This week the footnote comes first, because it is more important than the argument on voluntary voting.
Australia describes itself as a compassionate, tolerant and generous society. Rubbish. At a time when compassion to Muslim communities might seem especially important, what has our response been to the Pakistan earthquake? — $10 million from the Government. It sounds big. And less than $300,000 from individuals. In all, just 51.5 cent each and just 1.5 cents each from individuals — all those people who wallow into McDonalds and Harvey Norman buying junk they don’t need – including the very widescreen television sets which have so graphically displayed the suffering. Can’t we do better than 1.5 cents each or 51.5 cents each as a society?
The compassion, tolerance and generosity go no deeper than the hemline on the hip pocket.
Try visiting http://www.redcross.org.au, or call 1800 811 700 toll free, or send a cheque to GPO Box 9949 Canberra City. If not, we must substitute the words “selfish, intolerant and mean” for the words “compassionate, tolerant and generous”. 1.5 cents per person is utterly shameful.
End of footnote.
Voluntary voting was raised again this week – this time the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters into the 2004 election said it should be looked at. It recommended also that four-year terms should be put to a referendum; that electronic voting should be introduced and funding procedures should be tightened because some candidates were profiteering by getting more in electoral funding than they were spending.
The amusing pattern with electoral changes in Australia is that the party in power will always attempt to rig the system to its favour and that very often the party gets tangled up in its own rigging.
I suspect this could be the case with voluntary voting.
The orthodox view is that the yobbo manual workers who usually vote Labor would not bother to go to the polls if they were not forced. And the rich business and professional people who are more civically minded would go to the polls. This, the theory goes, would favour the conservative parties.
However, it might well be that people who have to drive a long way to a polling station – in rural areas – would not bother, decreasing the conservative vote. Also, the radical Labor voters might be keener to vote than quiet conservatives. These forces might balance out.
There is, of course, another more likely possibility: that voluntary voting would favour different sides of politics at different times and in different circumstances.
It might well be that compulsory voting favours long-serving governments, and voluntary voting favours an opposition attacking a long-serving government – irrespective of the complexion of either side. People generally content, or at least not unhappy, with a government might to bother to go out to vote for it, whereas people seeking change might be keener to act for that change by getting out and voting. Voluntary voting might have helped Gough Whitlam’s Labour win in 1969; John Hewson’s Liberals win in 1993 and even Mark Latham’s Labor in 2004.
This might be why Prime Minister John Howard does not have voluntary voting on his agenda, even though he personally is in favour of it. The Howard battlers might be too busy battling to come out to vote, whereas those agitated by refugees, civil liberties, industrial relations and the like might be more inclined to exercise their anger.
Many aspirational voters might prefer to mow the lawns around their McMansions than stir themselves to vote.
I cannot find any polling asking the question: if you did not have to, would you vote, but given that you have to, for whom would you vote. That polling might give you some idea as to who would benefit from voluntary voting.
Incidentally, Australia with compulsory voting has had fewer changes of government (five) since World War II than Britain (seven), the US (seven), and New Zealand (six) which have voluntary voting.
The committee recommended also that the Senate voting system be changed. At present voters can mark a 1 in a party box and the vote is deemed to follow a detailed preferential list provided by that party. The committee wants to abandon those lists and make voters mark preferences above the line for parties or below the line for all candidates. That seems quite sensible. It would stop the horse-trading in preferences.
The original system was a classic backfire. It was introduced by Labor before the 1984 election. Many voters thought the “1 only” system also applied to the House of Representatives and hence cast invalid votes – almost costing Labor the election.
The committee’s report comes after the Coalition’s Senator Eric Abetz suggested the rolls be closed on the day the election is announced. He cited electoral fraud, but that is a furphy. The committee (and others) has found fraud has never affected the outcome of an election.
The conservatives imagine this will favour them because it will expunge the votes of young people who tend to vote Labor and Greens. But it may be silly thinking. It may be that the radical politically active teenagers who more frequently support Labor and the Greens are more likely to ensure they are enrolled to vote, whereas others are less likely to be enrolled and would be disenfranchised.
In an ideal world electoral change would require a referendum or at least a two-thirds majority of both Houses to ensure that one side or other was not attempting to rig the system. But given the history of parties entangling themselves in the rigging, that may not be necessary.