Slashdot Mirror
Australia Elects Libertarian-Leaning Senator (By Accident)
LordLucless writes "Australia's Liberal Democratic Party, which describes itself as a classically liberal, free-market libertarian party, has had their candidate for New South Wales elected to the upper house, with roughly double the number of votes they were expecting. In part, this has been attributed to them being placed first on the ballot paper (which is determined by a random process) and similarities in name to one of the major parties, the Liberal Party of Australia."
Maybe not, but pretty close!
...there's a bit of trick, too:
http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/08/22/revealed-the-libertarian-rights-micro-party-links/
In the last 30 years, when has the losing party every accepted the loss gracefully?
... but what else is he supposed to say?
Sure, the article says "Mr Leyonhjelm accepts his party probably gained votes in error, with voters thinking they were choosing the Liberals."
When the people make a massive mistake in democracy, it's still their decision to make. Look at the american elections for the last 20 years. Both sides will say the people made mistakes.
- Nec Impar Pluribus, or so I'm told.
In my experience, you get better government when there are more opinions at the table. The occasional election of people from minor parties (Greens, Pirates, Libertarians, etc...) makes it more likely for there to be objections to the really awful policies that the mainstream politicos try to force through. Even if you don't necessarily agree with what the guys have to say, they're probably a better choice than the typical minions of the expected 'lesser evil'. As such, it's good news when these sorts of guys get in... even if it was possibly 'an accident'.
Once the count was on and I started to see a few more votes in that pile for the liberal democrats, I knew it was going to take a sizable proportion off the mainstream party in error. Having a look at statistics though, where I was working and surrounding regions had informal vote rates of 12% to 15% (much higher than the national average). It's also a labor party stronghold, which is the party who just got knocked out.
It's also worth pointing out that the particular ballot paper was enormous, over 1m long, 110 candidates for 6 positions, 35 parties and can be very confusing to explain to people who barely speak english, on how to make their vote formal, let alone read the 6.5 point print on who they're voting for.
Moral of the story is, you can't help stupid people, but you can let them to vote... (NB: Australia has compulsory attendance to vote and compulsory preferential voting in federal elections)
Any system that lets someone be elected by accident is absolutely appalling. Australia would do well to reevaluate their system so that this doesn't happen in the future.
Politics and national leadership is far too important to be decided by absurd errors.
I suppose "by accident" is as good as by stupidity, apathy or voting AGAINST a candidate vs. FOR a candidate.
It should be noted that in the 2010 election, for the NSW Senate seats, the Liberal Democrats where the 'first runner up', i.e. top 6 gets a Senator in, they came 7th (undeniably though preferences from the Shooters & Fishers and the Sex Party, which are all ideologically similar), knocked out in the final round by the Greens . They didn't need much more than what they had to get in, and likely would have even if they hadn't been first on the ballot (presuming their support-base has increased since the last election, even if only a little).
I honestly thought the Liberal Democratic Party was part of the "Liberal Party", since what is referred to as the Liberal Party is actually a coalition of 4 (I think) different parties with names of a similar structure.
And they sure as heck aren't liberal in policy, either. In fact they are the more conservative of the two main parties.
The Australian Labor party is what you'd call a liberal party.
The Australian Liberal party is a centre-right conservative party,
And this Liberal Democratic party is closer to your republicans.
Got it?
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Just want to point out here that "Libertarian" is not at all the same as "Liberal." In fact, it's pretty much the exact opposite: conservative on both economic and social axes. People get confused because the terms are often applied backwards because of how the major parties tend to be the opposites on the social axis as on the economic axis.
Finally something that is done 'in error' is actually something GOOD for a change.
Libertarian, free market guy in any government? I just hope he is in fact a real libertarian.
You can't handle the truth.
Voting is mandatory in Australia. If you don't vote, and they catch you, you get fined.
Reason #1 - Even though it's the opposite side of the globe from me it spreads the ideology and that makes me happy.
Reason #2 - This most likely happened due to Australia mandatory voting policy - which as a Libertarian mandatory anything annoys me - so it sort of proves our point.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
As it was my first time in Australia for an election, I watched on TV. The coverage was completely about the lower house. By the time I quit watching (Rudd's concession speech) I don't think there had been so much as a mention of the fact that senators were being elected also. It was weird and puzzling.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
It's my understanding that voting is compulsory in AU. When you vote, must you mark your ballot?
Given that not everyone is interested in voting, would it not make sense to simply mark the ballot the easiest way possible (i.e., from the top)?
What better way to block the Liberal's plan for internet censorship http://www.zdnet.com/au/australian-opposition-vows-to-implement-internet-filter-by-default-7000020270/ than to get a libertarian with the balance of power into the senate? Can't exactly trust Labour as they tried the same shit with Conroy and chasing Family First preferences.
One of the "motoring enthusiasts" who is now in a row over footage of him in a kangaroo poo fight is also a 9/11 truther, apparently:
''Media is reporting that the person who ordfered [sic] the 911 terror attacks is dead what a load of shit, george bush is still alive!''
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/detours-ahead-as-minor-parties-claim-senate-balance-20130908-2te36.html
If anyone was looking for evidence that straight ticket (aka party line) voters aren't so bright, here it is.
Clever naming / rebranding by the libertarians.
If voters aren't even going to take the time to learn the difference between two parties with vaguely similar names then what are we supposed to do? The problem isn't that the parties are named similarly, the problem is that people are stupid and spend more time deciding what to wear in the morning than they do deciding who to vote for. The only solution to that is to not let stupid people vote. This generally starts as "let's just make a test to make sure that people have spent at least 5 minutes researching the issues" but inevitably turns into someone abusing the system in order to rig the vote.
It's often been said that the best argument against democracy is five minutes with the average voter, and it's true, most people are dumber than a sack of hammers. But no other system of government can practically function for more than five minutes without someone abusing their power to great extent.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
We have a branch of the Pirate Party here in Australia which I voted for.
They also elected the KANGAROO POO YUM YUM Motorists Enthusiasts party: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/likely-senator-dodges-questions-about-kangaroo-poo-fight-video-20130909-2tf8j.html
A shame in South Australia where Nick Xenophon has been reelected as an excellent Senator beloved by his constituents and the Interwebs http://www.news.com.au/national-news/independent-senator-nick-xenophon-overwhelmed-by-record-voter-support/story-fncynjr2-1226714814451
but Xenophon couldn't get his #2 elected because the Greens cut a deal with the major parties. HA! That will come back to haunt them BECAUSE THEY JUST HELPED ELECT THEIR ARCH RIVALS THE ULTRA-CONSERVATIVE FAMILY FIRST PARTY. That will really come back to haunt the Greens now. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/election-2013/micro-parties-harvest-three-seats-in-senate/story-fn9qr68y-1226714827198
Two of them bought their seats
One is a rev head
One is a religious nutter
One is a gun nutter
One is a sports nutter
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-09/senate-balance-of-power---who27s-who/4945390
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
It's a great and extremely meaningful gift. http://chuyennhaducminh.com/dich-vu-taxi-tai/dich-vu-chuyen-van-phong/
The article is incorrect, the senate count is nowhere near final, this result is based on computers predicting the flow of votes from people who voted above the line. Given the amount of preferences, it is entirely possible that another minor party could overtake him (it is however unlikely).
null
Because the Liberal party is the conservative party, after all. That a conservative would accidentally vote Libertarian because of this naming issue has me almost pissing myself with laughter.
Did he get a seat?
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
draw a penis on it
That just may count as a vote for the biggest dick on the list. At least it would explain a lot about the outcome of these elections.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
In our experience when there's minor parties on the table there are a lot of backroom deals done with minor parties to get them to vote on the governing party policies. That's exactly how we ended up a carbon tax despite voting for a party that guaranteed no carbon tax would be offered. It's how the seat of Lyne (a tiny part of the New South Wales mid-north coast) ended up with a new hospital, legislation making it easier for regional kids (like those in the seat of Lyne) to receive youth allowance, and in total about $1.2bn has been spent on Lyne in the last 3 years, which is more money than had been spent in total on that seat by the federal government since the seat has existed.
The minor parties have funnelled cash to their electorate in exchange for agreeing with policies the major parties put forward.
Looks like we're going to be at the whims of a bunch of gun wielding libertarians and the motor racing association. Yay guns and racing cars for all!
I think they could learn a bit from the backward Indian political system. Ballots have the name of candidate, affiliation and the most important thing... the party symbol. Illiterate or idiot, you can never mistake a symbol.
Hey guys, I've just setup a petition on change.org to see if we can get some momentum behind doing something about this. It'll probably go nowhere, but gotta start somewhere right? https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/australian-government-revise-the-senate-voting-system-2
cheers
Australia has always lacked a 'REAL' Libertarian option. Our fiscal liberals believe in draconian religiously based social controls and our progressive parties believe in a big taxing, big spending government. Whilst some of the ideology of this new party seems odd - it's a step in the right direction.
This could be the solution to everything. First, start some new political parties, let's say Democratts and Republicuns. Have Anonymous Coward and Cowboy Neal run for president on these tickets. I figure we'd have half a chance getting someone other than a Democrat or Republican for once.
Sometimes I wonder about getting rid of ballots entirely and requiring every vote to be a write in. We probably can't do that because ballots are somewhat necessary to resolve name ambiguities, but it would be nice otherwise.
No more arguments about who gets on a ballot.
If you can't spell your candidate's name, well then you can't vote.
Nobody gets any special treatment.
Nobody can vote party line any longer without at least putting in enough effort to find out who the party candidates are.
Maybe some intermediate solution like "register a unique name with the elections office", similar to a trademark, would be enough. Damn it would fix a lot of problems quickly.
Umm, not they aren't left wing. Unless your view of left wing is pro-gun, small government and what you'd generally describe as non-enviromental policies (especially on carbon). The candidate said he actually supports a lot of the Liberal party's policies. (Liberal originally meaning liberal in the classical - now-libertarian - sense).
If you read the article one of the parties he created is called "Stop the greens". Enemy of my enemy and all that?
He says the voters only have themselves to blame.
The correlation between first place and more votes in the senate is essentially zero (actually its just less than 1% - with 16% needed to win a seat). LDP has been around for decades and been on the senate ballot in the first place previously - so that doesnt explain it. There is no evdence at all people were confused. People did not mix up their names at all. Australia has a long history of low government spending and low debt. Both sides of politics have ran campaigns promoting surplus and low debt. Libertarian leanings have grown recently due to the debt bringe and tax increases of the left Labor/Green alliance that have seen the fastest debt growth and biggest debt and deficit in Australias history. The left are trying to down play the fact that Australians have voted in what will almost certainly be a majority right wing senate. I Notice that no one Claims the Democratic Labor Party was mistaken for the Labor Party - as this wouldnt fit their view that Right only won this election by luck/stupidity/mistake. The truth is the major left wing party suffered their lowest two party vote in over 100 years - and previously fringe right wing parties have benefitted.
From what I have heard, everyone in Australia must vote. Which I imagine is the biggest culprit here; A significant portion of people are voting who cannot even tell two parties with liberal in their name apart. Also, we should not discount the group who just picks a random party on the ballot box, which likely have a large percentage which picks the first one.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Don't title bills. Just have it as Issue 1001 with a summary. Like public questions are done.
Have you heard of range voting? It could solve some of these problems.
Range voting is a system where you score as many candidates as you want to 1 - 10 and the highest average wins. It is nice for several reasons.
There are fewer spoiled ballots: Since candidates can be ranked the same value or not at all, ballots aren't spoiled as often as in other systems
No benefit from betraying your favorite: You can *always* rank your true favorite with the highest mark without causing an undesirable outcome. You will never cause a candidate you don't want to win to do better by voting for your true favorite.
There are other benefits, but since we are talking about Australia. Check out the article about range voting vs IRV.
One last thing: Sometimes I wonder; "Is that someone's signature? Or do they type that at the end of each post?"
...the name you know.
Preferential voting is a step in the right direction, but there are problems. Arrow's impossibility theorem shows that with any ranked system there is certain desirable qualities that will always be mutually exculsive. So, mathematically IRV will always have that weakness (although first past the post is categorically worse). Some even argue that IRV pathologies makes it not as effective at nuturing more than two parties compared to other systems.
However, with range voting, you don't *order* the candidates, you score them and multiple candidates can have the same score. It works this way: score as many candidates as you want to 1 - 10 and the highest average wins.
This system has lots of benefits over IRV. Also, check out the analysis of IRV during Australia's 2007 elections.
One last thing: Sometimes I wonder; "Is that someone's signature? Or do they type that at the end of each post?"
The UK had people on the ballot representing the Conversative Party and the Literal Democrats. One Liberal candidate euro election lost by a margin less than the number who voted for the Literal Democrats. So the UK changed the system so that political parties had to be registered with a name unlikely to cause confusion with other registered parties, otherwise the candidate could only stand as an independent rather than for a party.
... a vote for a Libertarian candidate isn't a vote for Libertarianism.
Actually, all votes have to be counted -- the "above the line except when it's close" story that goes around from time to time is quite wrong. The fine details of what you did below the line determines which candidates get knocked out and thus how the preferences flow. These calculations are down to the very last vote and no shortcuts are possible
Contrary to attempts to define themselves otherwise, the Libertarians are far from liberal.
Back in 1988, they nominated the most conservative member of congress, more conservative than even the likes of Jim Inhofe, as their presidential nominee.
Only in the US! Outside the US Liberal still means libertarian.
Welcome to the meme factory.
Excuse me, sir, you were supposed to pick only one set of self-serving corporate smoke-screen misrepresentations, not both. Only one choice of standard talking points is permitted!
Please leave your money and pride in the donation box as you leave the factory.
http://politicalcompass.org/
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
wait, Australia has two liberal parties? i'm so used to USA where they have Democrat and Republican. or is it Democrat and GOP? need to read about Australia politics. only thing I know is Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd and Quentin Bryce.
ok, bye
Its a perversion of democracy that you must not let the voter know what the hell he's voting for, as this would be preferable to electioneering.
I agree with Any Web Loco, the problem is that election officials are there for the election not to educate people on the parties, and I could see a vague question like "the liberals" causing a lawsuit by the Liberal Democrat party because, hey, they have liberal in their name. Of course, you have the Country Liberals, Liberal Democratic Party, Liberal Party of Australia, and Liberal National Party of Queensland.
In other words, in order to properly answer the question, they'd have to ask a number of questions and spend more time on it than they have available to avoid any possibility of 'electioneering', as opposed to, as they say, simply referring them to the various campaigners right outside the polling place that are more than happy educate potential voters on their platform.
BTW: If I was an australian, my 'short list' from a simple wiki search, in rough order of preference:
Liberal Democratic Party
Drug Law Reform Australia
Australian Sex Party
Country Alliance
Help End Marijuana Prohibition Party
Pirate Party Australia
Outdoor Recreation Party (Stop the Greens)
Shooters and Fishers Party
Of course, I've probably just done more work on selecting my choices than 50% of Australians. ;)
I don't read AC A human right
Ideology is religion. It's believing things are true when the evidence says otherwise. It's choosing to believe something is true when you WANT it to be true, but it isn't true. Is it true that humans respond rationally to incentives? No. That is [true in rare cases but but mostly] not true, and all libertarianism is based on it.
Nice high speed ramble.I couldn't even follow all of it - I think you called libertarinism a false idealogical religion not based on reality, but I'm not 100% sure. It really read as though my beliefs offended your own and you had to respond with an attack to defend your own.
That's okay. We're used to it, and you can go back to embracing your own reality because that's where you feel most comfortable. That's the thing about us Libertarians, we're okay with other people doing their own thing, we respect people having their own beliefs even if they don't respect our beliefs.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Given the huge level of dis-satisfaction with both of the major parties, I think blaming this on chance or simply due to his name being first on the ballot is making a MASSIVE leap.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Easily misleading summaries, then.
Here in NJ we usually have 1-4 public questions on our ballot. Somehow we manage.
What you describe is tolerance, for which libertarians are well known. I also tolerate libertarians, insofar as I don't try to round them up, put them in jail, or silence them.
It's just that they believe things that aren't true, and I think people should shed untrue beliefs.
Ideology? like believing that institutionalised violence can solve social problems? It can't.
How does the state alter behavior? Incentives.
Are you religiously devoted to the state?
This happened in the state north of mine, New South Wales. How embarrassing... As the article points out, the party was first on the ballot paper and had a name a lot like another larger party.
And in related embarrassing news, here in Victoria someone from the "Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party" was elected to the senate! It's not even clear if they have any policies at all. A lot of this was because of preference deals with the Sex Party. Yes, your read that right, the Sex Party.
Voting is compulsory here in Australia. It's usually pretty clear (no chance of hanging chads), but this time around the senate paper was more than a metre wide and had 97 candidates on it. The easy voting option is to put one number above the line. The hard voting option involves putting a number in all 97 boxes... which I've done in the past, but didn't the patience to do this time.
Oh FFS, just spotted someone from the "Australian Sports Party" has won a seat in Western Australia... It's going to be a very weird six year senate term...
Tell you what - lets do an experiment.
All Libertarians need to test their ideology is to be left alone - we don't need anything else from anyone else. Just space and to be left alone, we're not isolationist, we'll be happy to trade with people that aren't us, but your regulations tend to have incredible strings attached that try to nail us to your service, there is great punishment involved with trading with statist.
When we fail at being sufficient without the rest of you, you may laugh.
If we try it and you still try to make us comply with your regulations, fail or not it wasn't a fair experiment.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Okay. The place you described exists, in fact there are two such places. Places with lax government oversight, places where individuals are free to make economic deals with each other and to manage their own affairs. The two "free-est" places in the world are Sudan and Afghanistan, and since ZERO of you big-talking libertarians are rushing to move there, that proves that you know, deep down, that a reasonable amount of moderate government regulation is one of the things that makes a country a nice place to live in.
Think of the gun rights you'll have in Sudan! You can hire your own private army to guard your compound and you can crouch down in your spider-hole bunker thinking about how awesome it is that you don't rely on gubmint for your safety. Think about the unregulated crops you can grow in Afghanistan without Big Brother trying to stop you from growing opium poppies, or stopping your fertilizer runoff from polluting the watershed. FREEDOM!
Send me a postcard from your new address in one of those two countries, and then I will issue you an apology. Until then you're a freeloader complaining about exactly the system that delivers your high standard of living.
"Libertarian" like here in Europe, like in, "Anarchy", "self decision","self organization"
Or "Libertarian" like "Lemme keep ma gun, no taxes, shoot the abortionist" ???
Well, Australia is fortunately quite far.
-- 29A the number of the Beast
It seems that the education system in Australia could be even more underfunded and worse than that in the U.S., where for decades the Republicans have been cutting education funding to try to create the perfect noble and serf two class system!!!
My karma is bad. Don't get too close!!!
What's wrong with alphebetical order? I for one welcome Aaron A. Abbot as the next president.
Until then you're a freeloader complaining about exactly the system that delivers your high standard of living.
I always get a kick out of it when people who fight to maintain a system that forcibly takes from others to benefit themselves call me the freeloader.
I give you credit, you didn't scream Somalia.
The places you named are not libertarian minded places, one in particular has strongly enforced sharia law which most certainly is not libertarian. The other is not libertarian either, it's waring military states funded and propped up by other states that fund them for their own gain. Your examples suck.
Sadly the best example of a libertarian economy is in Estonia, a country that is far from libertarianism otherwise.
The fact is no place currently exist that us libertarians dream of. Precisely for the freeloader reason you mentioned, any time someone has something someone else wants there will be people who band together to take it by force, either in the Sudan method you mentioned, or more peacefully they'll form a government and claim imminent domain or taxes. There are just so many people who need the warm embrace of compulsory safety nets provided by others. People like you want big government because they are cowards. People like me are happy with city-states, think Indian tribe, Scottish Clan, Viking Village etc... There's no reason why someone in Montana should have to finance the seawall in Galveston that helps to protect my butt, nor should I have to help pay to fix the Golden Gate Bridge no matter how significant of a structure it is.
People try to convince me on a regular basis we need federal funding to do things.
I live in Texas - we give more money to the feds than we get back. Of the money we get back how much was siphoned off on the way? Say the feds pay to fix a water main in my town. I sent $100 to the feds in income tax, the IRS takes $5 for the privilege of having taken my money, who then gives the $95 to the department of the interior that takes out their operating cost of $10. The department of the interior then gives the $85 to some large interior contractor, I'm going to make up a name to keep from singling out the obvious transgressors - Pipeanon. Pipeanon of course is required by federal regulations to have sub-contractors from a "disadvantaged" business do the actual work. Pipeanon calls up Hector & Son's Pipe Layers and sends them $35 of my dollars to fix the water main. Hector & Son's Pipe Layers then hires Juan for $12 to go dig a hole and patch the pipe.
I would have rather given my city $50 so they could pay Hector & Son's Pipe Layers $45 so they could pay Juan $20. Juan is a good guy, my kid and his go to school together and I usually sit next to him at our kid's soccer games and his boss Hector always brings a BBQ grill and makes burgers and hotdogs for everyone now that his business is making more, not to mention now that our money is being used more efficiently we have more bike lanes in town for our kids to safely ride their bikes to the park with and I have a better car since my money goes further locally and I have to pay less in taxes.
Feel the power of the big government, let it flow through you, swear off freedom and personal responsibility, only then can you fully embrace the power of the dark side.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
The power over preferences should be returned to the voters.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-11/green-hand-the-power-of-preferences-back-to-the-people/4951020
He suggests that optional preferential voting should be made possible both "above the line" and "below the line", an either/or option in the Senate ballot that made the situation, as originally posted, possible.
Being able to mark one or more preferences, either as to parties, or as to individual candidates, would wipe out the "preference swap" vote rigging.
Don't blame me, it's usually 2 in the morning when I post
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
Samuel Adams
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
"one in particular has strongly enforced sharia law"
No, it doesn't, because there is no law there because there is no government there. What there is, is a "free market" of "private actors" each "pursuing his own interests" which, apparently, includes cutting the heads off of infidels. Don't like it? Surely you can raise your own army to enforce your own interests. FREEDOM!
Oh, suddenly the free market isn't good enough for you? Freeloader.