Subjects: Invalid/donkey votes, election results
E&OE
STARTS: 12:34PM
ENDS: 12:44PM
WILLIAM GLEESON
OK, we’re recording can get your full name and title please.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Michael McCormack, re-elected Member for Riverina.
WILLIAM GLEESON
And you’re ok for this audio recording should be used on Roccy FM and to 2LF AM.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Absolutely.
WILLIAM GLEESON
Fantastic. Thank you. OK, you have some concerns about the current way voting happens at the moment, with a few informal votes and donkey votes on Saturday, would you care to speak on that?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Oh, well look, donkey votes are people just voting 1 to 13 from the top of the ballot paper and look that that’s people’s right, maybe that’s the way they wanted to vote, and certainly if you end up at top of the ballot paper, that’s always going to be an advantage, it’s always going to be worth a few percentage points in your overall vote. But what I am concerned about is the number of people who walked through the vote and said they were just there to tick their names off and then of course, you see that there’s about 11 per cent, 10,000 or so votes, that are in fact invalid, informal. And you ask yourself, were they invalid deliberately? Were they invalid because people accidentally just mucked up their ballot paper. I just think there needs to be some sort of uniformity across the different levels of government. We have a situation in in the State where you can just put a 1 on the ballot paper for the Legislative Assembly and that counts as a valid vote, whereas Federally, you have to number every box. I think some sort of uniformity would be better. I think the Federal system is better, preferential voting is certainly something that I do think makes people put their votes in order of their preference and I think that’s desirable. That’s the way it’s always been* and that’s the way I believe it probably should stay, but there should be some sort of uniformity across various levels of government to ensure that there isn’t a high informal vote. And for those people who. deliberately just get their ballot paper and write stupid things on it, derogatory statements or indeed just put it straight into the ballot box without filling anything out, I think they do disrespect those servicemen and women who’ve fought and died for our country so that we can have a fair, democratic and free vote, and I do believe that, and I think they shouldn’t then turn around and complain about how there aren’t any good candidates or there aren’t any good policies or woe is me because of the way the country is going, when they disrespect their vote and those people who’ve enabled them to have that free and fair vote.
WILLIAM GLEESON
Yeah, yeah, I guess you’re referring more to the informal vote, not the donkey one, but yeah, I agree.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
I mean, it’s an important thing. I visited a school yesterday, The Riverina Anglican College, and the Year 6’s there were so captivated by the whole system of government and interested to know what I do and how I do it and were so well informed. You know, largely I go to a lot of the public and non-government schools around the Riverina and the children are really engaged, really informed and I think that is good for the future. I know the House of Representatives Speaker Milton Dick has made it one of his objectives to ensure that children are well informed and that the next generation of voters will be better than the ones we have now who just seemed to have lost, I think the spirit that the election process brings and look, it’s not too onerous a task every now and again to have to vote at a Local, State or Federal election, and they should be pleased that they’ve got that democratic right. As a Member of Parliament who’s now been engaged in eight elections, two as a campaign director and six as an actual candidate, I think it’s great that people have that opportunity to cast a vote if they’re unhappy with the candidate or the party, or the way the government is heading, well, you know, have your say at the ballot box, that’s the Australian way. But for people to deliberately make sure that they have an informal or invalid vote, I think that says a lot about them and their attitude and it’s I think it’s pretty poor unfortunately.
WILLIAM GLEESON
Yeah, ok, moving forward, Liberal Senator Hollie Hughes, you would be aware of this, but she has she said had no existing, non-existent economic narratives, and you’re aware of all the commentaries around the Liberal Party at the moment. What are your thoughts on that, the Liberal Party and competition with The Nationals moving forward into the future?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
No, that’s a matter for the Liberal Party, the Liberal Party leadership is entirely a matter for the Liberal Party. If there’s one shining light out of the Liberal Party defeat, it is the fact that we may well get a regional Liberal Leader. We’ve got Dan Tehan from Wannon, and we’ve got Angus Taylor from Hume and Sussan Ley from Farrer, they’ve all indicated that they may well throw their hat in the ring when the Liberal Party next meets. They’re all from the regions they understand the regions. Two of them, both Angus and Sussan, are neighbours of mine, I know all three very well, I came into the Parliament with Dan Tehan and I’ve got a lot of respect for him. But the Liberal Party machinations and the Liberal Party leadership is entirely a matter for the Liberal Party members.
WILLIAM GLEESON
Are you still open to the possibility of leading The Nationals in the coming days? Sorry, I will rephrase that, have put your hand up, is that it is a possibility for you?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Oh, look, David Littleproud is leading the National Party, all the all the positions whether you win, lose or draw after an election are vacated by the leaders. David Littleproud will, no doubt, put his hat in the ring. We’ve got something to celebrate as Nationals because we’ve retained all our Lower House seats and we’re still in the running to win Bendigo, which would be an amazing result. We’re going to welcome Jamie Chaffey from Parkes, Alison Penfold from Lyne and David Batt from Hinkler into our party room, so, we’ve transitioned three seats, always a difficult time. We’ve now won all of our seats, six elections in a row. I think other parties could learn a lot from the representation that we provide to our electorates and to our communities, that’s something that I’m very proud of. I’m desperately sorry that Perin Davey has lost her seat as the Deputy Leader of the National Party and the Senator for New South Wales. She brought so much to the Parliament by way of knowledge with the water situation, the Murray Darling Basin is a very difficult and often controversial topic. Perin Davey, as I’ve said many times, has forgotten more about water than most people will ever know, and she’ll get replaced by some staffer or unionists from the Greens or the Labor Party who will not provide the sort of well-grounded contribution that Perin Davey has for the past six years and that is a great loss for our party and for the Parliament.
WILLIAM GLEESON
Ok, yeah. Nothing else from the National Party following Saturday at this stage, do you have comments or anything?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, look, a lot of people have said it’s going to be six years, nine years, that we’re going to be in the wilderness for a long time. I have to say, if a week is a long time in politics, and that’s been a common saying, then three years is an eternity. Anything could happen in three years, we just need to do the soul searching, do the review as a Coalition, as individual parties, the Liberal and the National parties, see where we went right, see where we went wrong. Obviously, there’s a lot that went wrong because we’re not in government, but we need to regroup, restock, there’s still a lot of good people left in the Liberal Party. I’m pleased that Tim Wilson has won Goldstein from the teal Zoe Daniel, I think that’s the start of something, I think that’s positive. And if Amelia Hamer can win in Kooyong against Monique Ryan, that will be a great boost. And I think we’ve still got a lot of good people in the Liberal Party. They’ll find a leader, they’ll get themselves back in order and we need to then go back to the voters in 2028, sounds a long way and off and it is, but we need to go back with a credible alternative and hopefully Labor won’t create too much of a mess in the meantime. And we’ll put our credentials up and hopefully we’ll win next time.
WILLIAM GLEESON
Yeah, OK, alright. Well congratulations and thank you very much.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
And look, I do thank the people of the Riverina for, again, placing their faith in me. I thank the voters and those voters who did not put a 1 beside my name, rest assured, I will be there for them as well. It’s a big new electorate, there’s 129,000 people who are in this electorate, they’re just the voters, rest assured there’s a lot more people than that, but I will be there, I will be their strong voice in Canberra. I do thank all those volunteers who’ve helped out, and of course you can’t do this job without a loving family and great staff and I have that in spades, so I’m very, very thankful, very, humbled and very privileged that I am again the Member for Riverina and I’ll continue that job as best as I can and as I’ve always done.
WILLIAM GLEESON
Yeah, yeah, of course always nice to have family behind you, absolutely.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
And thanks to Rocky FM and thank you, William. Good on you.
WILLIAM GLEESON
No problem. Take care. Talk again soon.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
OK, for sure. Bye now.
*Footnote:
The Commonwealth Electoral Act
Changing political circumstances led within a relatively short time to a review of some of these initial features. The Commonwealth Electoral Act was comprehensively rewritten in 1918 (the last such rewrite until 1983), and the new Act among other things introduced alternative (“preferential”) voting for the House of Representatives; this was in response to the rise of the Country Party in the aftermath of the First World War, and the consequent prospect of loss of seats to Labor through a split in the non-Labor vote. The three-party system which preferential voting helped to support has remained fundamentally unchanged to this day.
A reform with profound implications for the conduct of day-to-day political campaigning, but with a partisan impact difficult to measure, was the introduction of compulsory voting in 1924. As a consequence of compulsory voting, parties do not have to devote to “getting out the vote” the sorts of resources which are deployed by, for example, the main US political parties. Compulsory voting has long been accepted without much complaint within Australia, while being regarded by outside observers as somewhat eccentric. In recent years the debate, such as it is, has taken a new turn, with attention being focussed not so much on the question of individual rights – any voter can if he or she so chooses avoid making a choice of candidates by casting a deliberately informal vote – but on the effect which compulsory voting has had on the overall quality of political discourse and government in Australia.
Source: Australian Electoral Commission A short history of federal electoral reform in Australia – Australian Electoral Commission