Tuesday 10 August 2010

Vote below the line for the Senate

Did you know that the Labor Party and Democrat voters helped elect Steven Fielding of the Family First Party to the Senate in 2004?

According to Below the Line, a website to help you select the party you wish to support for your Senate vote, people may not have intended to support a certain candidate, but that's what happened when they voted above the line in the Senate.

When you vote above the line, you're letting that party determine the way you vote and their preferred vote may not be what you expect. The only way to be completely sure that your vote goes the way you want is to check where your party's preferences are going and if they're not going the way you want, then vote below the line.

As you might imagine, the Senate vote counting process is somewhat twisty. The AEC have produced a video describing it which does a pretty good job of explaining how it works. The only thing they don't appear to cover is the fact that if you vote above the line, your vote may end up going up to three different ways, depending on how the group your voting for, filed its preferences.

Below the Line will help you through the quagmire of your Senate vote.

11 comments:

Thaddeus said...

The latest polling is showing a win for Tony Abbott in the House of Representatives and a Greens controlled Senate. He,hehe. Australia looks set for a period of rambunctious governance. ROFL.
Right now, the party brokers in the LNP will be focussing on the Greens likely to win a Senate seat, probing their weaknesses, scanning their backgrounds trying to find some leverage and a price. Much as I admire the Greens, this is what happens when a party "holds the balance of power."

Alison Alloway said...

Thaddeus, I dislike your attempts at humour. Having a handful of people controlling the interests of a country isn't anything to make a mockery of. Those Greens Senators will have to run the gauntlet so to speak to force the LNP to reconsider legislative changes allowing things like:
gay marriages, the emissions trading scheme, overturning the Federal Intervention in the NT, and rights for asylum seekers. They will be facing the full fury of the homophobic, racist, red-necked element which the ALP were too frightened to take on.
We are on the verge of a tumultous period in Australian political history.

jellybaby rules said...

I am soooo over politics!! I have arranged to hide in Kuranda for Election Day -hopefully I won't know the fate of our country until I emerge later in the week.
Now for something different! Sorry Mike, it is really off message!
I have just found a 33 LP vinyl record of the Seekers with Louisa Wisseling in place of Judith D -it has the track -Sparrow Song -and best of all it is autographed by all the Seekers ie Bruce Woodley, Athol Guy, Keith Potger and Louise -anyone interested???

Leuco Gaster said...

Gee Thaddeus, I hope you're wrong! My own assessment is that the swing will not be big enough for the Coalition to win, and in Leichhardt, not big enough for poor old Warren to unseat the quiet but effective Jim Turnour - rather like Howard's narrow victory after his first term - I'm on the edge of my seat.

KitchenSlut said...

Hmmm Alison but ..... there is a question here where i think you have diverged .... the outcome will be an ALP victory with a Green support in the Senate? I bet on this!

Thaddeus is just a turkey in need of a good kick in the head!

So the question is .... we will have elected a guvmint that we have done so by somewhat of an extreme right campaigning diversion from its own ideological background for the purposes of a campiagn so how are they gunna adjust this when they win with green backing?

Faced with a win in alliance with the Greens how will the Guvmint respond in Guvmint? Umm your analysis is wrong here?

Is there a 'real Julia'? Is there a real ALP?? This is actually the biggest concern and you are right to an extent! The question is will the ALP caucus ditch the 'Howard lite' conservatism when that have Green support and whether right or not they will ditch completely their false ideological espousal?

The most positive thing is that it wont be a landslide like many state elections which have featured incompetent state guvmints v unelectable more incompetent oppositions with lots of exhuberant neanderthal ALP tribalists shouting disgustingly while piggy is stuck! And the outcome is?

A close result is good and i also disagree with the comment in context that we are faced with a period of instability because we have already been in a period of instability for some time now?! Hey? This has been an historical periopd of profound leadership inbstabillitty at all levels!

Google the Ross Garnaut recent Hamer speech on the failure of political leadership if anyone can stand the wonkishness lead up! Garnaut has links to the ALP and was a Hawke adviser! Too long already so I wont go on with some of the underlying relative economic problems emerging on productivity .....

Perhaps people didnt notice? perhaps thats why Kev ended up like Piggy?

P.S. Literary references are to Lord of the Flies

Alison Alloway said...

My comments were written in view of an LNP win in the House of Reps, with a Greens controlled Senate. Such a scenario would guarantee a fiery Parliament, in my view. In fact, I doubt it would be workable for very long.

However, the alternative...a win by the ALP in the House of Reps..

"The question is will the ALP caucus ditch the 'Howard lite' conservatism when they have Green support and whether right or not they will ditch completely their false ideological espousal?"

That is a pertinent question KitchenSlut.
I don't know...however I believe Labor have veered sharply away from their traditional values which is why the Greens and the Socialist Alliance/Workers Parties are gaining in popularity. When I was in Alice Springs recently, I saw aboriginal peoples actively campaigning for their own political party. This is yet another telling indication that Labor has lost more of its support base.
It has been the Greens and the Socialist Workers Party who have been trying to address the issues of "Intervention" in the NT, not the Labor Party.
Ditto, it has been increasigly left to the Greens and the Socialist Workers Party to take up the cudgels on "human rights" issues, once a key Labor platform.

So how would an ALP House of Reps work with a Greens dominated Senate?

My belief is that unless there are some real changes within the ALP, such a relationship will also be a fiery one.

Bryan Law said...

I don’t know how “unstable” our political system is, but I know that the machine politics practised by the majors is bringing it more and more into disrepute. Citizens are disaffected. Citizens are feeling powerless. For those who continue to engage, the question is how to transform disappointment into opportunity.

Democrats made a dent, and crashed on the shoals of identity and purpose. They weren’t strong enough to survive the cybical descent of two successive leaders (Kernot and Lees) into machine politics. One Nation maimed the Nationals, frightened the Liberals, and then went terminal on a cocktail of paranoia and jealousy, led into it by a variety of nut-jobs.

The Greens have built over two decades, and have a good depth of leadership nationally. They will have the balance of power after this election, and I really hope they make a good run of it. The best of them seek to transform politics and restore integrity. Their next test will be if they resist the recent flood of machine lefties, and the “pragmatic” myopia they offer.

I’ve got good personal and political reasons to vote against Warren Entsch AND Jim Turnour. Jim goes to the bottom because he’s in office. Warren goes there next time.

Likewise Labor goes last in the Senate, and I’m hoping to see my first Senate vote for Larissa Waters pay off with the first Green Senator elected in Queensland. The antidote to cynicism is hope!

MaryO said...

Well said, Bryan.

Bryan Outlaw said...

The reality is Bryan Law is only interested in drawing attention to himself and disinterested in political discourse. Most aren't interested in the communist greens who stand on the back of "global warming" as a cheap ladder to wealth redistribution.

The antidote to Bryan Law is having him incarcerated as he's supposed to be.

Boring me shitless said...

Bryan Outlaw, go and comment on Werner's blog. He'd love to hear from you. You are are clogging the blogs with your persistent venom.
OK, you don't like B Laws and you are a stalker. Great. We understand. Now,get-some-help.

Smithfield Sam said...

Yo, boring!

Bryan Law is a convicted crim. He has yet to serve his jail time. Many in the community want this phony and charlatan to do his time like the good baby should.