Monday 11 April 2011

So just why are we bothering?

Andrew Gilligan, Daily Telegraph:
"In Britain’s proposed version – as in New South Wales and one other Australian state, Queensland – ranking will be optional. You can, if you like, cast what is effectively a first-past-the-post vote, by only marking a first preference and leaving all the other candidates blank.
Last month, when NSW’s scandal-ridden Labor government finally faced the voters, quite a few people did, in fact, do just that. Labor was massively defeated. As the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s election analyst, Antony Green, noted: “AV behaved very much like first past the post.”
In only one constituency, out of the total of 93, was the candidate who led on first preferences defeated after the distribution of second and lower preferences. Nor is this unusual. In the previous NSW election, in 2007, only two of the 93 constituencies went to the candidate who “came second”. In the last Queensland election, in 2009, the figure was three seats out of 89.
In other words, as Mr Green puts it: “The impact of AV is likely to be much less than its advocates in Britain suggest, and certainly less than its UK opponents warn.” The big claims on either side of the British debate are probably misplaced. The public indifference to next month’s referendum might, in fact, be the correct response."
Another classic example of politicians wasting money that is not theirs!

6 comments:

James Higham said...

And wasting our time and our lives, when big things are planned for May.

TomTom said...

Whatever causes chaos must be good. I still think the best system is to remove party labels from ballot papers so candidates have to convince on their merits.

This system was not set up with parties in mind

WitteringsfromWitney said...

JH: Agreed.

TT: "This system was not set up with parties in mind."

Oh it bloody well was - with the self-perpetuation element very much in mind!

TomTom said...

Oh it bloody well was - with the self-perpetuation element very much in mind!

I think you will find that the voting system was designed in 1832 and that Parties as such were not on the ballot paper and candidates were ranked in alphabetical order.

The Party was an issue.

WitteringsfromWitney said...

TT: Accepted - I was referring to the fact that whatever system is chosen (AV or FPTP)either will maintain their grip on political power. As you no doubt know I believe candidate selection should be by open primary and if adopted it would to a certain extent not then matter whether party names appeared on a ballot paper or not.

TomTom said...

We are agreed....and I know the point you were making. It is just I cannot seem to work out when exactly party labels got inserted onto the ballot paper because that is when a "local" vote was turned into a "national" marketing campaign