Posted By Bernard Gaynor on Wednesday, May 8, 2019 6:31 pm | 5 comments

Let the New South Wales election be a lesson for us all: if we don’t use our brains then those without any brains at all will rule over us.

At this point let me introduce you to the Animal Justice Party.

The Animal Justice Party has a policy on wombats. But it has no policy on tax, except that meat should be taxed.

It wants health warnings on bacon.

It believes that it should be illegal to keep birds in an aviary.

All of its candidates are vegan.

And if it gets its way, animal farming will eventually be banned. It will be unlawful to milk cows. It will be a criminal offence to slaughter a beast for steak. And Melbourne Cup Day? Gone.

The Animal Justice Party has even issued media releases criticising the Greens for being too mainstream.

This mob are so insane that their policies for ‘humans’ come after their policies for animals. Indeed, the policies that relate to actual people are just an add on. And they were only tacked on to make it clear that the Animal Justice Party are extreme left wing socialists too.

True, these policies are still not real clear but as far as I can glean it’s ok to euthanise people but it’s not ok to put a greyhound down.

And when the Animal Justice Party’s Victorian convenor tweeted about the ‘slaughter of the innocents’ he wasn’t referring to abortion but to dairy cows.

Basically, it seems that the Animal Justice Party believes that animals are sentient beings that should be entitled to the same legal protections as people. That all sounds fine and dandy until the minor details are worked through.

I’m sure it hasn’t yet dawned on these radical activists but ‘granting’ animals the same legal rights as people will inevitably result in court cases to decide whether laws prohibiting bestiality comply with the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Given the absurdity involved with this party, no one can be too sure just where that might lead. But we do know this: these are the kinds of issues that would become the central question of the day if the Animal Justice Party was ever running the joint.

This might all sound far-fetched but it’s not as far-fetched as you might have hoped. The Animal Justice Party just won its second seat in New South Wales’ Legislative Council – that’s as many as One Nation and just one less than the Greens.

And it has tasted electoral success elsewhere as well. So this type of crazy is not as distant from our laws as it should be.

Which brings me back to the first sentence in this article. The Animal Justice Party only won this second seat because normal voters in New South Wales could not be bothered preferencing.

They didn’t use their brains and now we are all going to suffer as a result.

Let me explain.

The Animal Justice Party scraped into the New South Wales Legislative Council by a grand total of 8,651 votes.

That’s 0.19% of the total number of votes cast in the election which is another way of saying that it would have been almost impossible for the Animal Justice Party to win by anything less.

But there are all sorts of ways that the party that just missed out – the Christian Democrats – could have got over the line.

For instance, 16,036 Australian Conservatives voters did not preference any other party. Their votes ‘exhausted’ which means they were removed from the count. If just half of these guys had taken the time to preference the Christian Democrats, which are about as close to Australian Conservatives as you can be without filling out a membership form, the Animal Justice Party would not have been elected and instead there would be another conservative voice in the Legislative Council.

But now we have someone sitting in there who is famous for being a vegan body builder.

In another example, 34,457 people voted for the Shooters, Farmers & Fishers Party without preferencing anyone else. By doing so, these voters effectively endorsed whoever was left in the count at its end.

So that means Shooters, Fishers and Farmers voters helped to elect a politician who wants to shut farms down altogether.

Not very bright, is it?

And don’t just take my word regarding this shambles. The ABC’s electoral analyst, Antony Green, recognises what has happened as well – left-leaning voters were more disciplined and preferenced like-minded parties, while right-leaning voters had their brains in neutral:

On the last 6 exclusions in NSW Leg Council count, two right parties were excluded (LDP votes, SFF surplus) 5.2% went as preferences to the left, 15.0% as preferences to the right, 79.8% exhausted. #nswpol 1/3

— Antony Green (@AntonyGreenABC) April 15, 2019

The four leftish parties excluded (GRN surplus, Sustainable Aus, Voluntary Euthanasia, Keep Sydney Open) saw 28.3% prefs to the left, 7.8% to the right, only 63.9% exhausted. #nswpol 2/3

— Antony Green (@AntonyGreenABC) April 15, 2019

In final count Labor gained 42k votes to 21k for Coalition, Animal Justice received 32k compared to 6k for Christian Dems and 13k for One Nation. The flood of preferences to Animal Justice and failure of flow from the right cost the Christian Dems the last seat. #nswpol 3/3

— Antony Green (@AntonyGreenABC) April 15, 2019

So what does this all mean for May 18?

It means that if you want your vote to count, you must preference.

If you want your vote to count fully, then you must preference everyone.

Another way of looking at it is like this: if you really don’t want the Greens in parliament then the best way of doing your bit to ensure that occurs is to number every box above the line on the Senate vote, placing the Greens last.

If you don’t do this then your vote could well end up helping the Greens to beat another party that you also dislike (but not as much) or, even worse, help them to get past a party that you could live with. More than likely, this will be the Liberal/National Coalition who could miss out in every state if conservative voters keep being dumb.

The Liberal/National Coalition might make you sick. It might make you angry. It might bring you to despair. But whatever this mob is, it is not Bill Shorten or Labor and it is certainly not the Greens.

That’s important to remember.

There are plenty of good candidates for the Senate across Australia amongst the minor conservative parties.

By all means, vote for them to be your insurance in the Senate.

But your insurance policy for your insurance policy is to number every box above the line.

Make sure the Greens are below Labor. Make sure Labor is below the Liberals. Make sure the Liberals at least get a preference. And ensure that you preference all the minor parties on the right.

If you don’t, you’ll do nothing more than join the 40,000 odd people from New South Wales who were too lazy, uninformed or distracted to write just one more lousy number on their ballot paper.

And, as a result, they now have to live in a state where laws are shaped by the Greens on steroids.