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QUOTA  NOTES
Newsletter of the Proportional
Representation Society of Australia
QN1997B June 1997 www.prsa.org.au
Dr George Howatt, a distinguished political scientist, who was the
world's major authority on Tasmania's Hare-Clark electoral system, died
in Hobart on 12th June 1997, after a short stay in hospital. A Memorial
Service was held by the Society of Friends on 5th July.
Dr Howatt was a champion of Hare-Clark whose insight into it was of
extraordinary value not only to Tasmania and the PRSA, but also the
wider Australian and world audience. Because of his intimate knowledge
of the system's development over 40 years, he was sought out by people
of all political persuasions for electoral advice or comment on ideas or
proposals they were formulating.
Tasmania's former Chief Electoral Officer, Mr Colin Ball, and his wife
Helena, made the following public tribute in marking Dr Howatt's
passing:
A true and much valued friend and confidante for 39 years. A
truly great gentleman and one of a very small and select group deserving
of the title 'political scientist'. A specialist without peer in his
chosen field of the machinery of government, and gifted with an
encyclopaedic mind, he sought and devised practical solutions in a
lifetime devoted to the establishment of real participatory and
representative democracy. He had a true humility, admired by all, but
attained by very few. For all those who sincerely value the concepts of
a people's democracy, George has left an indelible imprint in the sands
of time. ..."
In an obituary, The Mercury (p.9, 18th June 1997), which had frequently
published Dr Howatt's articles, summarized this tribute, and conveyed
the sadness of the Premier, Hon Tony Rundle, at George's death.
Dr Howatt was highly regarded for his timely, crystal clear, and
thoroughly effective 1958 report DEMOCRATIC REPRESENTATION UNDER THE
HARE-CLARK SYSTEM - The Need for Seven-Member Electorates. His report,
which resulted in the defect of having an even number of MHAs per
electorate (it had been 6 until the change to 7 was made) being
remedied, so that majorities of voters elect a majority of
representatives in each electorate, was commissioned in 1957 and
officially presented to Tasmania's House of Assembly by order of the
Governor. The Report's Foreword by Professor W.A. Townley, Political
Science, University of Tasmania concludes
"... Mr Howatt was a lecturer
in political science at Lehigh University, U.S.A., before coming to
Australia
on a Fulbright scholarship to study election systems here. He is a
specialist in this field and has written an M.A. thesis on proportional
representation in American city elections and many articles on electoral
subjects. I commend this study to all members of Parliament, not only in
Tasmania, but in Mainland States, and to students of Political Science
everywhere."
The Constitutional Convention (Electoral) Bill 1997
(See QN1997A)
sought
departures from previous electoral practice, including a voluntary
postal vote for 76 delegates elected at large in Territory groups and
States (numbers in each based on federal representation), optional
preferential voting, and quota-preferential computer counting.
The prospect of very large numbers of candidates in the three most
populous States, which had proposed vacancies of 13 to 20, led to a
proposed non-refundable $500 deposit for candidates, and a ballot-paper
designed to avoid the unwieldiness of all candidates' names being on it.
Part A of the proposed ballot-paper shows only the names of the groups
nominating and their first candidate, as well as names of independents
registering a voting ticket. A "1" in any box is treated as a vote above
the line as for the Senate, but parties are not obliged to mark
preferences past their column. Part B, has one line per vacancy, and to
facilitate scanning of ballot-papers, voters write in numbers
corresponding to candidates' names, starting with their first preference
at the top.
The PRSA's April submission to the Senate Legal and Constitutional
Legislation Committee, - Improving the Voter's Lot - (available from the
President upon request) stated that Hare-Clark constituted best
practice, but the PRSA recognized difficulties that could stem from
nomination of large numbers of candidates. The PRSA supported the Bill
as being in accord with election policies, giving voters a fair counting
system, and containing some refreshing innovations such as optional
preferential voting. However, a number of important amendments were
necessary, to improve the choices before voters:
-
voters should be allowed to mark more preferences than
originally proposed - a uniform 30 or 40 nationally was suggested
wherever that many candidates nominated;
-
the faulty definition of the transfer value should be changed to
a properly-weighted one that minimizes exhausted votes;
-
more information about the voting tickets of parties and
independents should be forwarded to voters along with the brief
candidate statements permitted; and
-
Part B should prevail over Part A where a voter filled in both
by mistake.
When giving oral evidence to the Committee, PRSA President Mr Bogey
Musidlak circulated an example where a transfer value can rise under the
definition proposed, and explained that this is tantamount to some
voters getting more than one vote. The example was reproduced in full in
an Appendix of the Committee's report. As the Australian Electoral
Commission does not appear to have provided the Committee with
commentary on the substance of the example, there will be further
efforts in this regard.
Mr Musidlak has also written to senators about the difficulties that
would occur with a Senate-style ballot-paper on which perhaps a hundred
or more names had to fit (and where the marking of large numbers of
preferences below the line would be required for a formal vote). He
suggested it would be better to secure amendments to the Bill to give
voters greater opportunity to express preferences, and ensure they had
at least summary information about registered voting tickets.
When the Parliament rose in June, the matter remained stalemated between
the Senate and the House of Representatives, along with whether voting
should be compulsory and through personal attendance at a polling place.
Many commentators were pessimistic about the prospects of a Convention
taking place at all.
At the UK House of Commons election on 1st May 1997 some two-thirds of
the seats were filled by the Labour Party. It gained them with around
43% of votes in a 71% turnout. Only Labor gained a greater percentage of
seats than votes. Details are shown in the table and graph below.
The Conservatives, with their lowest level of support since Sir Robert
Peel founded the modern party in the 1830s, lost government, gaining
only 31% of the vote, compared with 43% five years earlier. Numerous
voters, voting tactically with their "X" to unseat them, helped them
lose over half of their previous seats. They now have none outside
England.
The Liberal Democrats' 46 seats was more than any third party had gained
since 1929. Their Leader, Paddy Ashdown, promptly made it clear that he
will hold Labour to its manifesto
(See QN1997A),
and the joint-party
agreement to have a commission on electoral reform leading to a
referendum on proportional representation within two years. This
gleaming prospect for UK proportionalists is tempered by Mr Blair saying
that he is personally not persuaded by the case for introducing PR.
Legislation has been introduced for referendums on the devolution of
powers to Scottish and Welsh Assemblies. Proportional representation for
such elections is also part of the Labour Party's platform.
U.K. PARTIES Vote (%) Seats (%)
Labour 43 63
Conservative 31 25
Liberal Democrat 17 7
Others 7 4
On 3rd June 1997 the outcome from a 67% turnout for the Canadian House
of Commons election also extensively distorted the voters' wishes. The
headline
Distinct Societies
in the weekly magazine Maclean's summed up
the electoral splintering of the nation into regional blocs. As the
table below shows, three parties received more than their proportionate
share of seats (figures shown in bold), while two others emerged grossly
under-represented.
CANADIAN PARTIES Vote (%) Seats (%)
Liberal 38.4 51.5
Reform 19.4 19.9
Progressive Conservative 18.9 6.6
Bloc Quebecois 10.7 14.6
New Democratic 11.1 7.0
Independent 1.6 0.3
This election again gives little comfort to the Progressive
Conservative Party, which tumbled at the previous election
(see QN72)
from being the Government party to holding only two seats. Despite
having gained nearly half the votes of the Liberal Party, the
Conservatives have only the fifth-largest Commons complement, one-third
that of the Reform Party, which has replaced the Bloc Quebecois as Her
Majesty's Loyal Opposition. The Reform Party gained only slightly more
votes than the Progressive Conservatives.
The Liberal Party's representation among the Provinces highlights the
disturbing
winner-take-all
regional malapportionment Canada's
single-member electoral system again shows. Of Ontario's 103 seats, the
Liberals have 101 - nearly two-thirds of their number. They hold 26 of
Quebec's 75 seats, compared with 44 for the Bloc Quebecois, which is
based in Quebec alone. In their five weakest Provinces, the Liberals had
just 12 successes in 95 ridings. On the Atlantic Coast, they went from
31 of 32 seats to just 11, as the Conservatives regained a noticeable
presence and the New Democratic Party won there for the first time.
The Reform Party won in over three-quarters of constituencies in the
three most western Provinces. It has no seats east of Manitoba. The New
Democrats is the only non-government party with seats on both coasts.
In these circumstances, it is hard to see how any of the parties in the
Commons could claim to be in touch with the mood of the entire nation.
Nothing could better illustrate the need for proportional representation
as a cohesive force through its ability to have voters' wishes
accurately reflected in the regional make-up of any legislature.
Both of these Parliaments lack the Australian Parliament's advantage,
from the point of view of the voters, in at least having its second
chamber mostly directly elected. Australia has the additional advantage
that the directly-elected members of its Upper House are directly
elected by quota-preferential proportional representation.
Since the election of the Howard Government in March 1996, there have
been periodic bouts of publicity for Liberal suggestions to alter the
Senate voting method to wipe out minor parties and increase the
likelihood of government majorities there. Paul Keating, Prime Minister
in 1993 and 1994, made similar threats then
(See QN73).
In early 1996 Mr Wilson Tuckey and Senator David MacGibbon were reported
raising the possibility of automatically excluding from an election
parties that fail to gain respectively 50% or 80% of a quota of first
preference votes. The PRSA's submission on the 1996 elections to the
Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters showed how such 'exclusion
threshold' schemes bring inherent instability, with sometimes several
places hinging on a handful of votes, as happened under the ACT's
notorious d'Hondt scheme. This naturally tempts parties to seek to
manipulate the exclusion level in order to achieve particular ends.
Further, minority support can be converted into majority representation,
especially if scrutiny rules, such as those introduced in South
Australia by the Dunstan Government, limit the transfer of preferences.
The PRSA noted that major uproar could have been expected on the 1996
voting figures under an 'exclusion threshold' scheme because the 50% and
80% exclusion marks were just above the levels of support for elected
senators in Tasmania and Victoria.
Another suggestion, attributed to Tony Abbott MHR and former federal
Liberal Party Director, Andrew Robb, was to divide each State, either
into 2 regions both ordinarily electing 3 senators, or into 6
single-member electorates whose 2 representatives served alternating
terms. PRSA's submission pointed out the intrinsic unsatisfactoriness of
such schemes aiming at creating artificial majorities.
Mr Abbott's example of a rural cum urban division would be criticized
for creating further unnecessary imbalances between population and
representation, and be widely seen as giving the Coalition a big
advantage from the rural
halves.
Other population-sensitive schemes
with a quota of 25% would lead to attempts to draw boundaries that also
maximized the prospects of a 4-2 outcome and made 3-3 possible even with
relatively low voter support.
Any single-member system would presumably presage a return at double
dissolutions to the winner-take-all majority-preferential system
replaced in 1948 after decades of producing lop-sided outcomes.
Victoria's Legislative Council Provinces, where each normally has only
one MLC elected at each poll, are no recommendation as the current
attenuated Opposition presence there has brought that chamber's very
role into question. In May, Hon Alan Hunt, former Government Leader in
the Council, called for the Council's committee system to be upgraded,
and its election by proportional representation in five-member
electorates.
A further burst of kite-flying occurred during May. Government Leader
Senator Robert Hill confirmed (The Advertiser, 5th May 1997, P.1) that
the question of Senate majorities was being discussed by senior Liberals
including the Prime Minister. He added that the Government wished to
float
the issue to
engender some community debate.
Later that month, the Liberal Federal President, Hon. Tony Staley,
expressed his frustration with the influence of Senate minor parties on
government legislation, saying,
"The fact is a vital government Act can
be, and so often is, determined by a tiny minority of the community as
reflected in the Upper House vote for minor parties."
He said the party
was
giving very close scrutiny
to changing the
Senate Electoral Act
(sic) to allow Governments to more easily gain control of the Upper
House.
His comments drew fierce denunciation from other parties represented in
the Parliament, as well as independent observers, and saw senior
Government Ministers such as Treasurer Hon. Peter Costello distancing
themselves from such a planned dismemberment. Some recalled that when
Prime Minister Keating made similar menaces, Mr Howard characterized
them as a
lethal dagger aimed at the heart of the smaller States.
Psephologist Mr Malcolm Mackerras commented,
"This is pure propaganda
for the Liberal Party. They won half the seats from 44 per cent of the
vote, and they have the hide to say, 'We was robbed'."
Noting that
neither Mr Staley nor his predecessors had voiced such
sentiments while Labor controlled the House of Representatives, The West
Australian editorialized,
The only consideration the Staley plan
deserves is which rubbish bin of political self-interest does it go in.
ALP Senate Leader John Faulkner said the electorate voted for a
house
of review not a rubber stamp.
Australian Democrats Leader Cheryl Kernot
suggested the Government wanted to create a
dictatorship
to avoid
scrutiny of hard-line policy plans. Mr Harry Evans, the Clerk of the
Senate, noted the close relationship between Senate votes and seats
currently, and pointed out that plans for obtaining government
majorities were by no means guaranteed success if put into effect.
Mr Deane Crabb, Secretary of the Electoral Reform Society of South
Australia, obtained week-end ABC coverage for his timely media release
drawing attention to the possibility of a return to the lop-sided
Senates that were a debilitating feature of the early part of the
century. For instance, the 1996 voting figures in Queensland, WA and SA
would have seen at least a 17-1 advantage there for the government. Mr
Crabb also pointed out that real reform involved the election of an odd
number of senators at each ordinary election, so that majorities of
voters would always translate into majorities of seats in each State.
The report on the 1996 elections by the Joint Standing Committee on
Electoral Matters notes that major parties are not forced to place minor
parties next on their registered voting tickets. It states that
suggestions of reducing the size of the Senate by breaking the 1:2 nexus
with the House, or alternatively electing five and seven Senators from a
State be considered further in any future discussion on constitutional
reform.
Public attacks on the Senate should be seen through the filter of the
pressure they seek to apply to senators' voting behaviour, but the PRSA
considers that they also demonstrate the importance of entrenching the
key principles underlying Senate elections in the Constitution.
After months of deadlock between Tasmania's House of Assembly and
Legislative Council over transitional provisions for new Legislative
Council boundaries without the previous imbalances in enrolments, the
deadline for issue of writs for the May elections passed with the matter
unresolved. Next week, the Greens reached agreement with the Government,
both giving in to the Council's reluctance to alter its power over
legislation, even though a six-month Select Committee was to be set up
to examine its powers.
The Liberal Premier, Hon Tony Rundle, had earlier announced his
intention to have a referendum this November on the abolition of the
Legislative Council. The Parliamentary Liberal Party is expected to
decide during July or August the wording of questions that might be put
to electors. Regular vociferous support for the Council's abolition has
been given in editorials of The Mercury.
Labor wants a 40-member unicameral Parliament, 15 from single-member
districts and the rest in 5 five-member electorates, using Hare-Clark.
The Greens support Upper House retention and Hare-Clark there. Some
Government MPs say they like the unicameral option - a 'second-best'
from the 1994 Morling Inquiry - 16 single-member electorates and 4
electing 7 each, using Hare-Clark. The Inquiry preferred 2 Houses with
Hare-Clark to elect alternately nine and ten Council members State-wide.
In 1994, the PRSA submitted to the Morling Inquiry that there be
State-wide Hare-Clark elections for the entire Council, returning
between 11 and 15 members. The Council's independence could be
emphasized by its elections not coinciding with the Assembly's. For a
unicameral chamber, there should be 5 nine-member electorates to retain
the pattern of following federal divisions, and instituting
citizen-initiated referendums should safeguard voters against Executive
arrogance.
At elections on 2nd June 1997 Silvia Smith, former ALP Bass MHR, stood
without party endorsement in Westmorland. Gaining 35.2% of first
preferences, she ousted the leading opponent of homosexual law reform,
George Brookes (33.9%), on gaining a slight majority of the third
candidate's votes. Sue Smith, Central Coast Mayor and Local Government
Association President for 4 years, won against 4 opponents in Leven,
with 37.9% of first preferences. George Squibb resigned Leven to contest
Mersey. He received 36.6% and defeated 4 opponents. Labor's Michael Aird
held Derwent with 57.5% of the vote, against 2 others.
The new President, Hon. Ray Bailey, is campaigning to show the Council's
value to the public. The PRSA will aim at Hare-Clark for the Upper
House, or failing that, strengthening Hare-Clark in a unicameral
Assembly.
Mr Ed Dermer, the Treasurer of the Western Australian Branch of the
Proportional Representation Society of Australia, was elected, by PR,
earlier this year as an ALP member of WA's Legislative Council.
Cr
John Campbell, the Deputy Lord Mayor of Brisbane, who is a former
Vice-President of the Queensland Branch of the PRSA, was elected last
year as the President of the Australian Local Government Association.
Mr Anthony van der Craats, a Life Member of the Victorian Branch of the
PRSA, was elected last year as a member of the Council of the National
Trust in Victoria, at the annual election to fill one third of the
positions on the twelve-member Council. In a postal ballot where there
were five candidates for the four positions to be filled, Anthony
received the largest number of first preference votes. The Trust in
Victoria specifies in its Articles of Association that elections to it
shall be by the quota-preferential method of proportional
representation, in accordance with the Proportional Representation
Manual of the PRSA.
©
1997 Proportional Representation Society of Australia
National
President: Bogey Musidlak 14 Strzelecki Cr. NARRABUNDAH 2604
Editor,
Quota Notes: Geoffrey Goode 18 Anita S. BEAUMARIS 3193
Tel:
(02) 6295 8137, (03) 9598 1122 Mobile 04291 76725 quota@prsa.org.au
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