The anti-Baillieu blog has an item about the Boroondara Residents Action Group this morning. Says they want no wogs in Boroondara.
We are not great supporters of the BRAG. They censor items on their web site that disagree with them, according to comments on our blog. Their main concern is not Boroondara but Camberwell Junction. They are good self publicists. Their activists are well heeled Anglo and white. Their main spokesperson Mary Drost writes letters to the Progress Leader claiming anything but the present ten councillor wards in Boroondara is undemocratic.
We don't think they are racist, and we think that item on the anti-Baillieu blog claiming they are is offensive. We don't agree with Mary Drost for reasons we'll explain in a minute, but we make no personal attack on her. She has good intentions and we commend her for that. We'll explain in the next paragraph why we disagree with her.
No Mary. The present Boroondara Council is undemocratic. A move to multi-councillor wards and proportional representation, opposed by BRAG, may not be totally democratic but it is FAIRER.
Why don't we have a more diverse Council? It's because the single member wards favour candidates who are white Anglo and Liberal. That's Boroondara. The twenty or so per cent who were born overseas are unlikely to be elected. Anyone who is known to vote anything other than Liberal is unlikely to be elected. It's OK to be an independent. It's OK to claim not to be a member of any political party. If the good burghers of Boroondara, except for that small pocket around Ashburton that includes public housing (and how did it ever become part of Boroondara? You didn't campaign hard enough Mary) if people think you are anything other than a true blue Lib you won't get elected. No socialists for Boroondara is a tried and true slogan. We are fairly conservative ourselves, but we prefer to look at a candidate rather than what their politics might be. Boroondara is not federal parliament.
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The item below appeared this morning on the Landeryou blog. The author works at 104, the Liberal Party HQ in Exhibition Street. Author seems to like Mary Drost. Read on:
Red Ted as you call him is a good member here in blue blood territory. We at 104 like and respect him. We want more people in Kooyong to join our great party, and not to be involved with the likes of Mary Drost and her stupid Boroondara Residents Action Group who want to remove all the grand buildings our friends and contributors propose for the middle of our jewel electorate.
The BRAG are currently fighting in support of the Boroondara Council to keep the plebs out of our city council. The BRAG want single councillor wards to continue, and in the current representation review by the Victorian Electoral Commission the Krogerites, whom Mary obviously is working closely with, are running a campaign with ratepayers money to convince the VEC that we want to keep our Boroondara Council wog free. Any move to proportional representation in Boroondara, according to the blue bloods of BRAG, who sound Bolshie but are in bed with the Krogerites, will mean more ethnics on our Council.
We will never win a general election when the likes of the BRAG are our friends. Red Ted needs to speak up more about BRAG policies that are detrimental to the well being of Boroondara, the jewel in our crown.
Richard Russell | Homepage | 03.07.08 - 9:19 am
This item is racist. I may complain to the anti-discrimination tribunal about slurs on my ethnic background. I am from New Zealand and I hate the things I am called. I am not a wog.
Someone's sent me the URL for this Boroondara Vote Reform blog and, curious as I am, I had to have a look. I am utterly amazed at the blatant nonsense and degree of ignorance displayed in some of the entries. What's worse, some contributors are hiding behind a veil of anonymity which I find quite unacceptable. I am certainly interested in informed debate and sharing differences in opinion, but these should be based on informed and well-reasoned arguments, not the political agendas of limpid liberals, laconic labour, grovelling greens or bleating bloggers.
My contribution to the VEC review can be accessed on the VEC website at http://www.vec.vic.gov.au/boroondararrPreSub.html
I'm happy to have a debate about some of the underlying premises of the review and the inherent tensions arising form being part of a governing body and diverging personal views.
But first things first. Who's the nutcase who thinks that some people want Boroondara to be a 'white Australian', wog-free zone? The current council is composed of
1 Dutch guy
1 German guy (me)
2 Greeks (Maranoa and Solway Wards)
1 Woman of English descent.
If I'm not a wog then who is?
Secondly, there are a lot of biased and untested assumptions about proportional representation in the submissions, and non- or poorly defined terms such as 'wasted votes', 'value of votes' etc.
PR is being sold as THE voting system which can remedy an imperfect democracy. Nothing's ever perfect, and the current system isn't either. But, as far as PR is concerned, what about the following:
PROPORTIONALITY
It is claimed that PR better reflects the Popular Vote. I think this is correct, because PV systems are more likely to produce legislatures which more closely reflect the popular vote across a province -- or a state or a country -- than our current system. Like all changes, however, changing the voting system will have other consequences (smaller parties, less stability, confusion of those who lobby and those who govern, minority governments, single issue-based representation by fringe groups, lack of long-term vision...). The PV systems will not only increase the number of political parties, these new parties will tend to be more focussed on particular issues or causes. Yes, the number of parties can be controlled (e.g. in Germany where you have a 5% hurdle requirement), but this does not seem to have entered the local debate. Once some lobby groups obtain a taste of real power and influence, it will be very difficult to convince other such groups that they too cannot enjoy a seat at this table.
FEWER "WASTED" VOTES
Again, the term is not properly defined in the proponent's blogs, and it seems that the proponents consider a wasted vote to be a vote for an unsuccessful candidate. If so, we need to ask whether this is a problem deserving of a solution. An election is supposed to be a contest of ideas. Like any contest, it is intended to determine a winner. If our assumed definition is correct, the problem for the proponents seems to be that contests also produce losers. By permitting some of these 'losing' parties to 'win' seats in the legislature by means of a PV system, they claim that elections will be 'fairer' as a result.
VOTES OF MORE EQUAL VALUE
Proponents like to use tables showing the average number of votes required by each party to win a seat in certain past elections. They calculate this average by dividing the number of seats won by a party into the total number of votes that the party received. In the elections selected by those who prepared the tables, the party which won the most seats had less total votes per seat than the party (or parties) which lost. From these tables, the proponents conclude that some votes are more equal than others and, thus, the voting system which produced them (e.g preferential) must be unfair. Is this an appropriate calculation to use in determining the value of a vote or is it just a statistic chosen to support a position?
If we accept it as a valid measure, no election is fair. In almost any election, this calculation will yield similar results favouring the winning party and making it seems that the other parties have been wronged. This supposed unfairness will be especially pronounced in elections where the result is a majority government but where the overall popular vote is close. Should we be altering the voting system on the basis of such a questionable measure? The other point worth making is that the electorate gets 'socialised' into which ever the prevalent system is, and will use it in a way that maximises their personal and political leanings.
BETTER REPRESENTATION, GREATER LOCAL VOICE
PV systems appear to offer the same degree of local representation as preferential or 'first-past-the-post'. In the present case of the Boroondara review, those who claim PV systems provide greater local voice are without exception in favour of multiple member wards. This, of course means much larger wards of up to 50,000 residents. Clearly, any reduction in the total number of wards would be a direct reduction in the amount of local representation.
BETTER GOVERNANCE; LONG-TERM POLICY THINKING
Politicians are human beings and, as such, they are generally guided by their own self-interest. For many politicians, the primary self-interest is to be re-elected. This is not a criticism; it is simply recognition of reality. Politicians seeking re-election will only think long-term if they believe the voters will reward them for doing that. If voters prefer short-term quick fixes, they will elect those politicians who deliver. If voters express their preference for short-term solutions (E.G 'no-change agenda; let's deep-freeze Boroondara and not worry about long-term demographic trends'), should we be surprised if politicians promise more of the same? It seems very naive to expect a PV system to somehow transform politicians into seekers of long-term solutions -- if that is contrary to their own self-interests. That is akin to expecting a voting system to change human nature.
Anyway, I have probably given this blog more attention than it deserves and should get onto doing some real work. I only hope none of the inanities produced in this blog are from my students; I think I'd sent them back to school for another year.
Cheers
Heinz
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