The Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 17 November 2000.
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HERE
AREN'T Americans funny? All this talk about primary votes and mandates � as if that has got anything to do with modern democratic elections. Whoever eventually stumbles over line in the race to lead the world's greatest democracy would do well to study the Australian model. Over here, you don't need to adhere to such lofty concepts as a majority of the primary vote -- or even a majority in a two-party preferred system � to claim the mandate to do whatever the hell you please. The Australian Labor Party did not need it in 1990. And the Coalition certainly did not blink when it pulled less than 40 per cent of the primary vote (48.6 per cent of the two-party preferred vote) last time around in 1998. In fact, in its own right, our magnanimous leader's party only managed to win 34 per cent of the 12 million votes cast. Experience has taught us that our votes, no matter how collectively focused, ultimately mean nothing -- but that's modern democracy for you. Of course, also keep in mind that both the Coalition and Labor Party combined only managed to garner 80 per cent of primary votes across the country. You wouldn't know that by looking at the make-up of the federal chambers where the major parties share 94 per cent of the seats. In fact, the closer you look at things, the more gut-wrenchingly laughable -- sorry, funnier -- it becomes. Like, take One Nation ... please!!! (Ha-ha-ha!) No, seriously, no matter what most of us think about One Nation, it still received 936,621 primary votes across the country at the last election, or roughly 8 per cent of the national primary vote. And what sort of representation did all those One Nation voters get in Federal Parliament? A solitary senator. Now, this alone doesn't make much mathematical sense. So let us compare it to, say, an independent senator from, um, Tasmania. Imagine if this said independent could earn himself a seat in the same national Senate with only 9681 primary votes. Take it even further. Imagine if the cards fell so that this one senator held the balance of power for more than a year, could hold the entire Government and country to ransom and push through his own fundamentalist agenda. Are you still following? Okay, now we are getting closer to a workable democratic electoral formula, Australian-style. Again, not that any of us need reminding about this. But if you want a living, breathing example of Australian-style democracy at work, head down to Sydney's newest precinct, the inner-west city of Canada Bay (formerly known as the suburbs of Concord and Drummoyne). It is holding its first council election on December 2 and if the recent postal vote (regarding the amalgamation of the two suburbs) is anything to go by, it should be a real hoot. The citizens of Concord and Drummoyne did not get to vote last year as the council elections were postponed until the issue of amalgamation was worked out. Hence the non-binding, non-compulsory postal vote in July. In Concord, 43 per cent of eligible participants sent back their ballot papers, with 78 per cent opposing the merger. In the neighbouring Drummoyne, there was a 38 per cent return rate, with 73 per cent of voters against the change. This didn't bother the members of Drummoyne Council who subsequently endorsed the merger. Concord couldn't do the same because several councillors abstained from attending the relevant meeting, in turn sabotaging the process. An inquiry into the matter by the NSW Local Government Boundaries Commission eventually also endorsed the merger, suggesting that the lack of response to the postal survey indicated general support for the move. Now that is seriously streamlined democracy. Soon, we won't have to bother casting votes at all -- the powers-that-be will understand the will of the people through telepathy or some other state-of-the-art electoral process.
