Rise of Australia

Chapter 253 The Upcoming House Election

On January 1908, 1, after several days of negotiations and preparations, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs officially issued an announcement announcing the establishment of the Australasian Propaganda Department, which is under the management of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is responsible for publicity at home and abroad.

All news newspapers, media, and writers associations should be supervised by the propaganda department to ensure that no information that affects national 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 wolves than meat, not to mention the Propaganda Department, which is an important department under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Under Arthur's hint, Grant Wilson made full preparations early on, and took advantage of the advantage of the largest party in the Gathering Party to successfully obtain the position of the first minister of the Propaganda Department.

Grant Wilson, who became the Minister of Propaganda, naturally knew Arthur's purpose, so on his first day in office, it was like the foreign department reported its plan for the Propaganda Department and asked the cabinet department for approval.

On January 1, Foreign Minister Andrew successfully brought Grant's plan to the cabinet for deliberation, and successfully obtained the approval of the cabinet, and the implementation officially began on the same day.

From January 1, all immigrants to Australasia will be allocated to different areas on a family basis, and the center of gravity of immigration will be more biased towards areas with less population.

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 for at least five acres of land.

Anyway, these two regions can be regarded as vast and sparsely populated. Together, they account for nearly half of the land area of ​​Australasia, but only have one-fifth of the population. It is time to support them.

For immigrants, Australasia's compensation is also really strong.If they go to Western Australia and South Australia, they will get at least fifteen acres of land, hire a few native laborers, and be no problem as landowners.

And if they give up the [-] acres of land, they will have priority to enter the Leonora Industrial Zone under construction, become workers in the industrial zone after training, and get higher wages.

At present, the income of workers in Australasia is not low, at least around 47 Australian dollars.

After the National Day ended, the Australasian government also resumed its busy work, and construction across the country continued in full swing.

Especially the Leonora Industrial Zone, which the government is paying more attention to at present, has invested more than 2 indigenous people. Basically, there will be a small change in the construction site every few days, and a major change in the construction site every other week.

Since February, Arthur has participated in the groundbreaking ceremony of the battleship Australasia, the launching ceremony of the second Russian battleship, the formation ceremony of the fourth regular division, etc., and finally got a little rest in March time.

Although relatively busy, it was very gratifying for Arthur.

The hopes of the Australasian Navy have entered the stage of construction, which means that Australasia will gain a strong naval power in the near future, and the country's security will finally be guaranteed.

On March 3, Prime Minister Walter asked Arthur to attend a regular cabinet meeting. Firstly, to report on the current government situation, and secondly, to determine the specific procedures and arrangements for this year's national election.

Australasia is different from other European countries.The people of Australasia can elect members of parliament at all levels, and members of parliament can elect government officials at the same level.

The term of office of members is generally two years, but they can maintain their status as members through re-election.

The term of office of all levels of government in Australasia is the same, and has been unified to four years.

Among them, the Prime Minister of the Cabinet can serve a maximum of two consecutive terms and a maximum of three terms.Cabinet ministers may serve a maximum of three consecutive terms and a maximum of five terms.

Governors are slightly less restrictive, with a maximum of two consecutive terms, but an unlimited number of terms.

This means that if a governor is popular with the people, it is possible to serve two terms for three terms and continue to serve.

The terms of office for mayors of various cities are even more relaxed. Although the term of office is still four years, there is no limit to the number of terms.

As long as the mayor of the city is popular, Arthur doesn't mind letting them be re-elected, as long as they can do something practical.

As for the lower level of villages and towns, the post of village mayor is generally appointed by the state assembly for a term of six years, 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 recall elected officials. Of course, this does not include the cabinet government.

But the House of Representatives can petition the House of Commons and Arthur to remove the current cabinet and call for new elections.

As it was related to the election of the House of Representatives, Arthur also decided to attend this meeting, and by the way, he could listen to the reports of government officials on their work in the past few months.

On March 3, the regular meeting of the Australasian cabinet government was held in the Council of Government Affairs.

Amidst the cheers and applause, Arthur also attended the meeting, and of course sat at the main seat in the conference room.

The meeting first reported on the current work of the respective departments, such as which industrial base the Ministry of Industry has expanded, how the new industrial base is currently being built, and so on.

Among them, Arthur was more concerned about the immigration situation reported by the Ministry of People's Livelihood in the past two months.

At present, immigration in Australasia can be said to be higher and higher every year, and stronger every year.

After setting a new immigration record in the previous year, the number of immigrants in the first two months of 1908 has also exceeded 13, and this year is expected to reach a new high.

If the data from the first half of March is added, the number of immigrants in 1908 has already exceeded 17. On average, Australasia receives more than [-] immigrants every day, which is enough to see the speed of immigration in Australasia today. What a horror.

It is precisely because of such an exaggerated number of immigrants that Australasia conducts a census almost every year to determine the real population of Australasia and facilitate the government's next plan.

At present, with the addition of these new immigrant populations, the population of Australasia has exceeded 730 million, and the population of Sydney has officially exceeded 100 million.

Of course, it is limited to 100 million.After Sydney's population reached 100 million, with the efforts of the Ministry of Propaganda, the Ministry of People's Livelihood, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education and other departments, most of the remaining immigrants have been migrated to Western Australia and South Africa. Australia, and the remaining half also went to New Zealand.

The most popular 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 tens of thousands of industrial jobs will be created 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 reach new highs, Australasia's current fiscal revenue situation is also very good.

The total fiscal revenue in the first two months has exceeded 700 million Australian dollars. Although the investment is huge, it is also considered good news.

Minister Grant also reported the current actions and achievements of the Propaganda Department. Arthur also encouraged Minister Grant to make more plans abroad to promote other cities in Australasia and try to attract more immigrants.

Arthur also proposed an idea, which is to create a list of cities suitable for immigrants, and to publish and publicize a lot abroad.

Anyway, it is the list created by Australasia itself, so it doesn't matter if it is biased towards itself.

As long as those European people can choose to believe in this list, then the plan of the Propaganda Department will be a success.

Whether he is true or not, first trick the immigrants over.Anyway, immigrants in this era are not too rich, and it is not so easy for them to afford round-trip boat tickets.

Of course, Arthur was just putting forward an idea. How to do it depends on Minister Grant's ability.

For Arthur, all he has to do is to make a macro layout of the country's development, and these officials are the real candidates for micro implementation.

If a country requires the king to do everything personally, then the country is destined to not last long.

After more than two hours of reporting, the meeting finally started the last topic, which was about the upcoming House of Representatives election.

The House of Representatives election is a national political event for Australasia and is welcomed and participated by most Australasians.

According to the last election of the House of Representatives, that is, in 1906, a total of more than 200 million Australasians participated in the election of the House of Representatives and voted for only the 298 seats in the House of Representatives, which was enough to see the election of the House of Representatives in Australia. position in the minds of West Asians.

There is a two-year gap between this election and the last one, and the number of immigrants alone has increased by more than 100 million.

This means that the number of people participating in voting this year is definitely more than 200 million, and the voting process and plan also need to be prepared in more detail to avoid any surprises during the election process.

Fairness, openness, and accuracy are topics that Arthur cares more about.The officials also knew what Arthur was thinking. After all, it was not the first election for the House of Representatives.

But every election is not the same. With the development of Australasia, the election of the House of Representatives will receive more and more attention, and the number of people participating in the election will definitely increase.

To fully count the votes of these people, not only does it require a large number of officials to conduct statistical calculations, but also go deep into cities, villages and towns to collect the intentions of all the 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 a party, and their party is also very concerned about the proportion of seats occupied in the election of the House of Representatives.

After all, according to the regulations of Australasia, the proportion of seats they occupy in the House of Representatives determines how much money they can receive each year, and also determines whether their main officials can enter the cabinet department.

For example, the two relatively large parties in Australasia, the Gael Party and the Country Party, have each won a cabinet minister's seat and the qualifications to enter the cabinet government precisely because they occupy more seats in the House of Representatives.

After all, this is the cabinet government, an opportunity to enter the country's highest government in one step, and no political party or individual can let go of such a good opportunity.

After more than four hours of discussion, the government finally finalized an election process and plan that satisfied everyone.

The first is the voting collection box, which needs to be equipped in all villages and cities in Australia.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 20, [-], and [-], four, six, and ten voting collection boxes are equipped respectively.

For all voting collection boxes, not only soldiers are dedicated to protect them, but the state governments also need to send a certain number of officials to supervise the voting collection boxes in their non-residential areas after they are broken up.

In addition to the dual supervision of soldiers and officials, the state governments also need to organize manpower to randomly inspect the voting collection boxes in their jurisdictions to avoid accidents.

In addition, Arthur and the cabinet government will also conduct spot checks at random, which is equivalent to five layers of insurance, basically preventing accidents from happening.

众议院选举的时间将从6月1日开始，6月1日到6月20日为投票期，6月21日至7月1日为运输阶段。

All ballots will be counted in the state governments. The Royal House of Representatives, the House of Representatives, the cabinet government, the royal family, the people and the army will jointly supervise and conduct random checks on the counted votes.

It takes about 20 days for each state to count the votes. It is expected that on July 7, the state governments will report the final results to the cabinet government.

In order to prevent possible accidents during the election stage, even after the results are announced, all the ballots will still be concentrated in the capital, and Arthur will personally organize a manual review.

If the statistics of the states are wrong or even vary too much, not only the election results of the House of Representatives will be rejected, but the state governments will also bear corresponding responsibilities, and even every ballot box will be held accountable.

Arthur didn't believe that under such a strict election system, there would still be people who secretly violated the rules or even cheated.

The final results are subject to review anyway, and if state governments have the audacity to falsify the results, let them try.

Most people agree with such an election plan, 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 of thinking time to think carefully about who they should support as the new MP.

　Four thousand words, please a fake brother.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)