Aussie Election Results

[Aractus]

Okay so I have so much to say about this, & hopefully stir up a good convo on here with the other Aussies.

First let me say this: What a great day for democracy!

When you hear politicians saying things like "this is not the result we wanted" or similar, and that it's "bad for the rule of government" when they really mean is that it's bad for politicians, especially career politicians, and that's wonderful for democracy.



As you can see above, some electorates are on a knife-edge. At present this electorate (Chisholm) shows a TCP difference of just 49 votes. And yet there are two thousand informal votes! Two thousand of the thus-far counted voters chose not to exercise their voice and say "my vote doesn't count".

Australian Voting

We can be very proud of our system. It is the envy of the world, and not just that it's the innovation of the world as well. We, Australians, invented the secret ballot - which is now universally adopted worldwide. We invented preferential voting, and I'm very happy to say the long-overdue changes to the Senate has finally brought the system back to its Hare-Clark roots. This system was invented and in use from the late 19th century. It also addressed the long criticism that many voters have had that it is a burdensome task to be forced to fill in every box below the line. Even ACT voters didn't like being forced to do that, and we only had 20 candidates in total!

I think the ALP made a huge miscalculation this election by opposing the fairer changes that put preference decisions in the hands of voters, which was always the intention with Hare-Clark, and why the Senate ballot is described as a variation of it". I was very dismayed at the fact that 96% or so of formal Senate votes in the past were people voting on party tickets - which is a 1 above the line and leaves preference decisions to the party. This was always anti-democratic because ordinary people who go to vote will not know where their vote goes, and ultimately Greens preferences got a Liberal Democrat elected to the Senate - as an example.

Senate

Some people are saying the Senate is looking "just as unruly as the last". Abbott is warning of Americanisation of our democracy if the Senate does not function in the way intended (which is to be less partisan). Well one big difference between us and America is that we've never had a single instance of electoral fraud. And we make it easy for people to vote, and don't give them indecipherable ballots (e.g. the Florida Butterfly Ballot). Anyway, the old senate looked like this:

Liberal/National: 33
ALP: 25
Grn: 10
Xenophon: 1
PUP: 3
Democratic Labour: 1
Liberal Democratic: 1
Family First: 1
Motoring Enthusiasts: 1
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Total: 76

Noting of course that PUP disintegrated and became: PUP: 1 (Wang); Jacqui Lambie: 1, and my mum's ex-student who couldn't read in high school Glenn Lazarus: 1.

Now I didn't actually make any predictions here about the senate, but I did to friends. I said I expected Xenophon to win 3 or 4 senate seats, Pauline Hanson to win one possibly two, Lambi to hold hers, and the other former PUPs to likely lose their seats, and of course the asshole LD David Leyonhjelm to lose his Senate seat. And that's pretty much what we've seen so far. We won't know the senate results for quite some time yet, but it looks something like this at present:

Liberal/National: 31
ALP: 29
Grn: 9
Xenophon: 3
Jacqui Lambie: 1
Derryn Hinch: 1
Pauline Hanson's One Nation: 2
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Total: 76

Of course it will only look like that for three years, and the minor parties would be the ones (for the most part) facing the re-election woes in 2019. Nick Xenophon won't have to re-contest in 2019, and possibly Pauline won't either depending on how she ends up polling. Anyway, until we know how it will actually look we don't know how difficult the Senate will be for a Coalition government - but it doesn't look great on those numbers anyway.

Minority Government?

Unlikely. I wouldn't mind seeing one, but I think one of two things will happen. Either the Coalition will end up winning 76 or 77 seats (and thus have a small majority), or we will return to the polls for a re-election later this year. I think in the case of a hung-parliament a re-election is in the best interests of the Coalition, especially to win back the Tassie seats that fell to Labor.