By Ruth Ratcliffe (Darwin branch)
The NT Labor government is reviewing the territory’s electoral system and, despite having plenty of other work to do, Darwin Socialist Alliance branch decided that we needed to make a submission to the review if we wanted the public fuss that we’ll make about any restrictive electoral regulations that are introduced to carry some weight.
A likely result of the review will be that the NT will be brought into line with other states and territories, which require party registration. This doesn’t exist in the NT at present, so parties’ names are not listed on ballot papers. In our submission we supported the registration of parties so that party names appear on ballot paper, but stressed that the registration requirements be minimal (10 members enrolled) to allow maximum involvement in the electoral process. We also argued that all federally registered parties should automatically be registered in the NT.
The current system of mobile polling in the NT, in which electoral officials tour remote indigenous communities to collect votes, is a total farce. There are repeated accounts of officials turning up on a day when the community is away visiting or engaged in traditional business, thereby losing their opportunity to vote. Socialist Alliance called for a massive literacy and education campaign in remote communities, as well as genuine community consultation and flexibility with the mobile polling circuit.
Our submission also called for:
One of the most important reforms — introducing proportional representation — is not being considered in the review because the Self-Government Act requires single member electorates in the NT.
While the short time for submissions meant that Darwin branch had to make some quick interim decisions about what we thought on various electoral issues, we hope that a nationwide discussion about our submission (which will be submitted to the next Discussion Bulletin) will help Socialist Alliance develop a detailed socialist policy on electoral systems.