Bennelong by-election plunges Australia's government into danger
December 15, 2017 10:01 PM   Subscribe

This evening, the Australian government's fate rests with the middle-class, multicultural voters of Bennelong, an electorate covering a handful of suburbs on Sydney's lower north shore [PDF]. If the government loses the seat, they will lose their majority in the House of Representatives and have to govern in minority. Fighting to retain the seat for the Coalition government is incumbent MP John Alexander, former tennis pro, who triggered the byelection by resigning when it was revealed he was a dual British citizen, against the provisions of the Australian Constitution (previously 1 2). Trying to wrest it out of government hands is the high-profile challenger from the main opposition party Labor: American native, Sky News Australia host and former NSW premier Kristina Keneally. There's been many gaffes, much mud thrown and a lot of time, money and effort poured into the campaigns—Labor is widely expected to secure a swing to them of some magnitude, but will it be enough? We'll find out when the polls close in 60 minutes...

#auspol favourite Antony Green has commentary via the ABC News website and on ABC News 24 [likely inaccessible outside Australia] starting from 6pm. So will psephologists Kevin Bonham and probably also William Bowe and Ben Raue, as well as, one suspects, most of the major news websites.
posted by Panthalassa (25 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
I thought it might be nice to have a place to discuss this. Sorry the post is a bit slapdash—there were a good couple quality links I omitted—its deadline was rather imminent.
posted by Panthalassa at 10:03 PM on December 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


Trying not to get my hopes up.
posted by Coaticass at 11:54 PM on December 15, 2017


Antony Green's got early numbers coming in but not enough to say anything meaningful.
posted by une_heure_pleine at 12:07 AM on December 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


We have six booths in with an average primary vote swing of about 7% against John Alexander. He's sitting on 42.2%, and the low 40s are usually considered a bit of a danger zone by psephologists, but this isn't quite low enough yet so if things remain like this Labor is going to have to do very very well on preferences.
posted by Panthalassa at 12:13 AM on December 16, 2017


William Bowe is reporting that the AEC is projecting a swing to Labor of only 4.7% at this stage of the count.
posted by Panthalassa at 12:15 AM on December 16, 2017


Antony Green's got a 2.6 per cent swing to Labor, but only on the earliest booths.
posted by une_heure_pleine at 12:18 AM on December 16, 2017


And Anthony Green himself is only predicting a 2.6% swing on the two party preferred margin, but this is only off the small booths.
posted by Panthalassa at 12:19 AM on December 16, 2017


I am very good at previewing.
posted by Panthalassa at 12:20 AM on December 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


It's dropped to 1.8% now.
posted by une_heure_pleine at 12:25 AM on December 16, 2017


Still only about 12% of the vote in.
posted by Panthalassa at 12:27 AM on December 16, 2017


It's looking like this is turning out to be a big nothingburger.
posted by Panthalassa at 12:29 AM on December 16, 2017


Yep, not much to see here after all.
posted by une_heure_pleine at 12:32 AM on December 16, 2017


Antony is predicting something in the realm of 5% and has called it for Alexander.
posted by Panthalassa at 12:50 AM on December 16, 2017


Well, fuck. I’ve no particular affection for Keneally, but this government needs to die.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:08 AM on December 16, 2017 [2 favorites]


How is the incumbent running again, if he is in violation of the Constitution? Did he dump his British citizenship?
posted by anthill at 6:23 AM on December 16, 2017 [2 favorites]


Yes - he renounced his British citizenship and is thus now eligible to be elected.
posted by une_heure_pleine at 6:31 AM on December 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


An important question will be how did the minor parties do, and how did the flow of their preferences go? If Alexander got reelected on the strength of Australian Conservatives preferences, for example, it will be harder for Turnbull to ignore them (and their fellow travellers in the LNP hard right).
posted by acb at 6:34 AM on December 16, 2017


The whole dual citizenship constitutional crisis thing has been deeply upsetting to me as it seems it has occurred to no one that the solution is "change the stupid rule" not "force people to prove how Australian they are". But what do I know, I'm a dual citizen and obviously not to be trusted.
posted by hoyland at 8:26 AM on December 16, 2017 [10 favorites]


Yes – s. 44 is obviously not fit for purpose. And it's mostly the High Court's fault for choosing an interpretation that leaves people's "allegiance" in the hands of foreign governments. Blind Freddie could have seen these precise problems coming a mile away.
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:00 PM on December 16, 2017 [3 favorites]


Changing the rule would mean passing a referendum that says “Hey, you know politicians, the group of people you despise, sometimes for good reason? Well, it turns out a lot of them were breaking the law because they couldn’t be arsed to check where their grandma was born. So we want to retroactively change the constitution so that they don’t suffer any sort of comeuppance at all. (What? No, the pointless rules that inconvenience you will all stay the same.) P.S. Whatever your personal political priorities may be, we are spending money on this instead.”

It is an absolute non-starter.
posted by No-sword at 5:02 PM on December 16, 2017 [2 favorites]


(And let me be clear, I agree that it’s a dumb rule to have. I just don’t see the Australian people agreeing to change it at this point.)
posted by No-sword at 5:07 PM on December 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


Watching the orderly process of democracy where 95%+ people vote is surreal as hell. I’m going back to the America thread where everything is a nightmare and I can be assured of a fresh horror every 24 hours. Get your act together Australia.
posted by um at 7:14 PM on December 16, 2017 [3 favorites]


It is an absolute non-starter.

I dunno. I would have agreed with you a couple of months ago, because "fixing it" after failing to do anything since the 80s sounds like indulging a negligent political cohort. But the byelections so far seem to show that people are irritated by the Constitutional "detail" and want their elected reps - whether rather active like Barnaby or comatose apart from unpleasant jokes like JA - returned unless voted out at an actual election.
posted by hawthorne at 5:44 AM on December 17, 2017


I really don't understand why these politicians can't just renounce their citizenship in other countries.
posted by runcibleshaw at 11:41 AM on December 17, 2017


Renunciation doesn't just mean saying "I renounce it": our High Court says that you have to do whatever the host country reasonably demands. It can take months or years and thousands of dollars to renounce citizenship, and may require travel to the country in which the citizenship is (possibly) held. Sometimes the Australian government specifically warns dual-nationals against visiting these countries because of the risk that they might be imprisoned as tax or draft dodgers. So it can be a Catch-22.

But it's typically inherited citizenship and people don't necessarily know that they have it. Josh Frydenberg, for instance, may have retrospectively been made a Hungarian citizen by descent because his mother was born in Hungary at a time when being Jewish meant that you weren't given citizenship. She came to Australia as a stateless infant and was Australian her whole life. Should Frydenburg have known that Hungary retrospectively gave their formerly stateless children citizenship a few years ago? I don't even know if he speaks the language.

Other people don't know who their parents or grandparents are, or where they were born, or the date, or the exact legal significance of this. In every case it's a matter of foreign law, which means getting foreign legal experts that can possibly be challenged by the legal experts of the other side. Like, maybe you think you covered your bases by renouncing Cypriot citizenship, but you forgot that Cyprus was formerly a British colony and you may also be a British citizen by descent? The High Court resolved that particular question IIRC but they can't answer questions that haven't been asked yet.
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:59 PM on December 17, 2017 [2 favorites]


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