Re: Socialist Alliance vote in NSW

[DAVID MURRAY <dmurray@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Early days or maybe not.....

BC
 NSW has a relatively less democratic system whereby, to be a registered
party (and run with the party name on the ballot), you have to field a
certain number of candidates in the upper house (Senate). The NSW upper
house is elected in a PR system, rather than one-member-one-electorate
as most of the other (extremely undemocratic) upper houses around the
country are.
DM
Not quite correct, they had the choice of not standing in the upper house. 
(where they seemd
to put their good candidates)
But it is unfair that you can only stand in 15 upper house seats to get 
registration.
BC
Only Queensland doesn't have an upper house -- trivia moment!! -- my
great-great-uncle, and namesake, Ben Courtice, was one of the Labor MPs
who voted to abolish it after Labor got control of both houses at once,
having until then found the upper house a conservative impediment to its
rule).
DM
Finally we have something in common. My Great Great Great uncle, was Matthew 
Charlton, the left-wing
federal ALP leader who lead the ALP after Billy Hughes campaigned for 
conscription in WW1 and
left to join a conservative government. Charlton resigned in 1928, nine months 
later the ALP
was elected to power. One of the Newcastle seats is named after him.
BC
I don't know if the NSW comrades would have otherwise run in the upper
house. In any case, it would be more instructive to see where we polled
best -- was it in the areas where we have branches and were running
candidates for the lower house seats? That would indicate that we were
having some impact after all.
DM
>From my conversations with Steve O'Brien (Newcastle SA and DSP) he was mooting 
>a seat for the SA
in the upper house. Which of course was possible, given the nature of PR. I got 
the impression
from him, that the campaign should focus on getting this seat.

Its not really early days for the SA. They have been through more than two 
years worth of elec-
tions and have failed to even move above the votes of the DSP of the past and 
other independent
left organisations. More serious reassessment rather than a rehash of the old 
excuses.

DAVE