A Gay Motion

Symbols are funny things.

Sometimes they have enormous impact because, despite being small acts, their ramifications are enormous. Think Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat, or Officer Sanguinetti, the genius that imspired SlutWalk.

Rosa Parks. Picture from Wikipedia

Symbols are powerful because, as humans, we are emotional people. That is why just about every news story has a "human angle". A cut in funding for some community service may not seem like a big deal to most people - that is until the story is put next to a photo of some family who will be hurt by the changes.

In the same way, many people will often find their opinion on a topic about changing once they know someone who has first hand experience. Nothing will enliven an interest in the state of our public hospital system more than having a loved one spend the best part of a week in one, as I experienced not long ago.

In politics, however, symbols are a whole different thing.  A strong symbol at the right time can shift an entire debate in the blink of an eye. Symbols often change people's opinions or even the conversation entirely.

The rolling drama over Craig Thomson is a good example. The Coalition has been trying to use the Thomson drama to force him out of Parliament, or at the very least to tar Gillard and the Labor party as a whole as being connected to thieving, rotten, and above all dishonest unions. The electorate has already formed an opinion about Gillard's honesty that is, most likely, terminal to her prospects of leading Labor to victory in November 2013.

If the populace can be convinced to see the whole of the Labor party in that night, then no matter who is the leader next year the perception will endure.

Thomson is, in the Coalition's mind, a symbol of what Labor are really like.

One thing drastically and almost inexplicably changed the story earlier this week.  I don't know whether it was Thomson's tears during his address to the Parliament, or whether it was his courtyard interview, but the conversation shifted to his mental state. Suddenly we were talking about his mental health and looking back at a Labor MP Greg Wilton who committed suicide in 2000.

Photo from everywhere on the Internet

The damage is a long way from undone, but journos are doing less writing and talking about Craig Thomson and turning their attention to Abbott's behaviour - is he recklessly driving someone towards to severe mental harm, or even worse?

There are two enduring symbols - the idea of Thomson being a liar (best encapsulated by the Herald Sun's tacky front page) and Thomson tearing up during his speech.  Sadly for him and Labor, the former is probably the stronger symbol, which is why the Thomson issue is going to remain a millstone around Labor's neck.

Awful photoshop from the Hun

Another extremely powerful symbol that we saw come from the United States was this pronouncement from Barack Obama on gay marriage:

In the United States, unlike in Australia, the Federal government has no power whatsoever over marriage. It is entirely a matter for the States - and Obama cannot make any law on this issue.

But his words were a symbol - along with his abolition of "Don't Ask Don't Tell", it sends a signal of acceptance to the homosexual community.

Directly speaking, it won't change a thing. but a president willing to go on the record as being in favour of gay marriage is something that can fundamentally shift the debate.

This is all a very long way round to the Green's motion in the NSW Upper House on marriage equality.

Now, I'm thoroughly in favour of marriage equality. To me, if gay people want to marry... well, I like the thus picture:

I'm a Christian, and my views on gay marriage put me at odds with some people who share my religious beliefs - but that's really a discussion for a different blog.

What Cate Faehrmann (NSW Upper House member) has done is bring a motion in the Upper House on the issue.  The motion reads as follows

It is important to note at this point that NSW has no jurisdiction over this issue. None whatsoever. The Federal Constitution vests exclusive power in the Federal government to make laws with regard to marriage.  Any law that NSW passed in relation to marriage would have no validity.

This is why Feahrmann has decided to move a motion that simply "supports" marriage equality, rather than any law actually taking action - NSW has no power to do anything more than that.

Feahrmann. Image from Wikipedia

What she no doubt hopes is that this motion will spur the Federal government to take action on marriage equality.

The problem is that at the Labor National conference earlier this year the Labor party decided that their Federal policy would be that individual MP's would be able to vote "with their conscience". Whilst there is no doubt that a number of Labor members will vote in favour of marriage equality, the fact that the Coalition has not allowed a conscience vote and has dictated that all members must vote against any such bill means that it is doomed to failure.

In the event, Faehrmann's motion was passed, 22 votes to 16.  The consequence?  Nothing.

The Upper House has spent the best part of 2 days debating the issue. Both major parties allowed their members a conscience vote on the issue. The Hansard has not been published yet, so I can't share with you the breakdown as to who voted which way.

My gripe with the motion is this, however: it is a symbol. Nothing more, nothing less. No law has been changed. and no action has been taken. The NSW Upper House house simply passed a motion.

Even if the Lower House passes the bill (and the lower house members may or may not be allowed a conscience vote) all that will be accomplished is a few fairly minor articles in the media.

Nothing will have changed - but the Upper House will have spent 2 days on the issue.

Moreover, whilst being a symbol, it is not even a powerful symbol.  Do you think Tony Abbott (the man who, realistically, holds the future of the marriage equality debate in his hands as long as the present parliament persists) could care less what the NSW Upper House thinks? Of course he doesn't.

Upper House members are allowed to propose any motion that they like, and I would not be in favour of limiting motions to things that will actually have a material effect. 

But I am uneasy about the Upper House's time being wasted on a motion that is at best a symbol - and nothing more.

If Cate Faermann wants to change the law on gay marriage, then she has done the right thing by seeking pre-selection on the Green's Federal ticket.

These motions, whilst they may be a powerful symbol, accomplish precisely nothing. It is not quite, but close to the same category as the Marrickville Council's BDS campaign - also, not coincidentally, initiated by a Greens member.

Hopefully the Upper House will resume debating motions that actually matter in the near future.

A Green Revolution

The political twitterati have been all aflutter this week over the news of Bob Brown's shock resignation. Not so much the fact that it happened, but the fact that it was not preceded my months of speculation from all quarters.

I've found it fascinating to read over some of the accounts of his careers in politics, especially given that much of it preceded not only my interest in politics but even my birth. I particularly enjoyed this outstanding collection of photographs published on the SMH website.

No matter what your opinion of his politics, the man has achieved amazing things.  It will be fascinating to see the Greens attempt to move out from under his not inconsiderable shadow.

That will be a particularly difficult job as the ALP's prognosis worsens. It remains unclear how many of the "old ALP faithful" (especially the blue collar workers) will favour the Greens, as opposed to becoming what we used to call John Howard's Battlers.

In those circumstances, I thought it would be interesting to "take stock" of what the Greens have achieved in NSW, and consider what effect (if any) the events of the last week might have.

Lower House


In the 2011 election, the Greens managed their first ever lower house member (MLA): Jamie Parker in the seat of Balmain.

The man himself. Photo from here

Parker had a good background in local government, having been a councillor in Leichhardt (a council that falls within the seat of Balmain) for over a decade, and mayor there since 2008.

The seat of Balmain has been created and abolished (and held a number of different names) over time in NSW (as the wikipedia article helpfully sets out), and was most recently revived for the 2007 election.

Verity Firth (ALP) won that year with a 54/46 preference count over the Green candidate - the Liberal candidate was competitive but was well behind on the first count and never looked like catching up on distribution of preferences.

In the 2011 election, it appears that the Greens were going to be competitive in two seats: Balmain where they were running Parker, and Marrickville where they were running Fiona Byrne, mayor of Marrickville. Both were inner city seats, and therefore presented a demographic most likely to elect a Greens candidate.

Fiona Byrne. Photo from SMH

In the event, Byrne missed out by less than a thousand votes.  In Balmain, Parker was third on election night, but in the end won with a 53/47 preference count over the ALP.

Somewhat incredibly, the Greens finished 2nd in 14 other seats.  How much that had to do with the anti-ALP vote remains to be seen.

Upper House


The Greens are always likely, at least for the foreseeable future, to find opportunities in the Upper House, given the Westminster system that we operate under.

Their representation has steadily tracked upwards since their first member (Ian Cohen) was elected in the 1995 election, where he served two 8 year terms.

Photo from the Greens website

Since then, the vote has tracked upwards:

1991: 3.3%, none elected
1995: 3.7%, 1 elected
1999: 2.9%, 1 elected
2003: 8.6%, 2 elected
2007: 9.1%, 2 elected
2001: 10.3%, 3 elected

Prognosis

Since the election the polling numbers for the Greens appear to have increased:

However, that needs to be considered in light of their polling numbers before the election:

It may be that the polling numbers for Greens will be stubbornly higher outside of campaign than within it - you will note that the numbers nosedived from 17% to 11% as soon as the campaign starting.  This may have a lot to do with the significantly greater advertising dollars that the major parties have to spend during a campaign.

What also remains to be seen is the effect of the minority government in Canberra, as well as the Carbon Tax.  Recent trends appear to suggest that voters are pretty good at telling the difference between state and federal issues, but that remains to be tested when it comes to minor parties.

Having said that, the Greens are not pitching for the centre (yet).  It may well be the case that the additional exposure that the federal politicians have received will increase the Green vote as many people find out that the "loony left" isn't quite as loony as they thought.

It may well be that the Greens are going to change our 2-party system into a 3-party system.  On the other hand, we all know what happened to the Democrats.

Time will tell.

A Win for Everyone

Is it possible for everyone to be a winner? In a by-election, yes.

I've written previously about the way that even if the Nationals won the Clarence by-election (as they inevitably would) Labor would be claiming the result as a win, and living off it for some time.  There was never any doubt that there would be a swing back to Labor, given that the National's member had resigned in disgrace just 6 months after an election.

Disgraced National Steve Cansdell.

Electorates always take out their anger at returning to the polls so soon after an election, no matter what the reason. The circumstances of Cansdell's departure meant that their anger would be heightened, and the size of the swing increased.

The equation was further muddied by the absence of a high-profile independent. While this may affect primary votes, the NAT/ALP 2PP should in theory be unaffected - but of course these things are not always as simple or straight forward as that.

In the event, the results look like this (thanks to Antony Green, whose analysis has been brilliant, as always):

From here

A few salient points.

First of all, the vast majority of Richie Williamson's votes (the majority of the OTH row) flowed across to the ALP. That was to be expected.

But the 2PP for the National's was well down, although in fairness it was more or less what had been predicted.

What really interested me tonight was both sides trying to count the result as a win.

For the Nationals it was easy, given that they had actually won. Andrew Stoner had this to say:

He followed that up with an interesting response to a comment from ABC reporter Mark Tobin:

His point is a fair one, and it picks up quite neatly on just one of the reasons that the swings that we will no doubt be hearing about for some time are essentially meaningless.

Another point he might have made was that there was clearly a large "anyone but Labor" vote in March.  Some of that bitterness would be expected to have evaporated by now.

Funnily enough, the swing was what John Robertson chose to focus on:

Whilst the numbers he has quoted are more or less correct, he is perhaps misusing them slightly to fit the narrative I predicted Labor would try to run. His spin of the reason for the swing is little more than wishful thinking, in my view.

Nonetheless, the ALP will be hoping that this will continue the growing disquiet about the O'Farrell government.  Nothing reinforces an uneasiness felt by a swinging voter than the impression that lots of other people feel the same way.

As journos start (inevitably) picking up on that narrative, Robertson will have at his disposal a powerful tool to starting chipping away that those awful polling numbers that were released earlier this week.

As for the Greens, however, they've really had very little to say.  I'm not aware of any Greens MLC or MLA who has made any comment on twitter (or elsewhere) at this stage regarding the result.

The Greens have been campaigning hard on the Coal Seam Gas issue, and may have been expecting a bump from farmers concerned about the effect on their land and particularly their water supply.  Especially given the lack of a high-profile IND candidate, a swing of 0.3% is really a loss of the Greens,

John Kaye tweeted this photo earlier today, so clearly he is involved, but hasn't been heard from since:

In any event, the Greens' numbers will really only interest Greens members and wonks like myself.  The interesting part will be following the media over the next few days as the Nationals try to talk about how they won and as Labor tell anyone who can hold a pen about the massive swings they achieved.

It's going to be a fascinating week.

Killing off Debate

Is there a more emotive question than whether voluntary euthanasia should be a legal?

Whilst I have of course experienced the death of a relative, I have never had to deal with the horror of seeing loved one, terminally ill, dying in pain.

I can't even comprehend how I would deal with that.  It would be utterly awful.

Miscellaneous photo to illustrate grief.  From here

The pain would only be magnified by that person asking  you to help them die.  Whilst many terminally ill people are unable to communicate, most are, and no doubt many would prefer to end their life "on their own terms".

Such a preference is often (maybe even usually?) totally rational. When one has lived a long, rich life, it is not hard to imagine why someone would rather end at it at the time of their chosing, rather than lingering for an indeterminate period, often in horrednous pain.

In a world where those statements could be trusted, and where we could trust relatives to care for their elderly relatives, there would in my view be little reason to oppose the legalisation of voluntary euthanasia.

We already allow persons to indicate that they do not wish to receive treatment or be resuscitated.  We allow doctors to withdraw treatment from persons who cannot be revived.  Why the distinction?

In part, the reason is that we cannot always rely on requests to die.

It does not take much imagination to foresee an elderly relative, perhaps a bit doddery or just old and frail, being pressured by a family member to end it - not for the elderly person's benefit, but rather for the relatives.

It may be intentional.  It may be a subtle hint.  It may be just a resignation or frustration hinted by deed or word.

Miscellaneous photo to illustrate elderly.  From here

An even more difficult question is working out whether any euthanasia scheme should be limited to those who are terminally ill.  The old expression is that, over a long enough time line, everyone is terminal - how sick should you have to be? Should pain be a prerequisite?

Moreover, who is going to decide whether the criteria are met?  Bear in mind that persons wishing to end their life are often under significant financial stress, and may not be able to afford the cost of doctor reports, legal representation and psychiatric assessments.

In the alternative, should we allow anyone, in any circumstance, for any reason, to ask to be killed?  Should there be a cooling off period?  A mental health assessment? Are we comfortable people walking in off the street and asking to die?

My person view is that if a sane, rational person wants to die, then I can't see what right I have to stop them. What gives me trouble is how we build a system of laws around that - what sort of regulation or set of rules will achieve the aim of seperating those with a rational, sane desire to die from those in the grips of depression, or a relative wanting a hassle off their hands?

These are difficult questions.  No doubt they are questions we will have cause to mull over once Cate Faeurhmann (GRN) introduces her bill to legalise voluntary euthanasia next year. Hopefully there will be a public consultation period, and if time permits I'll be making a submission.

The lady herself.  From here

Voluntary euthanasia is a topic that fits very neatly with the Greens progressive agenda, and we can expect the usual suspects to come out in force for and against the bill.

Most likely with the intention of kicking off this debate, a Dying with Dignity Forum was held at Parliament house on Tuesday.  Speakers included Nicholas Cowdery (ex NSW DPP who has long spoken in favour of voluntary euthanasia) and former Northern terrritory Chief Minister Marshall Perron (who was at the helm when the NT briefly had a law allowing voluntary euthanasia).

If Liberal MP's are allowed a conscience vote (as the article suggests) then all bets really are off as to whether the bill will pass.  On one hand, this is a Green bill, and strongly progressive one at that.  Conversely, elderly people tend to support euthanasia is far greater numbers than younger people who have perhaps never seen a loved one die in pain.

If we're lucky, we may even see the kind of vigorous debate we saw when RU486 was debated in the Federal Parliament in 2006.

I don't know what the result will be, and I daren't predict the outcome.  But I'm ready for an enthusiastic flurry of lobbying as those with a vested interest launch a campaign.

Now THAT will be a Hansard worth reading.

An Eggcellent Bill

Today I want to write about eggs.

That's not some sort of metaphor about the hatching of a new policy, or the neat encapsulating of an idea - I mean those things that come out chickens that are just so yummy.

Eggs

The reason you're hearing about eggs on a politics blog is this story:s

Original story on SMH

As the person in our house who does the shopping, I think the number of egg options is pretty bewildering.  There are cage eggs, free range eggs, barn eggs and then of course there are the eggs with the smiley face stamped on them.

I always buy the smiley face ones because the missus likes free range eggs, and because I like to talk to eggs when I crack them and say things like "This oughta wipe the smile off your face!"

Getting back on point, there is little understanding amongst the public as to what exactly the different descriptions mean.

I don't intend to get stuck into the precise legal framework for this area - there are national standards, state standards, cross-border issues, and heaven knows what else.

It was interesting, however, to come across this PDF that purports to define the present labelling rules:

Full size version here

Suffice to say, the Greens introduced a bill to standardise the labelling for Free Range.  The full text can be seen here.

The overview explains things quite nicely, and the requirements are very detailed. On that, one that is worth picking out is the following:

Have a look at a square metre next chance you get, and imagine 10 chickens per square metre.  It's not exactly spacious, but there you go.

The debate ran over two days in the Legislative Council, and luckily for us the speakers (and interjectors) took the chance to have a bit of fun:

There was some disagreement as the bill progressed through.  Labor amended the bill and, as I mentioned earlier, the government initially opposed the bill.

Interestingly, the Shooters and Fishers agreed to support the Green's bill, despite the Government's opposition.  As much was noted by their leader Robert Brown:

In those circumstances, the Government would in fact have lost the vote had they maintained their opposition, so it is likely that their vote in support was merely a tactical retreat, or, as I like to call these things, an advance in a different direction.

The fact that the Shooters supported the Greens bill is not the only surprising part. A minor party lead the charge on a bill and got it passed, which is no small triumph. Not just any bill as well, but a bill that will no doubt piss off a lot of people.

Additionally, there is something to be said for the way this brands the Greens in NSW.

Federally, the Greens are perceived (at least in some quarters) as being the party really running the country.  Moreover, the Greens campaign for action on Climate Change is probably the only reason that Labor has stuck with the Carbon Tax.

At the State level their brand is not as well defined.  People seem to know what the Greens stand for generally, but aren't necessarily as clear on what that means in practice. This bill seem to be right in their wheelhouse - it will appear to the younger, environmentally conscious voters and annoy many rural voters who will see it as hurting an already struggling industry.

Wins are often hard to come by for a minor party, and no doubt the Greens are feeling pretty good about themselves this weekend.

Polls Apart

There was a very interesting set of polling numbers released on the weekend, faithfully leaked to the Twitterverse by @ghostwhovotes.  They can be seen here: http://bit.ly/gYdVDy


At first glance, the numbers seem to be a little encouraging for Labor.  Primary vote has risen from 23% in Jan-Feb to 26% in Mar 2010 (down from 39% at the last election).


Think about that, just for a second.  Even on these improved numbers, one out of every three people who voted Labor in 2007 will not be doing so this time round.


The strange thing is that the Coalition has picked up 4% as well, moving from 46% to 50%, up from 37% in 2007.


That's an impressive number too - a full half of the population marking Liberal or National.


So, where have these numbers come from? It's from the Green column - down from 17% in Jan-Feb to 11% in Mar 2010 (down from 9% in 2007).


Is that actually possible?  Could it be the case that one out of three Greens voters have jumped ship in the last month?  I doubt it.


Some people on Twitter theorised that the fall was, at least in part, due to the announcement of the Carbon Tax.  Personally, I don't think so.


To have moved one's vote because of the Carbon Tax, this hypothetical Green voter needs to so fundamentally misunderstand that Federal/State divide that he/she thinks that their state vote matters on this issue, but have a nuanced enough understanding of the present state of Federal politics that he/she can see the Green fingers all over this move.


Such a voter may exist, but surely not more than one or two of them?


It is possible that this is some sort of Green backlash, but I would have thought that most people who already feel that strongly about the issue are already firmly lodged in the Coalition column.


Far more likely, in my view, is that this result is just statistical noise - a false positive, if you will.


Let's look at the small print.  Obviously only people who are home at the right time of day, interested in being part of a poll, and additionally able to speak English would be polled.  Newspoll no doubt balance for all these things, and besides, the same restrictions applied to the previous poll.


The important point, however, is that only 1000 voters were surveyed in this poll.  1000!  That's such a minute quantity of the NSW population that we're immediately taking a risk extrapolating.


Now, no poll can be truly random.  That goes without saying.   But it's still very easy to forget that polling is an inherently inexact science.


Even if the poll was 100% random, there will still be variation.  Indeed, this poll (like all good polls) tells us that the "maximum margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.1".  Stretching back to the small amount of statistics I studied at uni, this tells us that there is a 95% chance that the "true" result is no more than 3.1% more and no less than 3.1% less than the stated figure.


Now, the Green vote plummeted 6%, so we're outside that standard deviation - but notwithstanding that, 5% of results will still fall outside that range.


At the end of the day. there may well have been a fall in the Green vote, and it may be a significant one.  But I severely doubt that it could possibly be 6%. I'd be very surprised if there was not an "inexplicable" rise in the Green vote in the next poll back towards the kind of figures we saw in Jan-Feb.


Polls are important.  They let us and politicians know what is going on, and when it is time to punt the old premier and rotate round again. If the Greens are smart, I'm sure they'll be calm about this result.  As the cliche goes, there is only one poll that counts.  


As a final note, according to these numbers, 11% of people think that Labor will win, including 4% of Coalition voters! I guess there are some questions no poll can satisfactorily answer.