When you stand in elections, as the Socialist Alliance is doing, you are exposed to all manner of games in way of preferencing politics. Yesterday's report where Labor urged voters to Choose radicals over the 'rat' says it all.
What a grand pursuit it is! Labor allocates preferences to the Alliance ahead of ALP feral, Gavan O'Connor in Corio.
No wonder the game was such that at the last poll Labor facilitated Family First into the Senate from Victoria.
Out smarted themselves then, they did.
As the Geelong Socialist Alliance says(more or less): you can get stuffed, ‘Our preferences are not for sale’.
We get a bit of media. There's that. But the whole business is thwart with upmanship and game play such that when you come to your voting options and consider the tickets in front of you, things really won't be as they seem.
If you can tell a person by the company they keep; an electoral party is marked by their preferences. So it's always worthwhile to check them out if one were planning on a truly considered vote.
In the Senate the card can be all over the place and with the way political preference is meshed with opportunism, what the party of your choice is offering as a "1" above the line may indeed be a long way away from what you assumed would be the preference flow.
For instance, taking Queensland as an example:
- The Climate Change Coalition preference candidates from the Shooters Party and the Fishing & Lifestyle Party ahead of the Socialist Alliance; splits its preference flow to the Greens so they can allocate Pauline Hansen as # 5
- the Carers, while preferencing the Greens ahead of everything else then move on to Pauline Hansen and Family First (via a couple of unknown independents).
- the Socialist Equality Party has split its preferences, where it is standing, between the Greens, Labor and the Coalition!
Pauline Hansen moves us to 55 and 56th place!
Come on! We can't be all that bad! Can we?
