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Ben Raue
@benraue
Please try to enjoy each fact equally. I do
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Burramattatallyroom.com.auJoined February 2009
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Ben Raue
@benraue
I'd love to know how many minutes the winning teams spent leading in this week's AFLM finals.
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Ben Raue
@benraue
The Greens position on this is just baffling.
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James Massola
@jamesmassola
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Greens look to kill Voice — and hand Labor a weapon against them. Good piece by ⁦@BernardKeane⁩ crikey.com.au/2022/09/01/gre
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Ben Raue
@benraue
Or just that there's a bunch of different effects taking place - the Greens have clearly put some effort into diversifying their parliamentary representation and they are more likely to win Senate seats, and indigenous representation in the NT has gone through the roof.
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Ben Raue
@benraue
Perhaps it's a bit more subtle an effect - there's a lot of focus on the identity of a local candidate in the House of Representatives and priority is given to local credentials etc, with less focus on the Senate so it's easier to achieve diversity there.
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Ben Raue
@benraue
Indeed between the two NT senators, the two Greens senators and Jacqui Lambie, 5/8 indigenous senators either were the sole representative of their party elected at a particular election, or replaced someone who was.
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Ben Raue
@benraue
But we just don't have that much depth in our Senate lists! No minor party wins more than one seat at a time, and even the major parties don't win 3 in a state that often. Of the last 12 state contests in 2019 and 2022, a major party won 3/6 only 8 times.
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Ben Raue
@benraue
Which makes sense when you think about the NZ party lists - if you're under-representing Māori candidates or women in the electorates it's easier to argue for numerical equality.
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Ben Raue
@benraue
My understanding of the theory behind that is, when you're choosing one candidate per seat, you tend to default to the dominant group more often than their share of the population, whereas when you're choosing a list of candidates you select for diversity.
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Ben Raue
@benraue
I hadn't quite registered until now how many of our federal indigenous MPs are in the Senate - 8 out of 11! We know that PR systems usually produce more political diversity but it's interesting how this has come about.
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Ben Raue
@benraue
And many of the MPs elected may belong to that community but owe their victory not to voters from that community, and ultimately they represent the people who voted for them.
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Ben Raue
@benraue
These seats are just like every other seat, but only candidates from a particular caste or tribe can nominate. And while these seats might have larger shares of those communities, they are often a minority.
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Ben Raue
@benraue
Another example that helps clarify this difference: almost 1/4 of seats in Indian parliament, the Lok Sabha, are "reserved" for Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes. But these aren't like the Māori seats in NZ: these are just seats where everyone in an area votes, FPTP.
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Ben Raue
@benraue
So the Voice plays a different role to the role played by indigenous federal politicians, who whatever their political views don't represent First Nations, they represent Australians of all ethnicity in their electorate (or in the Senate, in their state who voted for them).
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Ben Raue
@benraue
The four larger NZ parties won between 9 and 19 list seats each, whereas a minor party senator in Australia is always #1 on their party list, and it's rare that even a major party gets a third elected on a Senate list, so they all need to appeal to a broader share of voters.
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Ben Raue
@benraue
This is quite different to the situation in New Zealand. The 7 Māori electorates are created by concentrating Māori voters from all over the country. You could also argue that NZ list MPs who are one of many elected on a national list can effectively represent one smaller segment
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Ben Raue
@benraue
Lidia Thorpe, for example: the Greens only win one senator per state at each election, so they are really representing everyone who votes Greens, of all ethnicities. Indigenous Australians wouldn't be a particularly large share of that group.
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Ben Raue
@benraue
You could argue Marion Scrymgour is in a different situation - over 40% of the population in Lingiari is indigenous as of 2021. But that number is just 3.5% in Gordon Reid's electorate of Robertson and 0.7% in Linda Burney's seat of Barton.
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Ben Raue
@benraue
But there is a difference between MPs being from a particular community and representing that community. Indigenous federal MPs don't primarily represent indigenous voters.
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Ben Raue
@benraue
When I was first getting involved in politics, there was only one indigenous federal MP - Aden Ridgeway. And there were none between his departure in 2005 and Ken Wyatt's election in 2010. Now there are 11 - 8 senators and 3 House members.
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Ben Raue
@benraue
I didn't know much about the Voice until recently and I've been reading up on it. I won't claim to be an expert on the topic but I think it's an interesting approach to political institutions and makes me think about how we think about representation.
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Ben Raue Retweeted
eddie synot
@EddieSynot
For anyone wanting to know & understand why Voice comes first before Treaty or Truth & why Treaty isn’t what it’s made out to be & can’t deliver what’s promised by proponents. The #UluruStatement provides a credible & achievable way forward, something no other option does #auspol
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eddie synot
@EddieSynot
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This is nonsense & as was pointed out yesterday by A/Prof Hannah McGlade in the Oz, Senators Price & Thorpe & others will “make complaint and generate opposition” to anything the Govt does on the Voice #UluruStatement #auspol 🧵
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Ben Raue Retweeted
Dr Jenny Condie
@DrJennyCondie
I've seen worries re the Wellington mayoral election about "splitting the vote". We use STV in Wellington - this can't happen. Your vote transfers to your next choice when your fave candidate is eliminated. Your 2 and 3 votes matter! STV explainer here:
thespinoff.co.nz
PSA: How to vote in our local government elections even if you are an idiot
Participating in some of NZ's local elections can be a challenge, thanks to the unusual voting methodologies. We're here to help.
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Ben Raue
@benraue
And once you get past that baby stage, it makes a big difference if both parents are equally involved, and it requires an effort to ensure the parent who is around less is up to speed. Sometimes it can seem easier to just do the job yourself instead of involving the other parent.
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Ben Raue
@benraue
It’s why having lots of parental leave is important for dads. It won’t help with the jerks who don’t want to do their part, but there’s plenty of dads who want to but fall behind.
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Ben Raue
@benraue
One thing I’d say about this. It is absolutely true but it’s mostly not an accident that things fall that way. If one parent spends so much more time around their kid and the other doesn’t, the knowledge/experience gap will widen very quickly.
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Moira Donegan
@MoiraDonegan
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Your wife is not better at doing bathtime because of some innate, mystical, evolutionary psychology woo-woo. She’s better at doing bathtime because she’s done it about 300 more times than you have, and she’s learned. If you do it more, you’ll learn, too. twitter.com/moiradonegan/s…
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Ben Raue Retweeted
Moira Donegan
@MoiraDonegan
Your wife is not better at doing bathtime because of some innate, mystical, evolutionary psychology woo-woo. She’s better at doing bathtime because she’s done it about 300 more times than you have, and she’s learned. If you do it more, you’ll learn, too.
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Moira Donegan
@MoiraDonegan
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There’s no such thing as the “maternal instinct”—it’s a myth meant to justify gender hierarchy and narrow sex roles. In reality, parenting and other kinds of caregiving are learned skills, ones that men can learn the same way women do. nytimes.com/2022/08/26/opi
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Ben Raue
@benraue
I love hearing about the teams actually treating the BBL as a proper sport and snubbing the idiot broadcasters who just want a TV show.
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Rick Eyre on cricket
@rickeyrecricket
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Interesting story on The Australian's back page today about the Thunder's dilemma over Andre Russell at Sunday night's #BBL12draft. Incidentally there is barely a word about angry broadcasters in the report.
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