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There are thieves in the Senate. Scott Ryan, Liberal Senator for Victoria and Deborah O'Neill, Labor Senator for NSW will continue to hold their Senate seats after June 2019, while roughly half of their colleagues will face re-election. They will continue to serve from 2019 until 2022, at the expense of Derryn Hinch and Lee Rhiannon. Their seats were stolen on their behalf by the Labor Party and the Coalition. The two major parties have broken promises they made twice to the Australian public in order to secure these seats. These promises took the form of Senate resolutions on 22 June 2010 and 29 June 1998. Both resolutions passed with bipartisan support and stated that the Senate will use the new, fairer method to determine which senators get full (6 year) terms in the event of a double dissolution election. Had they kept this promise, senate thieves Scott Ryan and Deborah O'Neill would be facing re-election in 2019 and Hinch and Rhiannon would have the six year terms that the Australian public voted for. Unfortunately these resolutions are not binding and the Australian constitution permits the Senate to allocate the seats as it pleases, meaning Labor and the Coalition are not bound to keep their promise and can literally get away with anything.

In addition to these two promises, the Labor party passed the relevant legislation (again, non-binding) in 1984. After the 1987 double dissolution election, Coalition Senators voted in favour of using the new method to allocate senate seats, while the Labor party chose to keep the old method - again, because it gave them a bigger share of the seats. It was this 1987 disagreement that prompted the two major parties to pass the 1998 and 2010 resolutions to use the fairer method in the future. They no doubt had every intention of holding each other to this promise, up until the current situation arose in which both stood to benefit from sticking with the unfair method.

This coup has been permitted by a mainstream media that is asleep at the wheel. No major outlet reported on the Senate decision of August 31. They did report on Labor and the Coalition reaching an agreement to do this several weeks earlier. However, the reporting on this agreement simply quoted the insipid justifications given by the major parties and lacked any critical analysis or hard questions. Neither Labor nor the Coalition have been forced by the media to comment on the fact that they both broke promises that they made clearly and repeatedly to the Australian public. They have not been forced to even acknowledge that they made these promises. Neither party has been forced to acknowledge the transparent self-interest behind the decision. Instead, The ABC, The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald etc all let the major parties get away with simply pointing out that their agreement was "in keeping with the constitution and precedent", as if the new legislation and the repeated promises to use it never happened. The media has been publishing these insipid justifications and excuses on behalf of the major parties, while leaving out relevant facts and failing in their duty to ask the important questions.

Please contact your federal MP and senators using the links below (scroll down to "please support democracy in the senate") and let them know that you intend to punish them at the next election if they do not give back the stolen senate seats. Please also write to your newspaper and let them know of your disapproval at their failure to report on this coup and your scepticism at their ability to do their job. Please also write to Senators Ryan and O'Neill and let them know that you consider them to be thieves in the Senate and that their ongoing presence after 2019 undermines the legitimacy of the Senate.

http://www.ozpolitic.com/index.html

That is, not a single one of the 36 senators allocated six year terms did so with the help of preference flows from eliminated candidates. The only preference flows supporting the first six senators were within the major parties (parties with enough first preference votes to get two senators elected among the first 6 from the state), after their first-listed candidates were elected. The only votes that contributed to their election were from people who gave a major party candidate their first preference (either above or below the line). For the vast majority of voters who voted above the line, this means that the votes remained with the party given their first preference before any senators were elected to three year terms. This is also true for people who gave one major party candidate their first below-the-line preference then gave their second preference to a minor party that had to rely on preferences from eliminated candidates.

The only senators given six year terms were senators from parties that got one or several quotas of first preference votes and who did not need to rely on the flow of preferences from eliminated minor party candidates.

I am not aware of any journalists asking Senator Cormann to explain why he made this claim.

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Another article in The Australian. In this article, The Australian saw fit to point out that there are "no rules" governing how six year terms are allocated, but did not think it was important to qualify this by mentioning two bipartisan senate resolutions that effectively established such a rule. It describes the alternative method as non-binding and 'never been adopted' despite the two senate resolutions. In both articles The Australian reminded its readers that the deal was consistent with convention.

ALP-LNP deal to force senators back to poll in three years

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/federal-election-2016/alplnp-deal-to-force-senators-back-to-poll-in-three-years/news-story/f04dae3cfa3f26ae8b28e5c13c232b60

The Australian 12:00AM August 13, 2016

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Bam wrote on Sep 24^th, 2016 at 10:37am:




hilarious...



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Re: Forum Rules etc.
Reply #4 - Sep 5th, 2016 at 6:34pm   If someone floods a board with duplicates so that it pushes the other threads off the first page, they will get deleted and the account will be disabled for spamming. If people respond to a thread, it is not spam



its ok for fd to do it though......

dont do as I say! sort of thingy.

Ryan and O'Neill - senate thieves

Ryan and O'Neill  are not senate thieves, they benefited from the Labor /Liberal theft.

It is more that they are in possession of stolen goods. (2 stolen seats)

freediver wrote on Sep 24^th, 2016 at 12:22pm:


I suspect the decisions and agreements were made well above them and most likely without their knowledge.

Accessories after the fact, minor players at best.

Disgraceful by those responsible though.

With both sides supporting it they could have crossed the floor and still been supporting it.

freediver wrote on Sep 24^th, 2016 at 12:22pm:

This is likely to continue in future DD elections as long as the Senate retains the power to determine the split of seats as specified in the Constitution. This is why Section 282 of the Electoral Act is not binding on the Senate.

The Section 282 method is very fair mathematically. I posted an analysis showing this in the other thread. The order of election method is demonstrably inferior yet that continues to be used.

It would be ironic though if Hinch ends up getting re-elected in three years and ends up serving in the Senate for nine years instead of six.

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That may well be his plan. However unless the public punish Labor and the Coalition for this at the next election, it will still mean they get an extra Senate seat each between 2019 and 2022. Maybe Hinch will take a few more votes from them than whoever would otherwise stand in his place in 2019. Maybe not. I doubt it will make much difference to how many votes the Greens get, unless the media pull their thumb out of their arse and report the relevant facts to the Australian public.

Quote:
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The media has screwed them over so far. They look like sore losers, because the media only reported that Labor and the Coalition acted consistent with convention. They left out the two Senate resolutions to use the new, fairer method that would have given the six year seats to Hinch and Rhiannon.

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Good for you. Is that in response to this theft of Senate seats, or did you already like him?

This is the only thread dedicated to the thievery of Scott Ryan and Deborah O'Neill