Coronavirus And Australian Politicians And Elections

Just a post to comment on some aspects of interest regarding the current COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak and its impacts on Australian politicians and elections.  (Note added April: this article is being updated continually but no further politicians have been diagnosed for a while.)

Politicians

In the last week three federal Coalition MPs (Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, Senator Susan McDonald and Senator Andrew Bragg) have tested positive to COVID-19.  Dutton is believed to have caught the disease in the USA, Bragg at a wedding in Australia and McDonald via unknown community transmission.  No state politicians have been reported as testing positive, but that's surely just a matter of time.

Politicians represent a tiny percentage of the world population, yet there have been many cases of them testing positive, a fact already attracting much attention.

A rough and doubtless incomplete tally of politicians who have tested positive, culled mostly from this Wikipedia page, accepting their description of "politician" status blindly but excluding those who I could quickly and clearly see were only former politicians, is as follows:

The table shows that countries that have politicians who have tested positive usually have more than one.  Of the 13 countries with more than one known infected politician, Australia has the fourth lowest ratio of total cases to political cases, currently above only Brazil, Romania and Iran.  Some countries with high coronavirus counts have none so far (such as South Korea and Switzerland) while China has relatively few.

Wentworth Live: Majority On The Line Again (Plus Post-Count)

WENTWORTH (Lib vs ALP 17.8%)

Dave Sharma (Lib) vs Kerryn Phelps (IND) (16 candidates total)

GAIN by Phelps (IND) - margin will exceed 51:49

Government to lose majority and seat held almost continuously since Federation.

The swings involved, while among the largest, are not an all-time record of any kind. (Not even if you discount Wills 1992)

Marriage Law Survey Turnout Is High ... But Not That High!

(This article is being progressively updated through the survey - KB)

The first release of turnout estimates from the Australian Bureau of Statistics for the same-sex marriage postal survey has created some interest.  The ABS estimates that as of Friday 29 September, 9.2 million survey forms have already been received, 57.5% of all enrolled voters.

The ABS notes that this is an estimate only.  It may not represent the received yes/no vote as not every single one of the forms submitted will be valid (some small percentage may be posted back deliberately blank, for instance, or even with both boxes ticked.)  It is also unclear to me whether this estimate is based in some sense on a count of forms or on a count of envelopes, since there could well have been some cases of multiple forms being posted back in the same envelope, or of empty envelopes being posted (heck, I used to do this to junk-mailers who included a reply-paid all the time).  It also doesn't include anything that has been posted but was still on its way to ABS as of Friday.  So the figure is likely to be at least a few percent short of the number who have now voted.

Electoral Process, But Not As We Know It: Postal Plebsicite V2

An article I wrote about the serious defects of a postal plebiscite (back on the annual day reserved for silly jokes) has for some unfathomable reason more than doubled its hit tally in the last 24 hours.  Now that a postal plebiscite (but run by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, not the Australian Electoral Commission) has been announced by the government, it's time to update certain aspects of my commentary.

What it appears we will have (unless it is disallowed by the courts) is something so bizarre that it was not anticipated in any of the many polls about a plebiscite.  Effectively, it is a national vote on whether the government will allow a conscience vote to be brought on in the parliament.  (If the plebiscite proceeds and the "no" side wins, then the government will block a conscience vote, presumably ending any prospects for same-sex marriage for so long as the Coalition stays in power.  This rather heavy-handed approach appears to be an attempt to prevent a mass boycott from working.)

Is it constitutional?

I don't know, but we'll probably find out soon enough.  At least two sets of campaigners against the proposed plebiscite are filing for injunctions against it.  Section 83 of the Constitution requires that appropriations must be supported by law, and no law has been passed for this plebiscite.  However there are various standing general-purpose appropriations that governments have flexibility to use for the ordinary running of government, and also in emergencies.  The question will be whether an appropriation for this purpose is valid.

Postal Plebiscite: Australia's Biggest Bad Elector Survey

(Note added Aug 2017: This article from April has received much interest lately.  For new comments go to Electoral Process, But Not As We Know It: Postal Plebiscite V2).

The federal Coalition went to the 2016 federal election with a commitment to hold a national non-binding plebiscite on marriage equality (aka "same-sex marriage") prior to any further parliamentary vote on the issue.  The plebiscite was, as noted here before, a bad idea in policy terms, though it was mostly successful in neutralising marriage equality as a campaign issue.  The plebiscite plan was voted down in the Senate, leaving the whole issue apparently unable to progress within this term.

The option of simply changing the law seems impossible because religious reactionaries within and supporting the Coalition won't allow it.  (They're the ones who don't understand why people keep talking about marriage equality, but would bring down the Prime Minister and/or destroy their own party even in a failed attempt to stop it.) Leaving the issue as a festering distraction til the next election isn't too attractive either, so along comes Peter Dutton with a proposal to have the plebiscite anyway, but to do it by post.  Voting would be optional.

The idea of holding a voluntary ballot that does not need the approval of parliament is not new; this option of a "fee-for-service" ballot under Section 7A of the Electoral Act was discussed in the Senate plebiscite report. The option was not costed at the time because there was no proposed legislation to implement it.