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Goodbye naughty chair, it’s time to bring out the Latham

Matt Smith

by Matt Smith

25 Aug 05:35am

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Filed under: Election 2010, Hung Parliament, Informal Voting, Mark Latham

23 comments

It took a brave (and bitter) kind of former politician to stand in front of the camera on 60 minutes, and tell the country to turn in a blank vote out of protest come election day. But that’s what happened.

Cartoon by Daily Telegraph's Warren Brown

In an amazing example of the pot calling the kettle black, Mark Latham declared neither party major worthy of leading Australia, and encouraged all voters to follow his lead and send them a clear message.

There’s a chance that even Mark Latham was surprised that people actually listened to him.

In what has been a startling event, ‘informal voting’ has reached a record high this election.

The practice of turning in a blank ballot card accounted for almost 6% (and counting) of all votes cast this election – probably more than enough to make sure a hung parliament never occurred, and a rise of 1.69% from the previous election in 2007.

While not all of these can be attributed to Mark Latham, it’s fair to say that if he hadn’t appeared on Channel 9, dressed up as a reporter and making that recommendation, then it wouldn’t have occurred to many voters as an option.

If only Mark Latham had this kind of public sway during the 2004 election campaign. If ‘informal voting’ was ‘a vote for Mark Latham’, then 618,435 votes (the informal vote count as of Sunday) would have fallen in his favour in 2010. If we put it in perspective and look at the party totals, he would have won fifth place, behind Labor (4,008,914), Liberal (3,156,557), Greens (1,187,788), and LNP (937,188).

If we limit it to the last seat he held as MP, which was for Werriwa in NSW, then 9.5% of the electorate would have cast the ‘Latham vote’ - an astounding amount in his favour considering he never announced his candidacy.

The Greens were quick to point out that that their votes equate to 12 seats in the House of Representatives, just based on number. While this might sound great to some people, by the same token you’d need to put up with six Mark Lathams.

Why shouldn’t a ‘vote for protest’ equate as a ‘vote for Latham’? Both actions would equally teach the current government and opposition parties a lesson. Both would bring a strange, new system of government to Australia, the likes of which we could have never imagined.

If the Australian public decide they aren’t going to vote properly in the future, they’ll get the Latham. Insinuate the election campaign is boring and tedious, unleash the Latham. If the situation gets anywhere near a hung parliament again, then it’s gone way past the naughty chair, and time to bring out the Latham.

While this might be viewed as a bit extreme (and could potentially violate the Geneva Convention), it can be looked at this way: wouldn’t Latham be providing the exact service he is being asked for? Where would you rather have him, in the spotlight, or at home, working up another edition of his quotation book A conga line of suckholes?

So now, it’s time to be honest. Who out there amongst us voted for Latham?

You can read more from Matt on his blog at The End of The Spectrum.

Most commented

23 comments

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    • dead to me says:

      06:50am | 25/08/10

      Matt I don’t agree, Latham is just another typical ALP politician that is all talk and no sensible action. Latham has always come across as a loud mouth bully, the fact that Gillard and the ALP once wanted him as PM sends chills down my spine.

      Reply

    • S.L says:

      08:47am | 25/08/10

      Yes lucky Mr Latham isn’t in parliament anymore. It’s also great to see yet another loud mouth bully get voted out…..Wilson Tuckey! On ALP preferences no less would really have his blood boiling!

    • wolf says:

      06:52am | 25/08/10

      At $2.31 per vote the informal vote prevented around $1.5M in election funding reaching the major parties in the lower house alone.  Add to that the votes for the candidates who never reached the 4% threshold in the lower house and the upper house, upper house informal votes and no shows it starts to add up to a significant loss of income for the major parties this election.
      For that reason alone the winner this election is the taxpayer, especially if the final numbers in the house forces the major parties to practice consensus politics.

      Reply

    • Victor Brolik says:

      02:47pm | 25/08/10

      excellent point - i should have thought of that. if there’s another election that’s what i’ll be doing this time

    • MDMConnell says:

      07:20am | 25/08/10

      I don’t think Latham can take the ‘credit” for this.

      I think most of the informal vote in NSW is due to confusion over Optional Preferential Voting at state level and Compulsory PV at fed level. People just put ‘1’ in the box and leave the rest blank like they do at state level, which is an informal vote at fed level.

      Reply

    • TimB says:

      10:04am | 25/08/10

      Where’s the confusion? The instructions are clearly marked on the ballot paper. If people can’t read, that’s their own fault.

      Actually I’d like to see Optional Preferential Voting used in the Federal arena, the Coalition would have romped home then I think.

      I’m going to assume most of that vote was either A) a serious vote for the Greens or B) a protest against the two major parites.
      In either scenario people would be unlikely to want their vote to eventually count for one of the two major parties and would simply vote 1 Greens, declining to allocate preferences.
      Couple that with the fact that most of the Green preferences went to Labor, and all of a sudden a preference-deprived Labor gets stomped in a swathe of seats.

      Apart from my obvious desire to see the Coalition get up, I think the system is much fairer.
      If you want to dictate a secondary, tertiary, etc choices you can. If you don’t feel like giving your vote to someone else just because your choice didn’t get up, you dont have to.

    • Reg says:

      10:32am | 25/08/10

      I must disagree TimB. I believe it is vital to ascertain—as best possible, the thinking of the electorate, by the application of exhaustive preferential voting. To make it optional is to diminish the electoral power of those who choose not to use it. Without preferential voting a minority can take office and by that I mean a minority in the minds of the electors.

      The principal of one vote one value was adopted as a reaction to the US Electoral College which effectively allocates different values on the basis that some individual’s votes are more valuable than that of others. To remove exhaustive preferential voting is to default to the inequality of the defective US system.

    • TimB says:

      11:10am | 25/08/10

      That’s their choice though Reg. The system gives the individual the power to acertain how much their own vote is worth and who they think is worthy of it. There’s nothing to stop them fully allocating preferences if they so wish.
      No-one is discriminated against, and their vote isn’t rendered worthless unless done so by their own choice of actions. It’s no different from the right to vote informally.

    • Reg says:

      12:45pm | 26/08/10

      TimB, I don’t know if you’ll ever get to read this but I must clarify, as best I can, the intention of the AEC.

      In a democracy there are certain things that have been agreed should be made compulsory. By far the most important is to ascertain the wishes of the people. There are only two types of votes, formal and informal. To incorporate optional preferential votes is to add a third agreed level, where the amount of information being collected is less from some, than from others.

      It’s not up to the individual to decide what his vote is worth, that is a value derived by the rest of the people of Australia via the constitution and imposed on the voter as a duty he should take seriously. 

      So I must disagree again. With optional preferential voting, someone IS being discriminated against. The people of Australia are being discriminated against if someone chooses not to provide the information that is essential to the adequate derivation of the wishes of the people. Just who the voter thinks is worthy of his vote, is the very reason for the election and has nothing to do with preferential voting which is only a deeper analysis of the reply.

      An informal vote is a totally different issue.

    • Adam christou says:

      08:47am | 25/08/10

      however did ‘vote for latham’ should hang their head in shame.

      Reply

    • Rosie says:

      09:48am | 25/08/10

      Shame on our fellow countrymen for intentionally voting informal. It is very childish and stupid, a real no brainer for anyone not to care about who governs this country.

      Reply

    • Ads says:

      12:08pm | 26/08/10

      And its the antithesis of a free democracy to have compulsory voting.

      As long as you force people into the polling booth you are gonna get garbage from those who aren’t interested

    • Finn says:

      10:04am | 25/08/10

      The ALP have produced a few shocks, Latham, KRudd, Gillard, Garrett and for shame.

      Reply

    • Reg says:

      10:06am | 25/08/10

      The informal vote is hardly worth thinking about. It falls into three groups, the usual people who can’t get it right, the ones who decided to punish their usual party and the ones who took notice of an unbalanced ranting mad-person.

      The first and the third are equally defective so that leaves the disgruntled party poopers who would probably have been equally divided anyway. Why bother. A mental aberration specific to this election and illustrated quite clearly by the unusual possibility of a hung parliament derived from the formal vote.

      Reply

    • ibast says:

      10:31am | 25/08/10

      Being in a safe seat I felt more than justified in voting informally in the lower house.  I took the trouble to vote under the line in the upper house, however.  Given that most of the informal votes were a protest against Labor by people that couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Abbot or liberal Liberals that felt the same, you have to conclude a re-run election would favor labor party.  It would be very silly of the Liberal party not to come to an agreement.

      Reply

    • Sam says:

      10:35am | 25/08/10

      The informal votes probably would not have made a difference. If the 47.5% of people were voting for A and 47.5% number voted for B, then the ratio to each would have stayed about the same for 3, 4 or 5% of informal votes.

      Reply

    • Daniel says:

      12:20pm | 25/08/10

      I think we need proportional representation in the lower house to really get a sense of how well the Greens do in Australia. When that happens we will see real policy action that will help Australia.

      Reply

    • Randal says:

      03:02pm | 25/08/10

      Matt I really wish you would do some research, the informal vote for the 2010 election, whilst 1.69% higher than 2007 was only marginally higher than 2004 (5.2%) and 2001 (4.8%), in fact it is not even the highest in the past 30 years with 1984 seeing an informal vote of 6.3%.

      On that basis I would strongly suggest that your conclusion that Latham somehow dug into the Nation’s subconscious and drove a “rise” in informal voting as being a bit of a stretch.

      Perhaps some research next time might prevent you and the other journo’s who have peddled this hysterical tripe from embarrassing yourselves further.

      Reply

    • Matt Smith says:

      04:46pm | 25/08/10

      Hello, Randal

      This is the first time I’ve ever replied to a comment, but in this case I feel the need to.
      1. It was a joke more than anything. The point was to realise that actions (or inactions, in this case) should have consequences.
      2. Secondly, I’ll see your ‘do some research’ and raise you a ‘do some research’.
      http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2010/08/25/analysing-the-informal-vote/

    • Matt(2) says:

      09:25am | 26/08/10

      Dear Randal,

      ZING!

      Matt (2)

    • Randal says:

      12:28pm | 26/08/10

      Matt, I feel honored that you have elected to respond, and my point was in line with the research you have sited, there is no doubt that the informal vote at this election does reflect some voter dissatisfaction with both sides, but this is not a unique situation nor a tipping point in our political history and to link it back to Latham was in my view paying too much credit where none was due and you have clarified this as a joke which I accept.

    • Michael says:

      06:23pm | 25/08/10

      An intentional informal vote is still an exercise of the right to vote nonetheless.  It is a deliberate choice that none of the candidates on offer are to the individual’s liking, even if all it generally gets met with is a shake of the AEC counter’s head and disposal into the bin.

      Remember: it is compulsory to present to a voting booth on election day or complete an absentee ballot form.  It is not compulsory to fill out one box on the ballot - that’s why they have little cubicles so nobody can see what you do.  Intentional informal voting is exercising the right to not vote.

      And don’t kid yourselves that the major parties haven’t noticed.  The independents are already campaigning obliquely on this issue - they can be seen as the ‘canaries in the mine’, that politics and campaigns need some reform because more and more people are heartily jack of the whole thing.  1% informal vote? Even 1% of voters would have made a big difference in some seats.

      Malcolm Turnbull might not have been kidding when he said he was courting the informal vote on Q&A.

      Reply

    • Reg says:

      06:26pm | 26/08/10

      One important point Michael. It is not the right to vote, it is the duty to vote.

      The people of Australia have contrived to seek your opinion on the candidates presented. You are actually morally obliged to pick the best of a bad lot, or of a good or mediocre lot, not none of them. (Didn’t think I’d ever write THAT.) 

      To deliberately vote informal is to abuse the courtesy of the community, which is most cases calls for a community punishment of suitable form. Therefore to encourage voters to vote informal calls down upon the head of the inciter the cumulative punishment of the voters who were influenced. 

      If you think your are better than all the candidates who are standing for election, then you have the right and a duty to present yourself for election. That’s what Wyatt did. Next election I look forward to having to select from one thousand candidates and hope that you will be one of them.

 
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