Queensland election update – less than a week before polling day.
Just Vote All?
Let’s examine the reasons for Campbell Newman’s Just Vote 1 strategy. Queensland state elections have optional preferential voting: you can number 1 or more candidates.
When it has suited the major parties, usually the one in the lead, they have adopted a Just Vote 1 strategy.
This makes it possible to win on a minority of the popular vote, and takes smaller parties out of the equation.
The ostensible reason for this strategy is it prevents a hung parliament. The UK has a first past the post system (essentially the same as Just Vote 1) and their last election delivered a hung parliament and the latest polls show that as the most likely outcome next time. So that is not a really plausible reason and in any case, up to Peter Beattie’s time, Just Vote 1 was the Labor strategy. Back then, the Libs and Nats were at each others’ throats. Times change and so, apparently, do principles when they no longer suit you.
Why does it suit the LNP now? After all, conservative
minor parties and independents add up to a bit more than the Greens –
depending which polls you believe. It’s a matter of marginals. The LNP
will have done polling that shows they gain more from stifling preference flows from Greens to ALP than they lose from stifling preference flows to them from minor parties and independents on the right. I can’t find stats for past Queensland elections, but most other minor parties in the 2013 federal election had a roughly even split of preference flows to Labor – even if they were nominally on the right (possibly an indication of where Labor is positioned?).
So overall, Labor, who derive significant benefit from Greens preferences, loses out more than the LNP from Just Vote 1.
Labor is in a poor position to complain: optional preferential voting was introduced by the Goss Labor government and it worked for them when they could exploit the divide between the Liberals and Nationals.
Open Tickets: So What?
Meanwhile Labor is attacking Greens for issuing “open tickets”, i.e., How to Vote cards that tell the voter to make up their own minds. This is nothing new, and if we look at past elections, the effect has been pretty much that the ALP gets 80% of Greens preferences once they drop out irrespective of what is on the HTV.
Even in the 2012 election where ALP most certainly did not advocate Just Vote 1, nearly 70% of Labor voters (vs.
nearly 80% of LNP voters) only marked 1 on their ballot. In doing so,
they created the risk that if the Greens candidate came second, there
would be insufficient ALP preferences to beat the LNP candidate.
50% of Greens voters
also went for Just Vote 1 despite the fact that the Greens have never advocated this position. 80% of Greens preferences go to Labor.
What Labor should really do is to think about what it takes to be attractive to Greens voters, and focus on countering Just Vote 1.
They will win a lot more votes that way than going negative. Do the math: 50% of 80% is 40% of the total Greens vote (3-4% of the total vote) that is up for grabs as ALP #2 if they attack the Just Vote 1 strategy. For LNP, the extra votes they win if every Greens voter fills in every box is a quarter of Labor’s gain so no wonder they do not want everyone to fill in the entire ballot (stats from Anthony Green’s blog).
There is therefore absolutely no basis for the ALP complaint that Greens “open tickets” risk handing the election to LNP. The stats actually indicate that Labor voters are far more likely to behave in a way that is perverse to their interests.
The 20% of Greens voters who put LNP ahead of Labor are probably converts from LNP on enviro or other issues where Greens are ahead of Labor and aren’t going to put ALP ahead of LNP no matter what. What would Labor prefer? That these people stay with the LNP?
Labor meanwhile is issuing a call to “put LNP last” which implies filling in all the squares, and is getting huffy about anyone who suggests variants. No doubt they are worrying about confusing the message. If they had not invested so much in confusing voters before (like Peter Beattie’s Just Vote 1 campaign) they would have an easier time now. Their attempts at portraying the Greens as spoilers are not matched by the historical stats.
Showing posts with label Labor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Labor. Show all posts
Sunday, 25 January 2015
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
A local by-election in Walter Taylor: should I support the Greens?
On 23 October, residents of the Brisbane city ward of Walter Taylor will be voting for a councillor to replace Jane Prentice, who was elected to the federal parliament.
While thinking through issues for the campaign, I ran into Brisbane city council’s document, Our shared vision Living in Brisbane 2026, which contains this interesting snippet:
Then I woke up and realised where I was: a city spending billions on tunnels and bridges to support car-based commuting. Given that we are in a city where nearly 80% of all trips are made using private cars, you can understand the pressures to keep it that way. But if we want to turn that around in a big way in little more than a decade and a half, we need to rethink that mindset.
Nope, still supporting the Greens. Tim Dangerfield has my vote.
While thinking through issues for the campaign, I ran into Brisbane city council’s document, Our shared vision Living in Brisbane 2026, which contains this interesting snippet:
Green and active transportWell, I wondered, why should anyone vote for the Greens when the city already has it right?
In 2026, Brisbane will have a network of ‘greenways’ – safe laneways, walkways and bikeways for pedestrians, cyclists, wheel chairs, prams and micro-electric vehicles – linking neighbourhoods to key destinations throughout the city. Our public transport will excel in service, amenity, frequency, routing, information, affordability and safety. Our target for 2026 is to complete Brisbane’s estimated 1700-kilometre bikeways network and that 41% of travelling in the morning peak period will be by walking, cycling or using public transport.
Then I woke up and realised where I was: a city spending billions on tunnels and bridges to support car-based commuting. Given that we are in a city where nearly 80% of all trips are made using private cars, you can understand the pressures to keep it that way. But if we want to turn that around in a big way in little more than a decade and a half, we need to rethink that mindset.
Nope, still supporting the Greens. Tim Dangerfield has my vote.
Thursday, 12 August 2010
Not The Greens Ad
This Australian federal election has been characterised by an even higher than usual amount of mudslinging. Let’s look at three examples: Liberal attacks on the government’s broadband plan, Labor attacks on Tony Abbott’s attitude to labour relations, and the attack by both sides on asylum seekers who, when I last checked, were not one of the parties running for office.
Opposition leader Tony Abbott appears to think it sufficient to attack the government’s broadband plan on the basis of not trusting Labor to get it right, rather than any attack on the specifics. Much of the Liberal opposition attack on Labor is on the theme of alleged bungles in office, especially around spending their stimulus package. There were serious errors, but there is a big difference between a considered multi-year plan and emergency stimulus spending to stave off a major recession.
On the other side, Labor harps on Tony Abbott’s history of supporting the Howard government’s unpopular “Work Choices” labour relations package. While there is good reason to suspect that Abbott would bring those measures back if he could, it’s not an unreasonable line from him that he would not do so without going to another election.
On the issue of asylum seekers, both sides of politics have gone to the gutter, labelling asylum seekers as a “border protection” problem. Excuse me. These miserable people are not an invading army. In fact many are heading here because we invaded their country. Fully a third of refugees on the UN’s books are from two countries: Iraq and Afghanistan. We invaded Afghanistan for the reasonably justified cause of stopping further atrocities like 9/11. But we didn’t finish the job. We left Afghanistan with an unpopular, incompetent government that could only survive with foreign military support, and launched a war on Iraq, a country that has never been shown to have any kind of link to Al Qaeda or 9/11. We bungled that one too, resulting in a civil war and ongoing violence. These two conflicts alone have resulted in about 5-million refugees.
In any case, whatever the source, asylum seekers – anyone who asks for recognition as a refugee, and who is at risk if they return home – are entitled to seek refuge in Australia. We have signed international conventions that oblige us to take them. Here’s a surprising fact: the vast majority of boat arrivals (up to 97%, depending when you count) have their refugee status approved and end up staying in Australia. But they are a tiny fraction of total asylum seekers. Far more arrive by plane, with legitimate passports and visas. But most of those who arrive “legally” end up having their applications for asylum denied. Let’s summarise this:
When Tony Abbott and Julie Gillard talk about stopping the boats, and Tony Abbott talks about sending back people without proper passports, they are talking drivel. Luckily for them, the people most affected are a tiny constituency who can’t swing an election.
So going back to the examples, we have once each of an attack from either side that lacks substance, and an attack by both sides on an innocent third party (not in the sense of a political “party”).
By this stage in an election, with so much heavy-weight advertising by the major parties with so much investment put into focus groups and polling, the Greens poll numbers start to sag. Not this time. Instead, the Greens numbers are holding up remarkably well. The latest (at time of writing) Roy Morgan poll on senate voting intentions shows the Greens vote holding up well enough to double their senate representation from 5 to 10 senators. Yet the Greens have had little or no TV advertising, certainly none I’ve seen.
Could it be that the major parties have reduced TV advertising to an echo chamber of negativity, that has voters so turned off that they don’t pay attention any more?
Meanwhile on the ABC’s Gruen Nation on Wednesday night 11 August 2010, one of the ad agencies asked to pitch for alternative messages came up with this:
That’s certainly a positive message, even if the ABC won’t allow the agency to sell it to the Greens. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing. This way, anyone who likes it can embed it in their own web page, because it’s not a political ad, it’s just an example of the TV advertiser’s craft.
Further reading
There are many sources of information on asylum seekers and refugees, including the UNHCR. For a quick summary, try GetUp’s fact sheet – but I urge you to research the issue yourself.
Opposition leader Tony Abbott appears to think it sufficient to attack the government’s broadband plan on the basis of not trusting Labor to get it right, rather than any attack on the specifics. Much of the Liberal opposition attack on Labor is on the theme of alleged bungles in office, especially around spending their stimulus package. There were serious errors, but there is a big difference between a considered multi-year plan and emergency stimulus spending to stave off a major recession.
On the other side, Labor harps on Tony Abbott’s history of supporting the Howard government’s unpopular “Work Choices” labour relations package. While there is good reason to suspect that Abbott would bring those measures back if he could, it’s not an unreasonable line from him that he would not do so without going to another election.
On the issue of asylum seekers, both sides of politics have gone to the gutter, labelling asylum seekers as a “border protection” problem. Excuse me. These miserable people are not an invading army. In fact many are heading here because we invaded their country. Fully a third of refugees on the UN’s books are from two countries: Iraq and Afghanistan. We invaded Afghanistan for the reasonably justified cause of stopping further atrocities like 9/11. But we didn’t finish the job. We left Afghanistan with an unpopular, incompetent government that could only survive with foreign military support, and launched a war on Iraq, a country that has never been shown to have any kind of link to Al Qaeda or 9/11. We bungled that one too, resulting in a civil war and ongoing violence. These two conflicts alone have resulted in about 5-million refugees.
In any case, whatever the source, asylum seekers – anyone who asks for recognition as a refugee, and who is at risk if they return home – are entitled to seek refuge in Australia. We have signed international conventions that oblige us to take them. Here’s a surprising fact: the vast majority of boat arrivals (up to 97%, depending when you count) have their refugee status approved and end up staying in Australia. But they are a tiny fraction of total asylum seekers. Far more arrive by plane, with legitimate passports and visas. But most of those who arrive “legally” end up having their applications for asylum denied. Let’s summarise this:
- boat people – tiny fraction of all asylum seekers, almost all legitimate: demonised
- plane arrivals – most asylum seekers, very few legitimate: not a political issue
When Tony Abbott and Julie Gillard talk about stopping the boats, and Tony Abbott talks about sending back people without proper passports, they are talking drivel. Luckily for them, the people most affected are a tiny constituency who can’t swing an election.
So going back to the examples, we have once each of an attack from either side that lacks substance, and an attack by both sides on an innocent third party (not in the sense of a political “party”).
By this stage in an election, with so much heavy-weight advertising by the major parties with so much investment put into focus groups and polling, the Greens poll numbers start to sag. Not this time. Instead, the Greens numbers are holding up remarkably well. The latest (at time of writing) Roy Morgan poll on senate voting intentions shows the Greens vote holding up well enough to double their senate representation from 5 to 10 senators. Yet the Greens have had little or no TV advertising, certainly none I’ve seen.
Could it be that the major parties have reduced TV advertising to an echo chamber of negativity, that has voters so turned off that they don’t pay attention any more?
Meanwhile on the ABC’s Gruen Nation on Wednesday night 11 August 2010, one of the ad agencies asked to pitch for alternative messages came up with this:
That’s certainly a positive message, even if the ABC won’t allow the agency to sell it to the Greens. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing. This way, anyone who likes it can embed it in their own web page, because it’s not a political ad, it’s just an example of the TV advertiser’s craft.
Further reading
There are many sources of information on asylum seekers and refugees, including the UNHCR. For a quick summary, try GetUp’s fact sheet – but I urge you to research the issue yourself.
Friday, 23 July 2010
The Heart and Soul Election
If this Australian federal election is the election where the Liberals lost their mind, it’s also the election where the Labor Party lost its soul.
The ALP last election stood for an evidence-based approach on climate change. Ross Garnaut was tasked with summarising the best science, and producing an economic response. The plan was that the government would go with what he recommended. If anyone spotted the flaw in the plan – the then opposition was committing to a course of action where they had not sold the detail politically – this was lost in the “it’s time” mood that swept John Howard into the dustbin of history.
Now that we know the best science, and have an economic basis on which to proceed, what’s Labor’s position? The logical progression from the Rudd campaign would be to win political support in the form of a renewed mandate to implement the Garnaut recommendations. Instead, Julia Gillard plans to set up something that is an odd mixture of focus group and jury, a Citizen’s Assembly to decide where to go next. This is rank cowardice. It only puts off the hard decisions, and leave us exactly where we were before the Garnaut Report, except this time we are allowing public opinion to shape policy, instead of expert advice.
In a situation where expert advice points in a direction that will require some hard adjustments, you do not need some sort of populist leading from behind strategy that procrastinates decision-making. Political leaders need to do the hard yards of selling the tough steps that we have to take. They also need to cut through the dishonest propaganda of lobbyists who see their agenda as more important than the overall welfare of humanity.
Add to this Labor’s abject surrender on defending refugees against unfair attack (including straight-out lies), and Labor’s craven cave-in to the big mining houses over the mining tax, and you have to wonder what Labor stands for.
And the Liberals? They elected Tony Abbott as their leader. If you don’t get why this is crazy, read this. No wonder all the polls are showing a big swing to the Greens.
The ALP last election stood for an evidence-based approach on climate change. Ross Garnaut was tasked with summarising the best science, and producing an economic response. The plan was that the government would go with what he recommended. If anyone spotted the flaw in the plan – the then opposition was committing to a course of action where they had not sold the detail politically – this was lost in the “it’s time” mood that swept John Howard into the dustbin of history.
Now that we know the best science, and have an economic basis on which to proceed, what’s Labor’s position? The logical progression from the Rudd campaign would be to win political support in the form of a renewed mandate to implement the Garnaut recommendations. Instead, Julia Gillard plans to set up something that is an odd mixture of focus group and jury, a Citizen’s Assembly to decide where to go next. This is rank cowardice. It only puts off the hard decisions, and leave us exactly where we were before the Garnaut Report, except this time we are allowing public opinion to shape policy, instead of expert advice.
In a situation where expert advice points in a direction that will require some hard adjustments, you do not need some sort of populist leading from behind strategy that procrastinates decision-making. Political leaders need to do the hard yards of selling the tough steps that we have to take. They also need to cut through the dishonest propaganda of lobbyists who see their agenda as more important than the overall welfare of humanity.
Add to this Labor’s abject surrender on defending refugees against unfair attack (including straight-out lies), and Labor’s craven cave-in to the big mining houses over the mining tax, and you have to wonder what Labor stands for.
And the Liberals? They elected Tony Abbott as their leader. If you don’t get why this is crazy, read this. No wonder all the polls are showing a big swing to the Greens.
Tuesday, 19 February 2008
Running for Greens in Brisbane March 2008
I've placed my first election ad for my campaign in the MacGregor ward of the Brisbane City Council on YouTube:
So what do I stand for?
In short, a liveable city.
What does that mean? A city that puts people first.
In the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, one of the main characters is called Ford Prefect. He was a space alien and in an error in his research prior to landing on Earth, he thought cars were the dominant life form. If you look at the priorities in development in Brisbane, you'd be excused for making the same mistake. Billions of dollars are being committed to building a car tunnel that no one will want when it's built, because petrol will be so expensive, we'll all want to use our cars as little as possible. After totally neglecting the issue for 4 years, Lord Mayor Campbell Newman has announced $100-million in future spending on bike paths. He and his Labor opposite number are in a bidding war on the number of new buses they will lay on.
All of this is pathetic and inadequate, a reaction to demand for better public transport and alternatives to cars, rather than a coherent plan.
For example: why do Brisbane buses not run anywhere close to on time? Because the system is designed that way. For buses to run to a timetable you need:
What do we actually have? A limited network of busways, in which most of the routes spill out onto regular streets. Many routes do not go on busways at all, and don't make much use of dedicated bus lanes. Ticketing is mostly by buying tickets on the bus. While there are other options, you can't buy tickets at most stops. Ticketing alone is a significant factor in the difficulty in having buses run to time. Add to it that getting off buses at a popular stop can take considerable time, and there is too much variance in stop times to make accurate timetabling possible. Add in the other issues, and you can see that any attempt at maintaining an accurate timetable is a joke.
Brisbane buses, in other words, don't run to time by design.
The Labor and Liberal side of politics (pretty much the same side on this issue) can make all the election promises they like, but both have had ample opportunity to address this issue. The Libs have held the mayoral office for the last term, and Campbell Newman, as a Civil Engineer, ought to be capable of understanding the problem. Instead, he has ignored it in favour of building tunnels. The Labs ran the city before him, and they set things up the way they are today.
That's it for now. Watch this space for thoughts on bike paths and other failures of the existing city government. And how things could be done better, with examples from other parts of the world.
So what do I stand for?
In short, a liveable city.
What does that mean? A city that puts people first.
In the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, one of the main characters is called Ford Prefect. He was a space alien and in an error in his research prior to landing on Earth, he thought cars were the dominant life form. If you look at the priorities in development in Brisbane, you'd be excused for making the same mistake. Billions of dollars are being committed to building a car tunnel that no one will want when it's built, because petrol will be so expensive, we'll all want to use our cars as little as possible. After totally neglecting the issue for 4 years, Lord Mayor Campbell Newman has announced $100-million in future spending on bike paths. He and his Labor opposite number are in a bidding war on the number of new buses they will lay on.
All of this is pathetic and inadequate, a reaction to demand for better public transport and alternatives to cars, rather than a coherent plan.
For example: why do Brisbane buses not run anywhere close to on time? Because the system is designed that way. For buses to run to a timetable you need:
- busways and bus lanes that isolate buses from regular traffic
- minimal or better still no ticket sales on buses
- rapid entry (related to avoiding selling tickets on the bus) and exit
What do we actually have? A limited network of busways, in which most of the routes spill out onto regular streets. Many routes do not go on busways at all, and don't make much use of dedicated bus lanes. Ticketing is mostly by buying tickets on the bus. While there are other options, you can't buy tickets at most stops. Ticketing alone is a significant factor in the difficulty in having buses run to time. Add to it that getting off buses at a popular stop can take considerable time, and there is too much variance in stop times to make accurate timetabling possible. Add in the other issues, and you can see that any attempt at maintaining an accurate timetable is a joke.
Brisbane buses, in other words, don't run to time by design.
The Labor and Liberal side of politics (pretty much the same side on this issue) can make all the election promises they like, but both have had ample opportunity to address this issue. The Libs have held the mayoral office for the last term, and Campbell Newman, as a Civil Engineer, ought to be capable of understanding the problem. Instead, he has ignored it in favour of building tunnels. The Labs ran the city before him, and they set things up the way they are today.
That's it for now. Watch this space for thoughts on bike paths and other failures of the existing city government. And how things could be done better, with examples from other parts of the world.
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