It’s been reported today that the Liberal Party is preferencing Fred Nile’s Christian Democratic Party in the Legislative Council in 86 of 93 seats.
The seven seats where they are exhausting are Coogee, Sydney, Auburn, Bankstown, Granville, Lakemba and Liverpool.
There has been a theory that they avoided doing it in those seven seats due to the large gay communities in Coogee and Sydney and the large Muslim communities in the other five. Yet there are a large number of other seats in that category. The Liberals preferenced the CDP in the seats of Balmain and Marrickville. There are many other seats with large Muslim communities where the Liberals have preferenced the CDP.
I think it’s more likely these seats were decided by the CDP, not the Liberal Party.
At the 2007 state election, the CDP had a position that they would preference the Liberal Party except in seats where the Liberals ran a Muslim candidate. Despite this position, they preferenced Muslim candidate Ned Mannoun in Liverpool, but didn’t preference Christian candidate Philip Mansour in Canterbury. It seems the CDP refused to preference Liberals who they thought were Muslim. Not only were they bigoted, but weren’t competent enough to carry out that bigotry!
We haven’t yet seen CDP how-to-votes (and they are unlikely to hand out many preferences in these seven seats), but I’d be willing to bet that the CDP told the Liberal Party that they wouldn’t preference them in the seats where they were running gay candidates or candidates who they thought were Muslim.
In three of those five seats, the Liberal Party is running Muslim candidates. Ironically, the Liberal candidates in Auburn and Granville are not Muslim, but you can’t expect the Christian Democratic Party to know that.
It’s no surprise that the CDP would pursue such a bigoted position. Yet what does it say about the Liberal Party that they would do a deal with a party that would so openly discriminate against those of their candidates of whom they don’t approve?
I think you mean Sydney, not Vaucluse? There’s a Liberal HTV for Sydney here:
http://www.electionleaflets.org.au/leaflets/826/
I would’ve thought that at an election where the Coalition are doing so well on their own, they’d be wanting to keep their heads down and not risk offending anyone by preferencing folks like the CDP anywhere. Bizarre tactic.
I can see where the Libs are coming from (tactically that is, not ideologically). While preferencing the CDP may lose them a few votes or even a few seats, really, what is 63 seats compared to 65 when it’s likely to be Labor heartland that is reclaimed in four years anyway. However, if Paul Green gets in, the Libs can legitimately claim that the CDP owes them and form a pretty tight upper house Lib/Nat/CDP coalition majority.
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, but I expect it will.
Why wouldn’t the liberals preference family first in seats where they are running? They are more moderate than the cdp, I remember Gordon Moyes saying he was willing to work closer with the liberals and give them another second preference option after he left the cdp for ffp?
I just noticed at start of Article you are talking about seats of the legislative council but then talk about assembly seats? But i just looked through a random selection of lib/nat htv cards and they appear to be exhausting, only exemption in what I’ve seen is in Newcastle where they are preferencing independent john tate. In the upper house they are saying vote 1 liberal and vote 2 cdp. I imagine some voters will not follow that. personally, i’ll probably put the cdp before the libs but others will not have a bar of that.
Scott, what they are doing is that in those seven seats the HTV they are handing out is not telling people to preference the CDP No. 2 in the upper house. I think the assumption is that there is a connected with the lower house preference arrangements. It’s a bizarre tactic to recommend different upper house preferences in different lower house seats.
Yes interesting. They have said vote one only in upper house in bankstown. But really i think one would be mad to vote 1 liberal in upper house, any party having control of both houses is bad news, the more independent and decent minor party representatives we can get on the upper house cross bench the better!
How vomit inducing was the footage of the ALP campaign launch? KKK channelling Oprah with the walk around the stage and the all teeth and smiles persona.
Seems like the thinking is believe in my personality cult. Of course with minus 20 net approval its hard to rely on a personality cult. We’ve come so far since Wran’s our man and Wran Can.
Come on folks, let’s not fool ourselves that CDP is a legitimate political party …. any such doubts should have been excised with how the likes of John Bradford & Gordon Moyes were dealt with. It merely operates as a vehicle for Rev & Mrs Nile & any so-called party rules/constitution ignored where circumstances require.
Bring on a FIRST PAST THE POST electoral system to remove self-indulgence and wearing of religious colours on one’s cuff links. Let minor party people cut in the real world of the major parties and link their Faith on life issues to the core socio-economic principles to bring about a reform of the major parties.
Prejudice should play no part in politics. Mercy and justice are biblical and human themes that everyone who is truly humane can live by.
According to Sportsbet, Labor is in front in 22 seats with 19 seats being regarded as safe, ie 1.01 odds. There are another 6 seats which are close but Labor is behind in. So in terms of Sportsbet 19 safe and 9 maybes for Labor for a maximum result of 28 seats.
The closer to 30 the less chance for reform in the ALP.
But what will the CDP how to vote card say in Bankstown?
With their track record they couldn’t possibly recommend good Christians vote for someone with a name like Zarif Abdullah.
They’ll have to suggest a donkey vote.
In the seat of Londonderry (I just prepolled for the seat), Labor candidate Allan Shearen’s HTV has 1. Labor 2. CDP 3. FF 4. Greens 5. Libs
Apart from preferencing the CDP, what stands out to me is that Shearen is putting the Greens 2nd last. The Libs’ Bart Bassett is going vote 1 only.
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