False Declaration: Minor Right Nonsense About Senate Reform

Huge if true, but ...

Recently my attention was drawn to an article on the Canberra Declaration website by one Dave Pellowe.  Pellowe is better known for being on the receiving end of a later dropped 2024 Queensland anti-discrimination complaint over comments he made about Indigenous religious beliefs while explaining why he would not include a Welcome to Country in a Christian religious event.  (I'm vaguely curious about what exactly he said, as my home state has a long history of potentially interesting complaints like this being made then almost always dropped - but not curious enough yet to find it.)  The Canberra/Daily Declaration site was better known to me through the involvement of one Julie Sladden, an anti-COVID-vaccine retired doctor and right-wing culture warrior who was bizarrely endorsed by the Tasmanian Liberals for not one but two state elections.  

I'm not sure I'd come across Pellowe talking nonsense about Senate voting before but this is not the first time he's done it.  His Twitter bio reads "Solomon prayed: Give me an understanding heart so that I can (steward democracy) well & know the difference between right and wrong. 1 Kings 3:9".  I hope that he will see this article and realise that having an "understanding heart" to "steward democracy" requires understanding the facts and consulting reliable sources rather than just former UAP and One Nation figure Lex Stewart.  Stewart and Pellowe have been making very similar complaints about Senate reform and the 2016 election, and they're both wrong.

Australia's Worst Oppositions: How Many Will Win?

Recently I started a Not-A-Poll to determine who readers consider to be Australia's worst opposition in what I have dubbed a "golden age of dreadful Oppositions".  During the polling period the contenders continued to audition for the gong:

* The Victorian Liberals continued with their usual infighting over legal cases related to the Deeming/Pesutto mess but there was also a Brad Battin reshuffle that was none too well received and led to leadership rumblings including speculation that a first termer might become leader.

* Tasmanian Labor had three different positions on the Tasmanian Planning Commission's response to the Macquarie Point stadium proposal in seven days, a record even for them, and none of those positons were worth wasting a press release on.

* The SA Liberals had another ridiculously bad poll, a 34-66 drubbing in a DemosAU poll with a primary vote of just 21%.  Given SA's fondness for independents and lack of extremely safe seats this could conceivably even translate to zero seats (though they will improve by the election just five months away surely? probably? maybe?)  

* The Canberra Liberals floated restrictive conditions for federal candidates in which the candidate would have to hit fundraising targets, apparently a reaction to their 2025 Senate candidate being invisible on the campaign trail.  Why anyone would want to raise that much money to run for the ACT Reps seats though is beyond me.  There was also a review into their 2024 election result which for some reason thought regimented how to vote cards in Hare-Clark was a good idea.

* The federal Coalition saw instability with Jacinta Price kicked off the frontbench, Andrew Hastie quitting the frontbench and Barnaby Joyce finally announcing his retirement as Member for New England at the next election while taking potshots at David Littleproud and not exactly hosing down speculation he would join One Nation.  Their polling continues to suck.

* The NSW Liberals were pantsed 60.2-39.8 in the Kiama by-election.  

Tasmanian Redistribution: Clark Must Expand, But Where?

I don't usually get involved in redistribution speculation and lobbying (I don't even have the time and skill to draw nice maps) but this one is particularly interesting to me and local.  A federal redistribution for Tasmania has commenced, with the initial suggestions stage closing on 7 November.  

Tasmania currently uses the federal electorate boundaries for its Hare-Clark system state elections, and if this continues (and no one has convinced me that it shouldn't) then the changes will flow on to the next Tasmanian state election, which could well be held before the next federal poll.  The purpose of this article isn't to support any particular option, or to dive into the finer details of which lines to put exactly where (rather beyond my computing skills for the level of time I have right now); it's to raise awareness of what some of the broad options are and some advantages and disadvantages of them.  

Unlike in the other states that may be affected by planned redistributions (SA and Queensland), entitlement changes or possibly expansion, Tasmania's number of divisions clearly won't be changing in this term.  So this Tasmanian redistribution is for keeps.  

The issue is that as populations outside the inner cities of Tasmania have increased while the inner cities have stagnated, Clark has drifted to a lower population than the other four electorates.  Clark is projected to be 10.5% below quota by 2030, Lyons 9.98% above, Bass 4.42% below,  Franklin 3.20% above and Braddon 1.73% above.  At the least the first three need to be brought inside the 3.5% variation from quota (or at least "as far as practicable") and this means that Clark should gain at least 7%, Lyons should lose at least about 6.5%, Bass should gain 1%, and changes could occur in the others.  

Yes Federal Parliament Should Be Expanded And No It Isn't A Partisan Fix

Federal JSCEM season is upon us and who knows I might manage to write a submission soon.  But for now on this site I want to comment on one issue that has been generating a fair amount of commentary, too little of it accurate.  The fact that JSCEM is again inquiring into the size of parliament has resulted in speculation that Labor is pursuing it for partisan benefit; some have even absurdly alleged the potential expansion is a form of gerrymander.  Nonsense from an already unhinged online right that fails to understand what even happened at the election has been fuelled by a Seven interview with pollster and strategist Kos Samaras that claims that because Labor is doing so well in the cities, an expansion will greatly benefit Labor and put the Coalition to the sword for good.

The fact is that while there is an internal harmony advantage for Labor in expanding the parliament now, it is not likely there will be any advantage for Labor proportionally. Indeed, if anything, there are very good reasons to suspect Labor will be getting a slightly lower House of Reps seat share for a given vote share with an expansion than without.  There are many good reasons for expanding the House of Representatives and I strongly support passing legislation to expand the Parliament in this term.  As with Senate reform in 2016 (an excellent and necessary change that Labor to its shame opposed with embarrassingly bad arguments) we again see nonsense arguments being made by the Opposition against something that is actually a good idea.  James McGrath has claimed that an expansion doesn't pass any sort of test let alone the "pub test".  Well it easily passes mine, and I am not known as an easy marker.  

There are not such strong reasons for expanding the Senate, but nor is there anything in particular wrong with doing so (but see below re Territory Senators), and that will come with any substantial increase in the House via the nexus provision, which I don't think is going away anytime soon.  

For the purposes of this article I am assuming the Coalition survives til the next election as a largely intact Opposition and electoral politics in this country carries on as normal.  I cannot at this time be completely sure this will be so.