Charles Wooley: In defence of council election voting

THE October Hobart City Council election is at risk of being corrupted and manipulated, according to former lord mayor Sue Hickey.

Hobart Town Hall

THE October Hobart City Council election is at risk of being corrupted and manipulated, according to former lord mayor Sue Hickey.

Her recent warning was vague and perhaps overly cautious, not specifying exactly who she believed were the enemies of democracy. But then no one likes to be called racist or xenophobic.

So for the past couple of weeks, commentary on the extraordinary electoral loophole allowing non-citizens and even non-residents to vote in our local council polls has been mere shadow boxing.

Alderman Bill Harvey, a Greens mayoral candidate showed a similar reticence for detail.

“I’m pretty confident,” he told us, “there have been efforts to stack the rolls to benefit a particular candidate.”

The ABC favoured the phrase “international students living in and around Sandy Bay.” But why is it so difficult to pronounce the word ‘China’?

We suffer far too many political choices while having no party that can command a skerrick of loyalty, even within its own ranks.

Surely it is hardly news nor is it outrageous to observe that the Chinese Government is vitally interested in expanding its influence in Australia and as a totalitarian state is able to command the total loyalty and co-operation of most of its nationals living abroad.

Of course such adept political organising is beyond the comprehension of most Australians. We suffer far too many political choices while having no party that can command a skerrick of loyalty, even within its own ranks.

Marti Zucco, an alderman and a mayoral candidate is not a man to mince his words.

He used the forbidden term ‘China’ many times when I interviewed him this week.

He even named a Chinese operative: Ms Yongbei Tang whom he says is active in the student community and is behind the move “to exploit an electoral loophole and stack the rolls with Chinese students to get elected as an alderman”.

Tang has announced her candidature for alderman at the HCC election and is campaigning among our thousands of Chinese students to enrol and secure votes.

Now if you are not a Sinophobe nor geo-politically paranoid, you might well ask, ‘What’s wrong with that?’

Well here’s what’s wrong with it.

if you are not a Sinophobe nor geo-politically paranoid, you might well ask, ‘What’s wrong with that?’

Normally in our democracy only citizens over the age of 18 and listed on the electoral roll have the right to vote in state and federal elections and quite rightly.

Spend time in China and I bet you don’t get the vote (not that there’s anything to vote for). But here in River City, foreign nationals in temporary residence have been able to get their names on what is curiously called the General Manager’s Roll and so qualify to vote in local government elections.

“If Tang can get 500 to 600 votes she’s in with a good chance,” Zucco told me.

“If she gets 1500 primaries she’s on the council. I always warned that the only people who should vote in council elections ought to be citizens with skin in the game. This absurd loophole is creating chaos and undermining our democracy because it allows for voters to be coerced.”

Is coercion too strong a term?

Not according to members of the Chinese community who are afraid to be identified because they have families back in China.

Ms Tang reports back to the Chinese Consulate in Melbourne as a (take a deep breath) ‘Tasmanian Consular Chinese Citizen Protection Liaison Officer’. Some concerned Chinese in Hobart translate this overblown title as, in a word, ‘powerful’.

“The students fear if they don’t do as they are told, it could be trouble for their relatives back home,” Zucco says. “The general problem is that the ballot is sent out as a postal vote so there is none of the usual security that comes with the privacy of the voting booth. You vote and sign the paper and pop it back in the mail.

Is coercion too strong a term?

Not according to members of the Chinese community who are afraid to be identified because they have families back in China.

“There’s enormous scope for interference on many levels. We don’t even check most of the signatures. It’s a joke.”

Again it’s hard for Australians to understand the pressured intensity of the Chinese student experience here. Imagine you’re abroad and disobey a ScoMo injunction. The last thing you would ever expect is that secret coppers might drop in after midnight on your auntie Flo in Launceston. Consider yourself lucky that mindset is beyond your comprehension and don’t forget to vote.

Unless these matters are perplexing, most of you won’t even bother casting a vote next month. I don’t like compulsion but some of our aldermen, like Marti Zucco and Peter Sexton say conducting council elections on the same basis as state and federal elections may be the only way to safeguard our democracy at the vitally important local level.

Usually the number of citizens who vote is abysmally low. In the last HCC elections only three candidates even achieved a quota.

Let’s hope for greater participation in the upcoming election where issues vital to the future of our city now hang in the balance.

The last thing you would ever expect is that secret coppers might drop in after midnight on your auntie Flo in Launceston.

Don’t complain later about the height of buildings or the presence of (or lack of) a cable car if you didn’t even bother to vote.

The greater problem with low participation is that it can allow active interest groups to decide for you. Where citizens fail to engage, there’s the real danger that just a few hundred organised or coerced votes can win the day.

I know you are all disillusioned with politics (so am I) but since I’ve stuck my head up on your behalf, possibly to be traduced in the defence of democracy, allow me to leave you with the opinion of that old xenophobe and racist, Winston Churchill: “Democracy is the very worst form of government but it’s better than all of the others.”