NSW Elections 2011

We are heading for a State Election on Saturday 26 March.  According to the media this is going to be a slaughter of a similar magnitude to the Canadian Election in 1993 in which the Government went from a majority of the House to 2 seats.  The linked article is informative but astonishing in that it manages to avoid blaming the defeat on Mulroney.  We lived in Canada in 1991 and I recall a crowd circling the building containing the Prime Minister's Office chanting "Hi,-hi, ho-ho.  Lyin' Brian's gotta go."

There are a few aspects of the NSW event, at the local level, that are interesting.

One small point is that in what follows I spell Labour including a 'u'.  The 5 character version of the name is abhorrent to me!

A first point is that for the first time in quite a while I have no active role in this election.This is not because I am not interested but because despite my offering late last year to assist the sitting member (Steve Whan, Country Labour) he has not called upon my services.  Perhaps he

1. prefers to have members of his party work for him (I'm not a member of any political party); or 
2. has heard of my record in working for losing candidates (but I backed a winner in the last Australian election)!

The second point is that the sitting member seems to have been very laid back in his approach  A few posters have begun to appear but the Nationals candidate has had his face around for ages.  According to a friend who listens to AM radio more than I do, when interviewed Whan has been optimistic about holding his seat.  Given that he has a margin of about 6% and some folk with margins of 15% are seen as under threat this might be described as hubris!

Thirdly I am usually interested to see what the bookies have to say.  In the case of Monaro the answer is "nothing" from Centrebet.  They are not quoting a market for this electorate!  This can only mean that no-one has approached them with a proposition.  After the election we started to receive, again, the Bungendore Mirror (see below for a discussion of delivery mechanisms).  They commented that in the last week Whan really started to firm in the market offered by Sportsbet.  Possibly this was because his campaign started to actually do something!

I have just consulted the State Electoral Commission website to see who is standing and we have Labour, Nationals, Greens, an Independent and the Fred Nile Bigots group.  At least it is easy to see who goes last!  The two most interesting issues raised by the candidates list are:

1. each candidate has to present a declaration allowing a search for a criminal record relating to child sex and violence offences.  Que?  This is nasty stuff, but why don't they have to have a full criminal records search?  I suspect this is some window dressing to keep one of the loonier members of the Legislative Council quiet.
2. the candidate for the Nationals has no contact details listed.  No email address, mobile phone number or landline: this should be a big red warning sign for electors!

At the Federal level the members of the Upper House are quite well known, while in NSW politics this is not the case.  I have just looked at the list of parties etc standing for election to this body and it is a worry.  There are 16 groups of candidates (mainly single-issue groups - eg the No Parking Meters Party) and 18 individuals.  I suspect the Donkey vote could be an issue and really hope above the line is an option.
I consulted the Labour Party list and had not heard of any of them.

We have now been and voted.  The lower house was quite normal but the upper house form was astonishing in size.  This is simply a matter of fitting 17 columns  of up to 21 names on a single bit of paper.  Attempting to vote below the line is obviously a nonsense but I suppose someone has a view of democracy which says electors vote for the person not the Party.  I'd love to see that tested: the questions to addressed could include:

• How many folk vote above the line as against below the line;
• What proportion of below the line votes are informal;
• What proportion of below the line votes are erroneously tallied due to the counting staff  finding it difficult to handle bed-sheet sized forms.

Other issues to be addressed:

• the financial cost of having such a vast bit of paper created;
• the environmental cost of having such a vast piece of paper created for such an ephemeral purpose.

An issue of concern to me, and possibly a few others in Carwoola is the apparent actions of the postal contractor.   This person is very erratic in their work (possibly because they rely on a subcontractor for some of it) but it seems that they have not delivered at least some of the material from the Greens and possibly not some of that from the Labour Party.  We have got quite a lot from the Nationals candidate.  Given how tight I expect this seat to be, the one or two votes such bias (whether the fault of the parties or the delivery person) could be crucial.  The local newspapers - the Bulletin and the Mirror - have not been delivered for two or three weeks, but at this stage it isn't clear to me if that is down to the postal contractor or another criminal.  This is particularly important since they each contained a 4 page article with the Greens candidate outlining his policies: as I say a handful of votes could be important.  It now appears that the same contractor was responsible for both mail and local newspapers.  The underlying problem seems to have been that the she didn't pay the subcontractors so they either quit or didn't do their work.  Apparently we now have a new contractor.  It is perhaps a coincidence that the day I found out about this (the day after we voted) we received two items from the Labour candidate.

Well, it is 9pm on the night of the election.  It looks like the forces of conservatism are getting a landslide.  And there will be a lot of them around as the mining companies go more feral, the Shooters Party are allowed into the National Parks and the Environment agencies are gutted.  I would be astonished if our sitting member gets back: with 88% of the votes counted he needs something like all the votes from the Green and and at least half those from the Independent.  The only good thing about this election in our electorate is that the Fred Nile candidate came last.


At least we have had the benefit of living in Colorado for a year during the first Reagan Presidency so we shouldn't be surprised at what is to come.