Virtually unnoticed by the general public, the 47th Parliament in Canberra has set up a Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (JSCEM) which is examining the conduct of the 2022 federal election. It has asked for submissions for which the deadline was Friday 7 October. It has started to conduct hearings and published on its website 271 submissions as of Friday 14 October.
There are five regular submitters who have not yet been published – though I presume they will be. They are the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), Kevin Bonham, Chris Curtis, Antony Green and the Proportional Representation Society of Australia (PRSA). Of the 271 published so far there are only two that come to more than forty pages, mine at number 5 (57 pages) and number 145 by Travis Jordan (45 pages).
Meanwhile ABC elections propagandist Antony Green has launched on his blog a fresh defence of the disgraceful Senate voting system which he proudly owns along with the AEC and Kevin Bonham. As in many things he describes four systems wrongly. Beginning with the Senate system he writes “Voters were suggested to mark a minimum six preferences above-the-line, though one was enough to be formal, or a minimum 12 preferences below the line.”
Readers can accuse me of nit-picking if they like but the word “suggested” is wrong. The correct word is “instructed”, as Green would know full well. Voters were instructed to mark a minimum of six preferences above the line. While it is true that one was enough to be formal the AEC went out of its way to keep that a secret. It should have published an educational video in May 2016 describing the new system correctly, but it did not admit to that important fact until October 2021 when it published an educational video described below. I have no doubt that the only reason why it made that video was that I pestered it into doing so.
Green also describes wrongly the Legislative Council voting systems of New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia. He writes: “The Senate reforms mirrored those introduced for the NSW Legislative Council in 2000, and since copied in South Australia (2017) and now Western Australia (2021). The state systems require only a single preference above the line rather than the Senate’s suggested six.”
That is a ridiculous statement but typical of those made by this master propagandist who relies upon euphemism to defend the indefensible. Here I must introduce a piece of psephological jargon. It is “district magnitude” which simply means the number being elected. The higher the district magnitude the more proportional the results will be – and the greater will be the success of minor parties.
To some two dozen highly intelligent people (including very recently Canberra’s top political journalist) I have shown in my university office the most recent ballot papers for the Senate, and NSW and SA upper houses. They all agree it is ridiculous to assert that the Senate ballot paper “mirrored” that of NSW and very nearly as ridiculous to say that the SA ballot paper has “copied” that for the Senate.
The point is that district magnitude for NSW is 21, for SA 11 but for the Senate only six. Furthermore, the state ballot papers have honest instructions, and the voting rules are identical to the counting rules – as must be the case in any system described as “decent”. The NSW and SA systems can be described as decent and fair (NSW) or at least reasonably fair (SA) to minor parties. The Senate system cannot be described as “decent”. It can only be described as “rigged” and “dishonest”. The instructions on the Senate ballot paper are correctly described by me as “deceitful and manipulative”. Lack of space prevents me from giving Antony Green’s description. It is typical of his resort to euphemism when he gets into trouble.
Green dives into the bottom of the barrel when he makes the outrageous claim that WA has “copied” the Senate voting system. Not only did WA not copy the Senate system it increased district magnitude from six to 37, thereby (in effect) insulting Green by doing the very thing he told the WA politicians not to do. Is it any wonder that I responded so favourably to the new WA system as I did in my article “WA implements a genuine democratic reform” published in Switzer Daily on Wednesday 24 November 2021.
I mentioned above that in October 2021 the AEC relented to my pestering and filmed a video in the old Senate chamber featuring a youngish woman explaining Senate voting. I understand her name to be Kath Gleeson. She utters the critical words for the first time: “We will count your vote” in respect of certain kinds of votes the AEC wants the punters to think to be informal. She also says: “we instruct voters to vote in accordance with the voting rules” followed by propaganda in favour of this system I think to be so horrible. That video also introduced the fine Jesuitical distinction between “the voting rules” and “the counting rules”, so critical to enable the AEC to justify its disgraceful behaviour.
My submission proposes that the size of the Senate be increased from 76 to 89, meaning two more senators elected from each state and one more for the ACT. Most importantly it would mean the adoption of an honest ballot paper that is voter friendly. I have offered two model ballot papers, the first of which is unrealistic because it is too democratic. I have attached here a model of the realistic ballot paper for an election I predict will occur in November 2027.
I don’t know whether the JSCEM will listen to me. They would do the politicians (and Australian democracy in general) a power of good if they did. But suppose they do nothing during this parliamentary term. Then readers can take it for granted that the AEC will spend the taxpayer’s dollar telling the same lies as in 2016, 2019 and 2022. Furthermore, the AEC will do as before. It will hire casual polling officials who will lecture voters on how they must vote.
Readers will remember the spiel. “For the House of Representatives, you need to number every square. For the Senate above the line vote you need to number at least six squares. For the Senate below the line vote you need to number at least twelve squares.” That lecture consists of one truth and two lies.