Fraser Anning, How-To-Vote Cards And Bad Electoral Reform Proposals

Senator Fraser Anning has not endeared himself to most of Australian politics in his short Senate career.  Elected on a special count as a replacement for One Nation's Malcolm Roberts, he left One Nation amid mutual distrust very soon after his arrival.  He then joined Katter's Australian Party before being kicked out of that for being too extreme.  His scorecard includes use of the term "final solution" in his maiden speech, blaming the Christchurch massacre on the fact that Muslims were allowed to migrate to New Zealand (huh?) and proudly attending neo-Nazi rallies.

I've seen a lot of discussion about Anning and how he got into the Senate, and I've noticed two trends that I think need to be dealt with.  One is that a commentator, hellbent on preventing any future Annings from getting into the Senate, comes up with an electoral or parliamentary reform proposal that would either have prevented Anning getting into the Senate the way he did, or else at least allowed for his expulsion as soon as he got there.  Then, because they've found something that would get rid of future Annings, they promote this idea without thinking through any greater problems it might cause.  The second, though I haven't seen so much of it just yet, is that a commentator who already has some electoral reform proposal they want to support, looks for some way they can argue for it by making a point about Fraser Anning.

Section 44 Strikes, But The Government Hasn't Lost Its Majority Yet

Many news sites have now claimed that, in light of today's dramatic Section 44 disqualification of Barnaby Joyce from Parliament by the High Court, the beleagured Turnbull government has now lost its majority.

This is an exciting claim, but it isn't actually correct.

Pending the holding of a by-election for the seat of New England, the government will, when the House of Representatives next sits, hold 75/149 seats, with one vacant.  74 seats will be held by other MPs.  75 is larger than 74.  75 is larger than half of 149.  75 divided by 149 is 0.5033557... .  It is more than 0.500000.

The government's new and very temporary position is no different mathematically to that of the Cook Liberal government in 1913, which won 38/75 seats.  The Cook government is widely referred to as having had a one-seat majority.