Paid " Volunteers " !

To some people they are a nuisance.  Others welcome those representing political parties who hand out "How to Vote "cards outside polling booths.  It is thought that a small minority of undecided voters are actually influenced in the way they cast their vote and all the political parties ask their supporters to donate time putting flyers into letterboxes and manning their presence at polling booths on election day.

Traditionally, this is unpaid work.  Every political party has a hard core of party faithful who donate both time and money to getting their view on politics elected.  Politics is passion to some people and at the recent New South Wales state election that passion boiled over when a pollster from one party became physically aggressive to a young women handing out literature for a rival party.  It was captured on camera - and featured prominently in the nightly TV news.

In recent times, the number of parties vying for a seat in the upper house of both Federal and state has multiplied enormously.  This New South Wales election saw 394 candidates jostling for just 42 seats and the voting paper size needed to accommodate all their names and the parties they represented was as big as a tablecloth.   There were political parties that few had heard of - and consequently many received just a handful of votes.

One unsuccessful party was the "No Land Tax Party " and it is claimed that they recruited three thousand people to hand out their "How to Vote "cards at polling booths - with the promise of being paid $30 an hour.  It is now alleged that those workers are unpaid and still waiting for their promised money.

We have a plethora of weird and wonderful laws that are supposed to level the playing field for those wanting to have a chance of entering parliament and even a party that receives minimal voting support gets "electoral funding ".     It has been suggested that the "No Land Tax Party "will be reimbursed to the tune of  $ 300,000 for costs at this election.

The thought of people handing out literature as a paid job on polling day will certainly grate with some people - as will the thought that money from the public purse will reward the sides of politics that find little favour with the public.   We like to think that our houses of parliament are serious in deciding the best for this nation and yet it seems that politics is descending into more and more single issue parties and our proportional representation system is rewarding some with a seat, despite low support numbers, and this is one of the main reasons we are seeing this multiplication of strange little political movements.

This tendency is creating an impasse to whoever wins a majority's ability to govern.  The balance of power at both Federal and state level often lands in the hands of a disparate group of what can only be called "independents "- although they may be termed part of a "party ".    The Palmer Political Party ( PUP ) falls into this category.  An amalgamation of those supporting a rich benefactor and others, which quickly fell apart as the individuals went their own way - and now one of them is proposing to start her own political party - to be called the "Jacqi Lambie Network ".

It's about time we had a long, hard look at the financing arrangement of politics.  There must never be an obstacle to a genuine political doctrine emerging and seeking a place in parliament, but it needs to generate sufficient support to financially stand on it's own feet.   Perhaps that doctrine should apply to all forms of politics.  Perhaps politics would be best served by being completely removed from public funding and forced to rely entirely on public support to finance it's campaigns .  Dipping into the public purse is merely a crutch that distorts the depth of active support for a political movement.

Whether political parties should be allowed to pay for supporters to represent them in the field raises another question.  Many may believe that leaving politics to party volunteers delivered a better moral tone !