The temptation of media is to sell juicy stories that is natural. Media need to support democracy, not partisan politics. Do we need to set a quorum for each electorate of, say, 80 per cent voter attendance in order for the successful candidate to be elected to Parliament? The NT Electoral Commission must fine – and follow up – every absent voter to push them back into action. So what needs to happen? The solution cannot be left to the political parties because it is not in their interest for a properly functioning democracy to flourish. Sadly, that has become normal, especially over the last six years where Comrades Leonardi and Ryan were in substance more ‘Chief Minister’ than Gunner. There are two answers to that question: one is it is hard to get good people to put their hand up when they know the media will trash their character sooner or later and two, it actually works in the parties’ favour to have incompetent individuals elected to the Parliament because the individuals have to rely upon the party advisors to govern. This sad situation answers an often asked question in NT politics of ‘why don’t the parties select better candidates?’ But on the other hand, the same stories feed the narrative that all politicians and parties are bad.Īs that narrative grows, so too does voter apathy. On the one hand it is the proper business of media to call out such behaviour. It is the public portrayal of politicians being incompetent, corrupt and generally stupid. The third limb that I suggest powerfully encourages voter apathy is a bit more tricky. Where a candidate that clears their nearest competitor by 10 per cent is outdone on preferences, it’s no wonder voters feel apathetic toward the whole process. But preferential voting turns 33 per cent into electoral success.Īnd that highlights the second limb to grow voter apathy: it’s all futile. Well, yes, actually 33 per cent of them do. Ignore reality (15 per cent drop in Labor primary votes), deny the other (CLP’s primary vote was up 8 per cent from the last election) and spin the truth of ‘we only won due to Green’s preferences’ to ‘the people of Fannie Bay want Labor’. ‘Spin’ is where a politician turns something that is objectively not good into something that sounds good for them.įor example, take comments reported by the ABC as made by Fyles after the Fannie Bay by-election where Labor lost a whopping 15 per cent of the primary vote compared to the last election.įyles’ spin-full response was “(t)he constituents of Fannie Bay have been heard… They want a government that backs them and only a Labor government can do that”. How is voter apathy encouraged? There are three main limbs to encouraging voter apathy. This modus operandi of denial was dramatically displayed when the government enacted retrospective legislation deeming the CHO directions to be lawful just three weeks out from the court case challenging the same CHO directions led by United NT Businesses. The public outcry against corruption, COVID mandates and crime are first ignored and then denied by the government. This has been the growing NT experience over the last 10 years. The authoritarian way involves the people being ignored and all decisions made by elites, mostly to their own benefit, with little or no transparency or accountability. But when the voters experience apathy to the extent where only 65 per cent of them can be bothered to vote (and even most of that 65 per cent would prefer not to make the effort), we find ourselves in a political condition on the brink of authoritarianism. Even though we are technically part of a (constitutional) monarchy, the monarch (and their delegates) are not active players in our political life.įunctionally, we are a democracy, which relies on voters being active in the political process.

Sociologically speaking, there are three main types of political systems: monarchy, democracy and authoritarianism. And so voter apathy is the best friend of the incumbent and, if let to run its course, eventually results in authoritarianism.

Its message is “don’t turn up to vote, but if you do, don’t make the effort of changing how you voted last time”. In its purest form, voter apathy accomplishes no change and requires no effort by the voters. Voters seemed to “why bother voting when all parties and all politicians are as bad as each other? My one vote doesn’t make any difference anyway’’. From the electorate of the politician that has had the most media coverage over the last six years, only 65 per cent of the voters could be bothered to turn up and put a mark on the ballot paper. OPINION: There was a big winner from last Saturday’s by-election in Fannie Bay: voter apathy.

Democracy 3 apathetic electorate