Thursday, March 24, 2011

NSW Election: Don't waste your vote


A short and fun little video reminding us of the differences between state and federal elections. Key message: if you vote above the line in the upper house, don't stop with a "1", or your vote may well expire (even if you vote for a major party and they don't need your vote due to the complex mathematics of the Single Transferrable Vote method), allowing extreme candidates such a Pauline Hanson or the Shooters Party to be elected (and possibly gain the balance of power), even if they only gain 1-2% of the vote. The lower house result may be the most obvious in the history of Australian elections (bookies are offering odds of 1:1.01 for a Coalition victory: for every dollar you bet, if the Coalition wins, they'll give you a whole cent!), but the upper house is wide open. Vote wisely and don't waste your vote.

Remember, vote for others.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Byron...sometimes voting for yourself means to vote for others. NSW has been told that we had a price increase of 43% in power over the last 3 years and face another 43% over the next 3. Making a total of 86%. However the truth is that the total combined increases actually work out to be over 100%.

Living on a pension in this state - isn't that much fun...

byron smith said...

SMH: Hanson is a whisker ahead. Looks like not enough people watched this video.

Craig- I assume you're talking about electricity prices? I haven't looked into the reasons for these increases. Are you aware of any good analysis of this question?

byron smith said...

Craig - This seems relevant, though doesn't really have enough details to be sure.