'Adventure, Heterodoxy and Knavery'
Queensland's Electoral Experience
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1321816600004128Keywords:
Centenary, abolition of plural voting in Queensland, 'adventure, heterodoxy and knavery'Abstract
I have drawn the title for this paper, which celebrates the 100-year anniversary of the abolition of plural voting in Queensland, from S.R. Davis, who described the electoral experience of the Australian states as:
A mixture of three things — adventure, heterodoxy and knavery. Between them, the States have fathered a crop of electoral devices, confounded their textbook behaviour, and at times and in places used them with a skill which even a fun-fair poker machine proprietor could admire.
References
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I have used the modern spelling throughout. The party adopted the American spelling ‘Labor’ in 1912, although both continued to be used.
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For an account of how deeply flawed the US system was, see Sawer, ‘Pacemakers for the World?’: v.
