Today we will comment on The Courier Mail's editorial headed "One Nation's future depends on preferences." (The complete article is shown in red interspersed with our commentary in black and third party quotes in dark green).
When Pauline Hanson surfaced on Wednesday after going down at last Saturday's poll, she was fuming about the preferential system of voting which meant that although her party scored about 8% of the national vote it failed to win a seat in the House of Representatives. In the Senate, with a slightly larger vote, it appears to win a consolation prize, with Heather Hill close to obtaining one of the six Queensland Senate places at the expense of the National Party's Bill O'Chee. But elsewhere in Australia, it failed to have a senator elected though its candidates won more votes than Democrats who were elected.
Ms Hanson secured more than twice as many primary votes (37%) than the eventual elected MP, the Liberal's Cameron Thompson (17%). His win was secured on the back of Labor Party preferences. The Laboral factions most blatant political move reflecting their obsession with maintaining their evil monopoly on Australia's two party system.
Hardly a democracy in action.
Ms Hanson said her party was the third largest in Australia on the vote it received, out-polling the National Party as well as the Democrats and the Greens. She complained the election campaign had been "unfair". As usual with One Nation, her comments contain a mixture of fact, fantasy and fallacious argument. And, typically, she was unable to provide any sensible answers to her own problems.
The editor's statement that:
"As usual with One Nation, her comments contain a mixture of fact, fantasy and fallacious argument. And, typically, she was unable to provide any sensible answers to her own problems."
goes totally unsubstantiated. The editor relays it as fact - showing his total lack of ethical reporting.
It is not quite clear from her remarks whether Ms Hanson would like to do away with the system of preferential voting which is used for both houses of the Federal Parliament and is used in a modified way (in the form of of optional preferences) in Queensland. She appears to have conveniently forgotten One Nation's swag of 11 MPs in the Queensland Parliament exaggerated the vote it would have received under any other conceivable system of voting. Only a straight proportional representation system, with the whole state as a single electorate, would have given it more seats in the Parliament. However a first past the post system, with no preferences, would have given One Nation eight seats (including three it did not win in the June elections), while that system would have given the ALP 55 (a majority of 20 in the Legislative Assembly), the Nationals 17 and the Liberals nine. Abolishing preferences might be attractive to Labor, but there is no way either of the Coalition parties would support it.
The State and Federal voting systems are poles apart. the Editor fails to mention that:
A major point of difference one would think.
One Nation's problem in the Federal Election was not that there was a preferential system of voting in operation, but that the party was unable to persuade any other party to allocate preferences to it.
One Nation's problem in exchanging preferences was made all the more difficult by a hostile Murdoch press which used its media might to intimidate anyone who dared consider this option.
Here is an extract from an editorial in The Courier Mail in September when this issue was being decided by the Federal Coalition before the October elections:
The failure of the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister to insist that Liberal and National candidates must put One Nation last on their preference lists will increasingly haunt them over the next few weeks. Already it appears certain that several National MPs and candidates in Queensland and New South Wales will effectively give their preferences to One Nation, by putting One Nation candidates above the ALP. They argue the ALP is the "enemy" not One Nation. They are wrong. It is true that in the current election, the contest for government is between the Coalition led by John Howard and the Labor party led by Kim Beazley. But for the National party in particular, this election is not just about which party will hold the reins of government. For the Nationals it is a matter of survival of a party which had its origins 75 years ago.
It was different in the Queensland election, where it benefitted from National and Liberal preferences. It failed to attract official preferences from those parties federally because of its perceived extremism. Its policies were regarded as so far beyond the pale, that, as occurred in the Queensland election, the Liberals would have suffered primary losses if they or their Coalition partners had given their preferences to One Nation.
Of course during the Queensland State Election The Courier Mail ran three opinion pieces and editorials in one critical week trying to sway the State Coalition to put One Nation after Labor. They nearly succeeded - as it was the Liberals amended their democratic decision to put One Nation above Labor... if the paper's had succeeded One Nation would have had only one state MP in Queensland today despite winning 24% of the primary vote.
Here are extracts from and links to those articles:
Liberals by name, but not by Preference, Terry Sweetman, Courier Mail, May 5th 1998
Any doubts that the Queensland Liberal Party was something of a curious misnomer appear to have been settled by its weekend decision to direct preferences to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation ahead of the Labor Party.
And its continued failure to carve out a separate and distinctive identity for itself eventually could consign it to the ranks of historical curiosity.
The decision to direct preferences to Hanson’s troglodytes is another indication that the Liberals are in bad shape politically, intellectually and, now, morally.
The lame justification from state president Bob Carroll was that his party was in the business of winning elections, not giving ‘free kicks’ to Labor.
Preference for pragmatism a bad poll ploy, Editorial, The Courier Mail, May 6th 1998:
For One Nation to hold or share the balance of power in a Queensland Parliament would be a victory for short-sighted and crude populism and an indictment of the major parties for allowing such a profound increase in public cynicism and disconnection with mainstream politics. This week’s announcement by the Queensland Liberals that One Nation will receive preferences ahead of Labor will feed this disconnection. It is just the kind of political pragmatism over principle that drives voters to disillusionment.
Strange, Strange Liberal days Wallace Brown, Friday May 8th 1998:
Yet any decision by the Liberals, and presumably the Nationals, to allocate preferences to One Nation candidates is bizarre. This conclusion may mot be conventional wisdom but it is bizarre precisely because it is not pragmatic.
And it is not pragmatic because to give Hanson preferences is to give her credibility.
Just as the opinion polls had her withering on the vine nationally; just as she was disappearing from our television screens; just as more voters were beginning to realise that she had no real answers to her rhetoric and simplistic questions; just as some of the beat-up merchants on radio talk-back shows were starting to forget her; just as Premier Rob Borbidge and Queensland Liberal leader Joan Sheldon were insisting that Hanson was no problem - what happens? The Liberals themselves give her this boost.
That night, 8th May, the Liberal Party changed its position on putting One Nation above Labor at the Queensland State Election when it released the following statement:
"Traditionally the Labor Party has been placed last on Liberal Party "How to Vote" cards. At this election, the distribution of preferences will be undertaken on a seat-by-seat basis when all candidates are known. This will be done in consultation with local campaign committees."
The answer for One Nation rests not with railing against the system, but in becoming part of it. It will only attract preferences if it can demonstrate that it is not a racist and reactionary party. It needs to show that it has well-considered policies. While it will attract a significant number of primary votes by relying on prejudices and anti-establishment sentiments, it will only attract preferences if it can prove to one or more established parties that it is part of the mainstream of political life in Australia.
What the editor is implying here is that one Nation should stop rocking the boat. A boat in which the major parties and the media moguls run Australia through shadowy political figures like Graham Richardson and Michael Kroger who use their well-placed contacts to curry favour for the likes of Packer and Murdoch. In reality they run the country.
One Nation will, we understand, continue to work at breaking down Australia's undemocratic media duopoly. It will not be intimidated by the louts who work for the media moguls. It will be interesting to see what One Nation does with its preferences at the upcoming New South Wales state election - it could be the Coalition's turn to scream like a stuffed pig as they are placed last on a substantial number of One Nation votes in marginal seats.
Just rewards.