Man Formerly Charged With Rigging Student Ballot Exposed As Labor Official 96
First time accepted submitter pocock writes "Motivated by reports of Matthew Weaver's twelve month jail sentence for rigging CalState student elections, a comprehensive blog describes in detail how a generation of student ballot riggers from the late 1990s have graduated unhindered into federal politics, playing a pivotal role in Australia's upcoming federal election. One can only wonder if Weaver had not been caught, would he too have eventually swiped a million dollars and put the SRC into liquidation?"
Aus Labor Party is anything but democratic (Score:1, Interesting)
They might come from the "social democratic" tradition but there's nothing democratic about the Australian Labor Party. They're the masters of branch stacking and rigging votes, especially through union representation at national conferences. The party has become a joke and the sooner they're turfed in the coming months, the better. They need a few terms in the wilderness to clean up their filthy act.
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Yeah, but the only alternative is the "Liberal Party", which has nothing liberal about it.
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Australia has a transferable voting system. Third party votes are not wasted.
Vote *other!
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Sure, but that only changes the binary choice into a somewhat finer-grained choice of which of the two coalitions you want to vote for. The next PM is exceedingly likely to come from either the Labor or the Liberal party, so if you vote for a third party, you're still indirectly voting for one of those two as PM as well, depending on which third party you choose. For example, if you vote LNP or National, you're voting for a Liberal PM, since those parties support the Liberal Party in coalition.
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The advantage of preference voting systems is that it allows you to vote for your preferred candidate and know that your vote won't be wasted. For example, if two left leaning candidates and one right leaning candidate stand in an electorate where the vote is historically 60% left, 40% right then the right leaning candidate has a higher chance of being elected, but this doesn't truly reflect the will of the electorate.
In Australia, electors tend to prefer a centrist party (e.g Australian Democrats in the pa
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Sure, but that only changes the binary choice into a somewhat finer-grained choice of which of the two coalitions you want to vote for. The next PM is exceedingly likely to come from either the Labor or the Liberal party
I agree that the choice of government is binary - Liberal or Labor. By voting for minor parties, we can achieve a few things. Firstly, we can signal to the other parties that we, the voters, are not completely happy with them. Secondly, we could again force a minority government which will help prevent a further shift to the right. Lastly, your first preference vote will help fund the campaign for that minor party*.
That is right. Each First Preference vote is worth $2.49* [abc.net.au] .
* = If that minor party achi
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Yeah, but the only alternative is the "Liberal Party".
What? [smh.com.au]. Mate, the ballot paper looks like an Asian grocery shelf and you complain about the lack of choice?
Plastic magnifying sheets will be installed in voting booths to help Victorians navigate their way through what could be the biggest ever Senate ballot paper.
Victorians could be faced with a 1.02 metre Senate ballot paper at the 2013 federal election, the maximum size it can be printed, with the font size reduced to 6 point to fit all the candidates' names.
The number of registered political parties has almost doubled since the 2010 election from 25 to 46, and another 11 parties are waiting to be processed.
Re:Aus Labor Party is anything but democratic (Score:5, Insightful)
Mate, the ballot paper looks like an Asian grocery shelf and you complain about the lack of choice?
More like a restaurant with a huge menu of delicious dishes to choose from. You can order what ever you want but you always get either sweet and sour pork or beef in black bean sauce served to you - both come with special fried rice.
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Well, you can still order
* mango and bean sprouts salad [greens.org.au] (but don't mix seafood [wikipedia.org] into, it may become explosive!) with or without a side of feta [badrickunadulterated.com]
* shipwreck stew [pirateparty.org.au] or...
* even Ecuadorian sitting duck [wikileaksparty.org.au]
Besides, the last election showed a change in the added spices and... yes, not to be missed... we've seen some Queenslander's eggs being powdered in the process (and now being reconstituted), so nobody can deny it was interesting [wikipedia.org].
As the patrons pay only if they do not order, the change in the served dishe
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Yea, come to the united states and vote... they'd likely let you since we don't even check ID here... then your choices are:
SomeWhiteGuy#1 (D)
SomeWhiteGuy#2 (R)
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What? . Mate, the ballot paper looks like an Asian grocery shelf and you complain about the lack of choice?
That is just the Senate ballot. The House of Representatives ballot isn't that impressive. Look at Sydney:
Australian Labor Party (Centre Right)
Liberal Party (Right)
Greens (Left)
Citizens Electoral Council (Far Right Fascist)
Palmer United Australia (Right)
Socialist Alliance (Left)
Christian Democratic Party (Right)
No independents. No candidates for truly transformative parties like Pirate Party (Left) and Wikileaks Party (Left). ALP, LP, PUA, and CDP all run the same platform, the Greens are too detach
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There is no way that the Australian Labor Party could be considered Centre Right, not in a million years. They're more Centre Left than anything, and Greens Left or Far Left. And by extension the Liberal/National Coalition could be Centre Right or Right. They both compete for the centre ground.
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There is no way that the Australian Labor Party could be considered Centre Right, not in a million years.
This being a worldly site (albeit with a US focus), the Australian Labour Party is now a mainly centre-right party with an occasional centre-left policy. This was not always the case and is often confused because the main opposition, the Australian Liberal Party is the opposite party to the Liberal party in the US. It started as a workers and unions party with links to the country and gradually morphed to a centre-right party in recent times in the hopes to attract popular votes. To politicians the country
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I'm more shocked at the photo accompanying that article. You guys have cardboard ballot boxes? Not sturdy metal ones with a lock on them?
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We have election scrutineers from each party to observe the process. I've done it once before and we all watch the boxes like hawks, and the counting of ballot papers, too. You'd only need sturdy metal boxes if the ballot boxes had to be collected by, say, your local govt-friendly militia to transport them to a "safe" counting location (i.e., where their contents are simply replaced anyway).
Democracy in Australia is one of the best-functioning in the world. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If you do, you en
Voting in Australia is easy (Score:1)
You would be surprised at how easy it is to vote in Australia.
- At a polling station it hasn't ever taken me longer than 30 minutes to vote
- All I need to provide is my Name & Address
- I can turn up at any of the polling stations in my electorate.
- If I happen to be outside my electorate and a reasonable distance, then I can vote at any polling station in the country.
- If I happen to be busy on polling day (almost any excuse will do), then I can submit an absentee vote via post.
The easy of the pro
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Not quite anyone in the country. If you are interstate only some of the stations allow interstate voting.
You don't even have to be busy, if you live more then some distance away from a station you can absentee vote.
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I have sometimes routed my preferences to ultimately land with the Liberals but upon finding out that they would be deprived of my AEC-funding as a result, most definitely I'll be putting a "1" in the Liberal/National Coalition box this time. Thank you, kind sir :-) You've done me a great service.
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The Liberal Party method of appointing it's leadership it totally and utterly free of ballot stuffing 100% guaranteed. No Ballot, no democracy, how could autocrats allow anything as disrupting as democracy to control it's leadership, basically straight up collusion at the top appoints it's leadership and you betcha lotsa $$$ have everything to do with who leads. At least with preferential voting third party voting has real clout and the Australian Greens provide a viable alternative.
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The argument that three greens are a viable alternative simply because they aren't one of the major parties is a very poor argument indeed. Their policies would ruin this country utterly! The Liberals appoint their leadership through a ballot in the parliamentary party room. You don't like it, vote for somebody else. It has worked fine for a long time and just because Labor is tearing itself to bits, doesn't mean the Libs have to change to suit people who wouldn't vote for them anyway.
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You missed the Labor Federal MP Craig Thomson [wikipedia.org] HSU corruption scandal. The current Labor Government and in particular former prime minister Julia Gillard protected Thomson, to preserve her government, when he should have been brought to justice much more speedily. The worst part of this affair is that HSU members are mostly lowly paid cleaners and other associated support staff in hospitals. The people who unions are supposed to protect, not spend their union dues on expensive meals, prostitutes and holidays
Re: Aus Labor Party is anything but democratic (Score:1, Interesting)
Funny how you forget to mention the court case involving defendant Tony Abbott and his involvement with both arranging the funding to seek the imprisonment of political opponents, the Battlerorts fiasco, the current court case involving defendant Sophie Mirabella or the involvement of the Liberal Party in the trumped up sexual harrassment charges (according to the presiding magistrate) against Peter Slipper. Both parties contain the odd shady individual, the difference being that one of the shady individual
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I don't know why I am wasting my breathe on such an obvious paid shill (or worse still, an Alan Jones follower). Hopefully I can translate the above copypasta for everybody else.
The Craig Thomson case is far from over and it is more than likely that he will prevail in court. Craig Thomson was arrested in NSW by Victorian Police on credit card fraud charges. These charges total a little over $900 AUD and Craig was authorized for up to $50,000 per annum in work-related and incidentals.
Expensive meals refers t
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The Craig Thomson case is far from over and it is more than likely that he will prevail in court. Craig Thomson was arrested in NSW by Victorian Police on credit card fraud charges. These charges total a little over $900 AUD and Craig was authorized for up to $50,000 per annum in work-related and incidentals.
The ABC reports [abc.net.au] that Police have Craig Thomson with 150 fraud charges. I'd be surprised if after a lengthy investigation by multiple parties. Mr McArdle (his lawyer) states that "That allegation [use of prostitutes] in the Fair Work matter is $7,000 - false as it is - out of a case that's $300,000." so I'm not sure where your figure of $900 comes from.
HSU's form national president Michael Williamson (a former colleague of Thomson) has been charged with misuse of $500,000 of union funds.
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Mr McArdle (his lawyer) states that "That allegation [use of prostitutes] in the Fair Work matter is $7,000 - false as it is - out of a case that's $300,000." so I'm not sure where your figure of $900 comes from.
I base the ~$900 figure off the current (not original) charges and a sighted copy of all transactions. After the cited interview, many charges were dropped, and some added.
This is a great reference [independentaustralia.net]
Re:Labor Corruption (Score:1)
Your great reference sounds like the Craig Thomson fan club from the comments. The linked [abc.net.au] article states that it is 173 charges relating to $28,000 of Health Services Union funds. The mere fact that it is called "Jacksonville" suggests a smear campaign against Kathy Jackson [www.https] who first raised the allegations of corruption in HSU by Craig Thomson and colleague Michael Williamson.
What I see is evidence of Unions / Labor being more interested in internal politics than helping members / running the country.
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Re:Weaver is a Labor Official? (Score:5, Informative)
It's confusingly written, but the blurb (and story) are just using him as the hook. The rest of the story is about Australian politics.
The premise seems to be something like this:
1. Heard about this guy Matthew Weaver, who's been in the news after he was convicted of rigging student elections in California?
2. Well, on that subject, did you know that a bunch of current Australian politicians also have a background rigging student elections back in their college days?
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Matthew Weaver jail sentence came as a result of stealing passwords.
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He was convicted of stealing 745 passwords. He did this to rig a school election. Did I miss something?
Perhaps.
The conviction was for stealing passwords. The election issue was a side-story as far as why he was brought up on charges.
In other words, had he manipulated the election without stealing passwords, his jail time would have been significantly less or nonexistent.
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Because the political agenda trumps legibility.
Take note of the source.
"Ratfucking" (Score:5, Insightful)
A similar dynamic of student-election "dirty tricks" graduating into general election bugging and sabotage of election opponents played out during the Watergate scandal. Donald Segretti cut his teeth in election fraud during his USC days, and later applied his skills in Nixon's reelection campaign, the resulting "Muskie letters" effectively knocking a democratic senator out of the campaign. Karl Rove came from the same school of campaigning.
These incidents are as perfect an example of "Broken Window Theory" in politics as you are likely to come across. "Shenanigans" in college, if left unchecked, lead inevitably to outright election fraud. If you permit criminals to train their skills, operate unpunished, and indeed enjoy the rewards of their misdeeds, they are unlikely to change their ways in a hurry.
On a related note, I regard most student politcs in universities as a wholly illegitimate process. The resulting bodies and persons do not represent the student body or its values. At best, they organise drunken festivals and serve as a training ground for the corrupt and incompetent cadre currently in charge of the western world.
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While I do not have experience with university student politics (thank God!), I do have such experience from High School. The sentence "At best, they organise drunken festivals and serve as a training ground for the corrupt and incompetent cadre currently in charge of the western world." is not far from the truth there.
I have the feeling it's a very deep cultural problem.
Re:"Ratfucking" (Score:4, Interesting)
BERNSTEIN
...
At USC, you had a word the this--
screwing up the opposition you all
did it at college and called it
ratfucking.
(SEGRETTI half-smiles, nods)
Ever wonder if Nixon might turn out
to be the biggest ratfucker of them
all?
DEEP THROAT
My turn to keep you waiting.
(approaches)
What's the topic for tonight?
WOODWARD
Ratfucking.
DEEP THROAT
In my day, it was simply called the
double cross. I believe the CIA refers
to it as Mindfuck. In our context,
it simply means infiltration of the
Democrats.
WOODWARD
I know what it means--Segretti
wouldn't go on the record, but if he
would, we know he'd implicate Chapin.
And that would put us inside the
White House.
DEEP THROAT
(nods)
Yes, the little ratfuckers are now
running our government.
I own the movie on DVD, but ironically, I had to go to a Russian site for the transcript [sfy.ru].
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The resulting bodies and persons do not represent the student body or its values.
Ideally, college students would be negatively affected by more student government stuff and would learn the price of apathy in democratic systems.
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Ideally, college students would be negatively affected by more student government stuff and would learn the price of apathy in democratic systems.
One could suggest that we shouldn't encourage student politicians. Instead they should be shipped off somewhere that they can no longer cause harm.
A big issue I see with politics is that the career path appears to be:
1. Law degree combined with student politics at Uni
2. Political staffer (or union leader in Labor party)
3. Nomination to a safe seat
Fortunately in Australia profit (corruption) doesn't figure, except in NSW Labor [abc.net.au]. However it does mean that many politicians have very little real world experi
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"Shenanigans" in college, if left unchecked, lead inevitably to outright election fraud. If you permit criminals to train their skills, operate unpunished, and indeed enjoy the rewards of their misdeeds, they are unlikely to change their ways in a hurry.
That's going on the window of my office! I work in a university.
Both major parties are bad (Score:3, Interesting)
The two major parties are very similar in most respects. Both parties have been trying to out-do each other in reprehensible policies.
For me the election has come down to just a few issues:
1. The (incumbent) Labor party has a future-proofing, infrastructure-based Fibre-to-the-Premises broadband policy that is in build at the moment. The (opposition) Liberal/National coalition has a patchwork Fibre-to-the Node policy that they've been dragged kicking and screaming to because the FTTP policy has been so popular. The FTTN policy will cost almost as much to implement, cost more to maintain, and need replacing with FTTP before the FTTN build is complete.
2. The Labor party is still slightly less nasty on social issues (but they're doing their best to convince me otherwise right now).
3. The leader of the Liberal/National coalition - Tony Abbot - is a truly nasty piece of work. He is an intolerant bigot. He makes my skin crawl every time I hear him talk. I don't like the leader of the Labor party (Kevin Rudd) and was ambivalent on the recently-deposed leader (Julia Gillard) but there are some things they say that don't make my guts turn.
Disclosure: I'm personally scheduled to have the FTTP NBN start building in my town in about 1.5 years. For purely selfish reasons I need to vote for a party in the Senate (upper house) that will work to ensure that the NBN stays on track (I'm in a safe Liberal seat, so my vote in the House of Representatives means nothing). However I happen to think that the FTTP NBN is the most important infrastructure project we're likely to see in the next 50+ years, so my vote is not just for selfish reasons.
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don't worry about the NBN it'll go ahead as planned no matter who gets in
Yeah I know they(libs) said they'd run a patched network, but the heads of NBN Co. aren't worried because
1. The contracts are in place and it'll cost to much to back out now
2. the Libs plan is to have a patched fibre to node policy, so what about homes that already have fibre to the premises? Tear that up?
it's completely stupid to run a mixed network like that no one would ever sign up to it.
3. you couldn't sell off a half finished ne
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Never stopped the Liberals before look at their previous policies on telecommunications. Patch work quilt Alex out on the fly.
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No, they'll cancel it and use the money for pork barrelling or a pointless effort at improving a credit rating that is never going to get better. Various committees of full of people connected to the party will meet, briefly discuss the infrastructure, admit they have no technical clue but will not hear advice and will have long lunches for three years. Then it's time for another empty announcement before an election, then if they wi
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If you'd kept reading, you'd see his argument is not "he did it too". His argument is, in fact, "here are the differences that shaped my choice".
Also note that, unlike the United States, the voting system in Australia is preferential - it allows you to vote for a third party as your first choice ("I want X, I don't like the two main cretins Y and Z") without it being wasted ("but if we're going to end up with one of those two cretins, I'll pick cretin Z") - and also determines funding in the next election (
Re:Both major parties are bad (Score:4, Informative)
3. The leader of the Liberal/National coalition - Tony Abbot - is a truly nasty piece of work. He is an intolerant bigot. He makes my skin crawl every time I hear him talk.
You forgot religious. I mean there's been plenty of religious prime ministers but nothing to this extent. He was educated at St Patrick's Seminary and was well on his way to becoming a member of the clergy when he dropped out after getting a brief taste in politics and then became a politician shortly after. The man has quoted scripture in some of his interviews and he has deeply religious beliefs which he forces upon his party (won't let the party take a conscience vote on gay marriage). This alone goes against the principles of democracy, since I can only vote for my local member and he may not be able put our views forward in some cases.
I immigrated to Australia many years ago and became a citizen about ... 5 years ago. I was forced to sit the exam and one of the entrance exam questions was on the founding principles of the Australian government. One of the correct answers was "Secularism of State" so voting for Abbott is not only a blow to democracy but also a blot to the founding principles of the Australian government.
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I would be prepared to let this go and not make an issue of it, but he has prior form in letting his religious views affect his judgement on matters which should be secular:
Like this [theage.com.au]
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The Russian government was not founded on a principle of separation of church and state. I'm citing a specific case where voting for him is voting against one of the founding principles of government in Australia.
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You're confusing moral belief and personal gain. Many sitting members of the clergy can not let the church control their sex life but somehow still manage to dictate to others how they run their life.
And for all your disagreements he's already done it (see other reply to my comment on a specific abortion pill).
That pill reaction was a stunt (Score:2)
The guy is a just an amoral factional head kicker that puts up whatever front that he thinks is going to do
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The fact that he's religious doesn't bother me. I couldn't give a toss about someone else's religion, so long as it doesn't significantly impact me.
The problem for me is that he uses his religion as justification for intolerance and bigotry.
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The fact that he's religious doesn't bother me. I couldn't give a toss about someone else's religion, so long as it doesn't significantly impact me.
Those two sentences are at odds with each other. You're talking about a man who has justified several policy decisions based on his religion. This is one man who's religion will actually significantly impact you.
Sure you may not care about something like gay marriage, but what about the abortion pill or stem cell research, or any of those other "moral edge cases" where religion seems to want to screw over the advancement of curing horrid diseases?
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Did you read my second paragraph? I'll try again and be a bit more verbose about it.
By saying that Abbot uses his religion as justification for being an intolerant bigot I felt it was implied that I thought his religious beliefs would significantly impact me (and other people), in a very bad way. In fact, we've had proof of this in the past when he was the Minister for Health.
That he's religious in and of itself isn't a problem to me. I am personally agnostic and have friends and family with many and varied
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The two major parties are very similar in most respects. Both parties have been trying to out-do each other in reprehensible policies.
That's because those reprehensible policies are vote winners in the swing seats, particularly in Queensland and NSW. You get the politicians you deserve.
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The most wasteful and expensive parts of the nbn seem to be down already, among them a 3,800km link from darwin to toowomba servicing only 160k people.
I never understood this "we need to put fibre to thousands of km in the middle of nowhere with only a few thousand population" mentality, surely the cities and denser populations provide better cost/benefit.
The leader of the Liberal/National coalition - Tony Abbot - is a truly nasty piece of work. He is an intolerant bigot.
Because he recognizes that behaviours can be influenced by nature and not only nurture? We shouldn't expect everything to always come 50% down the line be
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Care to make those same arguments about the original copper phone network? How about the electricity grid?
Might want to check your history [wikipedia.org] on that. Initial deployment of electricity was done where it made the most sense first, and it took decades to be available to all.
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1. The (incumbent) Labor party has a future-proofing, infrastructure-based Fibre-to-the-Premises broadband policy that is in build at the moment. The (opposition) Liberal/National coalition has a patchwork Fibre-to-the Node policy that they've been dragged kicking and screaming to because the FTTP policy has been so popular. The FTTN policy will cost almost as much to implement, cost more to maintain, and need replacing with FTTP before the FTTN build is complete.
I suggest you spend a bit more time studying the policies.
- Labor only promoted FTTP because Telstra refused to negotiate on FTTN. - Labor only promised 1Gbps speed because just prior to the last election Google announced Google Fibre. Less than 5% are predicted to connect at 1Gbps in 2028
- 50% are predicted by Labor's NBN Corporate Plan to connect on fibre at 12Mbps
- Huge amounts of money are being wasted by NBNCo ( Building a Fibre NBN on a Copper budget [simonhackett.com])
- Under Labor's plan wholesale Average Revenue P
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In an attempt to avoid name-calling, I am going to walk around the block, calm down, and then come back and refute every single claim you have just made.
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I would like to apologize for previously calling you a paid shill. I now realize my error. Nobody would pay you for this shit.
Labor only promoted FTTP because Telstra refused to negotiate on FTTN.
Telstra was more than willing to negotiate as is evidenced by their submissions to the RFP 2007/09. Telstra was embroiled in a pre-existing matter of open-access with the ACCC. Telstra's submission was excluded as it was purely based on Telstra winning the battle against the ACCC which Labor could see just wasn't going to happen. On top of this, the Howard Government (Liberal) attac
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I would like to apologize for previously calling you a paid shill. I now realize my error. Nobody would pay you for this shit.
Labor only promoted FTTP because Telstra refused to negotiate on FTTN.
Telstra was more than willing to negotiate as is evidenced by their submissions to the RFP 2007/09.
I guess you've forgotten that Telstra's bid was non-compliant [zdnet.com.au]? For a company of Telstra's size that was a deliberate action.
We are no longer dependent on Telstra.
Instead Labor is creating NBNCo which has an even tighter monopoly grip on infrastructure.
Labor only promised 1Gbps speed because just prior to the last election Google announced Google Fibre.
It took some time but Labor found a way to be able to offer it and keep the existing pricing. Most people don't (yet) care, but for Australia's forward-thinking technologists, this is a big win
Let me quote Quiqley [zdnet.com] for you: The reason we announced one gigabit was simply because when the government said you've got to provide at least 100Mbps, Google at the time made an announcement that they were providing 1 gigabit in the US. And suddenly we went from a situation facing [those] in the me
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My rebuttal will come once I sober up. I honestly did not expect a reply and you have proven that my assessment of you as a shill or Jones fan was in fact incorrect. Kudos. I have skimmed through your response and see that I have some homework ahead of me. The shitty thing with politics is that despite having opposing views, we are both likely as right as each other.
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I honestly did not expect a reply and you have proven that my assessment of you as a shill or Jones fan was in fact incorrect. Kudos.
Thanks. I'm no fan of Jones and thankfully don't live in the Sydney.
have skimmed through your response and see that I have some homework ahead of me. The shitty thing with politics is that despite having opposing views, we are both likely as right as each other.
I think you might find that once you look behind the media lines, that the reality is that a fibre connection doesn't automatically provide fast speeds and large quotas. I support FTTP, but not the pricing model that to quote Simon Hackett turns an abundant resource into a scarce resource.
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Don't Blame Me (Score:2)
... I voted for Kodos.
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If you've some problem with Australia, you are free to ignore stories that mention it. Even those that are highly relevant to issues recently in the news in the US.
Those of us who are not as nearsighted as you can in the meantime read, discuss, and maybe learn something about what eventually happens after kids who rig school elections are allowed to go on to rigging real elections--and we'll be able to do so without being distracted by your petty bitching, thanks very much.
Cheers.
Q from TFA (Score:2)
Can anybody imagine a US congressman collecting Weaver from the prison gates and deploying him to an office on Capitol Hill?
Yes, easily. Why do you even have to ask?
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Zing.