Crispin Hull

THE Senate voting system is likely to come under constitutional challenge and if successful it will favour the Coalition and the Greens.

Under Senate voting rules, voters can do one of two things: tick a party box above the line, or go below the line and number every candidate individually in order. If you vote above the line for a party, your vote is deemed to follow the preferences according to a ticket lodged before the election by the various political parties.

But above-the-line voting may offend the Constitution which requires that MPs be “”directly chosen by the people”. The argument is that if you let the party do the choosing, the MPs are not “”directly chosen by the people”.
Continue reading “1996_02_february_ticket”

Prime Minister Paul Keating has blown the chance of recouping $800 million into the public purse by his election campaign announcement about tax fraud, according to senior Tax Office sources.

The sources suggest that Mr Keating abandoned the standard way of dealing with tax avoidance for political advantage.

They likened it to announcing in February that you have found a warehouse full of stolen goods and that you would be raiding the warehouse sometime after March 2. Of course, the goods will be gone.

Mr Keating announced on February 11 that about $800 million in tax a year was being avoided through complex trusts, and that this money would now be available for election promises. He said that he had only been given the advice about the extent of avoidance in January.
Continue reading “1996_02_february_taxdodge”

Forty of the 76 Senate seats are up for election. That is six in each state and two each in the Northern Territory and the ACT.

In the territories, one Labor and one Coalition senate are invariably elected in each territory.

It is very unlikely that either major party will get a majority.

The table shows the overall position.

The 36 senators up for election in the states were elected for a six-year term in 1990. The 36 elected in 1993 stay put to serve the remainder of their six-year term. The short senators up for re-election are shown state-by-state and with party affiliation in the bottom table.
Continue reading “1996_02_february_senguide”

Labor will lose government if it loses seven seats to the Coalition.

Because of the redistribution some Labor-held seats are notionally Coalition and vice versa. But there is disagreement at the precise effect of the redistribution so experts disagree on the figure of seven. Some put it at nine.

In any event, swings are invariably uneven. The following are a list of seats to watch, either because they are marginals or have some other interesting element. The south-eastern states are dealt with first because time zones mean their results will go up first on election night.
Continue reading “1996_02_february_seats”

By the look of two judgments this week, it appears the calicivirus has attacked the implied-rights rabbit that the High Court pulled out of the hat in 1992 and 1994.

In 1992 the High Court struck out the detestable federal law banning political advertisements on radio and TV. It suggested there was an implied right in the Constitution for political communication. This right arose out of the Constitutional provision that the House of Representatives and Senate must be “”directly chosen” by the people. People had to make an informed choice for the constitutional provision to work and they could not make an informed choice if federal legislation prohibited people from broadcasting political advertising.

Where would it end?

In 1994 the court used the implication to strike out some of the more onerous elements of state defamation laws. It meant, for example, newspapers could publish letters from voters getting stuck into politicians without carrying the burden of proving the truth of every imputation that could be extracted from the letter.
Continue reading “1996_02_february_rights”

If Terry Connolly resigns, his replacement will be determined on countback. It will without any doubt go to Labor candidate Marion Reilly.

The Hare-Clark count-back is unlike the Senate system where the party of the resigning candidate selects the replacement.

Under Hare-Clark countback the Electoral Commission goes back to the ballot papers cast at the February, 1995, election to determine who should take Connolly’s seat.

Connolly was the third candidate elected in the seat of Molonglo, after Kate Carnell (Lib) and Rosemary Follett (Lab).
Continue reading “1996_02_february_recount”

A very natty election database hit the desk this week.

It has all the candidates with their address, phone numbers, party, seat and so on.

The database, from Capital Monitor, will enable analysts and lobbyists to target candidates more easily. Thus you can extract all ALP women contesting seats needing a greater than 5 per cent swing.

A lobbyist could extract all major-party candidates in marginals.

Having extracted them, the program allows a mail merge and a standard form letter with the relevant data filled in. For example:
Continue reading “1996_02_february_program”

Poll Conducted : Sat 10 Feb 1996 to Tues 13 Feb 1996

Sample Size : 542 registered ACT voters in the Division of Namadgi

Sample Method : Simple Random Sample of 1995 Telecom White Pages

Survey Method : CATI Telephone survey of telephone connected dwellings
Continue reading “1996_02_february_pollnam”

Liberal Brendan Smyth will be re-elected in Namadgi, according to a Canberra Times-Datacol poll.

However, the poll shows that Labor has made up significant ground since the by-election in March and there is a significant undecided vote.

At the by-election, Mr Smyth won a swing of more than 16 per cent. That was in the seat of Canberra, but the redistribution carved the whole of the new seat of Namadgi out of the old seat of Canberra.

The poll gives the Liberals 39.1 per cent; Labor 33.4; Greens 5.4 and Independent 3.3. There were 18.8 per cent undecided.
Continue reading “1996_02_february_poll16”

The seat of Namadgi is on a knife-edge, according to the latest Canberra Time-Datacol poll, with the Liberals’ Brendan Smyth just ahead.

The poll shows the undecided vote has swung 70-30 in favour of Labor’s Annette Ellis since the previous poll two weeks before and that the Mr Smyth has had his by-election whittled away to less than 1 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis. His lead on first preferences is now at 2 per cent.

The poll returned to the same respondents who were polled two weeks previously, rather than take a new sample. This heightens the accuracy of the poll and gives a more accurate feel for changing opinion.
Continue reading “1996_02_february_oppoll”