#vicvotes22

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Reviews: 2022 Victorian State Edition

Victoria goes to the polls on 26 November and there is a record number of candidates for both houses of the state parliament, so here I am to review the assortment of micro-parties crowding the ballot.

I reviewed the 2014 and 2018 state elections, and although I no longer live in Victoria, I think of Melbourne as home and some of this year’s micros are truly cooked, so I could not resist firing up the blog.

There is another reason I am keen to write these reviews. Victoria still uses anti-democratic Group Ticket Voting (GTV) above the line for the Legislative Council (upper house). To ensure your preferences go where you want them to go, you must vote below the line.

What is Group Ticket Voting? It is where a party registers its list of preferences—their “group ticket”. If you vote above the line on the big Legislative Council ballot, your preferences are distributed as per the group ticket of the party for which you voted 1. Unlike when voting for the Senate, any other preferences you mark above the line will be ignored.

This does not, and cannot, represent the will of voters. GTV means that 100% of preferences flow in the same direction; in reality, when people distribute their own preferences, even the most disciplined and organised campaign struggles to get more than 80% of voters for one party to nominate the same second preference, never mind third or subsequent preferences. GTV turns each election for the upper house into a lottery, and it doesn’t confer much long-term benefit upon the micro-parties that it elects either because, even if they gain supporters during their term, they find it very difficult to draw a winning ticket two elections in a row.

Moreover, few parties submit GTVs that are based on ideology alone and can be assumed to reflect the typical preferences of their voters. Most parties do deals with each other for favourable preferences. A party that arranges especially good deals can snag preferences from voters across the spectrum—almost all of whom do not know their preference is going there, nor would approve of it. This allows a party to snowball their way past rivals with much greater support to win a seat. A party with, say, 9% of the vote in one region can miss out on a seat to a party with only 2% because that latter party harvested preferences effectively. If you want to read more about this abysmal system, Antony Green and Ben Raue have both gone into detail. Victoria's GTVs were released yesterday, and Ben has written a piece today explaining the general trends that emerge from them.

At federal level, and in every other state, GTV has been abolished and better systems implemented that give voters control over their preferences. Every federal election since 2016 has been run under a system where voters specify their own preferences above the line. Western Australia ran the most recent state election with GTVs: last year, the Daylight Saving Party won a Legislative Council seat for Mining & Pastoral despite polling a grand total of 98 primary votes in that region. This absurdity prompted WA to abolish the system. Victoria’s parliament, however, has clung to GTV despite having plenty of opportunity for reform. This failure should shame the parliament and its politicians—and Kevin Bonham is doing his best to do so in his summary of party policies about GTV.

There is a simple way to avoid your preferences going on a magical mystery tour and potentially electing parties you dislike: VOTE BELOW THE LINE. This is extremely easy: you just need to give at least 5 preferences to individuals below the line. Any vote with fewer preferences below the line is not counted; you must preference at least 1–5. You can then give as many more preferences as you want. If you only want to give 5, give 5. If you want to preference everybody, preference everybody. It is entirely up to you and your vote will only go to the individuals to whom you allocate preferences, in the order you allocated them. Do not repeat or skip a number. If you stop preferencing at any point after 5, your vote exhausts at that point and plays no further part in the election. I encourage you to preference as far as possible because it maximises the power of your vote.

Group Ticket Voting only applies for the Legislative Council (the upper house, which is the house of review) on its big ballot with the thick line. There is no Group Ticket Voting for the Legislative Assembly (the lower house, where government is formed), and when voting for the Assembly you must number all squares without repeating or skipping a number.

My first reviews will be posted later today. They reflect my own biases as a green democratic socialist. I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of any political party. As per usual, I will not review Labor, the Liberal/National coalition, or the Greens, because the sort of person interested in these reviews likely already has established opinions about those parties. I don’t review One Nation federally but I might tack them on at the end this year if I have the time. I am aiming to review every other party. Let’s go!

Every review will end with my recommendation of how favourably to preference a party. This is the recommendation system I will be using:

Good preference: a party with a positive overall platform that has few or no significant flaws for the left-wing voter.

Decent preference: a party with a generally positive overall platform but some reservations; or, a single-issue party with a good objective but by definition too limited in their scope to encompass the fullness of parliamentary business.

Middling preference: a party with a balance of positive and negative qualities, or a party with a decent platform undermined by a notably terrible policy or characteristic.

Weak or no preference: a party with more negatives than positives. In the Legislative Assembly, you must number all squares, and these parties should receive as bad a preference as possible. In the Legislative Council, you should vote below the line and either give this party a poor preference or let your vote exhaust before reaching it. I recommend preferencing fully, but you may wish to stop rather than express preferences between varying gradations of undesirability.

This schema is flexible; I may, for instance, suggest a “middling to decent preference”.

#auspol #vicvotes #vicvotes22 #vicvotes2022 #springst #Victorian election #Victoria #Election 2022 #Melbourne #voting #vote below the line #below the line #above the line #group ticket voting #group voting tickets #gtv #gvt

[axvoter]

Index to the Blatantly Partisan Party Reviews, 2022 Victorian state edition

This Saturday is election day in Victoria and a record number of candidates are standing. You could find yourself a little bewildered by the plethora of micro-parties on the ballot. You might have also heard about the controversies surrounding Group Ticket Voting, where Victoria is the last state to retain this anti-democratic system that allows parties to control some preferences.

I’ve written my blog entries to demystify these micro-parties and to explain how to ensure you stay in control of your own preferences. All entries are written from a left-wing perspective sympathetic to democratic socialism and green politics, so calibrate according to your own predilections. I make no pretension to false objectivity—that’s why these are blatantly partisan party reviews.

When you go to vote, you will receive two ballot papers. One will be a very large ballot for the Legislative Council (the upper house). The state is divided into eight regions that each elect five members of the Legislative Council. Every registered party is contesting every region. But the Legislative Council is the house of review; government is formed in the Legislative Assembly (the lower house). It contains 88 seats, and the number of candidates—both party-affiliated and independent—varies significantly between electorates.

On the small ballot for the Legislative Assembly, you must number every square. Do not skip or repeat a number. You are in full control of your preferences on this ballot: if your preferred candidate is not elected, your vote transfers at full value to your second preference, and so on. You might receive a How To Vote card from party campaigners: this is a suggestion only and you can fill out your preferences in any order you like.

On the large ballot for the Legislative Council, you can either vote above the line or below the line and I CANNOT EMPHASISE ENOUGH THAT YOU SHOULD VOTE BELOW THE LINE. If you vote above the line, you will receive the preferences lodged on a group ticket by the party for whom you vote 1. Any other preferences you mark will be ignored. Many of these group tickets are dodgy, decided by backroom deals, and none of them reflect what a party’s voters do when they can give preferences freely.

To vote below the line, you must number at least five candidates sequentially 1–5. You can then give as many more preferences as you want. You can stop at 5, or you can preference everyone, or do anything in between; it’s up to you. I recommend preferencing as far as you can express a meaningful preference, including between gradations of bad, as this maximises the power of your vote. I also recommend preparing your vote beforehand on a template such as that from ClueyVoter, and then copying this onto your ballot in the booth. If you want a more detailed discussion of this system and how to make best use of your vote, Kevin Bonham's got you covered.

This entry includes links to my reviews of each micro-party. Earlier today I posted a cheat sheet with my recommended preference categories. I do not review Labor, Liberal/National, Greens, or One Nation, as anyone interested enough to read this blog presumably already has opinions on those parties. I did float the prospect of reviewing the state branch of One Nation when I began the reviews, but their website still lacks meaningful content for the state election and it seems they aren’t presenting any Vic-specific platform, so it's same old guff.

Angry Victorians Party (covid conspiracists)

Animal Justice Party (animal rights)

Australia One (unregistered covid conspiracists endorsing six independents)

Companions and Pets Party (animal breeding and racing industry front)

Democratic Labour Party (Catholic conservatism)

Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party (tough-on-crime centrism)

Family First Victoria (Protestant extreme right)

Fiona Patten’s Reason Party (left-wing civil libertarian)

Freedom Party of Victoria (covid conspiracists)

Fusion: Science, Pirate, Secular, Climate Emergency (centre-left pragmatists; unregistered party endorsing three independents)

Health Australia Party (anti-vaxxers who were anti-vax before covid made it the trendy thing for conspiracists)

Indigenous–Aboriginal Party of Australia (Indigenous rights; unregistered party endorsing three independents)

Legalise Cannabis Victoria (single issue)

Liberal Democratic Party (far-right libertarians)

New Democrats (centre-right)

Restore Democracy Sack Dan Andrews (personal grudge and/or preference-harvesting front)

Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party (anti-environmentalist gun nuts)

Socialist Alliance (socialism; unregistered party endorsing four independents)

Sustainable Australia—Stop Overdevelopment/Corruption (anti-immigration NIMBYs)

Transport Matters Party (centre-left taxi industry front)

United Australia Party (covid grievance-mongers floating in a policy-free zone)

Victorian Socialists (socialism)

Overviews of independents for the Legislative Assembly and for the Legislative Council

If you want more perspectives, I recommend the Something for Cate blog for extended takes, and the Notionoriety blog for pithy ones (also this entry covers lower house independents that I haven’t covered). For really short takes, I whipped up a Twitter thread.

Happy voting and enjoy your democracy sausage!

#auspol #springst #vicvotes #vicvotes22 #vicvotes2022 #Victorian election #Victoria #Melbourne #Election 2022 #politics #political parties #political candidates #independent politics #independent politicians #democracy sausage

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Reviews (Victoria 2022): My Cheat Sheet to the Parties

There are plenty of parties contesting this year’s Victorian state election—indeed, the number of candidates is a state record. Interestingly, this has been achieved despite the fact that about a third of the parties who contested the 2018 election are no longer registered. Ballots will feature a bumper crop of cookers and other assorted micro-parties.

Here is my cheat sheet to summarise the recommendations in my reviews. I write from a left-wing perspective sympathetic to democratic socialism and green politics, and readers of this blog will have noticed that at the end of each entry I give a loose recommendation of what sort of preference I would give to that party. Here are almost all* of this election's parties categorised according to how good a preference I think they deserve. If you have even halfway similar political perspectives to me, I hope this might be useful.

*I do not review Labor, Liberal/National, Greens, or One Nation, on the principle that most people reading this blog have already formed views on those parties.

Before I begin, please remember to vote below the line for the Legislative Council (the larger ballot). If you vote above the line, your vote will be sent on a strange and discomfiting journey through the list of preferences registered by the party for which you vote 1. These preferences are typically determined by backroom deals and never reflect how voters would vote if they had control over preferences.

If you put any numbers other than 1 above the line, they will be ignored. THIS IS OPPOSITE TO THE SENATE SYSTEM: at the federal election in May, you could give preferences above the line and they were respected, but for state elections Victoria uses anti-democratic Group Ticket Voting (the only state to still use this loathsome system) and any preferences you mark beyond 1 will be ignored. The only way to ensure your preferences go exactly where you want them to go is to vote below the line. To cast a valid vote below the line, you must distribute at least 5 preferences, numbering 1–5. You can number as far as you want—and the more you number, the stronger your vote will be.

So, here is how I would categorise the parties. The links below lead to my reviews of each party.

Good preference: a party with a positive overall platform that has few or no significant flaws for the left-wing voter.

Fiona Patten’s Reason Party (left-wing civil libertarian)

Fusion: Science, Pirate, Secular, Climate Emergency (centre-left pragmatist; unregistered party endorsing three independents)

Indigenous–Aboriginal Party of Australia (Indigenous rights; unregistered party endorsing three independents)

Socialist Alliance (socialism; unregistered party endorsing four independents)

Victorian Socialists (socialism)

Decent preference: a single-issue party with a good objective but by definition too limited in their scope to encompass the fullness of parliamentary business.

Legalise Cannabis Victoria (single issue: blaze it)

Middling to decent: a party with a generally positive overall platform but some significant reservations

Animal Justice Party (animal rights)

Transport Matters Party (centre-left taxi industry front)

Weak to middling preference: problematic, but not as bad as what is below

Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party (tough-on-crime centrism)

New Democrats (centre-right)

Weak or no preference: a party with more negatives than positives. In the Legislative Assembly, you must number all squares, and these parties should receive as bad a preference as possible. In the Legislative Council, you should vote below the line and either give this party a poor preference or let your vote exhaust before reaching it. I recommend preferencing fully to maximise the power of your vote, but you may wish to stop rather than express preferences between varying gradations of undesirability.

Angry Victorians Party (covid conspiracists)

Australia One (unregistered covid conspiracists endorsing six independents)

Companions and Pets Party (animal breeding and racing industry front)

Democratic Labour Party (Catholic conservatism)

Family First Victoria (Protestant extreme right)

Freedom Party of Victoria (covid conspiracists)

Health Australia Party (anti-vaxxers who were anti-vax before covid made it the trendy thing for conspiracists)

Independent candidates for the Legislative Council

Liberal Democratic Party (far-right libertarians)

Restore Democracy Sack Dan Andrews (personal grudge and/or preference-harvesting front)

Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party (anti-environmentalist gun nuts)

Sustainable Australia—Stop Overdevelopment/Corruption (anti-immigration NIMBYs)

United Australia Party (covid grievance-mongers floating in a policy-free zone)

Not categorised: general entry for a spectrum of candidates

Independent candidates in the Legislative Assembly

#auspol #springst #vicvotes #vicvotes22 #vicvotes2022 #Victorian election #Melbourne #Victoria #Election 2022 #Victorian politics #Australian politics #political parties #minor parties #micro parties #independent politics #independent candidates #politics #political candidates #good preference #decent preference #middling preference #weak or no preference

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Review VII (Victoria 2022): Fiona Patten’s Reason Party

Prior reviews (first three as the Australian Sex Party): federal 2013, VIC 2014, federal 2016, VIC 2018), federal 2019, federal 2022

See also my reviews of two parties that merged with Reason:

Australian Cyclists Party: VIC 2014, federal 2016

Voluntary Euthanasia Party: federal 2013, VIC 2014, federal 2016, VIC 2018; NSW 2019

What I said before: “My general vibe is that this is the party for left-leaning urban Gen X/younger Boomers, especially those in small business.” (federal 2022)

What I think this time: Fiona Patten managed to narrowly retain a seat for Northern Metropolitan in the Legislative Council in 2018, an uncommon example of a micro-party securing re-election under the anti-democratic Group Ticket Voting system. She faces an uphill battle to hold onto it again this year. The irony is that Patten and Reason support GTV for mistaken and frankly baffling reasons, and the only reforms they propose reflect a personal grudge against “preference whisperer” Glenn Druery instead of achieving more democratic outcomes. It would be easier for Patten to secure re-election if voters at Victorian state elections could distribute preferences above the line (like they can in the Senate) and if her rivals couldn’t siphon 100% of their voters’ preferences away from her (which would never happen under any other system). For more, see the Reason section of Kevin Bonham’s blog entry on each party’s GTV policies.

So, what do Reason stand for besides endorsing a shitty anti-democratic method of electing the state upper house? Happily, the rest of their platform is better. They are taking to the state election the same sort of policies that they took to the federal election, focused on civil liberties, gender equality, and personal freedoms. Broadly put, they are much closer to the Greens than they are to Labor.

Perhaps the bigger question is what distinguishes Reason from the Greens. In some cases, it is a matter of emphasis. Reason have decent policies on climate change and the environment, but it is not their raison d’être. Rather, their civil libertarian ethos leads to an emphasis on topics such as drug law reform, reproductive health, and limiting the influence of religion in public life. This outlook, plus Reason’s links to the adult industry, means they are friendlier to cutting regulations for small businesses, and your enthusiasm for this might vary depending on whether you own a small business or work for one!

Reason supports the rights of the sex industry, as you might expect from the erstwhile Sex Party. It seems this support includes sex workers, despite concerns (including mine) in their early days that this was the party of industry bosses. By contrast, there have been some issues with SWERFs within the Victorian branch of the Greens—the preselection of a notable SWERF as a candidate for one seat in 2018 elicited protests from party members.

The last and perhaps most significant point of comparison between the Greens and Reason is over trans rights. This year, issues within the Greens regarding TERFs in the Victorian branch have come to a head. Despite the party’s subsequent disavowals of transphobia, I would not blame anyone for waiting to see more concrete proof that Victorian Greens are genuine advocates for the trans community. By contrast, Reason has consistently supported trans rights.

The impression that I get from Reason’s website is that they are clearly pitching at socially-liberal urban professionals, particularly Gen X and extending to older Millennials and younger Boomers. The language, presentation, and core issues all suggest this is their main demographic. Reason has no strong ideological undercurrent—Marxists will certainly be disappointed—but in broad terms there is not much objectionable for the left-wing voter.

My recommendation: Give Fiona Patten’s Reason Party a good preference. Remember to vote below the line on the large ballot for the Legislative Council so that your preference goes where you want it to go; all ballots with 5 or more preferences marked below the line are valid votes.

(I feel like I need a disclaimer, lest I look like I am writing this entry to promote a vote for Reason over the Greens. I am not a member of any political party, nor have I ever been, and in past elections I have preferenced the Greens above Reason. I do think, however, that this year it is worth considering your options—for voters in Northern Metropolitan, this might be an especially tough decision.)

Website: https://www.reason.org.au/

#auspol #springst #vicvotes #vicvotes22 #vicvotes2022 #Victorian election #Victoria #Election 2022 #Melbourne #Reason Party #Fiona Patten's Reason Party #Reason Australia #Fiona Patten #Australian Sex Party #civil liberties #civil libertarianism #good preference #sort out that GTV stance and you're golden

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Review XV (Victoria 2022): Sustainable Australia Party—Stop Overdevelopment/Corruption

Prior reviews: federal 2013, federal 2016, VIC 2018, NSW 2019, federal 2019, federal 2022

What I said before: “I have a very hard time finding their ‘we need a smaller population’ talk to be anything but eugenicist and racist. I have an even harder time accepting their absolute claptrap that Australia’s sprawling, low-density cities are overdeveloped.” (federal 2022)

What I think this time: It’s always a bad sign when a party tries to shoehorn a slogan into their registered name. Amazingly, this isn’t even the worst sin Sustainable Australia (SusAus) has committed against party names: they once had a hashtag at the start of their name.

This party has a habit of scooping up some votes from people who see the name and think “oh 'sustainable' sounds good!” They gain the rest from anti-immigration NIMBYs, at least some of whom think that their weird phobia of apartments is environmentalist praxis. SusAus have realised that people on the left are increasingly calling them out, so they try to claim they are pro-immigration and that they are jUsT aSkiNg QuEsTiOnS about migrant numbers. It’s rather easy to pick holes in their rhetoric and expose it for what it is: racist bullshit that won’t make Australia any more sustainable.

SusAus can’t even be bothered providing an actual policy platform for Victoria. Their page for the 2022 election just links to their generic policy platform, as if a suite of national policy priorities is in any way suitable. Each state has its own pressing issues, and state and federal governments have different powers. If you’re a serious party, you’ll provide a proper platform for each election you contest. SusAus are not a serious party.

So, their policies are just the same shit that I’ve reviewed before. Sometimes I’m even on the same page! Clifford Hayes, their member in the Legislative Councillor, voted to support trans people self-identifying their gender on documents without having had surgery. They really aren't all bad. But, especially on policies regarding the environment, heritage, housing, and migration, SusAus have deeply unpalatable motives that are at best conservative and often racist. Moreover, some of their objectives would prolong environmentally destructive car-dependent suburban sprawl rather than do anything positive for sustainability.

(I keep waiting for them to add a policy of removing “we’ve boundless plains to share” from the second verse of the national anthem…)

Oh yeah, and of course SusAus are one of the parties to have profited from the anti-democratic system of Group Ticket Voting. At the last election, Hayes got into the Legislative Council off 1.32% of the vote in Southern Metropolitan. This was one of the most egregious distortions of the GTV system: the Greens polled 13.46% but did not reach the threshold of 16.7% for a seat because GTVs harvested almost all relevant above-the-line preferences away from the Greens and towards SusAus in a manner that would literally never be replicated if above-the-line voters controlled their own preferences.

My recommendation: Give Sustainable Australia—Stop Stupid Party Names a weak or no preference. Remember to vote below the line on the large ballot for the Legislative Council so that your preference goes where you want it to go; all ballots with 5 or more preferences marked below the line are valid votes.

Website: https://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/vic

#auspol #springst #vicvotes #vicvotes22 #vicvotes2022 #Victorian election #Victoria #Election 2022 #Melbourne #Sustainable Australia Party #SusAus #Sustainable Australia #NIMBYs #weak or no preference

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Review XXII (Victoria 2022): Independent candidates in the Legislative Assembly

There are independent candidates standing all around the state in both the lower house (the Legislative Assembly, where government is formed) and the upper house (the Legislative Council, the house of review). This entry discusses the Legislative Assembly; my next one will turn to the Legislative Council.

Sitting independents

First up, there are three seats with sitting independents. Russell Northe, an ex-Nat in Morwell, is retiring and it is now a notional Labor seat. Ali Cupper (Mildura) and Suzanna Sheed (Shepparton) hold seats that the Nationals are desperate to get back.

Sheed won Shepparton in 2014 and successfully defended it in 2018; Cupper won Mildura in 2018. Labor is not competitive for these seats, and I recommend preferencing Cupper and Sheed ahead of either Liberal or National. Both parties are running in both seats, and will be relying on their voters being disciplined and sending preferences to each other ahead of the indies—which is no sure thing. Cupper and Sheed should fancy their chances.

Party-endorsed independent candidates

Some independent candidates for the Legislative Assembly are endorsed by parties not registered with the VEC. I have reviewed those affiliated with Socialist Alliance, the Indigenous–Aboriginal Party of Australia (IAPA), Fusion, and Australia One. The IAPA is standing one candidate in the lower house (for the electorate of Melbourne) and two in the upper house. All candidates for the other aforementioned parties are running in lower house electorates and they have not endorsed any upper house candidates. See the linked reviews for the specific candidates and electorates.

Are there any “teals”?

Yes. There are going to be some interesting lower house races featuring so-called “teal independents”. I’m not doing a separate review of teals for this election, but you can read my thoughts from May’s federal contest here. In general, the teals are centre to centre-right, comprising a lost generation of younger moderate middle-to-upper class women who would likely be Liberal Party candidates if the Libs were not swimming further and further into the misogynistic deep end.

I recommend that in all instances you should preference a teal ahead of a Liberal or National candidate. If you have a competitive local teal, see the recommendations section of my federal election entry for tactical considerations if you are tossing between whether to vote teal, Labor, or Green. Of those with Climate 200 funding—the body most strongly associated with financially supporting teal candidates—Sophie Torney in Kew looks most competitive, followed by Kate Lardner in Mornington.

There are also some rural candidates who are at times talked about in the same breath as teals. Jacqui Hawkins in Benambra, for instance, accepted polling—but not funding—from Climate 200. This is her second go after a strong showing in 2018 and she insists she is a “yellow independent”, not a teal. The teal campaigns do have an urban vibe, so it is in the interests of rural candidates to not appear too close to Climate 200 and Simon Holmes à Court.

Other independents

You might also have other independents running in your local electorate, and because you have to number every box on the small ballot for the Legislative Assembly, you really should look them up. Sometimes, they’re amusingly loopy. Sometimes, they’re the benign sort of candidate you use in your preferences to separate the parties you like and dislike. Sometimes they’re so unhinged that you put them below the crackpot party you thought you were going to put last. And sometimes—not as often as would be ideal, but sometimes—you will be pleasantly surprised by how appealing they are. Use the VEC’s website to see if there are any indies in your area.

If you have a good local indie but you don’t think they’re likely to be competitive, it’s still not a waste of time putting them first ahead of your preferred bigger parties. If they receive 4% of the primary vote, they receive public funding from the VEC to cover some of their campaign costs.

#auspol #springst #vicvotes #vicvotes22 #vicvotes2022 #Victorian election #Victoria #Melbourne #Election 2022 #independent politics #independent politicians #teal indies #teals #teal independents

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Review XII (Victoria 2022): New Democrats

Prior reviews: None, this is a new party.

No, this is not a revived version of the Australian Democrats. Do not be fooled. The remnants of the Australian Democrats tried to register for this election and failed because they could not demonstrate they had enough members. Nor, fortunately, does this party have anything to do with the Liberal Democrats. So, who are they?

The challenge is finding out anything about them, because even at this late stage in the election their homepage does not appear in the top results on Google. If you want to find it, you need to know that independent MLC Kaushaliya Vaghela is in fact the party’s lead candidate, and follow the link from her Facebook profile (or from the bottom of this post, either way).

This, in turn, raises the question: who is Kaushaliya Vaghela? She was elected in 2018 as a Labor member for Western Metropolitan. Labor expelled her after she crossed the floor to support a motion by Adem Somyurek. Now, whatever the merits of the motion might have been, you do not want to appear affiliated with Somyurek, who is this year a candidate for the bilious DLP and around whom corruption allegations swirl. It seems Vaghela was not so close to Somyurek as to follow him into the DLP, and she now leads the New Democrats.

As best as I can tell, Vaghela and her party sit on the centre-right. There’s a general “migrant family values” vibe about it all. Most of the New Democrats’ candidates are of South Asian origin, so it’s pretty clear what base the party has—and Vaghela likes to highlight that she was the first Indian-born Hindu member of an Australian parliament.

In general, the party rhetoric emphasises education, equality of opportunity, and financial independence. That said, some of its language is much more extreme than simply that of a disillusioned centre-right Labor faction. The New Democrats purport to be “anti-dictatorship and will fight to uphold the TRUE Australian democracy”, which is troublingly close to the “Dictator Dan” language of so many cookers. Also, I can’t help but look askance at the party name, which appears to be intentionally misleading. This isn’t the worst party I’ve seen so far but it’s also not ideal.

My recommendation: Give the New Democrats a weak to middling preference. Remember to vote below the line on the large ballot for the Legislative Council so that your preference goes where you want it to go; all ballots with 5 or more preferences marked below the line are valid votes.

Website: https://www.newdemocrats.com.au/

#auspol #springst #vicvotes #vicvotes22 #vicvotes2022 #Victorian election #Victoria #Election 2022 #Melbourne #New Democrats #Kaushaliya Vaghela #New Democrats Party #weak or no preference #middling preference

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Review XXIII (Victoria 2022): Independent candidates in the Legislative Council

There are independent candidates standing all around the state, in both the lower house (the Legislative Assembly, where government is formed) and the upper house (the Legislative Council, the house of review). My last review discussed the Legislative Assembly; this one looks at the Legislative Council. There are two grouped independent columns in Western Metropolitan and a few ungrouped indies elsewhere.

Grouped and ungrouped independents? Huh?

There are two types of independent candidate for the Legislative Council. An independent running a solo campaign is known as an “ungrouped independent”. All ungrouped independents for a region appear below the line in the furthest right-hand column on the ballot paper. The only way to vote for an ungrouped independent is to vote below the line (which you should be doing anyway); there is no square above the line for these candidates.

Two (or more) independents running together get a shared column on the ballot and are known as “grouped independents”. Their names are printed beside the boxes below the line in their column, and there is a blank box above the line so that you can vote 1 for that group above the line. If you vote 1 above the line, for this group or any other, you will receive the preferences on that group’s ticket lodged with the VEC—you cannot control your preferences and any preferences above the line other than the number 1 will be ignored.

All columns are identified by a letter, whether the candidates are grouped independents or affiliated with a party, so grouped independents are often known by the letter they received in the randomised ballot draw, e.g. Group A. This often confuses voters. Many people think the lack of any name above the line is a typo or another error and struggle to find an independent even if they want to vote for them. This partly accounts for Nick Xenophon’s dismal vote when he attempted a comeback in SA at this year’s federal election.

Western Metropolitan—Group E (Fred Ackerman and Mark Barrow)

There are grouped independents in just one region this election, Western Metropolitan, and it manages to score two such groups! The lead candidate in Group E is Fred Ackerman, with Mark Barrow as his running mate. It is very difficult to find any information on this group. Pretty much the only thing Ackerman has put out there for this campaign is a How To Vote card that identifies him as “a real Liberal Independent”.

It turns out Ackerman is a longstanding member of the Liberal Party, having stood as their candidate in Essendon in 2014. He lost preselection for Western Metropolitan this year to Moira Deeming, whose anti-abortion and anti-trans views are particularly extreme, and this appears to have motivated Ackerman to stand as an alternative for more moderate Liberal voters. He’s been speaking to the media about the increasing influence of the Christian far-right within the party.

But, frankly, I think he's running more out of personal pique that he missed out on preselection than out of principled opposition to Deeming's politics. The reason I say this is because of his group ticket (available here on page 5). Sure, he puts Labor splitters New Democrats second, but then he moves directly to “don’t call us anti-vax” anti-vaxxers Health Australia, ex-Lib Bernie Finn and the DLP, and then the Liberals but with Deeming reordered to be the last of the five. Anyone who votes above the line for Ackerman s most likely to help Finn be re-elected, or if not then Deeming. It is strange that Ackerman, who considers Deeming too extreme, is sending his preferences to Finn, who is well known for holding similarly fringe views.

My recommendation: give Group E (Fred Ackerman and Mark Barrow) a weak or no preference.

Western Metropolitan—Group U (Walter Villagonzalo and Sam Alcordo)

The other grouped independents in Western Metropolitan will be found in Group U: Walter Villagonzalo and his running mate Sam Alcordo. Villagonzalo is a former deputy mayor of the City of Wyndham and he has been active in providing migrant services within the community—he is pitching himself particularly strongly towards Filipino voters.

On his website, Villagonzalo speaks of a “progressive agenda” and lists his priorities as local jobs, more affordable housing, more trees, and support for the volunteering sector. At face value it seems very much like centre-left “elect a local to parliament” stuff.

His group ticket, however, suggests very different politics indeed. Everyone who votes 1 above the line for Group U will receive his ticket (see page 21 here) as their preferences no matter what their real preferences are. Villagonzalo’s preferences go directly to fringe extremist Bernie Finn (DLP), then work through the lead candidates of cooker, racist, and religious-right parties. It’s strange that he places we-need-less-migration Sustainable Australia in 4th and even stranger that notorious racists One Nation are 7th. Why on earth is a migrant community worker giving these preferences? Pulling up the ladder for the next generation of migrants?

My recommendation: Give Group U (Walter Villagonzalo and Sam Alcordo) a weak or no preference.

Ungrouped independents

Alright, let’s run through the handful of ungrouped independents. These people always get the fewest votes, and frankly I don’t know why anyone bothers standing ungrouped. If you want to run independently, at least find a friend so you get a square above the line. But I digress. Here they are in alphabetical order by electoral region:

(Please note this entry was updated one day after it was posted. It now contains links to entries on two candidates for whom new info came to light. These are clearly marked below.)

John O’Brien (Eastern Victoria): This guy really hates both Daniel Andrews and Matthew Guy. His website rants about schools needing to teach “the basics” and say “no to woke ideology”, he promotes the “clean coal” furphy, moans about “red tape”, and asserts that governments are “spending ‘our’ money wastefully”… but just as you think this is hard-right small-government stuff, he wants to nationalise all public utilities! Honestly his website is all over the show. Give him a weak or no preference.

Colin John Mancell (North Metropolitan): standing for the Indigenous-Aboriginal Party of Australia, who do not have registration at state level. My review is here.

Mehdi Sayed (South-Eastern Metropolitan): he appears to be running on refugee rights but his preferences are very dodgy—read more here. [Original text: I cannot find any information on this candidate. You have to pay a $350 deposit to stand for state election and only get it back if you poll a primary vote of at least 4%. Why is this bloke throwing away his money? Why is he not bothering to let anyone know what he stands for? There is at least one candidate like this every election and it baffles me. Give him a weak or no preference.]

Esther Demian (Western Metropolitan): cooker who peddles conspiracy theories. Avoid! Read more here. [Original text: I cannot find any information on this candidate either. Ridiculous. Give her a weak or no preference.]

Storm Hellmuth (Western Victoria): also standing for the Indigenous-Aboriginal Party of Australia. My review is here.

#auspol #springst #vicvotes #vicvotes22 #vicvotes2022 #Victorian election #Victoria #Melbourne #Election 2022 #independent politics #independent politicians #grouped independents #ungrouped independents #for the love of god tell people who you are if you're running for office #weak or no preference

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Review XXI (Victoria 2022): Australia One

Prior review: federal 2022

What I said before: “In general they articulate a sense that the country is being, or has been, stolen from them and they want to take it back. Some of it is quite dangerous, most of it is utterly delusional.”

What I think this time: As if there weren’t already too many anti-vax and covid conspiracist parties on the ballot, the unregistered party Australia One is endorsing six independents. This party is completely cooked, peddling covid conspiracies, antivax campaigns, sovereign citizen bollocks, and claims that a shadowy cabal of elites, freemasons, and the Chinese Communist Party have enslaved Australia. The leader of Australia One, Riccardo Bosi, is one of the most extreme of the “freedom” conspiracists. It takes effort to stand out as unhinged within that crowd, and Bosi has assuredly put in the effort.

Anyone affiliated with Australia One should be avoided at all costs:

Bendigo East: James Laurie (appears to be a sovereign citizen; he signed his name “all rights reserved” on his AEC candidate form for the federal election)

Frankston: Darren Bergwerf (he and his supporters run a fake Frankston council that disrupted the real council last month, calling it “a corporation” that will be “found out”—video here)

Mildura: Sonia Brymer (who, among other conspiracies, endorses the very niche and very misguided paranoia about digital property deeds that so animated Len Harris at the federal election)

Monbulk: Craig Cole (who has said that if elected, instead of giving a maiden speech he would murder politicians)

Oakleigh: Dominique Murphy (besides everything else, she’s a TERF who talks disingenuously about “the integrity of women’s sport”)

Polwarth: Denes Borsos (anti-vax doctor who was suspended after word got out that he dispensed covid vaccine exemptions like candy)

My recommendation: Put candidates endorsed by Australia One as low as possible. You have to number every square in the lower house, so if any of the above six people appear on your ballot, put them at the bottom—or as close to the bottom as possible, if you’ve got another even worse crackpot in your electorate.

Website: https://australiaoneparty.com/vic-independent-candidates-nov-2022-election/ (which links to individual pages for each person)

#auspol #springst #vicvotes #vicvotes22 #vicvotes2022 #Victorian election #Victoria #Melbourne #Election 2022 #Australia One #conspiracy theorists #cookers #sovereign citizens #weak or no preference

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Review XX (Victoria 2022): FUSION: Science, Pirate, Secular, Climate Emergency

Prior review: federal 2022, which links to all my past reviews of constituent parties

What I said before: “It’s not as left-wing as some, it emphasises pragmatic reaction rather than ideological ambition, and some of the policies are clearly a little underdone in trying to reconcile five platforms, but most of their positions contain worthwhile goals.”

What I think this time: Fusion tried to register for this election but the VEC rejected their application, so they are endorsing three independent candidates in lower house seats. These people are Kammy Cordner Hunt (Eildon), Simon Gnieslaw (Bentleigh), and Andrea Otto (Murray Plains).

Fusion are a centre-left party comprising five former parties who could not sustain federal registration independently when the membership threshold was raised from 500 to 1,500. It might be a worrying sign for the amalgamated group that it could not meet Victoria’s state-level requirements, although to be fair they don’t have much background running in Victorian state elections. Only one constituent wing tried to run in either 2014 or 2018—and that was the Vote Planet greener-than-the-Greens faction who simply could not get themselves organised enough to gain registration at state level. They did eventually obtain federal registration on the original lower membership threshold when the unregistered Save the Planet and One Planet parties pooled together as the Climate Emergency Action Alliance: Vote Planet, and it was their registration that was retained with the AEC and renamed Fusion.

The fact that Fusion is an umbrella group that is trying to find its identity means that I can’t be too sure just how much commonalities exist between candidates. Moreover, there is virtually nothing on the party website about the state election. Cordner Hunt, who ran for the Senate as a Fusion candidate back in May and comes from the party’s Vote Planet wing, has election material that strongly emphasises action on climate change. Her HTV preferences last those parties that support business-as-usual on the climate.

Gnieslaw’s website, however, is very centrist (too much “neither left nor right” both-sides waffle) and frankly amateurish. Andrea Otto comes across as a rural indie trying to bring attention to an overlooked safe Nationals seat; she emphasises action on domestic violence, improving the health of the Murray ecosystem, and her region’s renewable energy potential. Curiously, there’s no mention on her Facebook campaign profile of a Fusion affiliation even though she ran for the party in Nicholls at this year’s federal election and Fusion’s own account is posting endorsements of her.

Oh, also, Fusion are taking suggestions for a new name to replace their unwieldy current name…

My recommendation: Give Cordner Hunt (Eildon) and Otto (Murray Plains) good preferences; give Gnieslaw a middling preference (Bentleigh).

Website: https://www.fusionparty.org.au/

#auspol #springst #vicvotes #vicvotes22 #vicvotes2022 #Victorian election #Melbourne #Victoria #Election 2022 #Fusion Party #Fusion #middling preference #good preference

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Review XIX (Victoria 2022): Socialist Alliance

Prior reviews: federal 2016, NSW 2019, federal 2019, federal 2022

What I said before: “Do I really need to tell you much about this party’s platform? They’re proper eco-socialists whose policies cohere around a belief in workers’ solidarity, hostility to capitalism, and radical action on climate change.” (federal 2019)

What I think this time: Socialist Alliance left the Victorian Socialists electoral alliance two years ago and are standing candidates separately, but they have not yet regained party registration with the VEC. This means that their candidates appear as independents on the ballot.

There are four Socialist Alliance-endorsed independents, all of them in lower house seats: Arie Huybregts (Broadmeadows), Angela Carr (Geelong), Sarah Hathway (Lara), and Sue Bolton (Pascoe Vale). Bolton is already an elected representative at the level of local government: she has won multiple terms as a councillor in the City of Merri-bek (formerly Moreland). In two seats, Socialist Alliance-endorsed independents are going up against Victorian Socialist candidates: one of Huybregts’ opponents in Broadmeadows is VS’s Omar Hassan, while in Pascoe Vale, Bolton’s rivals include VS’s Madaleine Hah.

Socialist Alliance’s state platform covers the same ground to their recent federal platforms, so I’ve not much to add to my 2019 and 2022 entries about the bigger picture. What sticks out to me is that they have made an effort to include policies specifically relevant to where their four candidates are standing. For the Geelong and Lara candidates, there is a commitment to a new public hospital in Geelong’s northern suburbs. For the Pascoe Vale and Broadmeadows candidates, there is a policy to duplicate the Upfield line that passes through these electorates—the lack of double track between Gowrie and the terminus is why it has such appalling frequencies.

Another big state-specific positive is that Socialist Alliance want investment in accessible public transport to match the level crossing removal programme in quantity and speed of delivery. A large proportion of Melbourne's public transport network does not meet basic accessibility standards, particularly trams and buses. The network is required to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act, but the timeframe for compliance has been extended to 2032, and who knows if that won’t be pushed back even further. Other parties could really take a hint from Socialist Alliance and make this a priority too.

My recommendation: Give Socialist Alliance-endorsed independents a good preference.

Website: https://socialist-alliance.org/elections/state/2022/election-campaign/community-need-not-corporate-greed-2022-victoria-state

#auspol #springst #vicvotes #vicvotes22 #vicvotes2022 #Victorian election #Victoria #Melbourne #Election 2022 #Socialist Alliance #socialism #socialists #eco-socialism #watermelons #good preference

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Review XVIII (Victoria 2022): Victorian Socialists

Prior reviews: VIC 2018, federal 2019, federal 2022

What I said before: “This is modern, environmentally-concerned socialism framed in broad terms to bring together as many socialist tendencies as possible.” (federal 2019)

What I think this time: This was meant to be a big-tent party bringing together various socialist factions into a unified and more competitive party. Unfortunately, it has somewhat fallen apart, with the Socialist Alliance walking out. This year, Victorian Socialists are running upper house candidates in every region, with particular emphasis on the races for Northern Metropolitan and Western Metropolitan, and lower house candidates in most electorates of Melbourne's north and west.

Look, I don’t think I need to go into too much detail about policies because Victorian Socialists are exactly what they say they are. No misleading party name here, just a straight-up socialist platform. It’s one that is attuned to current issues rather than litigating past fights or deploying rhetoric that has not been persuasive outside a very narrow circle for at least fifty years. I think it’s well presented and that any Socialist member of parliament would make a useful contribution in establishing a fairer, more equitable society with better services.

Also, happily, Victorian Socialists are one of the very few parties with an explicit policy to abolish the anti-democratic Group Ticket Voting system. Prior to the close of nominations, before Animal Justice revealed their sting on Glenn Druery and kicked off the public uproar about GTV, only two parties stated directly that they would abolish GTV if given the chance: the Greens and the Victorian Socialists. Ironically, if VS does get into parliament this election, it will likely be because they’ve scored a winning group ticket for either the Northern Metropolitan lottery or the Western Metropolitan lottery.

My recommendation: Give the Victorian Socialists a good preference. Remember to vote below the line on the large ballot for the Legislative Council so that your preference goes where you want it to go; all ballots with 5 or more preferences marked below the line are valid votes.

Website: https://victoriansocialists.org.au/

#auspol #springst #vicvotes #vicvotes22 #vicvotes2022 #Victoria #Election 2022 #Victorian election #Melbourne #Victorian Socialists #socialism #socialists #Victorian Socialists Party #good preference

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Review XVII (Victoria 2022): United Australia Party

Prior reviews (many as the Palmer United Party): federal 2013, VIC 2014, federal 2016, VIC 2018 (Bobby Singh, Palmer United independent), federal 2019, federal 2022

What I said before: “This party is now a grievance machine of very angry cranks who think something has been stolen from them; it’s rooted in the conspiracy theorist thought patterns that convince people who are generally pretty comfortable that they are in fact the great victims of the world.” (federal 2022)

What I think this time: Not content with stinking up the federal election and sending Ralph Babet to the Senate—a man contending for the “worst senator” mantle alongside the likes of Pauline Hanson, Malcolm Roberts, Matt Canavan, and Gerard Rennick—the UAP is now running for the Victorian state parliament with, among other candidates, Babet’s twin brother Matt (lead candidate in South-Eastern Metropolitan). UAP’s state leader is Geoff Shaw, the disgraced ex-Liberal member for Frankston, so you know this party can really pick ‘em.

As far as policy goes… what policy? The party’s website lists its Victorian candidates but no state policies. It still just displays the flaming bag of shit that the UAP offered to electors at the federal election. If you want unhinged covid conspiracies, cooker grudges, untrammelled resentment, economic incoherence, and environmental ruin, then this is the party for you. If you want something even within shouting distance of sense, look elsewhere.

To borrow my favourite example of unparliamentary language from New Zealand (a banger from 1949), the collective brains of the UAP could revolve inside a peanut shell for a thousand years without touching the sides.

My recommendation: Give the United Australia Party a weak or no preference. Remember to vote below the line on the large ballot for the Legislative Council so that your preference goes where you want it to go; all ballots with 5 or more preferences marked below the line are valid votes.

Website: https://www.unitedaustraliaparty.org.au/

#auspol #springst #vicvotes #vicvotes22 #vicvotes2022 #Victorian election #Melbourne #Victoria #Election 2022 #United Australia Party #UAP #Clive Palmer #Geoff Shaw #United Australia #conspiracy theorists #flogs #weak or no preference

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Review XVI (Victoria 2022): Transport Matters Party

Prior review: VIC 2018

What I said before: “Transport Matters is not a party of public transport advocates, but an anti-Uber party that exists to air the grievances of the taxi industry.”

What I think this year: Hire-car operator Rod Barton co-founded Transport Matters in 2017 and managed to harvest preferences so astonishingly well that he won a seat in Eastern Metropolitan at the 2018 election off a meagre 0.62% of the vote. This came from the anti-democratic Group Ticket Voting system, siphoning preferences from people who voted 1 above the line for a dizzying array of minor parties. Almost all of these voters would not have distributed their references in the manner assigned to them by each party's group ticket had they been free to preference above the line in the manner of their choosing. A preference spiral like this is literally impossible when people control their preferences.

Honestly, as a member of the Legislative Council, Barton has not been too bad and his party possesses a reasonable spectrum of policies on transport and beyond. It is not a single-issue party any more, with non-transport policies generally being centre-left stuff. Barton, for instance, has been active in parliament on homelessness and wants to see a range of recommendations introduced to expand housing and support services. Health policies are mostly broad motherhood statements about more funding; policies for government transparency are similarly brief; workers’ rights goes little beyond regulating better conditions for gig economy workers (which would be great!). Gender equality policies are limited and strangely all about men. First Nations policies are supportive of Victoria’s current treaty process.

But let’s talk about transport, because this is the party’s ostensible reason for existence—and it also happens to be one of my professional areas of expertise. Frankly, Transport Matters is all over the place here. Regulating Uber and other rideshare apps remains their first policy and top priority. The policy on tolls is hyper-specific, it focuses principally on taxi drivers, and it lacks a big-picture approach to congestion charging. Transport Matters supports the Suburban Rail Loop, a project I also support (both because it will provide the cross-suburban PT capacity Melbourne badly needs and because it will stimulate new activity centres and less sprawling, more sustainable suburban densification in a manner no bus upgrade could). Their other policies for heavy rail contain supportive sentiments but nothing of substance.

Transport Matters want to expand the free tram zone, and I could write an entire book here but all I’m going to say is that this specific proposal is poorly conceived and draws on evidence from Estonia of a completely different policy (Transport Matters tries to justify a modest extension of the free tram zone’s boundary for all passengers by referring to findings from Tallinn making public transport free but only for residents). Worst, Transport Matters supports the complete fever dream that is “trackless trams”, specifically from Caulfield to Rowville. It is ridiculous to dress up a bendy bus so that it looks like a tram and to operate it on an over-spec’d busway that costs nearly as much as an actual tram but can’t come close to providing the capacity or energy efficiency of trams. It is very hard to consider anyone a credible thinker on transport if they fall for trackless tram nonsense.

My recommendation: Give Transport Matters a middling to decent preference. Remember to vote below the line on the large ballot for the Legislative Council so that your preference goes where you want it to go; all ballots with 5 or more preferences marked below the line are valid votes.

Website: https://www.transportmatters.org.au/

#auspol #springst #vicvotes #vicvotes22 #vicvotes2022 #Victorian election #Melbourne #Victoria #Election 2022 #Transport Matters Party #Transport Matters #public transport #bendy bus nonsense #more public transport please #choo choo motherfuckers #middling preference #decent preference

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Review XIII (Victoria 2022): Restore Democracy Sack Dan Andrews

Prior reviews: None, this is a new party.

Hoo boy here we go!

It is very funny to me that a party with “restore democracy” in its name is right in the thick of manipulating the utterly anti-democratic Group Ticket Voting system to distort the will of voters—and, now, it is right in the thick of just one of the many controversies this election has unleashed.. Basically, the Animal Justice Party pulled a hilarious and righteous sting on “preference whisperer” Glenn Druery and his cabal of parties that exploit Group Ticket Voting system to distort the will of voters. They strung along Druery and will receive preferences from his cabal, but lodged their own group ticket with preferences that align with party ideology and they are now calling for the system to be reformed. In doing so, they spilt some tea, claiming that Druery and Adem Somyurek (DLP, ex-Labor) set up Restore Democracy Sack Dan Andrews (RDSDA).

The Angry Victorians Party then leaked a video in which Druery claimed that RDSDA is “one of mine”. He goes on: “Every other party was (saying) sack Dan Andrews, sack Dan Andrews, sack Dan Andrews and I was like, ‘Ah ha. We are going to call them the Sack Dan Andrews Party’. And we did. We, me and my allies.”

So, if we accept Druery’s leaked account, this party is simply on the ballot to grab the attention of cookers (notoriously low-info voters at the best of times) and then funnel their preferences to the cabal’s preferred parties. It’s noteworthy that the actual cooker parties seem to have very little to do with RDSDA, giving some credence to Druery. I can’t say I’m too sad about cookers being hoodwinked, but it’s the principle of the matter here.

It gets even more interesting, though. The leader of RDSDA, Tosh-Jake Finnigan, rejects Druery’s claims utterly and says that Druery had “fuck-all involvement”. Who to believe? Welcome to the messy world of micro-party shenanigans!

It doesn’t really matter too much, because this is not a party you want to support. It’s either a Druery front or a revenge party—indeed, it’s probably both. Why do I say it’s a revenge party? Because Finnigan was the whistleblower for the “Red Shirts” scandal. The upshot is that Labor paid $388,000 of public funds during the 2014 election to casual electorate staff who were actually doing party campaign work, but earlier this year the Victorian ombudsman determined that Dan Andrews had not “designed, propagated, or facilitated” the scheme. Now, say what you will about the scandal—and frankly I felt like it had very little cut-through, with almost the only people who cared about it being Labor opponents who wanted something to shout about—but the whole experience appears to have left Finnigan extremely angry and their chosen path for revenge is this micro-party.

Guess where you’ll find RDSDA’s website. No, go on, guess.

It’s not Restore Democracy dot com dot au, no, RDSDA snaffled up viclabor dot org. You can just about feel the grudge.

And what sort of policies do RDSDA offer, anyway? I dunno if policies for a chip-on-the-shoulder preference-harvesting-front are worth the site they’re posted on, but RDSDA promises they will “drain Dan’s swamp” (spot the Trumpian language!) by… uhh… a few lazy bullet points posing as policy. They want a royal commission into and greater oversight of IBAC and the ombudsman (i.e. “they ruled against me therefore they will suffer”). And most of the rest of the bullet points are childish rants about “Ending Dan’s Inner City Woke Agenda”, whatever that is, “Ending Dan’s Dictatorship”, which is tied to anti-lockdown cooker rhetoric, and “Stop[ping] Dan lecturing, screaming at, and bullying working-class Victorians”. It’s puerile stuff—but you expected that from a party with a personal attack for a name, didn’t you?

My recommendation: Give Restore Democracy Sack Dan Andrews a weak or no preference. Remember to vote below the line on the large ballot for the Legislative Council so that your preference goes where you want it to go; all ballots with 5 or more preferences marked below the line are valid votes.

Website: https://viclabor.org/

#auspol #springst #vicvotes #vicvotes22 #vicvotes2022 #Victorian election #Victoria #Melbourne #Election 2022 #Restore Democracy Sack Dan Andrews #RDSDA #Restore Democracy Sack Dan #RDSD #Tosh-Jake Finnigan #Red Shirts #Glenn Druery #good lord are you all children #weak or no preference

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Review XI (Victoria 2022): Liberal Democratic Party

Prior reviews: federal 2013, VIC 2014, federal 2016, VIC 2018, NSW 2019, federal 2019, federal 2022

What I said before: “This is a cynical and callous party for people who lack empathy. Its economic and social policies are destructive; its approach to firearms is dangerous; its blinkered hostility to government accepts no possibility it can be used for—or that there even is such a thing as—collective good.” (federal 2022)

What I think this time: Every election, I think to myself that I should simply add this party to the list of parties I do not review. Unfortunately, the only reason I do not review a party is because they are likely to be very well known to my readers. The Liberal Democrats are too obscure for me to justify this.

So, why do I wish I could just skip right past them? They are aggressive right-libertarians, a callous “I got mine” ideology that assumes the worst about everyone. Think of the worst Ayn Rand stans or the most zealous gun nuts. I didn’t think they could get much worse than being intellectually bankrupt ideologues, but then the pandemic happened and they embraced anti-lockdown cooker attitudes. Their MPs pledge to never vote for a tax increase or a reduction in liberties, and it turns out blinkered one-size-fits-all pledges like these are utterly unable to address the complex realities of the world, because guess what! Pandemics sometimes require temporary restrictions for public health and everyone’s long-term liberty and happiness! Instead of explaining that exceptional circumstances require exceptional policies, they decided to bray against every pandemic measure they could.

Not only does the Liberal Democrats’ name routinely mislead people trying to find the Liberals or the Australian Democrats on massive upper-house ballots, but also this party that claims to be so democratic is in fact committed to anti-democratic Group Ticket Voting. Its members have advanced spurious defences of this system, which funnels all above-the-line votes to parties chosen through backroom deals rather than by voters themselves. The Liberal Democrats have benefitted enormously from this anti-democratic lottery: their two current members of the Legislative Council harvested preferences so well in 2018 that they won from primary votes of 0.84% (David Limbrick) and 3.78% (Tim Quilty). Both of these occurred because of completely artificial GTV preference flows that we can verify from other elections would not have happened if above-the-line voters had been able to distribute their own preferences.

On a lighter note, Quilty has peddled “Rexit” or “regional exit”, the creation of a regional state in inland Victoria and NSW separated from the control of Melbourne and Sydney. It is one of the more comical new state proposals of recent years. But he even got Victoria’s Parliamentary Budget Office to do an economic profile for his fever dream. Enjoy.

My recommendation: Give the Liberal Democratic Party a weak or no preference. Remember to vote below the line on the large ballot for the Legislative Council so that your preference goes where you want it to go; all ballots with 5 or more preferences marked below the line are valid votes.

Website: https://vic.ldp.org.au/

#auspol #vicvotes #vicvotes22 #vicvotes2022 #springst #Victorian election #Victoria #Election 2022 #Melbourne #Liberal Democratic Party #LDP #Liberal Democrats #ugh #Rexit #weak or no preference