Firstly, thank you Antony for the guide on what the Naturist Lifestyle Party may have to do at the next NSW LC election.

However, once I take off my scarcely visible politician's hat, I have to agree that the whole preference deal thing is offensive. If the NLP is successful, I'd much rather it be because that's what the voters wanted, than because of behind the scenes machinations. Indeed, where a minor party wins a seat on preferences, it rather undermines that party's claim to represent some particular social group.

The main misgiving I have about a system that makes life more difficult for the minor parties is that to some extent, a vote for a minor party is a vote against the majors - a sort of pox on all your houses sentiment. A knowledgeable voter might take the view that they know that voting for a minor party contributes to the success of some minor party candidate, and indeed may not care that much who it is, just as long as it represents a seat denied to the majors.

Perhaps we need to be able to cast negative votes.

Sylvia Else
http://www.naturistlp.org.au

Sorry Sylvia, but my article gives you no help for the NSW Legislative Council. Ticket voting as used in the Senate has been abolished for the NSW LC. Ticket votes in NSW only apply for the single party you vote for. There are no further preferences, baring the death of a candidate when a special provision might apply.

In NSW, voters must fill in preferences for 15 candidates below the line, or at least one square above the line. Voters can number preferences for parties above the line. The only preferences that count are those filled in by voters themselves. There are no party deals as there are no preferences for parties to distribute.

I hope your party is already regsitered. NSW parties must be registered 12 months ahead of the election, which makes the cut-off date March 2006.

Thanks Antony. I got the impression from your article that its effect had been reduced, but if it's gone completely, then that potentially makes the my life a lot simpler.

Not registered yet. We are aware of the time limit, but there's a minor issue of reaching the required number of members. We're still working on that.

Sylvia.

A good article, it was also written more clearly than 'informal voting - don't blame the voters', probably because the subject matter here is clearer. Seems like we have the same problems that you mentioned in the previous article, but by the sounds of things salvation is at hand.

I hope that the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters pays alot more attention to your submission(s) then Mr Michael Doyle's.

Good stuff, Antony. Three things:

First, the ability to do cynical or opportunistic preference deals varies from party to party. Every party has an idealistic / morally expressive / ideological element and a pragmatic / instrumentalist / realistic element. The major parties and some minor parties are weighted to the instrumentalists. The Greens are overwhelmingly weighted to the expressives.

This makes it very hard for the Greens to do deals that would enrage their voters and cost them primary votes. The Victorian deal between Labor and Family First may have been cynical but it did not enrage many of the voters of either party. Most did not know about the deal. Most of the rest took the Richo view – “Whatever it takes”.

In short, the game theory that you describe is only available to the pragmatists, not the moralists.

Second, you could have given more information about the defects of optional preferential voting in the NSW upper house. As the count proceeds, the votes of some voters who did not give a full set of preferences are discarded.

As a result, there are not enough votes left for the last few elected candidates to get a full quota. In the 2003 election, 17 of the 21 elected NSW upper house councillors got a full quota. The other 4 got partial quotas. The last elected councillor (a radio announcer and gun advocate) got in with 2% of the vote.

Third, I don’t understand your opposition to a group elimination of candidates and groups that failed to meet a threshhold vote of, say, 4% (with all eliminated votes distributed). Drury and Family First are not owned by the major parties. They are trying to win by preference harvesting. Candidates and groups that fail to get a decent number of first preferences should be booted out.

I note that Penekiko states above that he hopes "that the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters pays a lot more attention to your submission(s) then Mr Michael Doyle's. "

Regardless of their final decision, I would be hoping that the Committee pays a (roughly) equal amount of attention to all submissions.

I assume, Antony, that voting would still be compulsory under your 'optional' preferential system? Its just that I cannot see where it is explicitly stated.