Chapter 253 The upcoming House of Representatives election. On
January 17, 1908, after several days of discussions and preparations, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs officially issued an announcement announcing the establishment of the Australasian Propaganda Department, which was under the management of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was responsible for domestic external publicity work.
All news newspapers, media, and writers associations should be supervised by the propaganda department to ensure that no information that affects the country's stability is circulated at home and abroad.
The news of the establishment of the new department quickly attracted the attention of many people in the political arena. After all, the current official position in Australasia can be said to be more wolf than meat, not to mention that it is an important department under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs like the Propaganda Department.
Under Arthur's hint, Grant Wilson made full preparations early and took advantage of the largest party in the Unionist Party to successfully obtain the position of the first Minister of Propaganda.
Grant Wilson, who became the Minister of Propaganda, naturally knew Arthur's purpose, so on his first day in office, he reported his plans for the Propaganda Department to the Foreign Affairs Department and requested approval from the Cabinet Department.
On January 19, Foreign Minister Andrew successfully brought Grant's plan to the cabinet for review, and successfully obtained cabinet approval, and its implementation officially began that day.
Starting from January 19, all immigrants to Australasia will be allocated to different regions on a family basis, and the focus of immigration will be more focused on less populated areas.
In order to encourage these immigrants to go to Western Australia and South Australia, on the advice of the cabinet department, the two state governments introduced relevant policies to compensate immigrants with at least five acres of additional land.
Anyway, these two regions are both vast and sparsely populated. Together they account for nearly half of Australasia's land area, but only have one-fifth of the population. It's time to give them some support.
For immigrants, the compensation in Australasia is indeed great. If they go to Western Australia and South Australia, they will get at least fifteen acres of land, hire a few Aboriginal laborers, and have no problem becoming landowners.
And if they give up these fifteen acres of land, they can have priority to enter the Leonora Industrial Zone under construction, become workers in the industrial zone after training, and receive higher wages.
At present, the income of workers in Australasia is not low, at least about 47 Australian dollars.
After the National Day, the Australasian government also started busy work again, and construction continued in full swing across the country.
In particular, the Leonora Industrial Zone, which the government attaches great importance to, has already invested more than 20,000 indigenous people. Basically, there will be a small change at the construction site every few days, and a big change at the construction site every other week.
Since February, Arthur has participated in the groundbreaking ceremony of the battleship Australasia, the launching ceremony of Russia's second battleship, the formation ceremony of the Fourth Regular Division, etc., and then finally got a little rest in March time.
Although it was relatively busy, it was very gratifying for Arthur.
The hope of the Australasian Navy has entered the construction stage, which means that Australasia will obtain a powerful naval force in the near future, and the country's security will finally be guaranteed.
On March 17, Prime Minister Walter requested Arthur to attend a regular cabinet meeting, firstly to report on the current situation of the government, and secondly to determine the specific process and arrangements for this year's national election.
Australasia is different from other European countries. The people of Australasia can elect MPs at all levels, and MPs can elect government officials at the same level.
Members' terms are generally two years, but they can maintain their status as members through re-election.
The term of office for all levels of government in Australasia is the same, which has been unified to four years.
Among them, the cabinet prime minister can serve a maximum of two terms and a maximum of three terms. Cabinet ministers can serve a maximum of three terms and a maximum of five terms.
The governor's restrictions are slightly looser, with a maximum of two consecutive terms, but no limit on the number of times he can serve.
This means that if a governor is popular with the people, it is possible for him to serve two terms in three terms and continue to serve.
The terms of office for mayors in various cities are more relaxed. Although the term is still four years, there is no limit on the number of terms.
As long as the city mayors can be popular, Arthur doesn't mind allowing them to be re-elected as long as they can do something practical.
As for the village level further down, the position of village mayor is generally appointed by the state assembly for a six-year term with no limit on the number of times.
All these officials are subject to the supervision of the two chambers and all the people. The parliament has the right to remove elected officials. Of course, this does not include the cabinet government.
However, the House of Representatives can petition the House of Lords and Arthur to remove the current cabinet and hold new elections.
Regarding the election of the House of Representatives, Arthur also decided to attend this meeting, and by the way, he could also listen to the reports of government officials on their work in the past few months.
On March 19, a regular meeting of the Australasian Cabinet Government was held at the Government Affairs Council.
Amidst the cheers and applause, Arthur also attended the meeting and sat in the main seat of the conference room as a matter of course.
The meeting first reported on the current work of their respective departments, such as which industrial base the Ministry of Industry has expanded, the current status of the construction of new industrial bases, etc.
Among them, Arthur is more concerned about the immigration situation reported by the Ministry of People's Welfare in the past two months.
At present, it can be said that Australasian immigration is getting better and better each year, and each year is getting stronger and stronger.
After setting a new immigration record the previous year, the number of immigrants in the first two months of 1908 has also exceeded 130,000, and this year is expected to reach a new high.
If the data for the better part of March are added in, the number of immigrants in 1908 has exceeded 170,000. On average, Australasia receives more than 2,000 immigrants every day, which is enough to see the number of immigrants in Australasia today. How terrifying the speed is.
It is precisely because of such an exaggerated number of immigrants that Australasia conducts a census almost every year to determine the true population of Australasia and facilitate the government's next plan.
At present, including these newly arrived immigrants, the population of Australasia has exceeded 7.3 million, and the population of Sydney has officially exceeded one million.
Of course, it is limited to one million. After Sydney's population reached one million, with the efforts of the Ministry of Propaganda, Ministry of People's Livelihood, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Industry, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education and other departments, most of the remaining immigrants have been moved to Western Australia and South Australia, the remaining half also went to New Zealand.
The most popular one in Western Australia and South Australia is of course the Leonora Industrial Base, which is currently under construction. This industrial base is highly valued by Australasia and will create tens of thousands of industrial jobs in the future. Therefore, it is necessary to immigrate to this area as soon as possible.
In addition to the good news that immigration is expected to hit new highs, Australasia's current financial situation is also very good.
The total financial revenue in the first two months has exceeded 7 million Australian dollars. Although the investment is also very huge, it is still good news.
Minister Grant also reported on the current actions and results of the Propaganda Department, and Arthur also encouraged him, asking Minister Grant to make more arrangements abroad, promote other cities in Australasia, and strive to attract more immigrants.
Arthur also proposed an idea, which is to create a ranking list of cities suitable for immigrants, and conduct a large number of publications and publicity abroad.
After all, Australasia created the list itself, and it has nothing to do with its own preference for appropriateness.
As long as those European people can choose to believe this list, then the Propaganda Department's plan will be successful.
Regardless of whether he is real or not, let’s deceive the immigrants first. Anyway, the immigrants of this era were not too wealthy, and it was not easy for them to afford the round-trip boat tickets.
Of course, Arthur just proposed an idea. How to do it depends on the ability of Secretary Grant.
For Arthur, all he has to do is make a macro layout of the country's development, and these officials are the real candidates for micro execution.
If a country requires the king to be personally involved in all aspects, then the country is destined not to last long.
After more than two hours of reporting, the meeting finally began with the last topic, which was about the upcoming House of Representatives election.
House of Representatives elections are a national political event for Australasia and are welcomed and participated by most Australasians.
Judging from the last House of Representatives election, that is, in 1906, more than two million Australasians voted in the House of Representatives election just for the 298 House of Representatives seats, which is enough to show that the House of Representatives election was held in Australia. position in the hearts of the people of Lassia.
There is a two-year gap between this election and the last one, and the number of immigrants alone has increased by more than one million.
This means that the number of people voting this year is definitely more than two million. The voting process and plans also require more detailed preparations to avoid any surprises during the election process.
Fairness, openness, and accuracy are topics that Arthur cares about more. Officials also know what Arthur is thinking. After all, this is not the first time for a House of Representatives election.
But every election is different. With the development of Australasia, the election of the House of Representatives will receive more and more attention from people, and the number of people participating in the election will definitely increase.
To completely count the votes of these people requires not only a large number of officials to perform statistical calculations, but also to go deep into cities, villages and towns to collect the intentions of all people. This is also a big project, at least for the current Australasian government.
In fact, government officials also attach great importance to the election of the House of Representatives. After all, most of these officials already have political parties, and their parties are also very concerned about the proportion of seats they occupy in the House of Representatives elections.
After all, according to Australasian regulations, the proportion of seats they occupy in the House of Representatives determines how much funding they can receive each year, and also determines whether their key officials can enter cabinet departments.
For example, the two largest political parties in Australasia, the Fine Gael Party and the Countryside Party, have each obtained a cabinet ministerial seat and are qualified to enter the cabinet government precisely because they occupy more seats in the House of Representatives.
After all, this is a cabinet government, an opportunity to rise to the highest level of government in the country. No political party or individual can let go of such a good opportunity.
After more than four hours of discussion, the government finalized an election process and plan that satisfied everyone.
The first is the ballot collection box, which all villages and cities in Australia need to be equipped with. Among them, small villages are equipped with one voting collection box, large villages and small towns are equipped with two voting collection boxes, and large towns and small cities are equipped with three voting collection boxes.
For cities with a population of more than 50,000, 100,000, and 200,000, four, six, and ten ballot collection boxes will be equipped respectively.
Not only are soldiers dedicated to protecting all voting collection boxes, but state governments also need to dispatch a certain number of officials to supervise the voting collection boxes in non-residential areas after they are dispersed.
In addition to the dual supervision of soldiers and officials, state governments also need to organize personnel to randomly inspect the ballot collection boxes within their jurisdictions to avoid accidents.
In addition, Arthur and the cabinet government will also conduct random inspections, which is equivalent to five layers of insurance, basically preventing accidents from happening.
The election of the House of Representatives will begin on June 1st, with the voting period from June 1st to June 20th, and the transportation phase from June 21st to July 1st.
All votes will be counted in state governments. The Royal House of Representatives, the House of Representatives, the cabinet government, the royal family, the people and the military will jointly supervise, and random checks will be conducted on the counted votes.
It will take about 20 days for each state to count votes. It is expected that state governments will report the final results to the cabinet government on July 21. After random inspections are correct, the results of the House of Representatives election will be announced to the public around July 25.
In order to prevent possible accidents during the election stage, even after the results are announced, all ballots will still be concentrated in the capital, and Arthur will personally organize manpower for review.
If the statistics of each state are wrong or even too different, not only will the election results of the House of Representatives be rejected, but the state governments will also bear corresponding responsibilities, even going to every ballot box.
Arthur did not believe that under such a strict electoral system, someone would secretly violate the rules or even cheat.
The final results are subject to review anyway, and if state governments have the guts to tamper with the results, let them try.
This kind of election plan was recognized by most people, so it was successfully determined as the plan for the 1908 House of Representatives election and announced to the public.
This also means that people still have more than two months to think about who they should support as the new congressman.
Four thousand words, please give it a try, brothers.
(End of chapter)