WHY AND HOW TO ELECT INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES
When a candidate for a major political party is successful in being elected to Parliament, not only are those who voted for the opposing major party candidate disenfranchised, but the expectations of all voters are diminished, as a consequence of the candidates loyalty to the party taking precedence over everything. Major party representatives are instructed how to vote in parliament under threat of being disendorsed
While it is easy for external forces to secure the favours and influence the policies of the management committee of the major parties, it would be impossible to buy the favours of all 60 or 70 individual Independents. Only an Independent can honestly, honourably, responsibly represent the wishes, intentions, expectations and ambitions of the voters of the electorate.Short sighted shallow thinking people who comment that an Independent can not do much on their own if elected should reflect on what the position would be if Independents held the majority of seats in the parliament. A short term possibility would be that they could hold the balance of power in a hung parliament.We can not rely on the afore said in isolation without understanding the unfair disadvantage that the current voting systems place the Independent at. Be it state voluntary preferential, or the even more ignominious federal compulsory preferential both systems ensure that the major parties share the bulk of the preference votes.
To use the preferential system to advantage, 5 or 6 Independent candidates exchanging preferences to favour one of their number could effectively equalize this situation.While everyone knows how easy it is for a voter to cast a vote at each of the polling booths within their electorate, the real concern is the lack of supervision of the actual counting process. There are never sufficient scrutineers to properly supervise the slackers and counters to protect the validity of the count conducted by over zealous party enthusiasts. Independents are well advised to field maximum number of scrutineers at all elections. Like taxation, there is a simpler safer method of conducting an election, but any reform would of course disadvantage the major parties.
Brian Sheehy, TANAH MERAH, Qld.
Rampant crime
A few months ago we were subject to some horrendous stories of crime, child abuse and domestic violence in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. The crimes ranged from spouse abuse to the sexual assault and murder of very young children. Most of these things came to light after Nanette Rogers, a Crown Prosecutor in Alice Springs appeared on ABC TV's Lateline program. Not long after we were told of the situation in the community of Wadeye where violence between gangs of Aboriginal youths had got so bad that people were fleeing the area.
Statistics on crime in the Territory indicate that this sort of and violence are not unusual among Aboriginals and here is not much reason to expect things to improve in the near future. One is inclined to ask the question: What did we expect'? Thousands of square miles, in fact 50% of the Northern Territory is now Aboriginal land. Many, if not most of the people living on these homelands have little experience in running productive farms, in fact many have never had any sort of a job at all. The result is that large tracts of land are now completely unproductive and unemployment rates of 90% are not unusual. Thousands of people live in poverty, isolated from services, opportunities and hope.
Aborigines are not too well represented on the IQ map, but much of what has been done for them in recent years seems to have compounded the disadvantages they already faced. To make a bad job worse we have a welfare system which does not exactly inhibit young uneducated women from becoming unmarried mothers and with the baby bonus almost bribes them.
This is no doubt why Aboriginals in the Northern Territory have about the highest birth-rates in the country. We could be said to be literally breeding social problems. A greater police presence in Aboriginal communities, better services and ensuring that young people get educated could mitigate the problems but not remove them. Unless we get serious about the realities of race, and change the dysgenic effects of our welfare system, the problems of crime and poverty will continue.
R HUGHES, STRATHFIELD, NSW.