Archive for August, 2009

NSW draft federal redistribution

By
Ben Raue
 – August 7, 2009

The draft federal redistribution boundaries for NSW will be announced this morning. Unfortunately I’ll be in work and won’t be able to break the story (although generally it’s best to wait until Antony Green crunches the numbers). I will hopefully be able to post something during my lunch break. I’ll also try and get the Google Earth map ASAP, but if it is a big file like in the case of Queensland, it may need to wait for the weekend.

Update: I have work, but I have a few thoughts I would share with you all:

  • Reid has been abolished, as has Lowe. Parts of both seats have created the new seat of McMahon, basically covering Canada Bay and Auburn, with a little bit of the other inner west LGAs.
  • Macarthur has moved further into Sydney. I’m guessing this will make it marginal Labor. It has gained a small amount of Campbelltown from Werriwa and lost parts of Wollondilly. It has also gained the western outreaches of Liverpool.
  • Cunningham has pushed as far north as Port Hacking, while Cook and Hughes have both become a lot more compact. Hughes has spilled over the Georges River into Bankstown.
  • Wentworth has had no change, while Rosebery, the only part of the City of Sydney in Kingsford Smith, has gone back to Sydney. No other change to those seats. Very little change to Grayndler.
  • Watson, Barton and Banks have been radically redrawn to cover the Canterbury-St George area, along with Burwood and parts of Bankstown.
  • Fowler is much more compact.
  • Mackellar, Warringah, Bradfield, North Sydney and Bennelong have all had relatively minor changes.
  • Parramatta has shifted to the east and south to be centred much more on Parramatta CBD.
  • Greenway has reverted from being a huge Hawkesbury seat to being a small Blacktown seat, while Hawkesbury has been returned to Macquarie.
  • Dobell, Robertson, Charlton, Shortland and Newcastle have remained largely intact.
  • Farrer has remained the same.
  • Eden-Monaro has lost most of the territory west of the ACT to Riverina while gaining Bateman’s Bay.
  • Calare has retracted back into the Central West, while Parkes has become the massive Far West seat.
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Anderson to support CLP

By
Ben Raue
 – August 6, 2009

Just to follow up on today’s story, Northern Territory Labor defector Alison Anderson has announced she will become an independent and support a new Country Liberal government. This will be the first mid-term change of government, that I can think of, since John Curtin took office during the Second World War. The Assembly will begin sitting next Tuesday, and it appears the CLP will call a vote of no-confidence as soon as possible. They will then have 8 days to present a new government with majority support to the Administrator. I’m not sure of how this plays out constitutionally, but we should see a Country Liberal government by the end of August.

More from Ms Anderson:

The newly independent Member for MacDonnell, Alison Anderson, says next Tuesday’s Parliamentary session will be the greatest day in Northern Territory history.

Ms Anderson was the Territory’s Indigenous policy minister until earlier this week, when she quit in fury over a housing program and a newspaper article she thought was derogatory.

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Hanging parliaments

By
Ben Raue
 – August 6, 2009

Two separate stories have emerged in the last few days of governments that could lose their majority with the resignations of their own party’s parliamentarians.

In the Northern Territory, Labor MP Alison Anderson has resigned from the party, and is yet to make clear which party she would support in office. The last election saw Labor win 13 seats, the opposition Country Liberals won 11 and conservative independent Gerry Wood won the remaining seat. Marion Scrymgour subsequently resigned from the ALP in early 2009, but committed to supporting the Labor government, keeping it in office as a minority government. Scrymgour has rejoined the ALP following Anderson’s resignation.

The Northern Territory previously had ‘semi-fixed terms’, with an election only allowed to be called in the last year of a term. After Paul Henderson went to a disastrous early election last year, this was replaced with complete fixed terms. As Antony Green points out, this makes the Northern Territory the first jurisdiction to see a government lose its majority, forcing a possible ‘baton change’. In the case that the government were to lose a vote of no confidence, the opposition would have eight days to form a government with majority support (or the Labor Party could elect a new leader who could garner support from an independent). If this could not be achieved, an election would be triggered.

These sorts of results have been largely absent since the creation of the two-party system around 1910, although John Curtin took office mid-term from various conservative governments. You could argue that the Labor split of 1917 similarly saw mid-term changes of government, although in these cases the new governments included many members of the former government. Update: commenters have pointed out that there were midterm changes of government in the ACT in the early 1990s in the early days of self-government and in Queensland in 1996.

Assuming the Country Liberals take the earliest opportunity to call a no-confidence vote, we could be facing a new CLP government, or a fresh election, by the end of August. Even if the CLP can stitch together a majority, however, they may determine it is in their interests to hold back and wait for an election they would likely win, and wait for the eight days to pass.

Meanwhile, in Ireland, the governing Fianna Fail-Green coalition has stumbled further towards defeat, with two Fianna Fail TDs resigning the party whip and moving to the crossbenches over local issues. Following on from devestating local elections and the loss of one of their seats at a by-election in June, this reduces the government to an 83-81 majority, with one seat vacant.

The government consists of 72 Fianna Fail, 6 Greens, 2 former Progressive Democrats and three other independents, for a total of 83. The opposition consists of 52 Fine Gael, 20 Labour, 4 Sinn Fein and three independents, for a total of 79. On certain policy issues (probably including the expected harsh budget in November) these two splitters can be expected to vote with the opposition.

The Speaker can be expected to support the government in the event of a tie, while the vacant seat is that of Pat ‘the Cope’ Gallagher, who was elected to the European Parliament in June. His seat is in Donegal South West, where the government parties won 52% in 2007, in comparison with 47% for opposition parties. Considering the scale of the collapse of Fianna Fail’s support, it has to be judged likely that this seat will be lost, meaning that the opposition will only need one other TD to defect for them to gain a majority.

While Fine Gael and Labour could try to stitch together a new coalition government, considering their high poll ratings you would have to think they would support an early election and form a relatively stable government, with Fianna Fail in danger of coming third.

The position is disastrous for the Greens, who would likely be wiped out in such an election. This puts them in an impossible position. They can bring down the government, regain goodwill from their traditional voters, but likely still be heavily punished, or delay the election as long as possible and be possibly destroyed in punishment for maintaining Fianna Fail in government for even longer. I personally think that the Greens will probably lose all six of their seats either way, but by bringing down the government they regain some goodwill and will hopefully survive to fight another day. If they don’t act against the government now, they will go down in history as Fianna Fail apologists and won’t be able to return.

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Money money money

By
Ben Raue
 – August 4, 2009

The issue of political donations and electoral funding has come to the fore again this week, with Queensland Premier Anna Bligh calling for a ban on political donations in the wake of criticisms of her government from anti-corruption figure Tony Fitzgerald.

A call was similarly issued by NSW Premier Morris Iemma last year and quickly forgotten once his party turfed him out last September.

The issue has also been raised in the context of the package of election reforms proposed by the Rudd government, which included a lowering of the threshold for the disclosure of donations from approximately $11,000 to $1000.

The loudest campaigners on the issue have been the Greens, particularly the Greens NSW, who have stricter donations policies than other Greens state parties, and have pushed the issue strongly in NSW politics. In particular, Lee Rhiannon and the website democracy4sale have put the issue in the public spotlight.

Today online campaign group GetUp launched a campaign with some similar features to the policy the Greens have been pushing for years.

However, there are a few problems with the position GetUp is pushing that would undermine any reform and make it largely toothless. It seems like GetUp took the Greens policy and tore out anything that would might inconvencience them. It’s blatant hypocrisy.

GetUp’s policy is probably right when it comes to the issue of donations to political parties (which, despite the debate recently, is only one element of electoral funding reform). They propose a ban on donations from corporations and unions, and a cap on donations from individuals of $1000. This is the best option. It removes the influence of rich individuals and corporate interests, while allowing small donations to continue. It’s exactly the same policy as the Greens, and the system used in Canada.

The policy pushed by Bligh and Iemma, a complete ban on donations, would be disastrous for democracy. In a system where the only external funding to a political party comes from the state, it becomes impossible for new parties to arise, and sets the current 2 1/2 party system in stone. It gives a massive advantage, also, to parties with investments that they can draw on. Both major parties own properties from which they receive rent, having built up these investments using donations from previous eras, yet they would continue to reap the benefit long into the future.

But any system that is limited to capping donations to political parties is doomed to fail. Money is like water, it finds every crack and crevice. If you ban companies from donating to political parties, it is easy for them to give money to a third party to do the same campaigning. It’s no minor issue -it will definitely happen. You only need to look at the ‘Swift Boat’ style organisations who campaign in every US election campaign beyond the reach of campaign finance laws that already ban corporate donations and cap individual donations to candidates.

GetUp have completely ignored this issue, apart from a vague comment tucked away on a PDF posted on their campaign page. It’s blatant hypocrisy to demand restrictions on funding to political parties while wanting to avoid any regulation themselves. How are we supposed to take them seriously?

GetUp has also dodged the hard policy decisions by ignoring the capping of campaign spending. Electoral funding is a matter of supply and demand. Donation caps restrict the supply of money, but it’s actually much easier to fix the problem by restricting supply. By capping election spending, you stop the continuous arms race, making it easier for independents and minor parties. It also removes much of the incentive for the corruption of our political process by removing the need for parties to raise large sums of money.

Tim Gartrell, who was ALP National Secretary at the 2007 election, has come out in favour of restricting spending, and says:

Spending limits must be part of the answer – no party is going to allow itself to be outgunned in an election campaign. Campaign Directors will always try to equal or better the other side and in Australia that means a donation arms race to fuel campaign advertising. Any solution has to deal with this escalation or otherwise it won’t remove the pressure for funds. This means a limit on campaign spending. This could be applied to both the political parties and third parties (who might be subject to a lesser limit). Another scheme might ban TV advertising but allow an expansion of party allocated broadcasts (as operates in the UK).

Of course, any spending cap must include third parties involved in election campaigning. It would be absurd if the ALP had its funding restricting while the unions, Greenpeace and GetUp are free to spend a fortune on election campaigning.

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