Can Wikileaks win a seat in the Victorian senate?
Posted by Vote Climate on Wednesday, August 14, 2013 Under: Micro parties
The Wikileaks Party is of interest because they have a reasonable climate policy and they are competing with Janet Rice from the Greens (with a better climate policy) for the last Victorian senate place. Polls give wildly conflicting estimates of what their share of the vote will be. Hence the Glenn Druery preference deals described in the article posted below are of central importance. Crikey has a detailed analysis. Read more here.
Some quotes from the Crikey article:
Julian Assange's WikiLeaks Party will have to borrow from the preference playbook of Crikey founder Stephen Mayne if it is to stand any chance of ascending to the Senate in Victoria on September 7.
Some quotes from the Crikey article:
Julian Assange's WikiLeaks Party will have to borrow from the preference playbook of Crikey founder Stephen Mayne if it is to stand any chance of ascending to the Senate in Victoria on September 7.
Senate group voting tickets are due to be released on Saturday in Victoria ...
WikiLeaks campaign director Greg Barns told Crikey he had been embroiled in a "very positive national discussion with parties on the centre-Left and parties on the Right". "We've been approached by parties on both sides of the spectrum ... We're not a party of the Left or the Right, we tend towards libertarianism. We're not a traditional Left or Right party. We'll be taking on the mantle of keeping the bastards honest," he said...
For Assange to take up his seat (or his 2IC, academic Leslie Cannold, in the event he is unable to escape to confines of the Ecuadorian embassy), he needs to jump through at least three flaming hoops. He would firstly need a huge deal of luck and a sufficient primary vote, probably about 3%, to stay in the count for long enough ...
The party would then have to corral preferences from the centre-Left grouping that usually distribute among themselves, notably the Greens, the S-x Party and the Australian Democrats, ahead of the ALP ...
Then, in a significantly trickier manoeuvre, it would would need to call on one or more of the broad micro Right, including the Christian Democrats, Family First and the DLP ahead of the other members of that group, especially the one that matters when preferences are distributed. ... This would unpick the classic NSW 1999 Legislative Council 'Glenn Druery method' of grouping micro right parties together or, alternatively, it could be viewed as getting in on the action itself.
Family First Victorian Senate candidate Ashley Fenn told Crikey this morning he had just left a message with WikiLeaks but was wary about a deal considering the two parties appeared to be at polar opposites politically.
Without an "in" with the Right, WikiLeaks faces a supremely difficult task. In 2010, the broad Right commanded close to 90% of a quota from the beginning of the count for the last vacancy with the Coalition, the DLP, Family First, Shooters & Fishers and the Christian Democrats all exchanging preferences in a sordid merry-go-round. The combined circle jerk continued until the final stages until a face-off against the ALP when the DLP secured a top-up from the likes of Mayne, One Nation and the Liberal Democrats. Blacksmith Madigan then vaulted over Antony Thow with well over a quota.
But this time around, WikiLeaks will have to contend with an expected major party rebound -- any swing back to Labor or the Coalition would render victory nigh on impossible.
In : Micro parties
Tags: wikileaks "micro parties" "preference flow" preferencing