AROUND THE TRAPS: Big year for Club Mossman, make your vote count, and Trump

This is going to be a big year for the Mossman Bowls Club. 

The new furniture will, at last, arrive before Easter, or soon after, replacing all the old furniture. We are donating most of the old furniture to the Golf Club.

At the end of August, we will mark the 80th anniversary of the club.  It’s going to be a big celebration which will include the official opening of the $6 million renovations.  As part of the celebrations, we are planning a huge (raffle? Member’s Lucky Draw?) with massive prizes to be won by some lucky member.

An almost new bus has been purchased and will be used as a courtesy bus, in addition to its use by bowlers.

The new chef and bistro crew are doing a fantastic job with excellent reports on the quality of the food always at a reasonable price. The pizzas are particularly popular.

In the coming days I expect there will be an announcement of a Federal Election. 

I want to take this opportunity to explain a bit about our electoral system. Australia has a very good democracy, better than most democratic countries and something to be proud of and protect. 

Federal and state elections in Australia follow the preferential system of voting, which I’ll try to explain.  During the last State election there were five candidates on the ballot paper and voters had to mark each square from 1-5 to be formal.

The Labor candidate, Cynthia Lui, received the most first preference votes, with David Kempton receiving the second highest first preference votes and the Katter Party candidate the third highest. The Katter Party’s How to Vote cards recommended that voters give their second preference to Kempton, ahead of Lui. So, although Lui won the popular vote, when the Katter Party preferences were counted this put Kempton ahead. 

There is nothing wrong with what the Katter Party, or any other party did, but some former Labor voters who were not happy with Lui, but didn’t want Kempton, voted for the Katter Party. In doing so, and by following the recommended How to Vote of the Katter Party, they put Kempton into parliament. 

The point I’m making here is that when you cast your vote at the coming election, think about where you allocate your preference. The Labor and LNP preferences are not counted in the Leichhardt electorate, because they typically run first and second, which means only the minor parties votes are distributed.

So, if you vote for one of the minor parties, it’s where you preference the major party that counts. If you give Jeremy Neal a lower number than Matt Smith, you’re effectively voting for Neal, and if you put Smith ahead of Neal your vote will count for Smith. If there are five candidates and you put Neal 4 and Smith 5, Neal will get the vote. 

There is nothing wrong with our preferential system of voting. In fact, people argue that it is more democratic than first past the post. It’s just that in a functioning democracy people should understand how it all works and when you vote, make your vote count the way you want it to. Further, you do not have to follow the How to Vote card of the candidate that you are voting for. You can allocate your preferences however you please.