Australian Politics Forum - AEC favoritism

Captain Nemo

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Re: AEC favoritism - yes or no
Reply #30 - Jan 28^th, 2019 at 9:23am

Compulsory voting (well it's not actually, you can attend the booth but not cast a vote) ... is a good thing. Cool

Just imagine a system where someone could be elected as leader of the country with only a small percentage of people actually voting?

How horrible. Oh, wait ... that happened in the US. Roll Eyes

As it happens, in Australia, despite people grumbling and moaning about having to vote, the vast majority actually do have an opinion. This is evidenced by the small percentage of "informal" votes. (Roughly 5%)

So it seems that the overwhelming majority of people do actually have an opinion about who they want to elect.

There is the "donkey vote" factor too, but it is impossible to be sure about the extent of that since no-one can be sure that someone did a donkey vote - they may have chosen their vote in that order.

Anyhow, non-compulsory voting is bad because it allows nutters to gain power on small percentages of votes and it also favors the "well off" because they are more likely to vote in bad weather for example, compared to those who don't have transport of their own.

Not to say that the system can't be improved of course ... like the "preference deals" done between minor parties - often "brokered" by some ratbag middle-man.

That stuff should be outlawed.

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Bias_2012

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Re: AEC favoritism - yes or no
Reply #31 - Jan 28^th, 2019 at 12:08pm

John Smith wrote on Jan 28^th, 2019 at 7:47am:

Bias_2012 wrote on Jan 27^th, 2019 at 9:48pm:

Only some of that corruption gets exposed, as an example: political parties that fail to check their candidates for duel citizenship - how many parties failed in that department? Those parties tried to pull the wool over our eyes

that's a different issue, and not one to do with the AEC ... you forget the AEC doesn't MAKE the rules, it just enforces the rules as they exist. It's the politicians that are corrupt.

I's the Attorney General's job. The Attorney General didn't do his job of weeding out the suspect ineligible candidates before the election or before taking their seat in parliament and send them to the High Court?

"The eligibility of candidates is addressed in Section 44 of the Constitution. The Attorney-General’s Department administers the Constitution"

Bias_2012 wrote on Jan 27^th, 2019 at 9:48pm:

The major parties, after an election, ask the AEC for approx $22 million of taxpayers money and get it. How corrupt is that? The parties don't have to do that, but they do. It's not mandatory for them to apply for it. No party should get taxpayers money

I agree that should be stopped. But again, it's not the AEC who makes that decision. That rule is written in our laws. The AEC 's job is to make sure the laws are stringently followed.

True - but who made the law that says the AEC can mention names of political parties in their very public website? Below is the General Principle of the AEC's policy on impartiality and neutrality for elections and referenda. Why not apply that to their website as well, and stop mentioning the names of the two major parties?

"In the context of the statutory functions given to the AEC in relation to the conduct of elections and referenda, the AEC and its Employees must be, and must be seen to be, impartial and politically neutral"

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Bias_2012

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Re: AEC favoritism - yes or no
Reply #32 - Jan 28^th, 2019 at 12:49pm

John Smith wrote on Jan 28^th, 2019 at 7:47am:

Bias_2012 wrote on Jan 27^th, 2019 at 9:48pm:

Those high dollars are a product of compulsory voting,

no, the high dollars are a result of greedy politicians. We can just as easily have compulsory voting and no payouts. The problem is that in order to do so, you'd have to get the politicians to vote themselves what would in effect be a paycut. Not likely to happen.

Yes the parties apply to receive the millions of taxpayers money and that does indeed make them greedy

Compulsory voting makes it worse though, by the fact that as the population grows, more taxpayers money is handed out proportional to the population growth

A future 50 million people means $44million for each major party at the same voting pattern as it is now. And guess what? those friggin greedy parties would not hesitate to rip the public off for that amount, $88million total

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John Smith

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Re: AEC favoritism - yes or no
Reply #33 - Jan 28^th, 2019 at 12:52pm

Bias_2012 wrote on Jan 28^th, 2019 at 12:08pm:

I's the Attorney General's job.

so not the AEC then!

Bias_2012 wrote on Jan 28^th, 2019 at 12:08pm:

True - but who made the law that says the AEC can mention names of political parties in their very public website?

merely mentioning names does not make them partial or impartial.

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Our esteemed leader:
I hope that bitch who was running their brothels for them gets raped with a cactus.

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John Smith

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Re: AEC favoritism - yes or no
Reply #34 - Jan 28^th, 2019 at 12:54pm

Bias_2012 wrote on Jan 28^th, 2019 at 12:49pm:

Yes the parties apply to receive the millions of taxpayers money and that does indeed make them greedy

Compulsory voting makes it worse though, by the fact that as the population grows, more taxpayers money is handed out proportional to the population growth

A future 50 million people means $44million for each major party at the same voting pattern as it is now. And guess what? those friggin greedy parties would not hesitate to rip the public off for that amount, $88million total

again, not the fault of compulsory voting. Just change the laws so that no one receives the funding, no matter how many votes.

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Our esteemed leader:
I hope that bitch who was running their brothels for them gets raped with a cactus.

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Bias_2012

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Re: AEC favoritism - yes or no
Reply #35 - Jan 28^th, 2019 at 1:40pm

John Smith wrote on Jan 28^th, 2019 at 12:52pm:

Bias_2012 wrote on Jan 28^th, 2019 at 12:08pm:

I's the Attorney General's job.

so not the AEC then!

I didn't say it was. My example about the dual citizenship problem was in the context of if this topic was in "Federal Politics" board ... and saying "The whole electoral system is corrupt"

- Read Reply #28 again

Bias_2012 wrote on Jan 28^th, 2019 at 12:08pm:

True - but who made the law that says the AEC can mention names of political parties in their very public website?

merely mentioning names does not make them partial or impartial.

It definitely does, especially when they have a counting system just for the two major parties, the Two Party Preferred system

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Bias_2012

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Re: AEC favoritism - yes or no
Reply #36 - Jan 28^th, 2019 at 2:40pm

John Smith wrote on Jan 28^th, 2019 at 12:54pm:

Bias_2012 wrote on Jan 28^th, 2019 at 12:49pm:

Yes the parties apply to receive the millions of taxpayers money and that does indeed make them greedy

Compulsory voting makes it worse though, by the fact that as the population grows, more taxpayers money is handed out proportional to the population growth

A future 50 million people means $44million for each major party at the same voting pattern as it is now. And guess what? those friggin greedy parties would not hesitate to rip the public off for that amount, $88million total

again, not the fault of compulsory voting. Just change the laws so that no one receives the funding, no matter how many votes.

I said compulsory voting makes the taxpayer funding worse

The proportional increase in taxpayers money handed out to candidates and parties is directly related to compulsory voting laws, the more voters, the more money that is handed out

If you study the history of laws for compulsory voting and taxpayer funded campaign reimbursements, you'll see that they were about ten years apart, first compulsory voting, then campaign reimbursements

Who designed these? Who passed these laws? The two major parties and their elites behind the curtains did

Why would they not pass these laws if it meant millions of dollars went in their campaign coffers, easy dollars just given to them - what a gift!

But it's not possible without compulsory voting. The major parties were looking after themselves, they knew what to do to hoodwink the public

I agree, taxpayer funding of political parties should be stopped, it corrupts the system, and the AEC is part of the system, so it's corrupt also, favoring the major parties

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Bias_2012

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Re: AEC favoritism - yes or no
Reply #37 - Jan 31^st, 2019 at 2:42am

Further reading discloses that the Wran Labor government proposed electoral public funding in NSW. The liberals opposed it initially but the hypocrites changed their minds

The NSW public funding initiative

The Commonwealth’s involvement in electoral and political financing can be seen to have its roots in reforms that began in New South Wales, when, in the late 1970s, the Wran Government began a push for the public funding of election campaigns, and established a Joint Committee to that end.[58] That the Joint Committee was established to investigate how—and not whether—a public election subsidy scheme was to be introduced was an important distinction.

The public funding scheme was passed into law on 2 June 1981

Although participation in the scheme was voluntary, with any unclaimed funds returning to the Treasury, all legitimate expenditure incurred by every candidate, party and election group seeking election had to be reported to the Election Funding Authority

Socialised elections, that's what they are now

Public electoral funding is, in the main, a counter to private funding that can advantage one party over another or over all other parties. However, in recent times, public funding has advantaged the ALP and the Coalition more than any other party because the major parties have stooped to stealing taxpayers money in such quantity, they can easily overwhelm minor parties by sheer spending power for advertising and campaign jaunts. Did you see Bill Shorten in his big red bus, sitting comfy in it?

Have a look at the escalation of Fed public political funding since 1983 ...

1983 $0.60 per primary vote

1995 $1.50 per primary vote

1998 $1.62 per primary vote

2001 $1.76 per primary vote

2004 $1.97 per primary vote

2007 $2.10 per primary vote

Skip to present day $2.75, close to a five fold increase from 1983

Utter greed and theft

It's voluntary, yet the two major parties lose their self control and dive in with their bags open ready to fill like bank robbers at the counter annoying the tellers. (Make that robbing the vault, they get 10s of millions each time)

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Bias_2012

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Re: AEC favoritism - yes or no
Reply #38 - Feb 4^th, 2019 at 10:10pm

Millions in disclosed donations, millions in dark money donations, and millions in AEC public funding

How greedy are political parties? Not content with private donations, legit and dark ... they then grab millions in taxpayers money

Dark donations ... what's the AEC doing about it?

"Australia's political parties got $62m in 'dark money' donations last year

Report finds 30-40% of donations in the past decade came from untraceable sources"

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/sep/03/australias-political-part...

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