Votes count for more in country

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 34021, 10 December 1975, Page 13

Votes count for more in country

( By

ALAN GRAHAM.

N.Z..P.A. staff correspondent)

SYDNEY.

Enrolment for next < Saturday’s General Election in Australia shows that some country votes will count almost twice as much as some city votes. 11 Only 50,000 electors are! enrolled in many country; electorates, whereas up to; 99,000 are enrolled in some' city seats. The big variation in electorate sizes results from a belief among the non-Labour parties that most countryelectorates in the vast country areas of Australia would simply be too big for any; candidate to handle if they! were any bigger. Labour, which draws its support largely from urban areas, has worked hard to promote its slogan of “one vote, one value,” and to eliminate the wide varia t inns;

It has run into. widespread objections from the National Country Party, however, and to a lesser extent from the Liberals. The N.C.P. can see its 21 seats in the House of Representatives being cut in half if Labour’s plans to reform the electoral boundaries ever come to fruition. Labour passed a reforming bill through the House of Representatives this year, but the Opposition blocked it in the Senate. This is one of 21 bills stored away as “double dissolution bills” which will be passed quickly if Labour wins on Saturday, but abandoned if Labour loses. The Liberal leader, Mr Malcolm Fraser, sees nothing wrong with the disparity and rejects Labour claims that it is undemocratic. “Democracy is that people should be represented,” he said. “Equal-sized electorates would heavily penalise country voters.”