Bartlett's Blog

The federal government should be commended for making such a comprehensive effort at casing so many perspectives in it consideration of electoral reform options, as well as for providing an apparently genuine effort at seeking public opinion.  The second electoral reform Green Paper released this week by Special Minister of State Joe Ludwig covers a wide terrain, canvassing many options without actually promoting any. This post from The Poll ...

Some interesting statistics in the latest issue of The Tally Board from the Australian Electoral Commission which show how important the internet has become for basic information about elections. During the 2007 federal election, there were more than 3.2 million visitors to the AEC website and over 14.4 million page views. This compares to over 800 000 visitors who viewed more than 6.8 million pages at the 2004 election. The AEC ...

Media reports are giving some positive indications that the federal Labor government will be making some major improvements to the laws covering political donations. Reports suggest the government is not only going to make increase the requirements for disclosing political donations, but also to put a limit on the size of individual donations from corporations and individuals. If these reports are true, this change would be a major shift ...

A recent front page story in the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Frank Sartor, the Planning Minister in New South Wales, "hosted a fundraising dinner attended by more than 30 property developers which raised more than $500 000 at the same time the government was set to make decisions on development applications by some of those companies." I note this not specifically to have a shot at Frank Sartor, ...

Super Tuesday in the USA is almost upon us, where a major step will be taken in the process of choosing the next President of that nation. The result will affect us all, not least in regards to the successful candidate's foreign/military policy and the approach towards climate change. Opinion polls (which have had a rather sketchy record in this contest) suggest the contest for the Democratic nomination between ...

This year’s Presidential election in the USA is getting an enormous amount of coverage in Australia, but there’s an election a bit closer to home happening tomorrow in Taiwan (sometimes called the Republic of China). Its implications won’t be anywhere near as big for Australia or the globe compared to what happens in the USA, but every election can be significant, particularly in the south-east Asian region which, ...

In the absence of even a basic Bill of Rights in Australia, it is very much a matter for noting any time a right is identified as being entrenched in our nation's Constitution. Last year, the Coalition used its control of the Senate to make a range of changes to the Electoral Act aimed at favouring themselves. One of the changes was to take away the right to ...

Liberal Party elder statesman Jim Killen died last week. He represented the Brisbane based seat of Moreton in the federal parliament from 1955 to 1983 and was one a dwindling number of former MPs who served in the Menzies era. One of the most frequently recounted aspects of Killen’s career relates to his extremely tight and crucial victory in the seat of Moreton in the 1961 election, which was ...

A key issue with the new language and ‘values’ citizenship tests, which probably won't be able to be legislated for, is how rigidly and ruthlessly the tests are applied. We have already seen the monumental injustices that happened when government zealotry on migration infected the culture of the Department responsible for administering the government’s migration laws and policies. If the new citizenship test is applied in the same ...

As we move towards next year's federal election, my focus is drawing to Queensland more and more – one of a number of reasons why this weekend’s Victorian election hasn’t been impacting on my consciousness much. However, whatever the result, one thing that is absolutely certain is that it will result in a far more representative Upper House, as they are using a multi-member electorate, proportional representation voting system ...

I've had a whinge or two in the past about the disgraceful amount of money the federal government is now stealing direct from taxpayers to promote themselves. State governments are guilty of this too, albeit on a lower scale - although the more shameless the federal government is, the more the states will follow. There was also a Senate Committee report on the issue at the end ...

A nice idea from a federal Liberal Senator, proposing an end to donations to political parties from unions and corporations. To do this fairly, I think you would also have to end (or at least put a cap on) all donations, including from indiviiduals, otherwise it would be too easy to circumvent. Some might suggest it's a bit rich for a federal Liberal MP to put up such ...

The end of the Queensland election campaign marks the start of my re-election campaign. The federal election will be held between August and early December next year. With the Queensland poll out of the way early, there will be a lot less ‘static’ in public debates and discussions, which will make it easier to focus peoples’ minds on what is at stake at the federal election. Queensland was the ...

A few months ago, I wrote about whether it would be a good idea to allow 16 year olds to vote. It's fair to say that the majority of comments to that post didn't think it was a terribly good idea. The idea has just got another run in South Australia, with Independent MP Bob Such saying he "will present a private member's Bill to allow voluntary voting ...

The Italian election last weekend has produced a cliff-hanger result which appears to have signalled the end of the reign of Silvio Berlusconi – at least for now. While that seems like a good thing to me, the aspect of the election I have been much more interested in has been the innovation of Italian citizens living abroad being able to vote for their own expatriate or ...

There hasn't been a lot of notice paid to the government's planned changes to the Australian electoral laws, even though there are significant measures contained in the legislation. In another example of legislation titles as Orwellian propaganda, this change is called Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill.

The South Australian election result was obviously very disappointing to me, not just because it was so dismal for the Democrats, who I have been involved with for around 17 years, but also because it seems likely to mean the loss of the Upper House seat of Kate Reynolds, who is one of the better parliamentary representatives I have worked with. It appears likely the final Upper ...

Readers may have heard of the story of a website – done up to look very similar to official site of the Australian Prime Minister – which contained a mock speech by the PM ‘acknowledging' his mistakes on the Iraq issue. Access to the site was blocked by the IT provider following a complaint from the PM’s office. The site was owned by well known Australian, ...

There is a report in The Guardian that Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister in waiting, has backed the idea of reducing the voting age to 16. Many members of the Australian Democrats have advocated a move along these lines in the past, although usually with a caveat like it should only be voluntary, or perhaps only for local government elections.

The Senate is sitting again this week, despite John Howard's decision to cancel the sitting of the House of Representatives. When the Senate is the only house of parliament sitting, it usually means the press gallery pays a tiny bit of extra attention to happenings in the Senate, as they don't have the vaudeville show in the other place to look at. However, given the level of media ...