[EM] Australia: MP says donation row highlights voting problems

[Rob Lanphier]

On Fri, 1 Dec 2000, Bart Ingles wrote:
> The grass is always greener...

Yup.  I found a more detailed story here:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/politics/2000/12/item20001202100144_1.htm

It seems a contribution was made to the Australian Democrats by the Labor
Party MP, presumably to influence the Australian Democrats' how-to-vote
slip.  Not knowing Australian politics all that well, it's entirely
possible that I've got it wrong, so read the article and get your own
conclusions.

I'd like to hear from the Australian contingent on this list on the
subject (especially where I've botched the facts).  Is such nonsense about
reverting to first-past-the-post being taken seriously, or is this widely
seen as partisan opportunism?  Also, from my understanding, the Liberal
Party and the Labor Party are the major parties on opposite ends of the
spectrum in Australia, with some farmers' party substituting for the
Liberals in rural areas.  Is this correct?

I'd also like to know what are the best outlets for getting mainstream
Australian news over the Internet (ala ABC).  I stumbled into this news
story just trying to find out what mainstream Australian opinions are of
preference voting.  I'm not looking for the best journalism so much as the
most representative of what Australians see on TV, read in the daily
paper, etc...though it'd be nice to know what's highly regarded and what's
seen as tripe.

This will also be a problem with Condorcet-based systems, presumably.  The
only possible difference would be that since there'd quite likely be more
parties, there'd be more parties to fill the void when one party's ethics
are called into question.  That would possibly be counterbalanced by the
fact that rankings beyond #1 mean much more in Condorcet, and thus there
would be greater temptation to influence rankings on party-generated voter
cheatsheats with raw cash. 

It's definitely a problem that needs addressing, but it's one that I'd
much rather have than the one we have in the U.S. today.

Rob

> Rob Lanphier wrote:
> > 
> > An Australian MP is claiming that it may be time to rethink preference
> > voting, adopting a first-past-the-post system instead, because how-to-vote
> > tickets improperly influence voting behavior:
> > 
> > http://www.abc.net.au/news/newslink/weekly/newsnat-29nov2000-26.htm
> > 
> > Ugh.
> > 
> > Rob Lanphier
> > robla at eskimo.com
> > http://www.eskimo.com/~robla
> 

Rob Lanphier
robla at eskimo.com
http://www.eskimo.com/~robla