Christian Party Preferences

Message / Question

What a load of rubbish the Christian parties didn't distribute preferences to each other. If you took the time to do proper investigations, you'd find the Christian parties preference each other. Your rural electorate may be an exception, but there may be other reasons like an unacceptable candidate

Response

My comment does NOT relate to lower house (Reps) electorates – the reality is that Christian parties (as well as other small party candidates) have little to no chance of winning a seat in the House of Reps., so the distribution of their preferences to other Christian parties isn’t important – regardless of who they preference, their preferences will flow on to one of the major party candidates or perhaps to a strong local independent.

The only realistic chance of a Christian party winning a federal seat is in the Senate, so the distribution of preferences on the Senate ballot paper is of great importance. At the last Federal election (2013), the fact is that Christian parties did NOT cross preference each other. I lived in NSW at the time and was very disappointed when I investigated the preference distribution of these parties. My first disappointment was that none of the (so called) Christian parties made any attempt to show their supporters the way that their preferences would be distributed; the only way that you could find this information was on the AEC website, where the distribution of all registered parties is available for the public to check. My second disappointment was, as I have previously stated, that NONE of these parties gave any of their first few preference allocations to another “Christian” party . I did a “cut and paste” of each of the 5 parties who claimed “Christian status” and printed out the Christian Parties' registered preference distribution and made the information available to others in the community in which I lived at that time. I also phoned EACH of the parties and asked the “why” question. Most said that they had to do “deals” with other parties to exchange preferences and then picked the deal that they thought gave them (not “them or another Christian alternative” if they failed to win a seat themselves) the best chance of taking the seat – and, let’s face it, the best that any of the micro parties can do is to win one (usually the last) seat in the State between them, so there’s not much chance of 2 Christian parties winning a seat each. As to why they didn’t advertise their preference distribution, they all said the same thing – “it’s available on the AEC website for anyone wanting to know”..... not a good enough answer as most people DON’T check the AEC website and, I think, most Christians would assume that the Christian parties would cross preference (i.e. if you voted, say CDP, and their candidate was eliminated in the count, the CDP preference would flow on to another Christian party e.g. FFP). That was the reality at the last Federal Senate election. So I actually DID take “.....the time to do proper investigations” and found that the Christian parties DID NOT preference each other. The point was not lost in the media; Antony Green (the ABC election analyst) along with a couple of print media journalists noted, for a couple of days during the count, that it look very possible that Pauline Hanson may win the 10th seat in NSW on CDP preferences! (she didn’t in the end, but it was very close for a while!!!).

In the 2013 Federal Senate election in NSW, Rise Up Australia gave preference 2 to its own second candidate (naturally) and then preferences 3,4 and 5 to Pauline Hanson and her group. The best “Christian” preferences were to CDP (given pref 10) and Family First (given pref 30). CDP gave Hanson pref 12, Rise up party pref 15 and FFP pref 21 (so preferences went to Hanson before other Christian groups). Family First gave Hanson pref 29, Rise Up Aust Party pref 34 and CDP pref 44.

In Victoria, much the same. In that State, Rise Up directed preferences as follows: One Nation (Hanson) 9, FFP 23 and Aust Christian Party 21. In Queensland, the Australian Christian party preferenced a Liberal at 3, Australian Fishing Party at 4, Aust Independents at 6 with Rise Up coming in at 12 and FFP at 14 and the same pattern continues across the Nation. So it’s not such “a load of rubbish” to say that “the Christian parties didn't distribute preferences to each other”, it’s a simple, if not somewhat sad and disappointing, fact! It looks like you didn’t “take the time to do proper investigations” and simply fell for the "assumption" that Christian parties would cross preference, but if you ever get around to doing so, you'll find that the above summary is fact and Christian parties DIDN’T preference each other. The preference distribution is still available on the AEC website.

I do wish that my info was a “load of rubbish” and that Christian parties did support each other and that Christians actually got behind the Christian groups to ensure that an independent Christian voice would be elected into our National parliament, however up until now it hasn’t been the case and I’m finding that I’m not the eternal optimist, rather a rather pragmatic student of rather sad and extremely disappointing facts. Unfortunately, you didn’t leave an email address for me to reply to comments privately, so I’ve addressed them in this blog as I would other submissions.