COMING ELECTIONS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19492, 29 May 1925, Page 10

COMING ELECTIONS.

IN NEW SOUTH WALES. ISSUES AT STAKE. POLICIES OF PARTIES. (From Ou.r Own Correspondent.) May 21. The. State elections in New South Wales will be held on May 30, when the Ministerial Party, comprising the Nationalists and a few members of the Progressive, or Fanners’ Party, who linned up with the Nationalists shortly after tne last elections, will try to retain office against the pnslaughts of the Labour and Progressive Parties. There are other stragglers in the field, such as Prohibitionist and Communist, with the usual Independents, vainly striving for political honours. But the issue lies between three parties—the NationalistProgressive, Labour, and true-blue” Progressive. In 1856, at the election for the first Legislative Assembly, tnere were 54,896 nualificd electors and 54 members were elected. At the forthcoming election for the twenty-seventh Parliament, there will be over 1300,000 voters on the rolls and 288 candidates for SO seats. Tlie elections are carried out under the proportional 1 representation system. The 90 members of the Assembly are chosen from 24 electorates, of which nine return five members each, and 15 return three each. For some of the live-member constituencies as many as 22 candidates have nominated. From this mass of names the worried elector must place opposite the names of five candidates the order of preference in which lie would like to see them placed when the ballot is counted. The primary, of No. 1, votes cast for each candidate are first counted, and the candidate lowest on the list is eliminated. His first preference, or No. 2, votes are distributed and added to the primary votes of the candidates in whoso favour the No. 2 votes of an eliminated candidate have been cast. When any candidate’s votes exceed the “quota,” one-fifth or one-third of the total votes polled, according to whether the electorate returns five or three members, that candidate is declared elected, and his No. 2 votes are then distributed. This process of elimination continues until the piloted representation for an electorate is exhausted. The complicated system of voting and counting means that the final result of the elections is not known for at least a week after polling day, although individual successful candidates are ascertained progressively from the time the primary votes have been distributed. The campaign opened in earnest about three weeks ago, when the party leaders delivered their policy speeches. Since then those leaders, Sir George Fuller (Nationalist), Colonel Bruxnor (Progressive), and Mr Ling (Labour) have travelled respectively 7000, 7000, and 4000 miles in all kinds of weather, much of it wet, in their appeals to the country. On the whole, the campaign has been very quiet. An analysis of the policy speeches shows that the main feature of the Nationalist programme is promise of financial relief, involving an effort to W'ipe off the accumulated deficit, and tax reductions amounting to £500.000. The Nationalists also promise to reform the Upper House by restrictin'' membership to a number of years instead of life, revision of the electoral system, enlargement of tue field of local government activities, increase of land settlement, reductions of railway fares and freights, decentralisation and industrial reform Colonel Bruxnor made it- clear that his parly stands for good and stable government, sound finance, retention of the present, electoral system, vigorous land settlement and immigration, and the making of country conditions more attractive. He emphasised that his party intended to remain a separate entity and not link up with either of its opponents. Labours programme includes settlement and developIneut of the country areas, a 44-hour week, unemployment insurance, preference to unionists, and a redaction of taxation for those little able to bear it.”