Page 1201 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 April 1994
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A good example of this was the 1987 election, I think - but I could be wrong about that - where the Australian Labor Party in Victoria nominated Mr John Halfpenny to be a candidate for the Senate in that State. Mr Halfpenny was an intensely unpopular figure in that State and there was a widespread feeling of dissatisfaction with the fact that Mr Halfpenny stood a chance in theory of getting in on the ALP ticket. Despite that fact Mr Halfpenny - I think he was the third person on the Labor Party's ticket - still managed to poll the third highest number of votes for the ALP. It was not because ALP voters were saying, "Yes, we think he is a wonderful person". It was because voters were led to believe that that was the only way they could effectively cast their vote. Voters who turned up to the polling booth knew that it was quite hopeless to decide to reorder the ballot-paper to achieve any particular outcome; they knew that the order determined by the parties in those ticket arrangements would be the order that would finally result.
Most voters vote down the column because they believe that it is pointless to do otherwise. That is quite different from the Hare-Clark electoral system, where there is enormous point in choosing the candidates that you happen to want in the order in which you happen to want them. It proves, I think, that people realise that the only effective way to vote is to have something like a Robson rotation whereby it is possible to cancel out the effect of the donkey vote.
In Tasmania, for example, although voters in that State follow the above-the-line ticketing arrangements with approximately the same frequency as do voters in other States, when it comes to Hare-Clark elections - that is, for the Tasmanian House of Assembly - when it comes to those sorts of forums, they follow the Robson rotation and effectively choose a different order of candidates. My advice from Mr Terry Newman, the author of the book I referred to before on the Hare-Clark electoral system, suggests that between 80 and 90 per cent of voters in Tasmania choose a different order of candidates from the one that is displayed on the ballot-paper. They make a deliberate choice. In other words, Hare-Clark with Robson rotation does not just cancel out the donkey vote; Hare-Clark and Robson rotation almost entirely eliminates the donkey vote. If you do not let the Robson rotation operate in that way, I submit that you will partly destroy the capacity of the system to deliver a completely fair vote for all candidates in the election.
Madam Speaker, if, as Mr Berry has maintained in this place, 84 per cent or so of people prefer ticket voting, why is it that there is so little donkey voting in the Tasmanian context? Why do so many people abandon the order that appears on the ballot-paper in favour of something else?
Mr Moore: Because Mr Berry thinks 84 per cent of people are donkeys.
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Moore makes some comment about donkeys which I did not hear, but I am sure that it is very - - -
Mr Moore: Mr Berry thinks that 84 per cent of people are donkeys.
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