Early next week the ACT Electoral Commission will make a very large contribution to the amount of paper that goes into our big bin with the yellow lid. As required by law, it is dropping in every letter box a 28-page, A4 size, explanation of the referendum we are all to vote in on February 18. It contains also a Yes case agreed upon by the Labor, Liberal and two Independents and a No case written by Abolish Self-Government MLA Dennis Stevenson. As voters flick through it on the way from letter box to bin, they will be left with a clear typographical impression they should vote No. Whereas the Yes is very poorly presented.
More of that anon. The referendum is to entrench the electoral system that about 65 per cent of the people approved in the advisory referendum in 1992, plus a few incidentals. It is by no means a foregone conclusion that the people will vote in that proportion again. It is unlikely, but it would not surprise me if the referendum were not passed. This is due to several factors: A quirk in the Federal self-government legislation which in practice requires that about 60 per cent of formal voters have to say Yes before the referendum is carried. A different make-up of the electorate. Ignorance and apathy, (not to be confused with stupidity, which most voters are not). And the nature of the Yes and No case going out to voters next week. Let’s take these one by one. Most legislation or constitutions providing for referendums have words like “”a majority of all electors voting” as the test for whether the referendum passes. The test therefore is 50 per cent plus one of the people who turn up and vote formally. In the ACT, however, it is different. The people who drafted the Self-Government Act messed it up. The provision uses the words: “”If a majority of electors approve”.
The critical word “”voting” has been left out. This means 50 per cent of all the people on the electoral role, not just those who cast a formal vote, becomes the test. Typically, 10 per cent do not turn up and of the remaining 90 per cent between five and 10 per cent vote informally. These are in effect No votes. In rough terms, it means that in an electorate of 200,000, the 100,001 Yes votes needed to pass a referendum have to be got from about 165,000 formal votes, which is about 60 per cent. You cannot assume the 65 per cent figure in favour of Hare-Clark will be retained this time. For a start, perhaps as much as 20 per cent of the electorate would not have voted last time. Nearly all these are young people or new arrivals to the ACT _ people less likely to be across the issues and who are likely to therefore vote No, or vote informal, which amounts to the same thing. Ignorance is a problem.
MLAs and journalists seriously over-estimate the amount of knowledge people have about ACT politics. The man who has the deepest knowledge of the pools of voter ignorance in the ACT is the head of Datacol, Malcolm Mearnes, who has been polling since the first self-government election. He says people do not know much about the Assembly and how it is elected and there is widespread apathy. The apathy means, of course, that people will not take too much effort to overcome their ignorance. It is as if ACT politics (in the city that runs the nation) is beneath them; yet they are the first to squeal when the Assembly (which has the powers of a town council and a state government combined) does something they don’t like. On the referendum question, overcoming ignorance and apathy is made difficult by several factors. The Labor Party will run dead on this referendum.
The party is formally in favour of Yes, but the majority left faction would love to see it defeated so a bare majority of the Assembly could have another crack at installing above-the-line party voting which destroys the intent of Hare-Clark and puts pre-selection power in the hands of party hacks. The media is not helping on the referendum. The referendum has been mentioned only rarely on commercial television news, fleetingly on commercial radio, not mentioned at all on ABC television news, never been mentioned on Page 1 of The Canberra Times (unless passingly), and mentioned rarely on ABC radio. Most people probably do not know it is on, let alone know what it is about.
To correct that the Electoral Commission will circulate its booklet. The explanation of the electoral system and what the referendum is about cannot be faulted for clarity, veracity and fairness. But it is a thousand words long and in 12-point type. People will flick through those seven pages. Then follow the Yes and No cases. As a vote-convincer, the No case wins hands down. It won both the best colour _ orange against the Yes’s green. And it won the right-hand page (which any typographer will tell is more attention grabbing). Further its first page is in bigger type with fewer words. The No case has an eye catching headline at the top and bottom of each page; the Yes case dribbles from page to page in small type. People going from letter box to bin will get the No message. The Yes message is lost.
As to content, it says the politicians want Hare-Clark so it must be bad. Another plus is that nowhere does it say that Dennis Stevenson was the author of the No case. It goes almost without saying that the Yes case is intellectually better argued and is intellectually more convincing. So what, if it is not read. The Labor Party (which formally supports Yes) did a very good job of ensuring that the Yes case that came out of the committee of Labor, Liberal and Independent MLAs would catch no-one’s eye and move no-one’s vote from “”don’t know, don’t care” to “”Yes”.
With everyone concentrating on the election itself, the No vote could get the 40 per cent needed to defeat the referendum unless some considerable spade work by Yes proponents is put in between now and February 18, or the Blessed Mary’s second miracle is that swathes of voters sit down, read the material diligently and come to what should be the compelling conclusion they should vote Yes.