The Null Device

Continuing on from the previous post about Australian Senate how-to-vote cards and who really is preference-swapping buddies with whom, I have spent some time playing around with the D3 web-based data visualisation library, and have managed to build an interactive visualisation of the Senate voting sheets (and, more specifically, the various parties' affinities for each other).

As such, I present to you: the Australian Senate Preference Navigator:

¶ australia d3 election hacks politics psephology visualisation 2

As the Australian election approaches, the ABC has published the various parties' and groups' Senate how-to-vote cards, i.e., the order in which your preferences are distributed to other parties if you can't be bothered to vote below the line and, instead, tick the convenient box by the party's name at the top and hope for the best. Though whether one can be bothered to fill in the hundred or so boxes or not, knowing how each group distributes its preferences can be very telling about their philosophy and world-view and/or what deals they hammered out in lieu of having a philosophy. So, I decided to examine the numbers more closely.

I wrote a small Python script to go through the parties' tickets, calculate the average preference each party gives to any other party, and then rank them in order from most- to least-preferred. Soon, patterns started showing up: clusters of left- and right-leaning groups soon made themselves evident, and parties with seemingly neutral names showed decided slants.

To further simplify the classification of the parties, I decided to analyse them on where in their preferences they place a handful of marker parties: the three major parties (Labor, the Liberals and Nationals), the Greens and, as a proxy for the far right, the One Nation party (now largely ineffectual, though once seen as the bête noire of the racist fringe). Soon, a handful of fingerprints made themselves visible.

Conventional thinking places these five parties on a linear scale from left to right: the urban progressive Greens on the left, followed by the ALP (managerial centrists with a trade-union socialist heritage, which can also appeal to those of a populist bent), the Liberal Party (pro-business centre-right shading into DLP-influenced social conservatism), the Nationals (a largely agrarian God-and-Country party) and, finally, One Nation. (This isn't the entirety of the Australian political spectrum; the line extends further, with Trotskyists on the far left and white supremacists and conspiracy theorists on the far right, though those parties are on the fringes.)

• Parties which, from the basket of five marker parties, chose a left-to-right progression (Greens, ALP, the two Coalition parties and finally One Nation) were mostly left-wing and progressive issue parties: the (pro-privacy, anti-censorship, anti-surveillance) Pirate Party, Bullet Train for Australia, Socialist Alliance, Future Party, the Secular Party of Australia, and a few groups of independents.
• There were considerably more strongly right-leaning parties going the other way, preferencing One Nation above the major parties, then the Coalition, the ALP and finally the Greens; these included various religious parties (Fred Nile's Christian Democrats, Australian Christians, the Democratic Labour Party, the Pentecostal anti-Muslim Rise Up Australia and internet-censorship wowsers Family First), as well as lifestyle groups such as Smokers Rights, Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party, Outdoor Recreation Party (Stop The Greens), Australian Fishing and Lifestyle Party, the Climate Sceptics and Bob Katter's Australian Party. Also showing an unbroken right-to-left pattern were the Building Australia Party, the Liberal Democratic Party, the Non-Custodial Parents' Party and something called the Australian Voice Party. The Shooters and Fishers were also among this group, though put the ALP ahead of the Nationals. Meanwhile, the Carers' Alliance put the Nationals and Liberals first, followed by One Nation, the ALP and the Greens.
• A few parties chose a populist bent, preferencing One Nation, the ALP, the Coalition and then the Greens: these were the Australian Protectionist Party, the Bank Reform Party and the Australia First Party.
• Similarly, a few parties went from left to right, albeit promoting One Nation above the Coalition: the Voluntary Euthanasia Party's preferences followed a GRN➡ONP➡ALP➡LIB➡NAT path, while Help End Marijuana Prohibition's went ALP➡GRN➡ONP➡LIB➡NAT, clearly seeing the Coalition as more hostile to the rights of pot smokers than One Nation. The other drug-issue party, Drug Law Reform, seems to differ in their assessment, casting their preferences GRN➡LIB➡ALP➡NAT➡ONP.
• The various personality-led parties that have cropped up stood in various places; Bob Katter's party, as we have seen, took a right-to-left path. Nick Xenophon's group did similarly, albeit putting One Nation last. And eccentric mining magnate Clive Palmer's party threw a curveball, putting the Nationals first, followed by the Greens, the Liberals, One Nation and, finally, the ALP.
• Of other random parties: Senator OnLine (who apparently promise to vote as instructed to by voters on the internet) went ONP➡ALP➡LIB➡GRN➡Nat (so, vaguely populist then?), the Australian Democrats (who were sort of like a primordial, rudderless version of the Greens) went GRN➡LIB➡NAT➡ALP➡ONP (i.e., vacilliating between left and right, as in the old days). Perennial candidates the Citizens' Electoral Council (followers of American conspiracy theorist and convicted tax fraud Lyndon LaRouche) put One Nation first from the basket, followed by the ALP, the Greens and the Coalition parties. Meanwhile, the Animal Justice party (could their name be a Brass Eye reference?) went ONP➡GRN➡LIB➡ALP➡NAT.
• And then there were the anomalies: the (ostensibly ultra-liberal) Australian Sex Party putting One Nation ahead of the others, Wikileaks putting the Nationals first (though they seem to have disintegrated since), and, most perplexingly, the Socialist Equality Party putting the two coalition parties first. Perhaps they're hoping that three years of Abbott will bring about a revolution or something?

¶ australia election politics psephology 1

As Australia's tenuous Labor government foolhardily presses ahead with its internet censorship scheme, more evidence of its epic unpopularity comes to light; this time, from analyses of Senate election results, showing thousands of voters placing the minister responsible, Senator Conroy, last, or second-last to barking religiot Steve Fielding, whose loyalty the plan had originally been intended to buy.

There are several points of interest here. For Senator Conroy, his largest spikes by far were at 2 and 8. This suggests that a large chunk of people are voting Labor first or second, probably after the Greens. Similarly, the spike at 57 would coincide with voters putting Labor last. Senator Fielding sees a similar pattern, the spike at 1 being people putting Family First first on their preferences, the group of spikes at the end would be Family First being voted towards last, the final spike at 56 being a large group of voters putting Family First as the last party on their ballot. Far more interesting, however, are the last few places on the ballot. If people were voting by party, this should drop off significantly. Instead, we see both candidates having a significant proportion of voters putting them last or second last.

(When I voted, it was a toss-up which of these distinguished gentlemen to reward with the honour of last place. In the end, I gave it to Conroy. While Fielding, a simple man of unbending faith, could hardly be expected to be anything but what he was, Conroy's disingenuous defences of authoritarianism, above and beyond the call of political expediency, merited a special honour.)

¶ australia authoritarianism politics psephology religiots 0

I'm watching the Australian election count: it's a tight one, and looks like a hung parliament is all but inevitable. The Coalition have a slight margin, though who actually forms a minority government is down to the independents (three disgruntled rural ex-conservatives and a former Green).

The Greens did spectacularly well in this election (some, in fact, are using the word "greenslide"); they have won a senate seat in each state (annihilating the right-wing religious parties; goodbye national internet firewall), and have also won the lower-house seat of Melbourne, formerly a safe-as-houses Labor seat, with a 10% swing. (Your humble correspondent, a former North Fitzroy resident, has the minor satisfaction of having played a tiny part in this triumph.)

The big question is who is going to get to form the minority government. That's still up in the air (as we speak, several seats are too close to call). If Labor makes it to a strong position, they may be able to count on the Greens to support them (though, if the Greens have been paying attention to the coalition government in the UK, and the Liberal Democrats' spectacular loss of support since going into government with the Tories, they may think twice about coalition with an unpopular party (i.e., either of them)). The Coalition could have an edge at persuading the rural independents that they have rural Australia's interests at heart, though apparently there is little love lost between the ex-Nationals and their old party.

I'd say that a Coalition minority government would be more likely (though by no means certain). And while the prospect of Tony Abbott, a religious authoritarian with a penchant for imposing his own paternalist values through the apparatus of government and the source of much of what was unpalatable about the Howard government, being the next Prime Minister is not an encouraging one (at least to this short-black-drinking inner-city type), one should keep in mind that the government will have to contend with a Senate in which the Greens hold the balance of power. If that is the case, while Labor's positive policies (the National Broadband Network, vague hand-waving about thinking about high-speed rail) may be off the agenda, the Tories are not going to have an easy time of bringing back WorkChoices (which Abbott has ruled out, in the same way that John Howard ruled out a GST in 1995), or turning the government into a hammer of the culture war against the latte-sipping rootless cosmopolitanists (as the Howard government did). And neither party will have to pander to Family First and their ilk.

¶ australia politics psephology 0

Australia has a new Prime Minister; after losing the support of the government, Kevin Rudd has declined to contest a leadership vote, and handed the reins to his deputy, Julia Gillard, who is now Australia's first woman prime minister.

Rudd's departure is probably a good idea; Rudd was the right man for the job in 2007, being slightly more progressive than conservative hardliner John Howard but not enough to scare a public that had grown used to "relaxed and comfortable" paternalism. He courted the religious-Right groups who flourished under Howard, and kept his faith to them, offering to impose a Chinese-style national internet firewall, backed by Australia's already prudish censorship criteria, on the country. (Rudd's social conservatism wasn't an act; at one point, he upbraided a PhD student for shirking her reproductive duty to society.) Meanwhile, by all accounts, he didn't make many friends in the Labor Party, having an autocratic style, but without the glib Tony Blair-level charisma to pull it off. In any case, we saw the unprecedented situation where, despite the conservative administration having been effectively decapitated in the last election, and the government having presided over Australia being one of the few countries to avoid the recession, opinion polls were pointing to the conservatives—led by a hardline religious conservative popularly nicknamed the "Mad Monk"—being poised to win the next election. Perhaps Gillard, by all accounts a competent, measured player, will manage to steady the ship of state?

Of course, nobody can tell how the next election will unfold yet. Labor's new, more competent, helmsperson may help them; the change of leadership might have harmed them, but the conservatives are in no position to criticise it. Labor will have to move towards the left, at least on social issues; they will have lost some of the wowsers whom Rudd so assiduously courted just by virtue of his no longer being in power, and some percentage of the reactionary rump of the electorate would take issue with the party being led by a woman (especially one with trade-union sympathies and no children). So Labor loses the wowsers, but picks up the inner-city voters thinking of deserting them for the Greens, who now have to wait another decade or so for a chance to grab their first lower-house seats. Meanwhile, as the wowsers come home to the Coalition, Abbott's somewhat unconvincing mask will slip, and the moderates who were flirting with the idea that maybe the Tories are the lesser evil jump ship back to Labor. The cat's cradle of politics untangles itself, and we end up with a moderate/centrist Labor Party (socially progressive on some symbolic issues though largely managerial in style) and a coalition frantically dog-whistling at the global-warming deniers, religious foamers and xenophobes.

¶ australia julia gillard politics psephology 1

As Britain faces the question of replacing its first-past-the-post electoral system with the Alternative Vote (i.e., the second most conservative electoral system, also known as preferential voting), veteran Australian psephologist Antony Green examines the effect of preferential voting in Australia. The main effects were: the emergence of a stable right-wing coalition representing two distinct parties (the metropolitan Liberals and the rural Nationals), the rise of the Democratic Labor Party (a Catholic anti-Communist party which mostly existed to funnel preferences to the Coalition between the McCarthy era and 1972; since resurrected in zombie form in state elections), and, more recently, the rise of the left-wing Greens. Other effects include increased numbers of candidates per seat and an increased incidence of candidates (typically major-party ones) winning on preferences; the major parties, however, remain entrenched, and few lower-house seats (elected by alternative vote) are won by minor parties.

(via Richard) ¶ australia electoral reform history politics psephology 0

Today, the UK goes to the polls in one of the more dramatic general elections of recent times. Thanks to New Labour being on the nose, and having used up enough of their at-least-we're-not-Tories credit, the Tories are leading the polling. Of course, enough people remember the bitter days of Thatcherism to turn a landslide into a hung parliament. Meanwhile, the third party, the Liberal Democrats (who are sufficiently untainted by proximity to actual power to be able to pass for honest) are relishing the prospect of holding the balance of power in a coalition government, and making noises about demanding electoral reform, to replace the first-past-the-post electoral system (which, in normal conditions, entrenches a two-party system, relegating third and subsequent parties to the lunatic fringe) with something else, preferably full proportional representation. Recent polls, however, show the Lib Dems' bubble deflating somewhat, and the Tories likely to squeak home and be able to govern with the help of the Northern Irish sectarian parties and/or UKIP. The Coalition of Ugly may well soon be upon us.

Your Humble Correspondent, being a Commonwealth national resident in the UK, is entitled to vote, and will be voting in the election. I will not be voting for a party but for an outcome; namely, that of a hung parliament (and the end of first-past-the-post, a system which centralises power away from the people). Given that, at the time the rolls closed, I was living in a marginal seat (held by Labour, likely to go Tory), in which every vote will count, I will, regretfully, be holding my nose and voting Labour. Yes, they're the Blatcherite bastards who gave us the Iraq War, the national ID card, rampant cronyism and creeping authoritarianism, but, in terms of plausible outcomes, it is exceedingly unlikely that a Labour government will return that is not in hock to the Lib Dems, which cannot be said for the Tories. Besides which, the Tories' claim to having taken back the title of lesser evil is looking pretty thin these days, between their alliances with the eastern-European far right and their promises of inheritance tax cuts for the super-rich. And here is an example of the new "compassionate conservatives"' style of government in action.

¶ liberal democrats new labour politics psephology tories uk 0

Could the Lib Dems win the UK election outright? This commentary from a psephologist says yes:

Much attention has been paid to the way Britain’s voting system is biased against the Lib Dems: they could end up with more votes than Labour or the Conservatives – but win half as many seats. What is not appreciated is that the reason why this is so is also the reason why, once the party passes a threshold – around 38% - it starts to garner seats in massive numbers. With 40% they would probably have an outright majority, With 42% they win by a landslide. The main reason is that with, say 30-35%, they come second in a vast number of seats, but first in only 100 or so. But as they approach 40%, these second places start converting into first places; each extra percentage point yields them a barrow-load of seats.

(via David Gerard) ¶ election liberal democrats politics psephology uk 0

An independent commission has launched a report on how to revive public faith in British democracy. The Power commission's Power to the People report claims that political parties are killing politics; its proposals include the replacement of first-past-the-post voting with a system that ensures that all votes count towards the final outcome (one suggested alternative is the single transferable vote system, which is used in Australia and known as "preferential voting"), as well as curbing the powers of party whips, devolving more power to local authorities and reducing the voting age to 16.

Mind you, the report also proposes allowing the public to initiate legislation. If that is brought in, I suspect the bloody-minded types who keep the Daily Mail in business will have a field day submitting laws reinstating capital punishment/public flogging/disembowelment of suspected paedophiles/asylum seekers/Gypsy travellers/drug users/"scum" and such. There probably is such a thing as too much democracy.

¶ democracy politics psephology uk voting 0

The Independent has a piece on calls for the reform of Britain's electoral system, after the new Labour government was elected with the smallest share of the vote in over a century, with the graphic below on its front page:

a few quotes:

Constitutional specialists said Tony Blair was in charge of an "elected dictatorship" after Labour was able to win a majority with only 36 per cent of the vote. They say the Prime Minister is able to hold power with the support of just a fifth of the British adult population, the lowest figure since the Great Reform Act of 1832.

A national campaign for voting reform is to kick off this week with public meetings, a vigil outside Downing Street and a petition calling for the Government to look at introducing proportional representation systems similar to those in Scotland, Wales, Ireland and the Continent.

Although the Government privately admits the election result gave PR fresh momentum, the issue is likely to split the Cabinet, with electoral reformers such as Peter Hain and Ruth Kelly favouring a rethink and John Prescott and Ian McCartney sharply against. Many union leaders also fear it will lead to coalition government with the Liberal Democrats, and prevent Labour from governing again with an absolute majority.

Of course, the established parties who are benefitted most by the first-past-the-post system will be dead against any change that threatens to put an end to the good thing they have going; though if there is enough of an outcry, their hand may well be forced. Especially since Teflon Tony can no longer sail through on his smile and Alastair Campbell's spin wizardry and do things his way, like, say, trying to turn the House of Lords into a house of appointed cronies and calling it "reform".

Anyway, assuming that Britain does implement proportional representation, the question is: what form? The phrase "proportional representation" is most often used to refer to Single Transferrable Vote systems, such as the one used in the Australian Senate, where voters vote for candidates; however, it can also refer to other systems, including party-list proportional representation, in which voters vote for a party (not a candidate) and the parties decide who fills the seats they have won. How much do you want to bet that, if public pressure pushes the Blair government into adopting a proportional electoral system, they'll go for something like that that maximises the party machine's power whilst giving the illusion of reform?

¶ electoral reform politics psephology tony blair uk voting 0