by PAUL COLLITS – AND so, the election analyses continue.
Many valid points have been made about why the ALP won, why the Coalition lost, why the Greens did so well, why the so-called “teals” emerged, why the Liberal moderates were shown the exit door, why Western Australia turned on the Government, and so on.
- Many theories might explain the emergence of the new non-voting class.
- The angry probably didn’t vote. Not for ScoMo nor for Albo.
- Every miserable MP should pause and reflect upon what they have unleashed.
Bob Day of the Australian Family Party (and formerly of Family First) suggested three reasons for the abandonment of the Liberals (the Nationals didn’t lose any seats, as per other recent elections).
He called them “family, faith and freedom”.
TURNOUT
But there is another story about the election of 2022, the post-COVID election.
It is the phenomenally low voter turnout. To use the most overused phrase of our time, it was, indeed, “unprecedented”. Well, since compulsory voting was introduced down under in 1924.
As Adam Piggott at Pushing Rubber Downhill and XYZ points out: “The media is comprehensively ignoring this subject, but even a cursory examination of the stats released by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC reveals that over 30 per cent of registered voters boycotted the 2022 federal election.
These incredible numbers from the AEC, in which the turnout for 2022 electorate by electorate is described by the author as “astonishing”, are arresting, to say the least.
A few seats suffice to get the point:
Source: AEC, May 28 2022.
These numbers are over the cliff since 2019. The analysis is comprehensive, and it shows similar trends right across the nation.
As the writer comments, “not a single electorate isn’t impacted”.
Somebody had better say something about this because this is historic, and if no explanation is offered people are going to start theorising about the election.
I cross referenced the turnout numbers against the voting numbers. They’re identical and those turnout numbers are up to date, seats like Moreton are 100 per cent counted are reporting only 65 per cent turnout.
What has happened since 2019? The COVID State, put simply. The crushing of freedom and rights. The trashing of the Federation. The destruction of the small business economy.
Nothing else of moment has happened in the life of the last parliament. Nobody but nobody is talking about this in the COVID class or the political class more broadly.
The writer concludes: “My theory: unvaccinated and COVID State power aggrieved people boycotted the election. They have created millions of militant activists who now reject the entire system.”
What if four million people boycotted the whole thing?
What is indicated for future tax compliance, for example? Civil disobedience? Taking the American conservative Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option or Brendan Moloney’s parallel society movement (opting out of a repugnant polity)?
The whole liberal democratic settlement based on the liberal political philosopher John Locke’s consent of the governed might well be up for grabs.
STAKE
When do citizens reach the point where they no longer believe they have a stake in the system? When they believe they have lost everything.
Their jobs. Their careers. Their businesses. Their right to a place in “civilised”, COVID-embracing society.
It is certainly a theory. And no one is talking about it. Not ScoMo, or his successors. Not Albo. Not the Greens. Not the “teals” and not the COVID-propagandising media.
Those who did talk about it – George Christensen and Craig Kelly, for example, were politically ostracised and sneered at by the media.
The estimable John Stapleton at A Sense of Place magazine has penned a compelling new book on the Canberra convoy.
Stapleton chronicled the Australian trucker movement that so discombobulated the Canberra-based COVID class.
Perhaps there is a new movement emerging, based on a sense of totally lost engagement with the “official” political system.
And it could get ugly for the ruling class, if the deplorables have had enough.
These are real events and developments, not merely the rantings of the whacko classes and fringe dwellers gone feral.
Piggott begins his article thus: “Australia has voted. Or has it?”
A good question. Back in May 2019, following the previous election, The Sydney Morning Herald did a story on that election’s “record” low turnout: “Scott Morrison’s government has been elected with one of the lowest voter turnouts since the advent of compulsory voting as the nation’s young turned their back on democracy after enrolling in droves for the same-sex marriage postal survey.
“A special breakdown of voting figures from the May 2019 poll suggests less than 91 per cent of people cast a ballot, formal or informal.”
One can only wonder what the SMH writers would say about the 2022 democratic bloodbath, with non-voting probably three times greater than the previous election.
The 2019 story was partly about young voter and inner-city disengagement. This time it is about utter despair at the political class across the board.
Not just the young, disengaged. Not just the inner-city types. In 2019, the lowest casting of valid ballots (thus excluding both informal votes and non-voters added together) was in the Sydney seat of Blaxland, at 70 per cent. This year, that is what the whole nation’s voting behaviour looks like.
ARRESTING
These numbers are, indeed, pretty arresting, and cast a different light on the state of disillusion among the people that the seemingly disappointing numbers who voted for the FFMPs (freedom friendly minor parties) might hide.
When you add the votes for the Right-of-centre minor parties to the informals and then to the enrolled voters who just didn’t turn up, and then to all those who should have enrolled (newly turned eighteens) but haven’t, you are getting up there.
A number of commentators have already noted that the new ALP Government slithered into office (still short of an outright parliamentary majority at the time of writing) with around 32 per cent of the primary vote.
As Mark Moncrieff, again at XYZ, has noted: “In this election (Labor) won 32.8% of the first preference votes out of those who voted. Twenty three per cent of those enrolled to vote and 15.33% of all Australians.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) population clock: On 24 May 2022 at 09:16:47 PM (Canberra time), the resident population of Australia is projected to be: 25, 896, 010.
Last Saturday the number of people enrolled to vote was: 17, 228, 900.
The number who actually voted was: 12, 756, 111
The Australian Labor Party won office with this number of first preference votes: 3,972,105.
Mandate, anyone? Democracy? I just hope I never hear any of Albo’s ministers claiming a mandate for anything.
Just because a few bourgeois tree-hugging middle-aged females got lucky with the laptop class of the inner cities, I trust no one in Canberra thinks they have a right to destroy the economy with Canute style “hold back the temperatures” measures.
I realise they will do it anyway , but it is important that they know that we know that they have no right to do so.
But when you add the informals, also, to some extent, a traditional measure of disgruntlement, and this extraordinary phenomenon of simply not turning up to vote, you get a very clear picture of the state of the nation. Is this what happens when we hate them all?
The 32 per cent numbers for Albo blows out of the water any remaining argument for preferential voting.
We have almost arrived at first-past-the-post type outcomes with these numbers. And the huge non-turnout just about kills off the argument for compulsory voting.
The huge increase over recent years in pre-poll voting, whatever else it might say about electoral behaviour, seems only to add to the great sense of disengagement abroad.
So, the FFMPs should not feel too disappointed, at their first real outing at mass politics.
Here is Moncrieff again: “On the Right we put a lot of faith in One Nation, Pauline Hanson’s Party and the United Australia Party.
“Together they got around 1.1m votes, 589,896 for One Nation, 499,631 for the United Australia Party.
DISAPPOINTING
“Unlike Labor and the Liberals whose share of the vote went down, both Parties’ votes went up. After the past two years it was disappointing to not see a bigger share go to them.”
Labor, four million. The Freedom Parties, over one million. Not too bad, methinks. But yes, the “Uniparty”, aka the Lib-Lab Duopoly, does always win elections, and so run (and ruin) our lives.
There is still much thinking and smart work to be done to figure out how to get better outcomes from a rigged system.
It is notoriously difficult to guess why people vote the way they do. Especially at the individual level.
The whole sub-branch of political science that explores electoral behaviour has been investigating voting behaviour for half a century at least, without definitive conclusions.
It is just as difficult to determine why people don’t vote.
Many theories might explain the emergence of the great non-voting class.
A sense that the major Parties and every government we get couldn’t give a fig about our welfare? I would say so.
Despair at the propaganda, deceit and PR driven corporate politics? Yep.
Disillusion at the cronyism and corruption of political life, executive overreach, the crushing of our freedoms because of a mild virus? You think?
Recognition that the world is now run not by elected officials but by shady corporations and supra-national institutions? Getting warm.
A sudden realisation of “what was that all about?” by voters who have noticed that at the onset of the election season (Canberra, NSW, Victoria), politicians of all hues have suddenly and without adequate explanation simply junked all the COVID rules. I would think, yes.
Every one is a highly plausible hypothesis.
The late American economist Anthony Downs’ theory of the “rationally ignorant” citizen – why would I invest in spending time researching whether and how to vote when I have far better things to do with my time – might also be a partial explanation of the low voter turnout figures quoted here.
But is doesn’t explain why the turnout was massively lower this year in particular.
ANGER
Perhaps the lack of energy and ennui in the electorate bespeaks something other than sheer anger. The angry probably didn’t vote. Not for ScoMo or for Albo.
The rest simply didn’t show up. Lack of energy is perhaps the greatest manifestation there is for depression.
And we know what COVID lockdowns and mandates have done to the mental health of Australians. To people gaslit, cowed and defeated.
People now know the political class only cares for its own comforts. Why would these millions of people bother? Well, they didn’t.
REFLECT
Every last miserable member of the Commonwealth parliament should pause and quietly reflect upon what they have unleashed.
Whatever the reason for individual non-voting, the huge uptick in voting non-compliance since 2019 might best be seen as a giant middle finger to the political class.
I just wonder if the non-voters will be pursued and fined by the AEC.
We can but hope not, for these accidental heroes have served a great purpose. They have demonstrated that the emperor hasn’t got a stitch on.
Maybe the AEC will take a leaf out of the NSW Police Force book and refuse to punish those who seem to have indulged in a little COVID-related passive aggression.PC
I just looked up the AEC figures and found voter turnout listed at the top of the page as 89.08%. Seems strange. Have they changed something?
I note that they list everything in percentage terms. Is that to hide the actual figures?
Ron, it’s a case of questions leading to more questions as counting still continues.
The number of informal votes is not included in in the overall number of votes. My view is that it should be because it includes much of what was once called “the protest vote” —those fulfilling their legal obligation to vote while rejecting the choices on offer. It’s a political barometer.
I assume you looked at the ABC site for the voter turnout which, if I recall correctly, also reports on the increasing number of voters declining the how-to-vote pamphlets from party volunteers outside the booths. Scrolling down you may have seen a lengthy piece by Antony Green for those seriously trying to tease out the complexities.
Bottom line, the system is no longer voter-friendly. So it’s a sure fire way to lock in top down chicanery in dumbed-down post-modern Australia. The senate ballot particularly, with its 6-above and 12-below the line options, was designed to confuse voters and expose AEC staff ill equipped to explain it on the spot. The logistics of sorting, counting and scrutineering are nightmarishly time-consuming and thus the reason to project a sickly 32-ish percent “victory” to satisfy the public and media on the night.
Wikipedia gives a more straightforward picture of the system, and Topher Field with his marbles video raised unfulfilled expectations of how freedom party supporters might gain a handful of voices in the Senate and maybe even one or two in the Reps.
To give the disaffected third of silenced voters their parliamentary voice requires a disciplined coalition of freedom parties to form in a very short time.
Otherwise the treacherous globalist corporate fascist duopoly with their Teals and Greens props will continue transitioning the deceived majority into their new world order as scheduled.
Paul, you nailed it saying the other story about the 2022 post-COVID election is the phenomenally low voter turnout — unprecedented since the introduction of compulsory voting in 1924: “Somebody had better start saying something about this because this is historic, and if no explanation is offered people are going to start theorising about the election”.
Of course the silenced Right “has not given up on being betrayed”. Theorising among the disaffected was rife before the election; even more so now with an apocalyptic future staring all of us in the face.
Global States of Emergency relying on the frayed pandemic and climate narratives demand what most countries don’t want to yield: loss of sovereignty, open borders and, not surprisingly, legislation enabling corrupt elections. This to pull off what is now obviously a murderous corporate fascist world coup based on fakery. Scarey fake emergencies trotted out on fake modelling and fake science to the point of decimating and re-engineering humanity for totally perverted goals.
The Australian Electoral Commission itself explained how we got a Prime Minister the day after the election with just half the Lower House votes counted and none of the total 16 per cent of postal votes looked at (see “AEC — from the horse’s mouth”, May 25, http://www.cairnsnews.org). This now renders voting pointless!
Here’s hoping, Paul, you too will take the lead saying something further. Maybe check out a lifetime of public research and witness by truthseeker and psephologist Lex Stewart (“Different types of voter frauds occurring for many years” posted by Editor, cairnsnews, May 29). Sky’s Rowan Dean (Outsiders) interviewed Lex on 22 July 2018 when he explained that bad laws enabled and allowed vote fraud here, with the umpires asleep; also that the Electoral Commission then, as now, is not subject to Parliament but appointed by the Governor General.
Mr Globalist’s totalitarian agendas, now understood in varying degrees by roughly a third of voters, continue to be rejected piecemeal as their toxic consequences deliver increasing pain, rigged election after rigged election.
May 21 signalled loud and clear that the new world order has radically tightened its grasp here. We are literally voting for our lives.
I agree Paul and John, people have had enough of the Federal govt doing nothing about loss of jobs and businesses aka livelihoods due to dictatorial covid rules and regulations of essential businesses only allowed to open, state border closures stopping people visiting their dying loved ones etc. The last thing on people’s minds is to want to vote for a govt and see the same all over again. eg at the moment, unvaxxed employees, SES, teachers, medical staff etc still cannot return to work and our paramedics, hospital staff of doctors and nurses are stretched to the limit in most capital cities only you wont hear it on the news. I agree, the low voter outcome will send a message to all govts that the people aren’t happy.
One factor I have no doubt about remains the lack of general knowledge about the three levels of government, the areas of responsibility and powers at each level, and that the Federation of States formed by the former British Colonies retained most of the areas of responsibility and powers after forming the Commonwealth of Australia and forming a Federal Government with limited areas of responsibility and powers on internal affairs of our nation.
Political parties rely on the lack of voter general knowledge and largely apathetic approach to politics unless an individual is directly impacted, the hip pocket nerve is one wake up call.
Labor exploited this with their deceptive advertising and comments suggesting that PM Morrison was displaying a lack of care being away on holidays in Hawaii when bushfires were burning at home in some areas. Obviously voters who took notice didn’t understand that when a Prime Minister is away his duties are carried out by the Deputy who becomes Acting PM. But Labor knows this. Labor advertisements with the PM making comments: “I don’t hold a hose”, “not my job”, etc., were replies to questions and the words out of context are misleading, And Labor knows, but deliberately proceeded to fool voters.
If voters did understand the areas of responsibility and powers between State and Federal the Labor advertisements would not have been broadcast and printed.
And the same applied to the pandemic: State legislated emergency powers enforced by State Health, State Police, State Courts, State interstate border closures, State vaccine mandates, etc. There are a couple of options the Federal Government could have pursued to stop State excesses but as Assistant Attorney General Amanda Stoker, Senator Eric Abetz and others pointed out that under the circumstances prevailing federation would have been put at risk and with no guarantee of Federal success. In fact court cases in WA and VIC challenging border. closure and the lockdown were lost in favour of those State Government decisions.
Over the past week Labor’s advertising agency admitted that they deliberately attacked PM Morrison on a personal basis campaigning against the Coalition for Labor. It became obvious to me that the “relentless negativity” was based on what PM Abbott was subjected to starting from 2009 when he was Opposition Leader. Abbott was a misogynist and couldn’t get on with women, Morrison couldn’t handle women’s problems including an after business hours alleged rape inside Parliament House in the early morning hours, and more blame accusations.
It’s now obvious that one third of Australians eligible to vote did not bother to vote in 2022. That the two main political sides attracted very low primary votes and Labor the least number of the two sides. If this isn’t the final reason to get rid of preferential system voting before the next Federal Election what is?
Don’t blame the voters, the major political parties own this situation, they have pushed climate change hoax on behalf of international UN fellow travellers and just about ignore the majority of we the people who vote here who understand climate change is natural Earth Cycles and that weather reliant wind and solar energy heavily subsidised (several billion dollars every year to the private sector owners) systems are not capable of replacing power station generators on a large scale grid. That Electric Vehicles are too expensive and are handicapped by battery packs that offer poor range, long recharge periods, are extremely heavy compared to a full fuel tank and are best suited for city and suburban driving conditions.
The politicians talk about making Australia a manufacturing nation again (noting that some manufacturing continues here but not much compared to what we had) but agreed in 1975 by signing the UN Lima Protocol to gradually allow transfer of manufacturing to developing nations, like China. Until that Agreement is cancelled and the many other acts of economic vandalism this nation has suffered from UN treaties and agreements, related legislation and regulations, water and electricity supplies and costs and more our nation cannot reach the potential it has without the foreign interference and our own government compliance.
Australia has vast reserves of minerals and energy locked away in UN registered National Parks or because State Governments will not approve new mines or extraction of oil and gas. Even oil refineries have closed, projects to convert black coal to transport liquid fuel not supported, LPG and CNG fuel for internal combustion engines abandoned that the Howard Government supported. LPG can be mixed with Diesel using an injection system to lower emissions and increase power and torque to reduce fuel consumption driven sensibly.
Europe and Great Britain have a major energy crisis because weather reliant wind and solar energy has failed to deliver essential baseload electricity for the grids, coal fired power stations are being put back into service, etc.
No wonder we the people have lost confidence in the major parties.