QUOTA NOTES

Last November, several members of the PRSA's NSW Branch attended a Forum on Electoral Fraud, which was the first major public activity of the newly-formed H S Chapman Society. After a keynote address by Senator Nick Minchin, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, there were sessions exploring the presence and extent of electoral fraud: presentations, often by speakers with past or present Liberal Party affiliations, examined the electoral roll and its integrity or otherwise, fraud and forgery in postal ballots and especially those involving trade unions, and the potential for systematic fraud through rogue computer programming or exploitation of the flurry of unchecked last-minute changes that occur just before the close of the rolls once an election is called.

While commending the speakers on the thoroughness of their investigations, long-time New South Wales Branch member Syd Gilchrist raised the unfortunate absence from their presentations of work on the important fraud of single-member electorates, where perhaps 70% of the seats might be safe for one party or another, leaving voters in those areas virtually disfranchised. Party attention always focuses on the swinging or marginal seats that determine government, and voters in those seats are clearly seen as more valuable than those in safe seats. Mr Gilchrist pointed out that the only way in which democracy would be improved would be through the adoption of quota-preferential methods in electorates largely returning seven or nine members.

The PRSA commends NSW members for their efforts to have fundamental questions addressed by a wider audience that professes concern about electoral fairness.

PRSA National President Bogey Musidlak attended much of the proceedings. He placed numerous copies of various publications on a literature table being picked over by activists, and ensured that academics present were handed Society submissions and other materials of use to them and their students. When important electoral matters were raised personally with sitting MPs and other prominent figures, much was learnt about strong personal commitments to electoral reform.

Following this experience, a stronger presence by the Proportional Representation Society of Australia can be expected at future academic or political conferences where promotion of effective voting may bear fruit.

WA Legislative Assembly: 1996 Election

Party      Votes (%)   Seats (%)   Ratio of Seats (%) to Votes (%)
Liberal     39.90       50.88          1.27
National     5.79       10.53          1.82
ALP         35.62       33.33          0.94
AD           5.08        0.00          0.00
Green        4.73        0.00          0.00
Other        8.67        5.26          0.67


WA Legislative Council: 1996 Election

Party      Votes (%)   Seats (%)   Ratio of Seats (%) to Votes (%)
Liberal*    42.45       41.18          0.97
National*    4.01        8.82          2.19
ALP         33.08       35.29          1.07
AD           6.58        5.88          0.89
Green        5.55        8.82          1.59
Other        8.33        0.00          0.00

If malapportionment were a dominant cause of disproportion between seats and votes the largest departure from a value of 1.00 in the Ratio column above, for the major parties, should appear in the Council table. Instead it appears in the Assembly table, where the Liberals alone gained an absolute majority of the seats with less than 40% of the vote. The Council table shows the much more proportional result that PR gives, despite the much greater malapportionment for that House.

Mr de Domenico resigned on 30th January 1997 to take up a lucrative private sector position. Applications from defeated candidates were invited the following day, and again six consented before the expiry of the ten-day period, three of them endorsed Liberals, namely Sandie Brooke, Louise Littlewood and Brian Lowe. As Ms Brooke had just married former Leader Trevor Kaine, public speculation was rife in some quarters about what changes the outcome of the countback might bring.

In the event, Ms Littlewood's election was confirmed within two days, albeit by a rather narrow margin of 177 votes over Ms Brooke. Subsequently, Gary Humphries, who had been instrumental in having the key Hare-Clark principles entrenched, was elected unopposed as Deputy Leader of the ACT's parliamentary Liberal Party.

In a published Letter to the Editor of The Canberra Times, ACT Branch Convenor Bogey Musidlak contrasted the timely, straightforward and inexpensive replacement of Mr de Domenico through countback with the costly, and to many, farcical Fraser federal by-election, which had taken place at about the same time. The table below indicates progress totals at key stages of the countback at which the three endorsed Liberals together obtained 89% of Mr de Domenico's quota.

Replying, Assistant General Secretary Peter Shooter explained that the ALP's "Affirmative Action" rule does not refer to quotas in winnable seats, but seeks to make the system fairer within its constraints. He said that the rule indicated the need to establish a plan to ensure an outcome of 35%, and that this would be achieved through merit in individual preselections.

Mr Shooter conceded that the ALP's holding of only two federal Divisions (both by men) made the situation more problematic, but he said that the Queensland Branch was

"committed to achieving an outcome at the next federal election where women are selected to contest the required number of winnable seats to reach our objective".

All nine anti-Mayor councillors re-contested the vacancies their resignations had produced, to try to show popular opposition to the Mayor's statements. There was a poll in each ward, but only Boston Ward had enough candidates to let both resigning ward councillors lose - a classic defect of ward systems. Only four of the nine resigning councillors were re-elected. The five newcomers to the Council were pro-Mayor. The result was blamed on the low turnout of only 30%, but the total of 1548 votes (57.3% ) for pro-Mayor candidates clearly exceeded the 1155 votes for the anti-Mayor candidates.