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PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION SOCIETY OF AUSTRALIA |
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Tel +613
9589 1802 |
Tel +61429176725 |
18 Anita Street |
BEAUMARIS VIC 3193 |
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PR ANALYSES OF PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS
Click on a blue hyperlink
of interest, or to see a likely poll outcome under Hare-Clark Proportional
Representation.
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Upper Houses |
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2002* |
* In 2003 Victoria's 150-year
old |
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1823** |
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By contrast with New
South Wales, all 30 MLCs in Victoria were directly elected from 1855, the
date on which Victoria gained a Legislative Assembly (all 60 of that
Assembly's members were directly elected), by force of The Constitution
Act 1855, which formed Schedule 1 of the Imperial Act 18 & 19
Vict. c. 55. Victoria had direct elections for its Legislative Council
123 years before NSW, but Victoria had a Legislative Council franchise that
was much more restrictive than that of its Legislative Assembly, until those
restrictions were removed in 1950. The foregone conclusions
that were the case with elections in the many seats that are usually
"safe" for a particular party that is strong in a given electorate
in a single-vacancy system meant that, for the Legislative Council, it took until 1961 (1958 in the case of the
Legislative Assembly) before Victoria had elections at which all
seats were contested. All seats in both houses have been contested since
1961, as a matter of policy by the major parties, even though many have still
been foregone conclusions for a single party, as the reason for the lack of
contest for Upper House seats was not removed until proportional
representation was introduced for its polls. Following the
introduction in 2003 of that quota-preferential proportional representation,
all electoral regions are sure to be contested in future, as there will be a
genuine contest in each. Until the proclamation on 8th April 2003 in Special
Government Gazette S57 of the Royal Assent to the Constitution
(Parliamentary Reform) Act 2003, which altered the Constitution Act 1975
to require use of PR for the Upper House, Victoria, unlike NSW, had never had
any provision for a referendum on constitutional or electoral matters, let
alone for other legislation where there is a disagreement between the two
Houses. The first Legislative Council of Victoria was created by the Australian Colonies Government
Act 1850. A retrograde aspect of
the way PR was instituted for Victoria’s Legislative Council was the
failure to provide for the filling of casual vacancies by the electors by countback,
and the faulty decision to fill casual vacancies by a vote of a joint sitting
of the Parliament instead. The first MP, not directly elected by the people,
to sit in the Parliament since 1856 took her seat in 2009.
The
Constitution Act 1855 of Victoria established multi-member electoral districts
for both the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly. The
Legislative Council's 30 MLCs were elected from 6 five-member provinces, with
one of the five members retiring every two years. The Legislative Assembly's
60 MLAs were elected from 37 districts whenever the Assembly was dissolved,
or on its expiry after its five year maximum life. When a multi-vacancy poll
occurred, multiple plurality voting and counting applied. * * * * * * * The history and
foundation of that Act is recited in the preamble to the original version of
the present constitution of the State of Victoria, the Constitution Act 1975,
which version stated: "Whereas the
Legislative Council of the colony of Victoria did in the year 1854 pass a
Bill intituled "An Act to establish a Constitution in and for the colony
of Victoria": And whereas the said Bill
was presented to the then Lieutenant-Governor of Victoria for Her Majesty's
assent and the said Lieutenant-Governor did thereupon declare that he
reserved the said Bill for the signification of Her Majesty's pleasure
thereon: And whereas the Imperial
Parliament deemed it expedient to authorize Her Majesty to assent to the said
reserved Bill amended by the omission of certain provisions thereof: And whereas the said Bill
as amended was set forth in a Schedule to an Act of the Imperial Parliament
passed in the 18th and 19th years of the reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria
intituled "An Act to enable Her Majesty to Assent to a Bill, as amended,
of the Legislature of Victoria, to establish a Constitution in and for the
Colony of Victoria" by which Act Her Majesty in Council was authorized
to assent to the said reserved Bill amended by the omission of certain
provisions thereof, and the Bill was assented to accordingly: And whereas by the said
Bill as so amended the Colony of Victoria was established as a self-governing
colony with responsible government: And whereas the said Bill
as so amended is the Constitution of Victoria and is known as The
Constitution Act: And whereas it is
provided by section LX of the said The Constitution Act that the
Legislature of Victoria has full power and authority from time to time by any
Act or Acts to repeal alter or vary all or any of the provisions of The
Constitution Act and to substitute others in lieu thereof: Be it therefore enacted
by the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty by and with the advice and consent of
the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly of Victoria in this
present Parliament assembled and by the authority of the same as follows
(that is to say):- 1. (1)
This Act may be cited as the Constitution Act 1975.
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The first Parliamentary
chamber in Australia was not elected, but was appointed by the Governor,
under the New South Wales Act 1823 - 4 Geo. IV c 96 (Imp.). All MLCs in NSW
continued to be fully appointed, by the Governor-in-Council, until the New
South Wales Constitution Act 1902 - 2 Edw. VI No. 32 - was amended at
a referendum in 1933.
The present provisions in that Constitution Act 1902,
whereby the Legislative Council surrendered its power to block supply
and allowed the provision whereby its rejection of any other bill could only be overridden by a
referendum, were also inserted in 1933. The Legislative Council of
New South Wales had by then become the last Australian Parliamentary chamber
to have its members so appointed. The referendum that implemented that change
instituted a system for electing MLCs in NSW that involved overlapping
12-year terms, with elections every fourth year by an electoral college
consisting of all MLAs and the continuing two-thirds of the MLCs, with voting
by secret ballot using quota-preferential counting. The present system of
direct election of all MLCs in NSW by the people, using quota-preferential
counting, was introduced at a successful referendum to amend the Constitution
Act 1902, in 1978. |
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*** TASMANIA The 1983
by-election countback for one of the seven seats
in the House of Assembly for the electorate of Denison was necessitated by
the resignation of Dr Norman Sanders, who had been elected to that house in
1982. This by-election countback proved to be the only time in the
history of the use of countback to date at which the candidate elected
to fill a casual vacancy under this system was not a member of the same group
or party as the vacating member (Click here to view
outcomes of countbacks since 1965). Under the countback system,
that was an outcome based solely on the voting decisions made by the voters
at the original 1982 general election, and nobody else. At that 1982
election Dr Sanders' name appeared on the Denison ballot-paper as one of the
five candidates in the column listing the candidates endorsed by the
Australian Democrats party. Before his election in 1982, Dr Sanders had been
prominent in Tasmania as the Director of the Tasmanian Wilderness Society,
which was extremely active in conservation campaigns in Tasmania by then, but
after his election he resigned as Director, and was succeeded as Director by
Dr Bob Brown, who had stood unsuccessfully at that election as a member of a
group of independent Greens candidates. The voting figures in the countback
report show that Dr Brown received more of the next available preferences
of those that voted for Dr Sanders than all of the remaining four Australian
Democrat candidates combined. When all of Dr Sanders' next available
preferences had been examined and transferred in accordance with the voters'
markings, Dr Brown received an absolute majority of them, and was therefore
declared elected. |
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