Candidates’ statements at the 2014 PRSAV-T Inc. Council election

Candidates’ statements at the 2014 PRSAV-T Inc. Council election
in response to Returning Officer’s invitation to have them posted here
To access the statements of candidates listed below – in ballot paper order – scroll down.

Each candidate’s statement below was posted on 21 September 2014 and will
remain here, unchanged, unless withdrawn earlier at the candidate’s request.

Each single statement below is the only statement for each candidate
that will appear here until the close of the poll on 10 October 2014.

LYLE ALLAN: Statement received on 21 September 2014.

As a member of the PRSAV-T Council I have drafted the majority of its Municipal Electoral Representation Review submissions for the most recent round of such reviews by the Victorian Electoral Commission. I have also made personal submissions to various Representation Reviews and also to the Georgiou Review on Local Government Elections in Victoria. My major interest has been in local government elections, both in Victoria and to a lesser extent in Tasmania. I have presented papers on local government elections at academic conferences, and have written articles in the Tasmanian Times. I am a former TAFE teacher. I have experience as a Returning Officer at Western Melbourne TAFE (now part of Victoria University) over two decades using PR.

I have acted as Secretary during the occasional unavoidable absences of the Secretary.

Should I be re-elected I expect to continue these activities. I believe the present Council has acted in a cohesive and cooperative manner, and I would like this to continue.

ANTHONY VAN DER CRAATS: Statement received on 21 September 2014.

If a candidate is excluded from the count, all ballots should be treated as if that candidate had never stood. – A reiterative counting system, where the counting of the ballot is reset and restarted on every exclusion, is the best means of fulling this principle. This way a full value vote is always attributed to the first available continuing candidate of the voters choice – One vote one value

A. van der Craats

CANDIDATE STATEMENT

Candidate: Anthony van der Craats

Website: http://prsa.melbcity.net.au

Profession: Systems Analyst

Life Member of the Proportional Representation Society of Australia
Member of the Australian Labor Party
Life member of the National Trust of Australia (Victoria)

Achievements: Principle Architect of the ALP policy adopting Proportional Representation for Local Government in Victoria and the reform of the Victorian Legislative Council

Committed to Pure Proportional Representation at all levels of Government

Issues

The PSRA Executive Council to date has been remiss in not addressing a number of important issues and flaws in the way the cote is counted.

The PRSA needs to become more proactive in promoting electoral reform and the merit of Proportional Representation.

Proportional Representation is under threat. Public confidence is at an all time low. Community groups are actively advocating to replace proportional representation for single member electorates for Local Government. This is in part due to the complexity and distortions in the way the vote is counted. The system of counting the votes are outdated. The PR society is operating in the days of the Typewriter and hand held calculator

The system that is in place is in need of serious review and reform

The system of counting the vote as advocated by the PR Society is out-of-date and must be reviewed. It was designed to facilitate a manual counting procedure and in the process a number of procedures implements distort the proportionally and outcome of the election.

The PRSA Council needs to undertake a review of the counting rules with the aim of embracing and incorporating computer based technology and a more stream lined counting procedure.

The Wright System (named after the late Jack Wright President of the PRSA).

I am a strong advocate for the Wright system

The following issues MUST be addressed

The adoption of a weighted value in calculating the Surplus Transfer value.

Abolition of the last bundle transfer distribution method in favour of a full distribution of preferences in proportion to the value of the vote

A single transfer of all ballot papers per candidate, without segmentation, in distributing preferences. This is best achieved by resetting and restarting the count on every exclusion ensuring that a full value vote is always allocated to the first available continuing candidate in accordance with the voters nominated order of preference:

The guiding principle that a vote should be distributed as if the excluded candidate had not stood.

The retention of remainders with the value of the vote

The method of recount is in need of serious review to take into consideration all unused ballot papers and not be limited to the the number of votes that elected the vacating candidate.

Abolition of the Droop Wasted Quota so as to allow all votes to be of equal value to be counted in full

Analysis of the 2007 Queensland and Victorian Senate vote and the 2012 City of Melbourne Council elections highlights the flaws in the system currently in place.

In the past a pure proportional representational counting system was prohibitive. With the use of computer aided counting system this is not longer the case. We need to review the rules to include and take full advantage of computer based technology.

Software Package:

The Association should develop a readily available software package to assist in the conduct of a proportional representation election,

Web Site:

The PRSA needs to seriously review its web site. The current design of the web site has little to desire. It needs to be more accessible and better structured to service members needs and to facilitate open public debate on electoral reform. If elected I will offer my services to restructure and better manage the web site.

Membership:

It is appalling that we only have 38 financial members and this is declining with an aging membership. Much more needs to be done to encourage greater participation and engagement in the Association if the association is to survive.

National Constitution

The National Constitution needs to be reviewed to ensure that it fulfills the aims and objectives of the Society by ensuring that the executive and office bearers are elected by a system of Proportional representation. In fulfillment of Clause 2(b) of the Societies Constitution, The council must be more proactive in undertaking this review.

More policy and details available on my website http://psra.melbcity.net.au

Anthony van der Craats

Life Member Proportional Representation Society of Australia

LEE NAISH: Statement received on 21 September 2014.

I am a Senior Fellow in the Computing and Information Systems Department of Melbourne University. I have been a PRSAV-T Council member for many years and have previously served as President and Secretary.

My contributions have included:

* alerting the then Minister to a critical amendment he agreed was needed to his Bill that brought in PR for the Legislative Council,

* submissions to and appearances before various committees (such as JSCEM, Victoria’s Constitution Commission, and municipal electoral reviews),

* participation in the vote-counting service of the Society as an Accredited PR Vote-counting Officer,

* articles in the press and academic publications, and

* raising awareness and support for the Meek vote counting method within the Society.

I am reluctant to comment at length on the other candidates, but I think the group dynamics of the council influence how effective we can be. Although I do not agree with all the opinions of the other current members of council, we are always able to have respectful, rational discussions leading to a consensus position which we are all comfortable with. My preference is for the composition of the council to remain unchanged.

If I feel an urgent need to supply more facts or opinions I will update
http://people.eng.unimelb.edu.au/lee/prsavt14.html

GEOFFREY GOODE: Statement received on 21 September 2014.

I have served as the Treasurer, and more recently as the President of PRSAV-T Inc, succeeding Dr Lee Naish in that role. Lee’s experience as a Fellow of the Computer Science Department at the University of Melbourne has always helped us keep abreast of that necessary side of modern communications and electoral practice. As our Vice-President, Lee has joined me in useful meetings with the recent Local Government Minister and the current Shadow Minister, and in an earlier meeting with Dr Denis Napthine.

I have been pleased to work with a harmonious and productive Council that has assisted the progress in Victoria and Tasmania of the quota-preferential proportional electoral system that is the main reason for the PRSA’s existence. PRSAV-T Inc. Officers’ involvement in submissions and appearances before Inquiries at Federal, at State and at Local Government level, as is recorded at those hyperlinks.

That PRSAV-T Inc. Council unfortunately lost the services of our former Treasurer, the late Maurie Fabrikant, owing to his premature illness and death, but fortunately we were able to attract and retain a much younger, well qualified, new member to the Society, and to the Council, in the form of Maurie’s successor as our Treasurer, Dr Jeremy Lawrence, who has proved to be equally reliable, responsible and constructively innovative.

I have been pleased to work as well with the other members of the Council, the Branch’s Secretary, Dr Stephen Morey, who was recently decisively elected – by the entire PRSA membership – as the PRSA National Secretary, and Lyle Allan. Stephen has provided an excellent service in the prompt production of accurate and complete minutes and the management of our correspondence.

During Stephen’s occasional overseas academic work, Lyle Allan – who holds a Master of Arts and a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Melbourne – has always deputized for Stephen and operated to the same high standard. Lyle’s extensive knowledge of Victorian politics is always valuable to the Council, and thus to the PR Society.

Each of the five present members of the PRSAV-T Inc. Council has assisted with its work, and each is well suited to contributing, as they have, to our advocacy work in attending meetings, asking searching questions of officials, and making the Society’s presence felt in as effective a way as is possible with our present resources. We also work to steadily increase those resources.

The Council has brought other members into the Branch’s work through its volunteer team of Accredited PR Vote-counting Officers, who are appreciated by community groups, as they help make PR elections practical, and economical, for them, and help spread the word about the advantages and practicality of PR elections. They count ballots for them – or train them – to produce a PR result instead of the badly flawed multiple first-past-the-post procedure that so many groups resort to by default.

I trust PRSAV-T Inc. voters will recognize, when voting, that there is a good and varied spectrum of age and knowledge on the Council that is worth maintaining, although we need to somehow interest more women in PR.

JEREMY LAWRENCE: Statement received on 21 September 2014.

I should be elected to the PRSAV-T council because we form a great team and we do great work. I am also a life member of PRSAV-T, the incumbent treasurer and most likely (at age 40) the youngest member of the society. I am interesting in working for a better world by introducing PR where ever possible. This can only be achieved by working as part of a team. Members of the council must be able to work together. This means they must be able to actually listen to each other.

Even more important, they should also be able to present a good image when representing us in public. In my opinion our existing council members, Geoff Goode, Lee Naish, Stephen Morey, Lyle Allan and I, are all able to do this. We have a great balance of skills, including writing submissions, speaking to submissions, involving other branches, and knowledge or PR.

We have focussed our limited time on the actions most likely to achieve results. We have not wasted our time on frivolities, red herrings or unimportant details. PR requires steady steps forward, not wild steps backward. I hold a PhD in Engineering and am quite capable of distinguishing between spurious topics and valuable priorities.

Our biggest challenge for the upcoming year is to get all national members to approve a clear set of of PRSA policies regarding the senate, house of representatives and state parliaments. Only with a clear set of policies can we unite all the branches and begin to attract new members. This process requires steady and careful negotiation with multiple stakeholders.

Vote (1) Jeremy Lawrence, and vote (2, 3, 4, 5) for the existing council.

STEPHEN MOREY: Statement received on 21 September 2014.

Stephen Morey, candidate for election to the PRSAV-T Inc. Council 2014-15

As current Secretary of the Proportional Representation Society of Australia, Victoria-Tasmania Branch Inc., I am seeking re-election to the council.

I am a research fellow in the field of linguistics at La Trobe University.

I believe that the interests of the society will be best represented by the re-election of the existing council members: Geoffrey Goode (President), Lee Naish (Vice-President), Stephen Morey (Secretary), Jeremy Lawrence (Treasurer) and Lyle Allan. We have worked very well together in the active promotion of PR and good election arrangements in Victoria and Tasmania.

Our work of advocacy has included carefully argued and well thought out submissions and appearances at Parliamentary Committees of both State and Federal Parliaments, preparation of and publication of articles in ‘The Conversation’, a large number of submissions to the Victorian Electoral Commission’s Local Government Reviews (particularly by Lyle Allan) as well as to the recent Local Government Review.

Our articles on ʹThe Conversationʹ, published in April and September 2013, got a high readership and brought PR to the attention of a wide range of people.

I urge you to vote for all five of us, in whichever order you prefer, to continue this important work.
Lyle Allan, Proportional Representation Society of Australia (Victoria-Tasmania)