‘Stronger democracy’ gives way to strong-arm democracy in NSW
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Australia’s most repressive government is at it again. On Wednesday, via a press release called “Stronger democracy on it’s [sic] way for NSW”, Nathan Rees announced that NSW government agencies would be collating the private data of NSW citizens and providing it to the NSW Electoral Commission to automatically update the electoral roll. Citizens wouldn’t be given any say in this use of their confidential data. There’ll be no opting out. You may think you’re just paying your car rego but in fact you’ll be handing information to the Electoral Commission. You will have no choice. Voting is, of course, compulsory in NSW as it is in the rest of Australia. The arguments for forcing people to vote via threat of fines or imprisonment (those who argue it is only compulsory to attend a polling booth might go and read the Commonwealth Electoral Act and relevant case law) are weak indeed, and Australia is one of only a handful of countries — several of the rest are third world dictatorships — that compel voting. But at least under current arrangements those who object to compulsion have a de facto option to not enrol. Enrolment is compulsory in the Commonwealth, NSW, Victoria and WA, but needless to say considerably more difficult to enforce than compulsory voting, given electoral authorities need enrolment data to identify who has failed to vote. Automatic enrolment removes the one remaining justification of any kind for compulsory voting. In NSW, those who genuinely object to being compelled to vote will have no alternative but to be punished for exercising their basic right not to vote, as they will have no choice but to be enrolled. That this has come from the NSW government — with no warning or consultation — is no surprise. This government has a now-lengthy track record of casually breaching basic rights. It introduced draconian — that’s a word that gets used a lot about the NSW government’s law-and-order policies — laws empowering police to stop and search people in response to the Cronulla riots in 2005, including the power to board buses and search the mobile phones of those aboard, with the promise that they’d only be in place for two years. They were then made permanent and extended in late 2007. By then, the NSW government had used an ever more savage raft of laws to turn Sydney into an open-air prison for the 2007 APEC meeting — until it was humiliated by the Chaser guys being waved through by police, demonstrating that the primary impact of the laws was to inconvenience Sydneysiders rather than enhance security. Last year similar laws were used to look after the Catholic Church for World Youth Day, including laws criminalising protest against the Catholic Church, which enabled police to arrest anyone “annoying” or “inconveniencing” the so-called pilgrims attending the event. “These changes will ensure people with busy lives, young people and those who move to NSW are not disenfranchised by the current rules,” Rees said in his press release. In fact, this is about finding new ways to enforce a law that can’t be enforced effectively at the moment. But if you listen to Rees, you’d think it was for The Kids. Rees pointedly referred to the Board of Studies as one of the agencies that would be compulsorily providing personal information to the Electoral Commission. It’s characteristic of this shabby government that it would use an educational body as a means of law enforcement. It’s disappointing to see the allegedly progressive GetUp mob not merely endorsing this shameful encroachment on basic rights but calling for it to be universal. Director Simon Sheik wants it to be applied at the Commonwealth level. “Australia has a proud tradition of compulsory voting and citizens have a responsibility as well as a right to vote to make sure that our parliaments are truly representative.” Rubbish. Compulsory voting is a blatant encroachment on basic rights and the Rees government is now using its citizens’ private information, never intended for the purpose, to enforce it. Where’s the NSW Opposition in all this? Surely the party that purports to support individual freedom will oppose this? Well, no. Barry O’Farrell supports automatic enrolment. That figures. Do the NSW Liberals stand for anything at all? |
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32 Comments
There’s an argument to be made about whether or not compulsory voting is an infringement on the rights of citizens. That’s not really the issue here - voting is compulsory. This is just an additional mechanism of enforcing that compulsion.
Personally, I’m just glad that every time I get struck off the roll when I move that I don’t have to go to the effort of re-enrolling again so that I’m not accidentally disenfranchised. Seriously, is it that much effort for an ardent non-voter to turn up and vote informal? Case law shmase law, it’s a remaining loophole through which to exercise one’s intention not to vote for any of the bastards. Unlike the enrollment loophole, I can’t see government doing much to enforce formal voting any time soon.
Every vote is dollars to the big parties, thats why they both want more voters voting. More votes for Mickey mouse.
Would you still be against compulsory voting if there were a ‘none of the above’ box on the ballot paper (as opposed to the defacto equivalent of submitting a blank ballot)?
Refusing to vote is sending a message to politicians that you either:
a) don’t know/care about any of the issues enough to cast a vote;
b) don’t like/respect any of the candidates;
c) don’t like/respect the present system of government; or
d) have something better to do with your time on a Saturday thank you very much!
If your reason for not wanting to vote is a,b or c then why not go along, collect your ballot, go to the booth and draw a big line down the middle. You can even write a message in the top corner as a ‘write in’. Your vote won’t count but you’ve still sent a message.
And, honestly, you can read the Electoral Act and the case law if you like but, before you do, ask yourself this: if you’ve deliberately cast a blank/informal/donkey vote how will people be able to trace it back to you? Compulsory voting is one defining feature of Australia’s electoral system; and so is the Secret Ballot aka. ‘Australian Ballot’.
And if you think ‘they’ will still be able to hunt you down, then I suggest it’s time you invest in some tin foil and enrol in some ‘make your own hat’ classes.
Calling compulsory voting a ‘blatant encroachment on basic rights’ is misguided. Only being able to vote for one party, or one candidate, or with someone looking over your shoulder - that’s an infringement of rights. And what do they all have in common? They all weaken the democratic system. They all limit choice.
Compulsory voting limits your choice to spend one Saturday ever 18 or so months at home on the couch. But what about compulsory schooling, or tax returns? These take much, much more time and failure to comply is punished with real penalties (not a $10 - $50 fine which is the penalty for not voting).
(As for people who have better things to do/are too lazy: get over it! You’re not going change the electoral system by refusing to vote. You’re going to change the voting system by voting for a anti-compulsory voting candidate!)
Compulsory voting? A blatant encroachment on basic rights?! It’s compulsory to turn up to the polling booth but I can fill in that ballot in any number of informal ways. I can still exercise my intention to not vote for any of the bastards, meanwhile the pollys get to campaign on something close to policies rather than catering to fringes in order to ‘get the vote out’. And to compare compulsory voting with the draconian APEC or WYD security policies.. come on. If we’re lucky enough to live in a country where we get to vote, then I’m ok with a mandated responsibility to have to turn up to do so every few years. The fact that we then vote in jokers like we have in NSW is a different matter all together
Yeah, I disagree with Bernard on this one. It’s compulsary to vote, so you should automatically go onto the electoral roll when you hit 18. You should also get a tax file number and an individual medicare card (if you haven’t got one already). This is just basic administration stuff that every adult in Australia should have.
Not only should it be compulsory to vote but it should also be compulsory to PARTICIPATE in our democracy. Otherwise we all just leave it to the Murdochs, De Bruyns, Ludwigs and Rudds and the advertising and coal industries to run it for us.
Perhaps what is needed is another look at the electoral system itself?
Proportional representation is a bit of a joke. Single member electorates usually mean mediocre reps who are least offensive to the most number of people. Some of us get tired of Beige.
If you are a Rainbow type, Beige People do nothing for you, and make you want to write rude messages on your ballot paper, and possibly fall off the electoral roll.
So perhaps the answer is Hare Clarke? It works well for Tasmania, they keep voting in irritating Green people because their electoral system allows for more reps for more types.
No doubt someone will jump in to whine about the instability inherent in the coalitions that may sometimes result from a tight Hare Clark contest, but Italy seems to do okay with constant coalitions. Of course, the Italians enjoy a good argument too.
I thought the one remaining justification for compulsory voting was that it beats having 35-ish percent of the population deciding who represents us?
I agree that compulsory participation in a democracy seems philosophically dissonant, but the fact that non-voters are generally disproportionately poor, non-English-speaking and young makes me loath to ditch it. Surely by now we have come to regard it as part of the social contract, ie, the price we pay for having better representation of people who might otherwise be disenfranchised?
That said the state has no business deciding what one does with one’s ballot once one shows up at the ballot box. In my view the real impingement on civil liberties isn’t automatic enrolment, it’s the prosecution of people who advocate informal voting. That kind of totalitarian bullshit has no place in a democracy, not even a NSW-style democracy.
I don’t know why you think formal voting would be that hard to enforce. Use electronic systems that enforce a valid vote before they register you as having voted. Lest you think electronic voting is a way off yet, I think the last couple of times in the ACT my vote was electronic. An electronic option to vote informal would be a good idea, along with a place for why you’re doing that.
There is the difference between having the right to vote and being compelled to vote (or to pretend to vote).
Compulsory voting was introduced into Australia in 1922, at a time when voter turn out was higher than most other democracies. Both the conservative and Labor parties of the day liked the idea of making it illegal to not vote because they each believed mandatory voting would counter an advantage that volontary voting gave their opponents. ( The conservatives believed the ALP’s union base enabled it to call out a blue collar vote en-masse while Labor thought the newspaper proprietors and financial interests would buy votes for the Tories). Compulsory voting was not part of any election platform and the law was passed with less than an hour’s debate. And no wonder - mandatory voting, harnessed to a 2 party-preferred exhaustive ballot system, consolidates the position of the 2 dominant parties, making it very difficult for smaller parties to get members into parliament. It makes the system less democratic, not more so.
Mandatory voting is a characteristics of one-party states. Fiji, Turkey and Singapore enforce mandatory voting. Britain, the US, France and Germany do not. Compulsory voting is a great Australian shibboleth. It is taught to children as an unalloyed good and an example of what a great country we are. Challenge this idea and you risk being regarded as a ratbag, told to get over it and simply turn up and pretend to vote.
But what if I don’t want to pretend? Should I simply accept that it’s perfectly legitimate for the government to take legal action against me for declining to participate in an election which I does not offer me a choice.
The very same civic duty arguments used to support mandatory voting can equally be deployed to justify military conscription. Dizzystuff’s ‘just pretend’ arguments and Tim’s straw-man list don’t go anywhere near dealing with issue with the seriousness it deserves.
But, hey, this is Australia, a country so democratic that the government is prepared to hunt you down and make you vote whether you want to or not.
Again, the incompetent and a little bit illiterate NSW government didn’t announce they were to make voting compulsory on Wednesday. They just made it easier for renters like myself to ensure they can actually vote when they turn up to an election - despite the Howard government’s efforts to ensure I’d be struck off the electoral rolls at any available opportunity.
Meanwhile, the fact that voting is compulsory is not the aspect of our political system which reinforces a two party system. It’s also a hell of a reach to claim that having to leave the house for up to an hour once every 18 months is on the same plane as military conscription. Or that through compulsory voting Australia is akin to a repressive one-party state. That kind of rhetoric doesn’t really advance the debate terribly much.
I must admit that I hadn’t considered the electronic voting aspect in the context of enforcing formal voting. I don’t agree with a system that would enforce a vote for a particular party - there really needs to be a “they’re all bastards” option in any system of voting. Not that I’d exercise the option myself but surely it’s important that it’s present.
Whatiris has just very effectively demonstrated my point that even daring to question mandatory voting puts you on a hiding to nothing. First he/she misrepresents my arguements, then mocks them, then accuses me of not advancing the debate.
I simply stated that mandatory voting is a characteristic of one-party state. I did not say that it is the only characteristic. It is simply a fact, easily established by a few minutes googling, that countries with volontary or non-enforced voting systems tend to the democratic end of the spectrum and countries that compel their citizens to vote tend to the other end of the spectrum.
To suggest that I am opposed to the exercise of legal sanctions against people who chose not to vote because I can’t be arsed tootling down to the polling station once in a blue moon is simply avoiding the issue - or worse, telling me that my deeply held conviction has no real validy.
As for conscription, the issue is the blurring of rights, duties, obligations and the power of the state. The duration and nature of the state’s demands might vary but the underlying rationale remains the same.
If you truly believe in compulsory voting, argue your case, don’t mere pish-tosh the other side. Let’s hear some rational justification for your view that I should knuckle down, not just a regurgitation of received and unquestioned wisdom.
Come on. When was the last time any Electoral Commission here ‘hunted a person down and made them vote’? A fine, perhaps, for not attending a polling place - but I suppose that is the price you pay for your personal principles. (Do you stockpile your speeding fines too because you object to the speed limit?)
Before anyone leaps on me - personally I support optional preferences (Albert Langer - respect). But I have no problems with a civic and legal duty to turn up to a polling place and be checked against a register of enrolled voters. My mere presence also helps, in a small way, to ensure that somebody else doesn’t vote in my name.
How I mark (or not) my ballot paper is a matter for me within the privacy of my voting booth. None of the electoral officials, nor anyone else, are allowed to inspect my ballot paper before I put it in the box - so no-one but me will know whether I’ve not performed my technical duty re: ‘compulsory voting’ or marking my preferences in a sequential comprehensive order.
If you don’t like what’s in the Electoral Act, lobby your elected representatives to change the law. That’s why it is called parliamentary democracy. Federally, Joe Ludwig is the Government Minister to address your grievances to. Feel free to copy in all the other pollies while you’re at it.
Whoa whoa whoa, I’m not actually advocating a position that compulsory voting is the right way to go. I’m also not saying that your (clearly passionate) conviction is invalid. I retain an open mind on the issue. I’m reasonably happy with the way things are but could quite easily be swayed to a contrary position given a good debate.
The state obliges its citizens to do a whole lot of things. I don’t see voting as a significant departure from the compulsion to pay taxes, for instance.
I admire the concept of “sending a message” but as one who has sat-in a few times during the count at the local polling booth as a scrutineer for a candidate, I can tell you that the message doesn’t go far. In the room (after the polling booth has closed) is a handful of people with piles of crumpled ballots. Scrutineers can’t touch. An individual decision is made about each paper to decide if it’s a valid vote and which pile it will be put into. There are hundreds and hundreds of them. A small pile of ‘informals’ (not valid votes - for whatever reason) builds up. Whatever was written or not written on them will probably never be read again. On the other hand it is completely legal, in-your-face, send-a-message, graffiti.
I doubt whatever the NSW Labor Govt do before the next State election, the Opposition is so p-ss weak and insipid, Labor will be returned anyway. Where is there an Opposition throughout this Country, Federal, State, Territory that is capable of beating the incumbent? That includes the wishy washy Labor mob in WA. They have had plenty of issues over the last 12 months to really attack Barnett’s ruling Lib/Nats yet hardly a squeak. Until they get rid of Ripper they are doomed to oblivion. So its no wonder the NSW and Q/land Govts do their own thing, they are fully aware of their respective Oppositions short comings, hardly presenting a serious threat to re election.
Moneypenny , can you please define ‘civic duty’ for me.
My rights and my obligations are stipulated by laws. Who gets to decide what is my duty? Is paying taxes a duty or an obligation? These are real and meaningful distinctions.
Trying to convince Joe Ludwig to change a system that relieves him of the burden of having to establish a genuine constituency among voters might be mildly entertaining but is unlikely to succeed.
Langer, who was jailed for informing voters of a legal way to avoid having their preferences distributed to a party which they did not want to vote for, provides a salutary example the reluctance of politicians from the major parties to relinquish the advantages the current system delivers to them.
Branch stacking is one of consequences of compulsory voting. With the voter turnout guaranteed, politicians can concentrate on fighting each other for a pre-existing entitlement.
I’m so angered by this I’m combustible! You’d think the ALP and the Libs were fielding such elite administrative performers that on polling day we stampede to the ballot box in case these dream candidates change their mind. We started losing interest in democracy when parties started to parachute non-descripts into electorates on the promise of performance rewards. No amount of information gathering on potential cheer squads will change disaffected hearts.
Hugo Furst
I’m not a philosopher. In my cack-handed world, civic duty = moral (not legal) obligation. I suppose it’s an obligation fostered by a type of social compact. A constitutional government is a type of compact. So civic duties are things done for altruistic rather than purely selfish reasons. Ultimately you decide what your duties are (what you owe others).
Boycotts really don’t have a great success rate in bringing about change. Refusing to enrol or show up to prove your enrolment on polling day is a boycott. While boycotting might make you feel good, I’m struggling to think of an example of a successful voter boycott in a functional parliamentary system as distinct from a corrupt one. Feel free to expose my ignorance. … But I think your commitment to abstinence is just as quixotic as my petitioning of the elected representatives.
Also, could you explain your theory about branch stacking being a consequence of compulsory voting. I don’t get it. An inducement to vote a particular way is not unique to political parties - it happens in voluntary voting systems (‘electorate stacking’ if you like). I would have thought that branch stacking in Australia is not because of compulsory voting per se but more a consequence of compulsory preferences. I also suspect branch stacking has a lot to do with the weakness of political party constitutions / membership / governance. The parties themselves are not that participatory.
This suggests a lack of voter engagement. Maybe we should reform those parties or start new ones - not through regulation but participation. Oops, sorry. There’s that civic duty again.
What’s your solution? Anarchy?
Belgium is one of the few other “western’ countries to have compulsory voting. We are blessed with it because, though both “side” of politics wanted it, they didn’t want the inevitable opprobrium of legislating. Therefore, one of the few Private Members bills ever to get up, was nodded through without debate or division, late one night in 1922. Enjoy.
The abolition of compulsory voting in Australia has long been a cherished goal of the Right. Is it any wonder that Bernard Keane arches up at the slightest suggestion that the pool of voters be increased by automatic enrollment?
The theory that prevails among the Right, whilst they would never openly admit it, is that those who might tend to vote Labour are usually dumber and less likely to cast a vote if they were not compelled to. Whereas, the theory goes, those who might be expected to vote for the parties of the Right are somehow smarter and more likely to want to enrol and vote.
Bernard could not give a rat’s about the civil rights issue. For him, it’s all about the increase in the pool of non-right voters!
Moneypenny,
Now I’m shirking my moral responsibilities just because I don’t want to retain the freedom not to vote in elections in which it is a condition of voting that I accept that my vote can be given, via a distribution of preferences, to a candidate for whom I did not vote and did not want to vote. Nor do I want to go through the hypocritical motions of pretending to vote so I don’t get fined.
You may struggle all you like with the idea of a boycott. You conjured it up yourself. I did not propose one and the suggestion cannot be inferred from anything I wrote. As for starting new parties, my previous post explains why the current mandatory system makes this extremely difficult. It was the Hare Clark system in Tasmania that got the Greens into the national arena. Why not make this system the national one? Answer, because the major parties would never countenance it.
I am not campaigning on this issue. I am simply not complying with a law which I regard as a bad one. This is not the same as inciting anarchy, or at least willful disregard for the speed limit.
Branch stacking (ie the swamping of party members who have joined in order to participate in the party decision-making processes by mass enrollments of purely nominal members in order to advance the personal careers of the stackers) flourishes in a system in which it is not necessary for local members to ‘get out the vote’ in areas deemed ‘safe’.
As for being hunted down by the Electoral Commission, I refer you back to the piece which initiated this discussion.
Personally, I would like to vote in my local council elections but I can no longer do this since changes were made so that I have to be on the national electoral role, in which case I will then be compelled to vote or pretend to vote in State and Federal elections. As I am in a massively safe seat for a party for which I have no desire to vote, I fail to understand how the system is more moral than me.
Sorry, obvious error in first sentence of my previous post. Should read that I do want to retain my freedom.
And Malcolm Hill has just demonstrated the partisan nature of much of this argument. He thinks voluntary voting will help the right, so he’s against it. Democracy, by this reasoning, should be shaped to fit his own preferences.
No, thats not what branch is, what it is is the cajoling of otherwise reasonable people into thinking that Bill or Vicctoria are really nice people and deserve your vote. At least thats the way it is done in Queensland. That is how we end up with neo liberal fascists masquerading as Labor Party believers when in fact all they want to do is rule the little world that is Queensland. Guess what, they won.
Sorry, I failed to click the “notify me” box. So I’ve missed your debate until now.
Can I offer a few extra details here.
I have known the AEC to “hunt down” someone who was not on the electoral roll. It was my husband. They were very nice about it. They sent someone over with a form and a nice smile, and explained to him that the penalties for not being enrolled are very high.
He signed the form. He moaned to them that he could at least not mark his ballot paper.
The AEC official looked very distressed, and explained that the Howard Government had changed the Electoral Act to make it illegal not to mark your ballot paper. Apparently, there is a fine for voting informally! Assuming they can prove it was you, I suppose? As this came from an AEC employee, I would have to assume it has some credibility?
First, let’s think about personal “rights”. There are none in NSW. The current Attorney General, Hazistergos (spelling?) replied to my letter on the subject to the effect that he would never support a Human Rights Act or equivalent whilst ever his rear end pointed towards the ground.
Second, the fate of blank or otherwise invalid votes. As someone said above, they are simply piled up and counted. No ID, no recriminations. However it is quite plausible that if you advocated publicly that voters intentionally vote informally, then action under the Electoral Act of the relevant State or Territory would be used to silence you and allow the elections to proceed unhindered. That is a reasonable legal/administrative response to preserve the process and ensure the validity of the outcome.
I am concerned about electronic voting machines which would not permit a deliberately informal vote, though, because there is little point in forcing an unwilling voter to support any candidate if he conscientiously believes that no candidate merits his support. Historically, I believe that this typically amounts to less than 1 percent of votes cast.
Some voters who are bored with the process also use donkey votes - another percent or two, depending on the polarisation of the electorate and a number of other factors.
As a former polling place official, I am sure that anything which improves the accuracy of the electoral roll is a good thing. Not least, because it will decrease the time spent by other voters while waiting in queues and the cost of having additional paid staff on hand to assist voters whose names can’t be easily found on the rolls.
Conclusions?
+ It is time for a Human Rights Act, both federally and state by state.
+ If/when electronic voting machines are introduced locally, I hope that there is an option “None of the above”.
+ The reported action by NSW is not a big deal - get over it.
Hyperbole?
It may help alot with removing ghost voters and multiple votes by single individuals simply going from booth to booth, to preserve the integrity of the roll. I doubt there are any checks on these things in any close election. Are there any examples of a successful audit of any election local, state or federal t expose fraudulent voters here in Australia?
If it is nil as I expect, is this supposed to instill confidence or more likely fear and loathing? I find it hard to believe it has never happened. Especially in NSW the home of one battered Peter Baldwin.
Nah, Tom, you’ve got to worry about the husbands of sitting members, dressing up as Moslems, and pretending to be an ordinary pressure group letterboxing the neighbourhood, on the night before the election.
Individuals attempting multiple votes at different polling places get cancelled out by the AEC mainframe auditing the votes against the electoral roll after the vote. There may be a small fine print report about it around somewhere, but they may not bother making it public. Do we need to know how many idiots we’ve got?
The informal vote, however, is watched closely by everyone concerned. The informal vote tells them how engaged the public really is. If it gets over 3%, they start worrying. That may be why Howard had to legislate against it? You know, let’s make it a crime and they’ll behave better?
Tom,
I do not know one way or the other, but it would be quite simple to determine the extent of duplicate voting by the “vote early and vote often” brigade because the rolls which are in use are designed to be electronically scannable after the vote and thus gain a clear count of the extent of this practice and whether or not it was sufficiently widespread to be able numerically to affect the outcome.
My understanding is that this is done in critical cases, however that it rarely or never has demonstrated a need for a re-vote.
Perhaps the Poll Bludger can enlighten us further.
Meanwhile, who knows are cares what John Howard had in mind when he made it harder for people to enrol, to remain on the roll, and introduced unenforceable laws attempting to outlaw informal voting.
Remember that electors, eg the blind or infirm, who need assistance to mark their papers can obtain it via either a friend, a party worker at the polling station, or the person in charge of the polling station.
Actions designed to reduce the eligibility of electors to present themselves at a booth and to vote are actions against the principles of democracy, but Howard’s governmnet was a democratic… wasn’t it?
Hearing people continually whinge about “their rights” being infringed is starting to annoy me considerably. No-one in this world has any “rights” what-so-ever without a commensurate level of responsibility, and nor should they.
Voting within a democracy is not a “right” but a responsibility. It is as necessary for the proper functioning of our democratic society as driving on the left hand side of the road is for the proper and safe functioning of our roads. What next . Will we be hearing these people say it is their “right” to drive on what ever side of the road they choose. Encroachment of their “right” to choose! Compulsion to exercise the responsibility to vote is as necessary as enforcing all citizen’s exercise their responsibility to drive on the left-hand side of the road. Otherwise some form of anarchy will result.
The last time I heard someone whine so much about compulsory voting was Kiwi Derryn Hinch, two federal elections ago. You’re in great company Bernard.
Hearing people continually whinge about other people wanting ” rights” is starting to annoy me considerably, too, Andrew . It is self-evident that nobody but me has any “rights”, except the “right” to act in what I consider to be a responsible way. For example, I believe that it would be highly responsible of Andrew Smart to stick his head up his bum. If he disagrees, that will just proves that he’s a big fat whinger.