 Dear UK anti-AV campaign: Shut up, immediately, about Australia.
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Mar. 22nd, 2011 @ 09:44 am 
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You know, Australia, as a rule, isn't generally much of a factor in the politics of other countries. We're just not.
But the approaching referendum on the Alternative Vote in the UK has the anti-AV campaigners launching a quite amazing quantity of scurrilous lies, ridiculous misunderstandings and outright smears towards our nation, and it's a tiny bit insulting.
For a full breakdown of both what they're saying about us and just how wrong they are, you can go straight to Antony Green's blog. It's worth noting that the smears extend to the No2AV campaign's website having described him as a "self-styled 'Australian Elections Expert'", which is almost, in and of itself, a sufficient basis for war.
Antony Green isn't a self-styled expert. Antony Green is the national public broadcaster's election expert and has been for many years, and his knowledge of Australian elections is without parallel. He is spectacularly knowledgeable and accurate, and also unbelievably scrupulous in his non-partisan status. No-one knows how Antony Green feels about politics. He has never evinced anything even approaching a bias towards any party or candidate. He is one of the most respected people in this country, and he is loved nation-wide every time we have an election.
Impugning Antony Green is something you just don't get to do, dammit.
I'm also particularly irked by criticisms based on the fact that Australian elections don't get a formal result declaration for a couple of weeks after the election itself is held. This keeps being offered as criticism of the AV system.
News flash, you ignorant Pommie bastards: Australia is a bigger country than the United Kingdom. We have INDIVIDUAL ELECTORATES that are bigger than the United Kingdom. And because we are a proper democracy, it is important to us that everyone gets to vote.
This means that postal votes are counted, and postal votes don't close off for 10-14 days after the election, because some citizens of this country live a very long way from pretty much anywhere.
Even if that weren't the case, the election can't be final until the ballot boxes have been taken from polling stations to the returning officers, which also takes longer when, for example, you have a single electorate that is six times the size of the UK.
But really the delay is about postal votes. Because postal and absentee ballots are given sufficient time to get there, because in Australia, everyone gets to vote.
Frankly, a country that mismanages the basics of democracy so badly that some people don't get to vote because they were still waiting in line at a polling station when the polls closed doesn't get to say ANYTHING negative about Australian elections. Because ours work.
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| From: | ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) deird1 |
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March 22nd, 2011 02:02 am (UTC) |
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*applauds*
Oh my god, so much yes. I'm just boggled by the UK criticism of our elections, because it is stupid and unfounded and RIDICULOUS coming from, as you say, people with very little knowledge of our system and who can't run elections to save themselves anyway.
Also nobody gets to be mean to Antony Green, ever. EVER.
This by one hundred and eleventy thousand OMG.
Anthony Green = LIVING NATIONAL TREASURE OF DRY-WITTED STATISTICAL GENIUS.
How dare they! Antony Green is my election boyfriend, has been for years. He *is* the expert.
And just because you don't have the formal declaration, doesn't mean you don't have a result. The majority of seats are known that night.
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| From: | matgb |
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March 22nd, 2011 02:42 pm (UTC) |
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*waves*
Um, hi. I'm in the Yes campaign (sort of, only a low level volunteer), and I pretty much agree. Big difference between political cultures--in the UK, postal votes have to arrive by polling day to be counted, which works as postal voting was until recently unusual (because, y'know, we're a small place, every village gets a ballot box normally).
But yeah, the anti-intellectualism of some aspects of the No campaign have been depressing, the only conclusion I can draw is that they've decided they can't win on actual arguments, so they're trying to persuade undecided conservative minded types that the yes campaigners are intellectual elites and polictics wonks, the demographics of the yes/no split from polling does seem to show that could work, but I don't think they're going to motivate many people using it.
But yeah, I'd not heard of Green before, but I have been really enjoying reading his articles and blog since he started getting cited, I wish we had some commentators who had that much knowledge of how the UK constitution actually works (the amount of head desking during coalition negotiations when senior journalists were getting very basic things wrong was depressing).
(got linked here on Twitter)
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| From: | sami |
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March 24th, 2011 06:50 am (UTC) |
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When we had similar issues of constitutionality come up after the last election, pretty much the entire country reacted with: "Well, what does Antony Green say?"
Every country needs an Antony Green.
Also, good for you being on the side of Yes. It makes *so much sense* augh.
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| From: | aquaeri |
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March 23rd, 2011 03:24 am (UTC) |
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Hoyden about Town had a similar rant about No2AV and their insults of Anthony Green. I guess it's mainly us Aussies who care, though. Although I get the impression it's actually increased AG's visibility among at least some people in the UK.
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