Showing posts with label bad op eds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bad op eds. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 3, 2019

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.