-the-post system. That's the lower house, the upper house system is more complicated and I'm not entirely sure I understand it...

I don't know about gerrymandering here, but if it does happen it's nowhere near on the scale of the US. In theory there's an independent commission that decides electorates, so there's shouldn't be gerrymandering. That said, I think Labor generally needs a slightly higher percentage of the vote to win than the right-wing coalition.

We number every candidate in the lower house elections. Then, if no-one has an outright majority we eliminate the weakest candidate and peruse the second preferences on the ballots that had been provisionally allocated to them on first preferences. It continues until an outright majority is found. No 'wasted votes' but it's arguably flawed as only a minority of second/third/etc preferences are ever consulted.

Senate elections (and some state upper house elections) are more complicated as we have multi-member electorates. eg. federally, each state votes for 6 senators at a time, so they each need to reach a quota of 1/7 of the pool of voters in each. We express at least 6 preferences there (though one can tick dozens of boxes if one wants to) but the algorithm is sufficiently complex, and the various margins so small, potentially, that we hand it over to computers after being satisfied that every ballot has been received.

The federal and state electoral commissions are theoretically scrupulously independent, so gerrymandering is not often raised as a huge problem.

The lower house elections tend to entrench two-sided Labor vs Liberal/National contests, with voters for other parties overwhelmingly contributing to a win for one or the other, via their lower-order preferences, year after year. A more proportional system for the lower house(s) would be nice but there doesn't seem to be much enthusiasm for fighting for it. The three long-established parties do rather well under the current system!

Someone else can talk about malapportionment, lol. [Oooh, XP!]

I took too long but I tried hard with this, so sorry for the repetition -

Yes that's how preferencing pretty much works in the House of Reps (lower house). First choice votes are apportioned to the candidates, lowest candidate removed and votes distributed to second preference, lowest removed and next pref distributed etc.
The Senate is a weird baroque system where each state has six senators, so there is a quota of 1/6 of the number of votes to get a senate seat, but candidates are grouped by party. So then if Labor get 1.5 quotas they have one senator for sure, but the 0.5 might either be the basis of receiving prefs to reach a second quota (thus 2 senators) or might not be enough to be the leader when parties begin getting eliminated and hence the 0.5 would be redistributed to others (and they stay with one senator). If that's not already complicated enough, there are 2 ways of voting, one where you number the groups (parties) "above the line" and your preferences go by the order you put the parties, or you can vote "below the line" for full chaos where you might number 39 candidates and somehow that interacts with the quotas to determine which of the people in each party actually become senators for the quotas the party got.
I know the audience have drifted off but an example of that is the Liberal party, whom I dislike intensely, had put their ultra Christian Senate bully (who e.g. verbally attacked people in Senate and harangued them because they were speaking in favour of same sex marriage) last on their list of three candidates. This made him unlikely to be elected because the Liberals would only get 3 quotas in a landslide. His supporters ran a "vote 1 for Abetz below the line" to try to circumvent this and make him a Senator even if the Libs only got 1 or 2 quotas. However I and quite a lot of other people went through the ordeal of below the line voting for the satisfaction of putting "39" beside his name.

No 'wasted votes' but it's arguably flawed as only a minority of second/third/etc preferences are ever consulted.

One way in which we mirror the US system is in the Senate, where every state has the same number of senators, regardless the population, ie Tasmania (pop. 500,000) has the same number of seats as NSW (pop. 8 million). Never heard anyone talking about reforming that though.

Every time I look at Hare-Clark, I say "that looks... pretty good, maybe" then feel like I understand it for maybe a few weeks, and then I drift back to feeling clueless about how it works again lol.

though one can tick dozens of boxes

Whoops, I just described an informal ballot lol. *Number* the boxes, innit.

in the Senate, where every state has the same number of senators, regardless the population, ie Tasmania (pop. 500,000) has the same number of seats as NSW (pop. 8 million). Never heard anyone talking about reforming that though.

Until the Parliament otherwise provides there shall be six senators for each Original State. The Parliament may make laws increasing or diminishing the number of senators for each State, but so that equal representation of the several Original States shall be maintained and that no Original State shall have less than six senators.

Also, I read in the AU version of the Guardian that state legislatures still have some horrific-yet-legal malapportionment and gerrymandering. Any chance a Labor/Green coalition puts a stop to that? Thanks!

not really, nothing like the US at all - gerrymandering is not an issue these days thanks to independent electoral commissions. there have been major historical issues with malapportionment in state parliaments but anything remaining is very minor - i think the Queensland state parliament might still have a tiny bias to a few gigantic, sparsely populated rural seats but it's not a big issue. the Western Australian parliament was the last to have significant malapportionment issues but they've been fixed in recentish times - the lower house was fixed in 2008 and the upper house last year. the federal government doesn't have any power to fix issues with the state electoral systems though. if you have a link to the article i'd be interested.

I think Labor generally needs a slightly higher percentage of the vote to win than the right-wing coalition.

this was just the way the marginal seats fell at the last election - after this election's count is finished i suspect it'll be firmly the opposite based on the numbers so far.

One way in which we mirror the US system is in the Senate, where every state has the same number of senators, regardless the population, ie Tasmania (pop. 500,000) has the same number of seats as NSW (pop. 8 million). Never heard anyone talking about reforming that though.

a referendum would be required to reform that, which would never get up due to that requiring approval of all states, so it's a non-starter. it thankfully doesn't pose the same sort of problem as the US as every state/territory is competitive for both major parties and our senate uses proportional representation so there isn't the same sort of bias as from single-member districts. if anything i'd say the senate's malapportionment as it stands actually slightly benefits the left, due to Tasmania leaning left & being the smallest state.

the Hare-Clark system used in Tasmania and the ACT is basically the same as the Senate voting system except without the option to vote above-the-line, so you're only voting for candidates and not parties.

I didn't realise that, but of course!

In that case, I fear I repeatedly misremember H-C as having some New Zealand-like features or something. *blushes*

I do remember what Robson Rotation is though. Why that's not universal is quite beyond me.

Wow, thanks to all y'all for the educational treatise on the AU voting process! I'm involved with groups in the States who seek to reform our FPTP quagmire with ranked-choice voting (our term for preference voting), and we've had success in several cities and a few states. I wish we had mandatory voting here, then we'd get to spend more time on issue discussion and persuasion, and less time fighting against voter-oppression laws.

Here's a link to the Guardian article that references malapportionment:

"Druery said reform of WA’s electoral system should deal first with issues of malapportion, which mean the votes of electors in remote and regional areas are worth up to seven times that of inner-city voter"

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/apr/07/wa-candidate-elected-to-parliament-with-less-than-100-votes-prompts-calls-for-electoral-reform

you might number 39 candidates

If I'm not suffering PTSD from the experience, the longest senate ballot I ever had to number was c. 130.

Whoa, yeah I did a few big ones when I lived in NSW. Our US colleagues might enjoy knowing that our entire system is paper based, and because of the structure of the Senate ballot it can be a piece of paper 2-3 feet wide and 6 inches tall, which we have to fold up into a small wad to fit the ballot box slot.

I’m actually kind of shocked that Plibersek was dumb enough to make those comments about Dutton, real basic shit for a senior minister to get wrong.

bring back Keating

I recall having to wrangle a HUGE senate ballot when I lived in the ACT in the early 90s. At that point they had a lot of joke parties was one reason why. LIke the Party Party Party and such. Seems to be less of that now? Or they dont allow it anyomre, I dont know.

Sorry estela but thank fuck

Sorry guys, the Toto account is not being run by Albo, Albo’s team team, Labor or Toto.

— Matt Burke (@matttburke) May 24, 2022

Also re: preferential voting, this cartoon explains it very well.

https://www.chickennation.com/voting/

"Druery said reform of WA’s electoral system should deal first with issues of malapportion, which mean the votes of electors in remote and regional areas are worth up to seven times that of inner-city voter"

yeah this was fixed in the WA upper house reforms last year, along with other significant issues there. Druery was very good at exploiting some of the other issues in the WA upper house electoral system (that also were fixed in last year's reforms) & was just cynically saying "let's only do one thing at at time"

i don't think ranked-choice voting is ideal (multi-member districts with proportional-representation are significantly better, single-transferable vote like we have in the senate here is pretty great) but it's the best option for single member districts for sure

You can’t judge someone on either comments they’ve made, or decisions they’ve done when they’re exercising their either personal conscience or their particular viewpoint.

Just because someone’s got a different view to the ABC, respectfully, doesn’t make them terrible or wrong.

It simply gives them a different view, and that has got nothing to do with the size of his heart or the quality of his character or the capacity of his intellect, respectfully.

stuart robert on new opposition leader peter dutton. not sure this is going to go well for them lol

Unless the Labor govt is catastrophically incompetent (quite possible I guess), there is no way Peter Dutton can win a federal election. They'd have to win back at least some of those teal seats and he can't do that. My guess is he'll stick around for a couple of years and then they'll kick him out for someone more palatable.

yeah i think even abbott was only so successful as opposition leader because labor were disastrously tearing themselves apart for four years straight and dutton really just emphasises all the reasons morrison was hated

there is no way Peter Dutton can win a federal election.

Not so fast! They’re on the case, ready to reform:

The party’s internal analysis of its election performance will be led by Liberal elder statesman Brian Loughnane, who was federal director for more than a decade, and senator Jane Hume.

Sorry estela but thank fuck

🐦[Sorry guys, the Toto account is not being run by Albo, Albo’s team team, Labor or Toto.
— Matt Burke (@matttburke) May 24, 2022🕸]🐦

In an extended interview with Nine Newspapers on Sunday, Ms Keneally was asked by columnist Peter FitzSimmons whether the loss was because she went up against a local candidate while she was a "wealthy white woman from distant parts parachuted in."

"I think the impact of the COVID lockdowns had far more to do with it and was far more at play on the day," Ms Keneally replied.