On the Centrelink debacle

Peter Schulz writes: Re. “‘An agency in crisis: Human Services struggles Centrelink debacle” (Wednesday)

It speaks volumes about the state of ‘democracy’ in Australia when the requests by key stakeholders in the Centrelink robo-debt debacle to meet with the minister are ignored, but an American citizen called Rupert Murdoch can meet with the Prime Minister as soon as he lands in Australia.

On Hanson’s preferential voting claim

Malcolm Mackerras writes: Re. “Maybe a grain of truth to Hanson’s voting claim” (Wednesday)

In my comment published yesterday I made an arithmetical mistake when I wrote: “Just one per cent of all votes at those elections combined (1984, 1987, 1990, 1993 and 1996) were set aside as exhausted.” I should have written “Just one-tenth of one per cent”. For example, the highest rate of exhaustion occurred in 1990 when there were 9,899, 674 formal votes of which 18,771 were exhausted in preference distribution. That is just 0.19 per cent