DLP! re Another Labor Victory post 39799 Jimbo

ROFLMAO

memories

Oh Phil! A good friend said the political types were wandering around Melbourne parliament with very long faces yesterday. They set up the new upper house and they thought their eyes were open. But then they didn't know what they were doing with their preferences did they!

Well the new structured upper house and preferential voting system was introduced by Labor. I guess you reap what you sow.

Crazy system though.

Only way to reform state upper houses is to abolish them, Qld did so long ago, and seems to be doing OK.

Hmmmm...yes...accepted....LOL

Cheers

Here is how it happened (from the Age site)

Quote:

IT HAS happened again. In 2004, Family First's Steve Fielding was elected to the Senate after winning 1.9 per cent of the vote and 400,000 preferences. Now it's the DLP's turn.

In Northern Metropolitan, its leader John Mulholland won a seat with 5.1 per cent of the vote. And in Western Victoria, candidate Peter Kavanagh took the last seat with just 2.6 per cent.

How could it happen? Just as it happened for Senator Fielding. The DLP did a great job of trading preferences with parties that underestimated it as a threat.

This was the first election for the Legislative Council under Victoria's new system of proportional representation. This divides the state into eight regions, each choosing five members under a Senate-style voting system.

To win a seat you need a quota. Since there are five quotas per region, you need just over a sixth of the vote: 16.67 per cent. But that is after preferences. The first four seats usually go two to Labor, two to the Liberals and Nationals. Then the last seat comes down to preferences.

Take Western Victoria, which covers Geelong, Ballarat and the Western District. Labor won 42.1 per cent and the Liberals 35.2 per cent.

They shared the first four seats, but both lacked a quota for the fifth. Labor had just over half a quota (0.53), the Liberals just 0.11.

It looked like the threat to Labor was the Greens (0.51), or possibly the Nationals (0.33) or Family First (0.24). But no. The real threat was way back in the field: the DLP, with just 2.6 per cent of votes. The votes looked roughly like this:

Labor 34,000

Greens 33,700

Nationals 21,800

FamFirst 15,500

DLP 10,500

Liberals 7500

Others 8000

When no candidates have a quota, they are eliminated from the bottom. People Power and the Country Alliance went out. Both had preference deals with the DLP, so they helped it, the Liberals helped the Nationals, and the numbers became:

Greens 34,500

Labor 34,200

Nationals 29,500

DLP 16,800

FamFirst 16,000

So Family First went out. It too had done a preference swap with the DLP. Even with some preferences leaking, the scorecard became (roughly):

Greens 34,500

Labor 34,200

DLP 32,300

Nationals 30,000

So the Nationals dropped out. And their preferences, and those of the Liberals, also flowed on to the DLP.

Suddenly the scoreboard read:

DLP 62,000

Greens 34,600

Labor 34,400

OK, you might think, the Greens take the seat on Labor preferences. But no — Labor too had done a preference deal with the DLP, thinking it would go out early and help Labor over the line. Instead the final score was (more or less):

DLP 95,000

Greens 36,000.

And the part-time party we thought gone forever was back in Victoria after a 48-year absence.

Unquote

Vince Gair would be laughing in his grave. It is a result he would have relished given his penchant for political manoeuvring.

Pete

>>> A clear example of preferential voting going horribly wrong.

You think this is the first example?? Thats why I refuse to vote, only ever voted once for Pauline, that was it never will again. Its not worth it

I vote for Scum A, and in the end Scum D gets my vote.. I'd rather die than have Scum D get my vote.

Is there a worse system on earth?

From memory (and it is fading a bit) wasn't the DLP formed following the 1955/56 split of disenchanted roman catholics from the ALP? So perhaps this is another group who, like Fielding, have a narrow religious agenda to push...

.....and Trucky...vote mate you can't possibly change the scene if'n you don't

Phil,
yes, Gair demonstrated his diplomatic skills during is tenure as ambassador in Ireland. What a disaster for Irish-Aust relations, a disaster from Gough's point of view, and a travesty for Joh putting in Albert Fields in as his replacement (I think it was him).
Gerry

Ladies,

Read Pajman Pete's response. I read it this morning in The Age on the train to work. I already understood the quota system from my studies and interest in Politics as a teenager and student.

Get it....it's simple.....it's the fairest political system in the world. It's tried and tested. What's more it works.

Finally, Bracks had the option to maintain an unfair system that would have continued to guarantee him a majority in the LC. However he chose to risk that, at his peril, to reform an outdated system. Love him or hate him, at least give him credit for that.

Jim.