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QUOTA Newsletter of the Proportional
Representation Society of Australia
QN1997C
September 1997 www.prsa.org.au
First
Address Ever to PRSA by an Overseas Government
Minister
The Proportional
Representation Society of Australia
achieved a landmark in its history on 25th
July 1997, when the Honourable Winston
Peters MP, the Deputy Prime Minister and
Treasurer of New Zealand, was the Guest
Speaker at a special meeting of members of
the Society, to which other interested
people had also been invited. Mr Peters
was the first Minister of an overseas
government ever to have addressed a PRSA
meeting. The
meeting was held in the Council Chamber
of the University of Melbourne,
thanks to the assistance of the
University's Centre for Comparative
Constitutional Studies. It was an
invaluable experience for PRSA members
and others to directly and in person
hear from Mr Peters his first hand
experience of achieving the fairness
that only a proportional representation
electoral system gives. The PRSA thanked
him sincerely for providing it. Mr
Peters, a former National Party cabinet
minister, left the National Party in 1993 and
helped found the New Zealand First Party that
year. The first election Mr Peters' new party
contested was the 1993 General Election - New
Zealand's last election using the highly
unrepresentative system of single-member
electoral districts that developed last
century. The New Zealand First Party won only
two seats at that election. In
the 1996 General Election, New Zealand's first
under a form of proportional representation
known as the Mixed Member Proportional system,
the New Zealand First Party won 17 of the 120
seats. Following negotiations with both the
largest minority parties, the National Party and
the Labour Party, neither of which received
enough voter support to give them an absolute
majority of seats in the Parliament, the
National-New Zealand First Coalition Government
was formed in December 1996, with Mr Peters as
the Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer. Mr
Peters, both in his address and in answer to
questions later, explained something that is a
puzzle to many people - how MPs from either of
NZ's two major parties came to provide a
referendum that would let voters for other
parties have a fair chance of being represented
in Parliament. His answer was that the MPs did
not want a change, but voters' concern at the
unpredictable and almost uncontrollable
divergence between votes and seats under the
single member system seats wrung from the MPs
the concession of a referendum. The referendum
then revealed that the single member system was
not popularly supported, that MMP was preferred
to it, and that therefore MMP would supplant it,
whether the MPs liked it or not. The
Deputy Prime Minister explained to the meeting
many of the subtleties of MMP that appear when
it is put into practice. These are not always
apparent when one considers only the formal
rules, which were all that most NZ voters knew
when they nevertheless preferred it to the
single member system that they knew only too
well. A
significant theme in Mr Peters' address
was the failure of many MPs and party
members to fully understand the
ramifications of MMP, and how it would
affect the way in which politics would
henceforth be conducted in New Zealand. A
classic example of those
people displaying their outmoded and
inappropriate winner
take all attitudes
was the repeated calls for New Zealand First,
and other parties that were not one of the two
largest parties, to declare in advance of
polling day which of those two largest parties
they would go into coalition with to form a
majority government, if that were, as seemed
likely, to be necessary. Mr Peters told the
meeting that he regarded it as quite contrary to
the whole spirit and point of a proportional
system to sew up coalitions before the people's
voice had been heard and before anybody knew
what particular MPs had been elected. Mr
Peters said that New Zealand's proportional
system had made the Parliament much more of
a
genuine arena for the nation's decisions and
much less of a rubber
stamp for the Executive. Mr Peters concluded his speech
by saying that the coalition he helped
lead had governed for seven months now
and New
Zealand hasn't fallen
apart yet. See
the PRSA's transcript
of proceedings. Following the address many questions
were put and answered. One of the most searching
was put by the former Senator for Victoria, Mr
Sid Spindler, who
asked for background on how the MPs were
successfully pressed into legislating for the
referendum process that led to the introduction
of MMP. Mr
Peters' New Zealand First party has more
democratic credentials to be part of a coalition
governing the country it was elected in than the
minority party in Australia's Coalition
Government does. New Zealand First's share of
seats is proportional to its vote, and the
electoral system that ensured that was
decisively carried at a recent referendum of New
Zealand voters. By
contrast, Australia's present electoral system has
a far more indirect and remote basis. The system
has never been directly put to voters for their
choice between it and its predecessor, as was New
Zealand's - its democratic basis is the power to
legislate for an electoral system that was given
to the Federal Parliament by the democratic (in
the context of the times) adoption of the 1901
Constitution. The present version of that
Constitution can still not be amended except by
action of the Parliament created under it. As that
Parliament is elected using the electoral system
in question there is a tendency, which is hard for
MPs to disregard, for them to be excessively
attached to the electoral system that elected them
- a de
facto entrenchment of the system. Call for
Nominations for Elections of PRSA Office-bearers
for 1998-99
Under the PRSA
Constitution the Returning
Officer rotates among the Branch Secretaries,
the order, by precedent, being Victoria, NSW,
SA, WA, Queensland and the ACT. This year the
Returning Officer will be the Secretary of the
Victorian Branch, Mrs Nancye Yeates.
Nominations, for President, Vice-President,
Secretary and Treasurer, need to be signed by
the candidate only, as consent to nomination,
and should be received by Mrs Yeates at 33
Ormond Esplanade ELWOOD VIC 3184 by 31st October
1997. Any
candidate may submit a statement of up to one
hundred words to the Returning Officer, who
shall submit it to voters with the
ballot-papers. The two-year term of
each office begins on 1st January 1998. If any
poll is required, ballot-papers will be posted
on 7th November 1997, and the poll will close on
14th December 1997. Results will appear in
December's Quota Notes. Constitutional
Convention Proceeds
After last-minute reversals of
previous votes by Tasmanian Senators Brian
Harradine and Bob Brown, there will be a
voluntary postal vote later this year to elect
76 delegates to a proposed ten-day Constitutional
Convention in February 1998 on
whether Australia should become a republic.
Prime Minister John Howard announced the names
of the 76 appointed delegates three days after
passage of the legislation. In
Part A of the ballot-paper, voters will be
able to endorse an order of preferences
registered by a group or independent.
Alternatively, in smaller States and the
Territories they can indicate between one and
nine preferences by writing numbers associated
with candidates' names in Part B: in
the three most populous States, the number of
preferences can go up to the number of
vacancies. Senator
Harradine, who was troubled by the voluntary
voting aspect, moved that "the
Senate is of the view that having regard to
the fact that the system of voluntary voting
provided for in the bill is for the election
of delegates to a specific Constitutional
Convention for a limited and temporary purpose
in special circumstances, the system should
not be seen as a precedent for elections of
members of parliament or for any other ballots
including referendums". Only the Australian Democrats
voted against this amendment, asserting that the
claim was untrue. Senator
Brown said his lack of success in suggesting
various compromises left him with the
impression that the Government did not want
the Convention to proceed. As there was no way
the compulsory voting system would currently
be changed in the Senate, he felt an
overriding need to "give the republic back to
the people", rather
than allowing the issue to slide off the
public agenda because of bickering over the
Convention election arrangements. Before
the winter recess, PRSA President Bogey Musidlak
wrote to Senators Harradine and Colston and a
cross-section of senators from the various
parties, expressing concern about the practical
difficulties that would arise if a large number of
nominations occurred in any state and all the
candidates' names had to appear on the
ballot-paper. He also suggested improvements in
choices and information available to voters that
would greatly enhance the proposed voting
arrangements. Replies
outlining party positions and enclosing extracts
from the Hansard debate and formal record of
proceedings were received from Senator Nick
Minchin, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime
Minister, who had carriage of the legislation, and
from Senator John Faulkner, Leader of the
Opposition in the Senate. Senator
Faulkner emphasized the Labor
Party's unwavering commitment to the Australian
style ballot, involving compulsory personal
attendance when voting. An amendment he had moved
provided for optional preferential voting below
the line on the ordinary Senate-style
ballot-paper. Speaking
in the Chamber, Senator Minchin had
stated, "I note
that the Proportional Representation Society of
Australia, which I trust you all treat as
reasonably neutral in this debate - apart from
its obvious advocacy of proportional
representation, but we are proposing a
proportional representation election - has
written to a number of senators. In its letter,
the Society said, We believe that the
government's efforts to cater for the
possibility that very large numbers of
candidates will nominate in some states are
quite reasonable. It went on to say, Experience
in the most recent New South Wales Legislative
Council election and the first ACT election
using the discredited and discarded d'Hondt scheme shows
that the Senate-type ballot-paper becomes
extremely unwieldy when around 100 candidates
nominate. There would be utter pandemonium if
200 or more candidates came forward. So
the Proportional Representation Society of
Australia is endorsing our system. It is warning
the Senate, as I do, that the adoption of the
full Senate system could be an utter shambles. Senator
Minchin continued, "We as a
responsible government have had to plan for a
situation where not 200 but 500 candidates
might nominate. I remind you that the
Electoral Reform Society and Malcolm Mackerras
- whatever you might think of him - have both
endorsed the system we have proposed and do so
from, I think, a more neutral corner than any
of us in relation to this debate." During numerous
media debates that followed, Senator Minchin
often mentioned the assessments of the PRSA
and Electoral Reform Society of South
Australia when criticizing the
unworkability of the Senate's initial
amendments. PRSA
President Bogey Musidlak regards the Society's
role on this question as a useful model for
Branches pursuing reforms. An
early submission to Senator Minchin, timely
analysis of the proposed legislation with
constructive suggestions about desirable
practical improvements, and persistence were
all essential in trying to promote more
effective voting. A
recent issue of Electoral Newsfile, a
publication of the Australian Electoral
Commission, deals especially with the forthcoming
Constitutional Convention polls. It states
informatively that copies of all voting tickets
will be displayed at AEC offices (The customary
display at polling booths is impossible as there
aren't any for a postal ballot), but it fails to
state that copies of those tickets are available
on request to the AEC, as Senator Minchin had
indicated would be the case. As PRSA inquiries
have established that they are available, it is
recommended that members and readers ask the AEC
for those tickets. Two
Questions for Tasmanians?
As
foreshadowed in July when he first committed the
Government to seeking a binding outcome,
Tasmania's Premier, Tony Rundle, introduced
legislation, on 14th August 1997, for a
referendum on 29th November about Tasmania's
constitutional future. The Government intends
two questions to be put, namely
and
Once Tasmania's Chief Electoral
Officer has certified the results, the people's
responses would determine which sections of the
enabling legislation that amends Tasmania's Constitution Act 1934
and other laws would come into force and which
would be repealed. The
Premier favours a unicameral chamber of forty
where the Hare-Clark
system would operate in four
seven-member electorates, and there would be
twelve single-member electorates, three in
each of these four electorates. In a reduced
bicameral Parliament (which a number of
Liberals have publicly advocated), a
Redistribution Committee would divide the
State into twelve Legislative Council
districts, and each year elections would be
held in two of these. In either model, in the
event of a deadlocked Parliament, the party
achieving a majority of the
two-party-preferred vote would form Government
and the Executive would be given an additional
vote in the event of deadlock on a particular
question after a Government has been formed. Labor and others have
been commenting on the constitutional novelty
of such a proposition. If
suitable legislation does not pass through the
Tasmanian Parliament by 23rd October, the Premier
has said that a voluntary postal plebiscite will
be held instead. A Hobart Mercury poll of 500
voters in August found about 90% in favour of
reducing the number of parliamentarians as
proposed: 52% supported a unicameral Parliament,
31% opposed that and 17% were undecided. PRSA
President, Bogey Musidlak, wrote in vain to the Hobart
Mercury to point out some clear defects in
the Government's plan. At five of the past eight
state elections in Tasmania, there would have been
little trace of parties or members other than the
Government under any single-member scheme. In
these circumstances, the proposed single-member
electorates would turn a healthy Hare-Clark
majority into a lopsided Parliament not reflecting
the people's wishes. On the other hand, where
voters did not clearly want just one party in
Government, the personalities of individual
candidates and the luck of boundaries for the
single-member electorates would determine the
outcome - neither majority nor majority-support
governments were at all assured. The
Labor Party stated an
early intention to move amendments to the
questions put to voters. It advocates a unicameral
chamber of 40 in which those elected from five
five-member electorates determine who forms
government and alone vote on key financial
legislation. The remaining fifteen would be
elected Statewide,
also using Hare-Clark. The Leader of the
Opposition, Jim Bacon, has been quite open about
seeking to diminish the Tasmanian Greens'
influence on government, adding that the Nixon
Inquiry's recommendation of nine three-member
electorates using Hare-Clark should appear as an
option on the ballot-paper. The
Greens, accused by Labor
of doing a deal to retain seven-member
electorates, have nominated fairness as a key
criterion against which change should be measured.
They question the need to reduce the size of the
Parliament if the electoral system for the Council
switches to Hare-Clark as recommended in 1994 by
the Morling Inquiry.
On
4th September, the Legislative Council passed a
resolution instructing its President and two other
MLCs to inform the Premier of the principles it
will insist on if it forgoes some of its current
unparalleled powers over legislation for a suspensory veto in which
disagreements can be resolved by referendum or
dissolution of the Assembly. The demands include
retaining five Assembly electorates, and at least
fifteen MLCs, elected in single-member electorates
to maximize the number of independents. Some MLCs,
including Government Leader Tony Fletcher, have
suggested a reduction in the size of the
Parliament can be achieved without a referendum. In
its submission to the Morling
Inquiry in 1994, the PRSA indicated that the
Council should comprise between eleven and fifteen
members elected Statewide
using Hare-Clark. If the Council failed to agree
to such fundamental reform, an alternative was a
unicameral Assembly containing forty-five members
from five electorates (which long-time Labor federal and State
politician Ken Wriedt
also supported): in that case, entrenchment of the
key Hare-Clark principles and scope for citizen
initiated referenda would be necessary to limit
the prospect of authoritarian abuse by majority
governments. The
Society will directly inform both MHAs and MLCs
about some of the principles at stake. Starting
out with a premise that a majority government is
essential, irrespective of the views of voters,
must run the risk of compromising fairness to
distort the people's message when no party secures
decisive support. While the quota reduces as more
candidates are to be elected, a party searching
for government must also get much closer to 50% in
its weakest areas if it is not to fall three or
more seats behind its main opponent: consequently
not only are seven-member or nine-member
electorates preferable to five-member ones for
voters, but they are also more likely to produce a
majority fairly where there are geographical
fluctuations in party support. At
a time when Tasmanians are clearly minded for
significant reform, it would be a major pity for
the opportunity to be lost because only
short-sighted proposals with major defects were
given serious consideration or put to the people.
Lopsided
Northern Territory Outcome
Following a very short
campaign, Northern Territory voters went to the
polls on 30th August
1997. The Country Liberal Party
(CLP), in power since self-government, secured
around 58% of the two-party-preferred vote. By
winning the two closest contests that required a
distribution of preferences, it emerged with 18
of the 25 Legislative Assembly seats. The
Australian Labor
Party (ALP) gained the remaining seven. As
is common in single-member systems, about
two-thirds of the seats continued to be safe for
either of these parties with a margin of over
6%. Voters' choices were extremely
limited as thirteen of the electorates each had
only two candidates, and there were only
sixty-six altogether: four candidates was the
maximum, in each of four electorates. Six women
were endorsed by the major parties, and three of
them were elected. Each
of the twenty-one incumbents renominating was
successful, but two of the remaining four seats
moved to the CLP. Retirement of long-serving
independent and former CLP MLA, Mrs Noel Padgham-Purich, saw Nelson
narrowly turn to the CLP. The unsuccessful
independent complained that Labor's
how-to-vote card had put him below the CLP. After
the ALP passed over an aborigine with strong
connections throughout Macdonnell
in its preselection,
another well-known aborigine stood as an
independent. First preferences were evenly divided
among three candidates. The previously very safe
ALP seat fell to the CLP. The
key to the strong imbalance between votes and
seats was again the area around Darwin, which
constitutes thirteen seats. Here, the CLP received
about 58% of first preferences and won eleven
seats, while the ALP attracted 34% support and
narrowly took two seats. Since the size of the
Assembly rose to twenty-five, Labor has not won more
than two seats in the suburbs of Darwin and
adjoining areas: it twice won three of nine seats
when there were just nineteen MLAs. The
adoption of multi-member electorates would
eliminate unfair lopsided outcomes of the type
described above, without imperilling the prospects
of majority governments being formed as long as
voters continued to express such a clear
preference for a single party. A priority for the
PRSA will be to simulate the 1997 and previous
elections using quota-preferential methods. This
work should help concerned Territorians understand
the true nature of their electoral system's
problems - the absence of effective voting. The
NT's Chief Minister, Shane Stone, has signalled
renewed efforts to achieve statehood. It would be
essential for any Constitution Act for the new
state to allow for the straightforward
introduction of multi-member electorates in the
future. Two of the three alternative election
models in a Final Draft Constitution tabled in
August 1996, after unanimous support by the
Assembly Sessional
Committee on Constitutional Development,
consciously made adequate provision for that
possibility.
© 1997 Proportional
Representation Society of Australia National President: Bogey
Musidlak 14 Strzelecki Cr. NARRABUNDAH 2604 National
Secretary: Deane Crabb 11 Yapinga
Street PLYMPTON SA 5038 Tel:
0429176725, (03) 9589 1802 info@prsa.org.au Printed by
Panther Printing, 97 Pirie Street ADELAIDE SA 5000 |
