With 73.32% of the Solomon votes counted I earned 249 primary votes overall. Most of what’s left to count is postal votes, a lot of that from soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thus the final outcome in Solomon remains hanging in the balance.

I did not beat Maurice Foley, which was a personal goal (nothing personal Maurice, you understand how it is). Well done Maurice. I did beat Trudy Campbell. The three of us micros were utterly obliterated by Deborah Hudson of the Greens, who earned a 2.24% swing towards.

I spent my day with my volunteers at Nightcliff Highschool, which is the biggest polling station in Solomon by votes cast. I earned 29 votes there, though my scrutineers say that I was getting a lot of [2]s on Damian Hale’s primaries. For all the flack we in the LDP got from the Liberals, it seems that there is an untapped constituency for moderate libertarian policy amongst the ALP crowd. At Nightcliff I survived the first two rounds of elimination; my scrutineers bugged out before giving me the final flows. As it happens, single votes made the difference in me getting as far as I did.

Interestingly my best performance by percentage was in Bakewell; my worst nearby in Moulden.

In the final analysis, I am utterly exhausted. I would like to thank everyone who volunteered to help throughout the campaign. Your enthusiasm kept me going during my occasional episodes of wondering what I was doing. Your tirelessness on the big day was heart warming. Thanks all of you. You’re why I love Darwin.

To those of you who voted for me, thankyou very much. You have shown that hundreds of Darwinites and Palmerstonians care about policies that work for the country. You’ve also expressed your trust that I was the best person to represent you in Parliament. That’s an honour. Thankyou.

If you vote for me and you want to help, you should consider joining the party. Visit the website and download an application form. If and when I contest Solomon again I will need more volunteers to staff more booths, to help raise more money, to spread the word to more people. By joining the Liberty & Democracy Party you can affirm your commitment to securing liberty through democracy. Nobody will do it for you; you must be involved.

So that’s it. I will be returning to my studies and I am sure my family are looking forward to normality returning to our domestic affairs. It has been a pretty wild and woolly six weeks, but good. I did what I felt I must do. I think I did the right thing.

Until next time,

Jacques Chester.

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And there it is: my final pitch. Good luck to all the other candidates and I hope that, election permitting, everybody has a nice Saturday.

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Leaving aside the fairly predictable hyperbole of that thread, I thought it would be worth briefly outlining why any politico in their right mind would support such an incredibly unpopular policy. It’s simple, really: the minimum wage prevents people from working. It hurts the poorest hardest of all.

At first this seems counter-intuitive. It’s one of those economic conclusions that flies in the face of common sense. But it’s still true: the minimum wage sets a floor price for labour. If the value of the work person A can give business B is less than what business B expects to get done, person A simply won’t be hired. We know for a fact that unemployment leads to poverty, depression, crime and other social ills; so this is an important thing to look at.

Still not convinced? How about a thought experiment. If the minimum wage is such a good thing, why not raise it to $50 an hour? $100? $1000? Ah, in this case it becomes clearer. At $50 an hour every retail worker and high school student is out of a job. At $100 a lot of tradies are in deep trouble and most professionals too. At $1000 only a few lawyers and entertainers are left employable.

What this example demonstrates is that the higher the minimum wage is set to, the fewer people are employable. It works both ways: if you cut the minimum wage, people who are the bottom of the employability pile become a better option for employers. And those are the people who most need help to get into work! They are the unskilled, undereducated folk who are struggling to find employment.

Now bear in mind that to prevent working poverty the LDP’s 30/30 plan also includes a 30% negative income tax. This means that we pay you 30% of the difference between your earnings and the $30,000 tax-free theshold if you earn less than $30,000. It represents an ironclad floor under personal income, not an ironclad floor under wages. The distinction makes a big difference in the employment market.

That’s why I support the policy: it just makes good bloody sense for pretty much everyone.

Edit: Below I have recreated Table 2 from the original 30/30 policy document to show how pretty much everyone is better off under our plan.

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I’d like to talk about this a bit more, because people tend to be pretty dark on the idea, but I need to dash for the moment. In the meantime, you can look at the video I did which has  a fuller explanation of the 30/30 plan.

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There was a great turnout — Mal Nairn auditorium was almost full, which is unusual for Mal Nairn. I was sitting between David Tollner and Maurice Foley; the upshot is David shared his jokes with me which lightened the evening a bit.

My first problem was that I had mucked up my preparation. A few weeks ago I attended the Women’s Network NT candidate forum and was under-prepared for the 15 minutes speaking time they offered us. This time I was thoroughly prepared. I went over the party’s responses to the ACL questionnaire, did some research on the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership and even looked up some biblical quotes for my speech.

It is a pity then that I had 15 minutes worth of notes for 5 minutes allowable speaking time.

In essence I wound up skipping a lot of the detail; and taken out of context the quotes I’d picked were a bit preachier than I’d been aiming for. At length the speeches drew to a close and we had questions from the crowd put to us.

In general those questions followed the questions asked in the questionnaire. And I pretty much put the party position on the issues. It was easy because I agree with it. It was hard because I could tell that the crowd thought I was wrong, wrong, wrong.

I also have to say that I admired Trish Crossin’s answers to some of the questions. To explain what I mean, have a look at the questionnaire linked above. A lot of the questions are dog-whistles; questions ostensibly about policy settings which are really about values. The phrasing of such questions makes it easy for politicians to speak in code in a way that seems favourable to those interested in the values question. When a question came up about Emily’s List, Sen. Crossin didn’t hide its purpose or values. And when medicare funding for abortion was discussed, she flatly stated that she supports a woman’s right to choose without fluff or prevarication.

After the official close I took some time to circulate and get feedback. A lot of it was of the “respect your turning up but disagree” variety, which was what I had expected. One couple were real evangelicals and hit me with hard questions on what I believed.

You see, in a way I chickened out. I had originally decided that I would not hide my atheism. I am usually wary to tell Christians that I’m an atheist because it can seem like a slap in the face, a bit like mockery. But I also felt that I should be as honest and open with the crowd as possible. In that respect I failed.

Where I also failed was in giving good examples of Christian libertarians. In particular I ought to have talked about Ron Paul, the Republican running for that party’s 2008 presidential nomination. He’s both a devout Christian and strict libertarian. In practice the people who turned out would have been better off with someone like him, instead of someone trying to cross a very long bridge of understanding.

I think I mostly earned sixes for my efforts, but it was important to turn up. I hope I’ve gotten a few people to consider the merits of a society oriented to liberty and the compatibility of Christianity and liberal-libertarian philosophy. We’ll see come election day.

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However the fight is not over: just because the local candidate promises a thing, don’t expect it to get past the faceless powerbrokers in Canberra. David already learnt that the hard way about the nuclear waste dump. The best chance for statehood would come from a balance-of-power Parliamentarian who was not beholden to machine-men. I am that candidate.

Also, my disagreement with the ABC’s decision not to include myself and other minor candidates got a run in the NT News today. Funnily enough the ABC discovered that they might do a forum just for us after all.

I am ambivalent about that, actually. On the one hand any publicity is good publicity. On the other hand, Maurice Foley will probably yell and call people wankers all over again. That’s just great for Maurice, but it shafts me because I take this seriously and I can’t cut through when people are throwing easy-to-report tanties.

Tomorrow I will get 2 minutes on Territory FM at 10.20am, and remember that tonight I will be the Australian Christian Lobby’s forum at Mal Nairn auditorium, starting at 7pm.

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I put my views to the ABC in the afternoon. They said I was free to ask questions from the audience, but that with merely an hour set aside for the broadcast they couldn’t fit me into the main platform.I see where they are coming from but I strongly disagree. If 10 minutes on Stateline is good enough for two major party candidates, I reckon they could have squeezed in another minor party candidate.

As it happens I only found out it was happening through a friend who heard it being spruiked on the radio. To be honest I felt a bit put out.

Also, I’d like to remind you all that I will also be attending the Australian Chrisitan Lobby’s do tomorrow night. It will be held at Mal Nairn auditorium at CDU’s Casuarina campus from 7pm.

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I want to get politics out of your life.

The best way to do that is for governments to tax less, regulate less, and spend on less.

Every dollar you send to Canberra becomes something for politicians and their hangers-on to squabble over.

Only the LDP wants to dramatically reduce the size of your tax bill with the 30/30 plan: a 30% tax-free threshold, with 30% flat rate above it and 30% payback below it.

I want to get Canberra out of Darwin.

The best way to do that is immediate statehood with equal representation. The major parties have blocked this for years.

Only I can deliver full and immediate statehood in Canberra. Only the LDP takes State’s rights seriously as a way of balancing governments and preventing them getting out of check.

I want to improve your life by stopping government interference. I want to be a Parliamentarian who votes for and against laws, not press releases. Who votes based on careful consideration of evidence, not what some focus group says.

I hope that you agree with me and vote 1 for Jacques Chester (LDP) this Saturday.

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Instead we are governed by Canberra. Oh, the NT has self-government and the trappings of independence; but it’s only a courtesy. The Commonwealth could take it back in a day. Indeed the Commonwealth and the Federal Parliament have repeatedly shafted Territorians for over 100 years.

That is why we need statehood. It does not prevent all depredations of Canberra, but it prevents quite a few. A State has legal immunities which a Territory does not. It is like insurance: most of the time it seems expensive and unnecessary, but when things go wrong there is no alternative.

If elected I will work within Parliament to have the NT admitted to the Commonwealth as a State. I will agitate for the NT to have equal representation in Parliament: that’s 2 MHRs and 12 Senators. Anything else is a cop-out, a shameful stitch-up between the major parties aimed at making their lives easier.

The current arrangement suits the majors because it preserves the status quo. Mathematically the current arrangements guarantee one ALP and one CLP Senator. This is not representation by candidates intensely interested in the NT. It is representation by candidates who are best at internal party politics.

Remember that if elected, I could be in a position to help determine which side forms government in the House. I wouldn’t have a fair mandate to dictate much policy-wise (though I’d negotiate), but I’d have a bloody good mandate to dictate terms on Statehood.  I am the best chance in years that Territorians have of getting immediate and equal statehood. That’s why I hope you’ll vote for me on Saturday 24th.

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For every 4 volunteers I have, I can set up at another booth. Booth volunteers are the unsung heroes of democracy in Australia.

My experience as a boother means I am prepared to take good care of my volunteers. I will supply a T-shirt, drinks and some lunch out of my very-meagre-indeed budget. In return I need you to hand out How To Votes / flyers and to take turns at scrutineering.

At the end of the day there will be a Darwin-style riotous pissup social gathering for everyone who volunteered.

If you want to volunteer, please email me: jacques@chester.id.au. If you can’t volunteer but would like to donate, you can do so using PayPal. PayPal donations can be submitted from a bank account, credit cards or another PayPal account, so it’s pretty easy to do.

Donation amount: $

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