Voters sick of all talk and no action

THE Western world is ­witnessing an unprecedented rejection of conventional ­politicians.

THE Western world is ­witnessing an unprecedented rejection of conventional ­politicians. They are no longer trusted and it’s easy to understand why when examples from the US, the UK, the European Union and from our own system are examined. In the US, Donald Trump’s increasing popularity has ­defied almost all the punditry, as has the level of support for socialist Bernie Sanders. In the UK, the emergence of socialist anti-Semitic sympathiser Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader had baffled the commentariat and many in his own party. (Do watch Corbyn’s ­embarrassing moment when he tried to tell the British Parliament about his experience in the European Parliament.) The failure of the EU to reflect the views of whole populations demanding controls on the flow of illegal migrants has undermined any authority the EU may have had and now threatens the whole concept of European Union. Right here though, there is no better explanation of the general dissatisfaction with the political system than respected Labor elder Gary Gray’s sad justification for voting against the Senate reforms he has long championed. Grey is no lightweight. He has enjoyed almost universal respect for his reasoned thinking, many thought he went some way to filling the intellectual vacuum left in the Labor Party by his esteemed late ­father-in-law, the former Labor finance minister Peter Walsh, who gave the Hawke-Keating governments some sense of fiscal responsibility. Last Wednesday in parliament, Gray spoke in favour of the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill which deals with the obvious problem of the gaming of preference votes for senate candidates. He cited a number of infamous examples examined by the independent Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, of which he had been a member. It found that many microparties are “manipulating the system to harvest and direct preferences to each other. The result is that hundreds of thousands of votes cascade to parties that the voter would not have chosen to vote for.” Probably the most scandalous example, of the manner in which the popular will of a ­majority of voters had been abused was the election of Senator Ricky Muir of the Motoring Enthusiast Party. Muir, who seems an amiable enough individual if not fully equipped to understand and cope with the intricacies of policy debate, received just 0.51 per cent or 17,122 of the formal votes yet was elected with the assistance of preferences ahead of Liberal Senator Helen Kroger, who received 11.56 per cent or 389,745 votes. The reforms outlined in the bill go a long way to correcting excesses unforeseen when the current act was introduced more than 30 years ago to ­reduce informal voting. It does not undo the Hawke government’s irrational decision to increase the size of the Senate and House. The independent committee found that the system of ticket voting is now being manipulated with unintended consequences. Gray said that the committee reported that in recent years at both state and federal level, pop-up parties designed to attract small numbers of primary votes have manipulated the system through preference harvesting and vote transfers to produce results that do not reflect the wishes of voters. “My view is that the current rules do need to be changed; the Labor Party’s view is that those rules do need to be changed. A fundamental principle of voting systems is that a voter should actually intend to vote for the candidate or party with whom their vote finally rests. Because of the ability to man-ipulate the current system, the present Senate voting process now fails this test,” he said. Despite the usual conspiracists from the fringes posting their bizarre theories about the proposed reforms, they actually return the power to ­allocate preferences back to voters and curb the opportunities for preference whisperers to influence preference swaps ­between minor parties. As Gray said: “Under the recommended optional preferential voting system, voters would be able to expressly preference parties or candidate groups above the line rather than having their preferences distributed for them under a registered group voting ticket. “So those reforms are ­important. They strengthen our democratic process and ­restore transparency.” They are not, he stressed, intended to stifle or prevent the formation of new parties. Gray is not a dewy-eyed innocent, he is a realist. However, while knowing what is best for the nation he is bound by his party’s rules to support the Caucus decision to oppose the reforms he supports. The utter stupidity of the situation is reflected by the fact that, initially, Labor supported the reforms and now opposes them for purely political reasons. Though Gray admits that the counting of the ballot paper should reflect the intention of the voter and not the desires of ballot manipulators, he has bowed to the party and will oppose the reform he supports. This is why faith in the system, here, in the UK, the US and Europe has been eroded. Voters are turning to candidates who they think reek of authenticity, in fact, many of them just stink. But they turn to candidates such as Trump, Sanders and Corbyn because they feel their votes are wasted on party-approved candidates. Gray’s stand, against his own principles, lends weight to their argument as does Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s increasingly flaccid leadership. Smiles and platitudes are no longer enough, no matter how nimble or agile a politician may claim to be.