I understand Oz just had an election where the PM was retained for a third time.
In researching I find a couple of startling things (to an American anyway) about Australian elections:
1-Voting is COMPULSORY. You can get in trouble if you don’t vote!! wow…what, do the police show up and haul you off if you don’t vote?
2-Voting is on a proportional basis; you mark in descending order which parties you prefer, then those vote determine the number of members for your district. huh?
3-Polling is always on a Saturday…actually I think this is a good idea - catch people when they aren’t busy scurrying to or from work.
Any insight on this? Especially #2?
Phouchg
Lovable Rogue
I seem to have the idea in my mind that Australia uses something similar to IRV (Instant Runoff Voting). Except they vote for a party, not a candidate?
I wish the US used IRV.
With IRV, the voter ranks the candidates in order of preference. For example, in the 2000 US Presidential eletion, say you were a voter who liked Nader, but felt strongly that Gore would be preferable to Bush. Many voters in this position felt that they could not possibly vote for their actual choice, Nader; they felt that they had to vote for Gore, even if they didn’t much like him, simply in order to keep Bush out. With IRV, these people could have voted for Nader, and listed Gore as their 2nd choice. Likewise, people on the right could have voted for Buchanan and listed Bush as their 2nd choice.
The real contest would still have been between the candidates of the Big Two parties, Bush and Gore. But we would have been able to discover how many people genuinely preferred one or another of the minor party candidates. And we would have eliminated the possibility of any minor party candidate having a “spoiler” effect (denying victory to the major party candidate from whom he drew votes).
I quite like the first point. Voting is compulsory and punishable by fines. Of course, you don’t have to vote for someone, you can still register unhappiness at the whole thing by spoiling the ballot paper. I think that that sends a greater message than mass abstention (which can be given a politician’s spin as ‘lazy people who couldn’t be bothered to vote’ rather than ‘people who disapprove of the whole process’).
The one thing that does disturb me is that the asylum and immigration issue became terribly important and urgent during the run up to these elections, and who benefits most, why the right wing parties of course.
They tried the same thing in the last UK elections, but it backfired on them, however in the elections in the UK during the late 60’s, the fear of coloured immigration worked a treat and the right of centre parties did very well.
It took over a decade to get race relations going in a constructive direction and a further decade before things started to change, and it was only a year ago that the British police were finally included in the equal opportunities legislation following an admission by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner that the UK police were “insitutionally racist” and this was the culmination of a Royal commission enquiry into a series of poor police investigations into racist murders and discriminatory arrest policies.
I really hope that Australia does not go down the same racist road we did in those 60’s elections.
Casdave please enlighten me how Persons Prevented From Performing an Illegal Act = Racism simply because the persons involved happen to be Middle Eastern?
Is there some medical condition compelling people of these races to break the law such that they are forced to act in a manner that will get them treated differently to people of other races? Or are you suggesting Caucasian people attempting to enter the country illegally would be met by a welcoming commmitee? Cadave Australia is already racist. There are schools, medical facilities, educational institutions, legal representation and law enforcement officers that people of specific racial backgrounds can’t gain access to. According to my dictionary that’s racist.
Addressing point 2:
Preferential voting sounds fairly similar to the IRV system Hazel descibes. Your vote doesn’t decide the number of members. Each electorate has exactly one member. You vote for your candidates in preferred order. If your primary candidate doesn’t make it to within striking distance then your vote counts for the secondary and so forth. It doesn’t remove the spoiler effects of independants and minor parties, in fact it probably exacerbates it. Candidates outside polling stations distribute “How To Vote” cards, telling supporters how to distribute preferences. Particularly with minor parties these instructions can decide an election and are a big deal in the run-up to an election. The system also doesn’t stop people voting for the major parties just because they know the minors can’t win. In marginal electorates the major parties always make a big deal about the fact that an independant vote is a wasted vote or a vote for their opposition. In actual fact preferences alter the outcome of well under 5% of seats when compared to the primary vote.
I’ve always thought compulsory voting was a good idea (i’m an Australian now living in the US). In fact, the term is a bit of a misnomer because, as Crusoe points out, you don’t actually have to vote for anyone. Quite a few people that i’ve met in the US would be happy with compulsory voting.
Those who oppose the idea, at least in my experience, generally see it as some sort of infringement of your right to ignore the poltical process. I suppose there is something to be said for this, but i still think the system is a good one. All it requires is that you turn up at your polling place, get your name crossed off the list, and put your ballot into the ballot box. You can do what you want on your ballot paper - vote for your preferred candidate, draw a picture, write “fuck all politicians”, or make it into a paper aeroplane. It seems to me that having to roll up at a polling station every couple of years or so is a pretty small price to pay for living in a democracy.
As an Australian in the US, i could have voted by going to the nearest consulate or embassy (in my case, the embassy in D.C.). I went to do it the other day, but realised that i had left my passport at home and so wouldn’t be allowed to vote. In a few weeks the government will send me a letter, which will go to my parents’ house (my electoral registration lists their address, as i have no permanent address in Australia right now). The letter will contain a citation, with a fine which can be averted with a reasonable explanation of why i didn’t vote. They are pretty reasonable about this sort of stuff. The official rules state:
As you can see, the fines are not exactly onerous ($A20 = about $US11).
This is the first election (local, state or federal) at which i have failed to vote since i turned 18.
Compulsory voting at federal elections was introduced in 1924, and since then voter turnout has never dropped below 91% (1925), and for the last couple of decades has been consistently between 94 and 96% (see this site).
This is a pretty simplistic summary, IMHO, but gives an idea of some of the issues.
2. As a couple of people have pointed out, the system is a “preferential” system, better known in the US as Instant Runoff Voting. As they have also pointed out, it doesn’t prevent two large parties monopolozing the political process, but does seem to provide a larger opening for new contestants in the race.
One problem with the current system, IMHO, is that a vote for the a candidate in the House of Representatives (lower house) requires the voter to number all the squares on the ballot (see here and here for the rules). For example, if there are six candidates for your electorate, you have to number them in order of preference, 1 through 6. In the majority of electorates, where an independent or minor party candidate has no chance of winning, this means that your vote ends up going to one of the two major parties.
There are people in Australia who would prefer a system in which you only have to number as many boxes as you see fit. For example, you could select your first three preferences, and leave the other three boxes empty. Such a system would mean that if any of your first three preferences were not elected, your vote would end up being irrelevant to the final outcome, but could act as a sort of “protest vote” against the major parties (or against minor parties, if that was what you wanted), letting them know that you didn’t think either of them worth voting for (an attitude shared by a considerable number of Australians, if yesterday’s election results are any indication).
The OP said that s/he had heard that the Australian system was “proportional”. This is in fact the case for the upper house, or Senate. Each state has 12 senators, half of whom come up for election at each federal election (the two territories each have 2 senators). This is a rather complicated system (an explanation can be found here), but in essence means that a state’s senatorial representation is determined in proportion to the number of votes recieved by each party on the senate ballot papers. So if one party receives one-third of the senate votes, they will have 2 out of the 6 senators elected for that state at that election (it’s more complicated than this - go to the link if you want more info).
Yes, polling is always on a Saturday, which i think is a pretty good idea. With changing patterns of work and more people working on weekends, it probably wouldn’t be such a big deal any more if it were during the week, but i think that more people still tend to have free time on Saturdays.
I quite like both compulsory voting, and the preferential system.
Research has shown that neither compulsory nor voluntary voting is entirely fair because compulsory voting tends to give an advantage to those parties on the left, and voluntary voting favours the conservatives. I’m a conservative voter who likes compulsory voting - go figure.
I like the preferential system because if your preferred party does not gain win in your local area, your vote is not entirely wasted.
From the official “Election 2001” booklet published by the Australian electoral Commission:
Interestingly, in the example the AEC gave, the elected candidate received less of the primary vote than the person who came second. This is quite common. It annoys a lot of people, but in my opinion it is fair because it is still based on ballot results (ie. nobody forces you who to mark ‘2’).
Sometimes, the election results in a “hung parliament” in which neither of the two major parties, the Australian Labor Party (US=Democrats) and the Liberal/National Coalition (US=Republican) has an absolute majority of seats in the parliament. A third party, the Australian Democrats, (and/or independent candidates) controls the “balance of power” and for the course of the government’s term in ofice both major parties will do an awful lot of arse kissing to these smaller parties in order to have legislation passed or defeated.
I’d be interested to see what research has shown this to be the case. This is one of those contentions that seems logical on the surface, but which is often not borne out by evidence.
For example, by my calculation, since WWII Australia has spent roughly 35 years and 7 months under conservative (Liberal Party) Prime Ministers, and 20 years and 3 months under Labor Party PMs. This is hardly support for the “left-wing advantage” theory of compulsory voting.
In that same period, the US has spent about 29 years under Republican presidents and 27 years under Democratic presidents. This seems too close to offer any concrete conclusions about the role of compulsory versus voluntary voting. Of course, you’d have to look at Congressional elections as well to get a fuller and more balanced picture of the US electoral process at work.
I realise that Australia and the United States do not represent a complete sample of global electoral politics, but they do demonstrate the difficulty of drawing firm conclusions about what type of voting system is likely to produce a particular type of government. Also, on many (but certainly not all) issues it has become difficult to tell the difference between the two major parties in modern democracies, further complicating the possible consequences of compulsory or voluntary voting systems.
I’ll try and find a cite. I’ve heard the theory several times over the years, and I’d be quite happy if it were proven wrong. As I said, it’s an implied advantage or influence, so it may be misleading to relate it to years in power of governments of particular political persuasions as there is no account taken of the base from which the effect on the electorate is taken. I have no idea how large or small the effect is, and it may be quite tiny or even negligible given an electorate which is already inherently biased, for reasons of genuine political conviction, towards either particular end of the political spectrum. If the Australian electorate, over the decades, has exhibited conservatism (or left-leaning ideals) on average, it is probably for historical reasons much deeper than a possible effect of compulsory voting.
Gaspode
The issue of illegal immigration has been with Australia for many years now, from the Vietamese boat people to the East Timorese and now the Afghanis, and yet suddenly in the run up to elections that were too close to call and anything might tip the blance, this issue boils over.
Australia has had plenty of experience and time with which to make arrangements such as internment camps with decent facilities and to set up tribunals to deal with each case but it all came up just before an election as a ‘big thing’
It’s not the act ofs illegal immigration and prevention that are racist, it’s the way Australian government attitudes have hardened considerably with several extremely well publicised cases during the run up to an election by a right of centre party, this is what makes me wonder about how the issue has been used.
As I pointed out, this scenario has been played out before by right of centre politicians.
Casadave I’m not quite as cynical as you. I know the whole thing was a political stunt designed to win votes, particularly from One Nation supporters.
However that does not constitute racism. Do you really beleive that if Australia had a problem with illegal Anglo-Saxon caucasian refugees the outcome would have been any different. Political pointscoring =/= racism.
Sorry for the hijack folks, but crying racist has become far to much like crying witch in this country recently, and I can’t imagine a more fitting symbol of ignorance than a witch-burning.
I think you’re right that there are a myriad of other issues that could subsume any possible effects of compulsory voting. I, too, have heard the theory many times, and in principle it seems like a pretty good one (and as an Australian leftist, i wish the theory worked). Unfortunately, it’s very hard to really pin down the most important factor/s in an individual’s voting decisions. Someone might consider themselves socially progressive and economically conservative, for example, and then make their voting decision based on which is more important to them at that time.
All this also depends on your definition of “left” and “right”, “progressive” and “liberal” and “conservative”. For example, i know quite a few Australians (friends and family members) who vote for the Liberal Party/National Party coalition (i.e. Australia’s conservative party, for those not familiar with our system). Now, i can state with almost absolute certainty that all these people, if they moved to the US, would vote Democrat. Many Americans i meet are amused that Australia’s conservative party takes the name “Liberal”; i think it shows a difference in the overall political climate of the two countries.
This whole issue of political parties living up (or not living up) to their names is not really relevant to this thread, but is interesting nonetheless. In fact, Australia’s Liberal Party is historically quite close to the money, because prior to the rise of the welfare state and government intervention in the economy during the twentieth century, liberalism meant something different than what it does today. Classical liberalism, espoused by writers such as Adam Smith and John Locke (and many others), grounded rights in the individual and expressed a preference for a separation between “society” and “government”, with the former seen as more important. They believed that the state should exist only to protect the ability of individuals to carry on the pursuits such as family, commerce, voluntary association etc. that were important to society. It was a “negative” conception of liberty, understood as non-interference in the rights of citizens. This is a pretty close approximation of the ideals of many twentieth-century Australian Liberals and American Republicans.
Early republicans, on the other hand, grounded individual liberty in participation in the political community. The state was seen as the highest realm of activity. Self-interest had to be either tied to the public good, or overridden for the public good. This was a “positive” conception of liberty grounded in political participation. This line of thinking had a long heritage, back through the American revolution (esp. Jefferson), the “Country” interests of the English Civil War period, Macchiavelli and the city-states of Italy, to the republics of the ancient world, such as Rome.
(n.b. by “negative” and “positive” here, i don’t mean bad and good; rather it’s a way of expressing the state’s role and its power over the individual)
It seems to me that the classical republican notion of the state more closely approximates twentieth-century social democratic parties like Australian Labor and the US Democrats.
These overviews are, of course, very incomplete, and they don’t give any indication of the nuances within each line of thought, nor how they have changed over the years.
I just think it’s interesting to see how political terms, like many terms in the English language, change their use and meaning over time.
