It ain't broke

It has been interesting listening to, and reading, people complain about the micro-parties like the "Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party" (who look like pinching a spot in Victoria despite only capturing about .5% of the primary vote) getting into the Senate.  There have been calls for a reform of the voting system.  However the system is not broken.  It is just that the really small parties have found a way of exploiting people's laziness.  

In a preferential voting system, you get to decide where your votes flow.  You number all the candidates in the order you would prefer them to get in.  That way if your first preference gets eliminated, your vote goes to the next available preference (i.e. whoever is next on your list that has not yet been eliminated).  In the senate, even if your candidate gets in, a proportion of your vote flows to your next preference (a formula related to how many votes they have over the 'quota').  

However in voting for the senate, the majority of people abdicate their responsibility to the party of their choice by putting a "1" above the line rather than filling in all the boxes below the line.  This is understandable since there were 97 people on the Victorian ballot paper this year, more in NSW. However it means that the party chosen gets to direct the preferences whichever way they choose rather than whichever way the voter chooses.  Many of the small parties preferenced each other over the other parties, and some of them managed to get the medium sized parties to preference them.  So the Australian Motoring Enthusiasts got preferences from every party except the following:

Liberal/The Nationals

Australian Labor Party

The Greens

Australian Christians

Australian Democrats

Country Alliance

Secular Party

Socialist Equality Party

If you were in Victoria, and voted above the line, unless you voted for one of the above parties, your vote helped get Ricky Muir of the aforementioned party into a position where he is expected to win a senate seat.  That is how a party which got 11770 of the approximately 2.3 million votes counted so far managed to get into a position to win a seat.

It is not that the system is broken, it is just that people don't choose to use it properly.  Of course there is still the chance that the 800000 or so Victorian whose votes are yet to be counted (early voters, postal votes and below the line voters) might just edge Ricky Muir out.  Or we might have preferred him to the other options available.  

Stop the Votes

I have had an epiphany.  As a nation we have a real problem.  We are being over run, and we need to do something about it.  There are people who want control of this country and if they have it, they will impact our way of life.  If we let them, they will undermine the supposed Aussie values of a fair go and supporting the underdog.  They speak words that spread fear and even hatred.  Worse still they want us to support them with our tax dollars while they do this.  It will cost us a fortune to get rid of them, but sometimes the price is worth paying.  I will admit that technically the way they get to where they are is in fact legal, but I'm sure we can ignore that.

Of course some will point out that in their own country they are often abused and ridiculed.  Recent reports indicate that one prominent person in this group has had a missile launched at them on two separate occasions, just because of who they were.  Worse still it is children who have perpetrated this violence.  This person, having survived these attacks, was later forcibly removed from their job by the government.  However, I must point out that the bad behaviour of their fellow citizens is no excuse for us to let them ruin our country.

Others may point out that we need to remember that these people are human beings just like you and me.  However, this does not help us get rid of this menace.  We need to depersonalise them, even dehumanise them.  Perhaps we can call them by their method for getting where they are: Vote-people.  They will do anything for your vote.  On recent evidence it seems that they will trample on the poor and marginalised if it has a chance of getting them more votes.   They will exercise their power on the powerless, and protect the rich (or at least the middle class, who, on the world stage, are the rich).  They create fear where there is no need for fear, and then use it to manipulate us.

Do not let the Vote-people destroy our country: We need to stop the votes. The only reason Vote-people can put in place inhumane policies is that they believe it will help them get elected.  We need to stop the votes going towards parties and candidates that support unjust policies.  We need to stop the votes going towards people who spread fear and myths about asylum seekers.

Don't let Vote-people make Australia a country without compassion: join with me and let's try to stop the votes.   

If you want to stop the votes, here a a few suggestions:
1. Refuse to vote for a party that supports the unjust asylum seeker policies of the ALP and the Coalition.  Find a party that has humane asylum seeker policies (e.g. The Greens greens.org.au/policies/immigration-refugees), and vote for them.  At very least you will be denying the major parties the money they would get from your primary vote.

2. Let your local member and/or the local Labor/Liberal/National candidate know why you are voting the way you are.  While you are at it, let Tony Abbot (@TonyAbbotMHR) and Kevin Rudd (@KRuddMP) know as well.  The more voters that tell them that their policies are unacceptable the more chance they will listen.
3. Support organisations like the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (@ASRC1; asrc.org.au) or Welcome to Australia (@welcome2aussie; welcometoaustralia.org.au) or others who take up the battle, provide information and help asylum seekers.
4. Arm yourself with information from the ASRC etc, and talk about it with friends, colleagues, and anyone who will listen.  Correct the lies and misconceptions that have been put out into the public domain during this debate.
5. Share web pages, blog posts etc. which provide facts, ideas, and resources for supporting the asylum seekers.
6. Write your own, and share it.
7. Sign this petition against the current policy, and share it in social media, via email etc.
8. Share this blogpost on twitter, Facebook, and other social media and encourage others to stop the votes.

Written and authorised by Recess75 for no organisation in particular, Melbourne.*

*The above line needs to be read at 3x the speed you read the rest of the post

Dear Mr Rudd

An open letter to Mr. K. Rudd, PM

Dear Mr.Rudd,

I am disappointed. You once had the, admittedly dubious, honour of being my favourite politician (Barry Jones having long since retired).  You played a central role in one of the most moving moments I have ever encountered from our politicians.  Your apology to the stolen generations was and is the proudest I have ever been of one of our politicians.  As a nation, many of us were caught up in the excitement of Kevin07, and there was an air of expectation as you showed a more compassionate and caring leadership than we had experienced for some time.  Apart from the apology to the stolen generation, there was the dismantling of the Pacific Solution and a more caring approach to asylum seekers and the potential for real change in relation to climate change.  You handled the onset of the GFC quite well, if perhaps a bit generously.  Australia seemed to be going in a good direction led by a politician who had convictions and seemed to be able to act on them.

However, yesterday the only conviction on show seemed to be that a "lurch to the right" would get you votes.  Your policy announcement made me more ashamed to be an Australian than anything I can remember.  Australia's recent history with asylum seekers has been disgraceful.  The policy you announced makes it look tame.  Rather than accepting our responsibility as citizens of the world, we are going to pass our responsibility off to another country, one that an ill afford to help.  A country in which the majority of people live in extreme poverty, and we are going to expect them to carry the cost our rejection of human need.  Asylum seekers have be vilified, dehumanised and used for political purposes for too long.  This is the last straw.  Bring back the compassion.  Where is the Kevin Rudd of 2007-2008?  The conviction politician of yesteryear seems to have disappeared.  Are you such a political animal that you would reverse your position, abandoning compassion for cruelty just to keep power?

The upshot of yesterday is that I want to make it as difficult as possible for you to implement this hideous policy.  I realise that I have little power.  However I do have a vote.  Consequently I will not be voting Labor at the next election, unless the policy changes dramatically.  With the Liberal policy almost as bad, I have been forced to explore other options.  I have resisted voting Green for many years as I question some of their policies.  However I can see that even with the areas I do not agree with their platform, their policies stem from a compassion for those impacted by their policies.  Occasionally I might feel that their compassion is misdirected or that their response is not ideal, but I would rather support people who err on the side of compassion than the fear politics and dehumanisation we have seen from Labor and the Coalition in the past 10-15 years (with the brief exception of the early years of your first Prime Ministership).  So I will be supporting the local Greens candidate Adam Bandt over the other parties, and encouraging others to do so.  I will also be thinking about my senate vote to try to minimise the chance that my vote will effectively go to Labor, and maximise the chance that a minor party can work against this policy in the Senate.

I have never been very politically active.  Now I plan to be more so thanks to your latest policy.

Yours Sincerely

S. Rhys Spiller
a.k.a Recess75