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QUOTA Newsletter of the Proportional Representation Society of Australia
QN1998A
March 1998
www.prsa.org.au · List of issues of Quota Notes Proportional Representation at the Constitutional Convention Canberra, 2nd-13th February 1998 by
Andrew Gunter, Elected
Delegate, New South Wales In mid-1997
the Federal Parliament legislated for the
quota-preferential method of proportional
representation to be used for electing half the
delegates to Australia's 1998 Constitutional
Convention. Senator the Hon. Nick Minchin, in
introducing the Bill, referred favourably to submissions
(QN1997C)
by the Proportional Representation Society of
Australia, which were in support of the usual
quota-preferential rules for vote counting as used
in Senate elections, a novel ballot-paper format
to cope with an expected very large number of
candidates, and provisions for computer counting
to replace a fully manual scrutiny. In most
respects it was the election method the Society
champions. It had untested elements whose
potential merits the Society assessed as being
reasonable responses to the unusual circumstances. The ballot,
controversial for being voluntary, and for being
postal, returned a very diverse range of delegates
who, despite the low turnout of just under 47%, were the broad
cross-section of national opinion rightly expected
from proportional representation. Despite rigid
group-tickets' tendency to impose de facto
party list style and outcomes on
quota-preferential systems, there was one
candidate low down on a group list that was
elected ahead of those higher in that group -
Hazel Hawke, of the AUSTRALIAN
REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT, in New
South Wales, and former wife of Australia's second
longest-serving Prime Minister. Despite all
this, or perhaps because the other half of the
Convention delegates were ex officio party
leaders or government appointees, the Convention
gave proportional representation very short
shrift. Ed Haber and I, both office-bearers of the
PR Society's NSW Branch, expressly raised the
issue of entrenchment of proportional
representation in the Constitution. Consistent
with his long-standing status as a wide-ranging
political reformist, another NSW delegate; the
former North Sydney Mayor, independent NSW and
Federal MP Ted Mack; whose surplus votes
contributed to the election of both Ed Haber and
myself as NSW delegates, spoke strongly of the
need for the political accountability that the Hare-Clark
method of proportional representation is best able
to provide. We made up 3 of the 20 NSW delegates. Other
delegates that took a position in defence of PR in Senate
elections, or advocated its more widespread use,
included Mary Kelly (Women for a Just
Republic, Qld.),
Catherine Moore (Greens, Bill of Rights,
Indigenous Peoples, NSW), Hon. Mike Elliott
MLC (Australian Democrats, SA), Christine
Milne MHA (Greens, Tas.), Senator Natasha
Stott Despoja (Australian Democrats, SA)
and a few others that were almost all PR-elected
delegates, or appointed delegates elected to their
parliaments by PR. Mr Haber
flagged a crucial problem with the form in which
the AUSTRALIAN REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT'S
two-thirds-majority-appointment method had been
constructed (Hansard,
4th February 1998, p. 171-173), "... the [ARM's]
... proposal... in a clarifying comment ... kindly
noted: 'The prescription of a special
majority, being two-thirds, is on the
understanding that the Senate continues to be
elected by proportional representation.' Is
that just a wish and a dream? Unless we entrench
it in the Constitution, [the ARM's] proposal is
already constitutionally flawed." '... the
AUSTRALIAN REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT ... pointed out the
bipartisan nature of the special majority of
two-thirds of the joint sitting of the members of
the Senate and the House of Representatives, but
only back to 1949 when PR was introduced for
Senate elections. Mr Haber showed that a
two-thirds majority would often not require
bipartisanship if proportional representation was
not used for Senate elections, as applied before
1949: '... the two-thirds test would
have failed in [the parliaments elected
in] 1914, 1917, 1919, 1931, 1934, and 1946. During this
speech, the Hon. Michael Hodgman
QC MHA, a former Federal Minister, and proxy for
the Tasmanian Premier, the Hon. Tony Rundle MHA,
interjected, 'This is not Hare-Clark; it is
hare-brained.' Mr Ed Haber said, 'You got elected
on Hare-Clark.' Mr Hodgman
responded, 'Yes, but I would prefer to be in a
single electorate any day. The
following day Ed Haber and I attempted to amend
the bipartisan-parliamentary-appointment model, as
it then stood, by adding a requirement: 'That a provision requiring the
Senate to be elected by the single transferable
vote (quota-preferential) form of proportional
representation be inserted in the Constitution',
followed by an explanatory note for the benefit of
those unfamiliar with it, 'Proportional
Representation should be entrenched for Senate
elections on the grounds that other electoral
systems would periodically produce lopsided
(greater than two-thirds) Senate majorities for
one party or group, as occurred on several
occasions between 1901 and 1949, thus allowing
partisan appointment to be made more easily.' The
amendment was lost, even though the hurdle that
motions and amendments had to clear in order to be
included in further discussion was only 25% of
delegates (38 of 152). Many of the supporters of
this amendment were aghast at the unwillingness of
most delegates to entrench such an uncontroversial
but vital safeguard. On Friday of
the first week, Malcolm Mackerras, the political
commentator and academic, who is a supporter of
proportional representation in some contexts,
spoke at the Convention as a proxy for an elected
AUSTRALIANS FOR
CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY - NO
REPUBLIC delegate. He had stood as an ACM-NO
REPUBLIC candidate in the ACT, but had not been
elected. In his opening remarks he referred,
unlike almost all other proxy delegates, to both
his proxy status and the voters that elected the
delegate for whom he was a proxy. He said, '... I
represent the quota of voters who elected Marilyn
Rodgers from Western Australia ...' He may not
have been their choice, but he showed decency in
acknowledging them. On the second Monday, Ms
Kirsten Andrews, elected for the AUSTRALIAN
REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT from South Australia,
delivered a paean to that State's
nineteenth-century social and electoral reformer,
Catherine Helen Spence, without once referring to
proportional representation, a cornerstone of her
reform views. Fortunately,
Tuesday to Friday of the second week saw modest
yet useful progress to discussion of electoral
reform as part of the wider debate. A working
group that had been created by those delegates
that wished the Convention not to be strictly
confined to the three heads of consideration
identified by the Prime Minister (whether to
become a republic; if so, what sort of republic,
including powers of and method of choosing the
head of state; and timing of any change to a
republic) was established by petition of a
significant minority of the delegates, under the
title 'Process and Procedures for ongoing
debate on Constitutional reform'. This working
group proposed, and the Convention eventually
adopted as part of its Communique,
the establishment of a further convention. That
future convention, originally mooted to be fully
appointed, would be two-thirds elected (rather
than merely half, as was the case with this
Convention), and one of its proposed subjects for
debate would be the 'system of governance and
proportional representation'. Attempts
were made to rule the matter out of order, on the
grounds that it was not necessarily connected to
any transition to a republic. That difficulty was
overcome by amending the proposal to make such a
convention dependent on a republic eventuating,
and to make its timing between three and five
years after the commencement of such a republic. As part of a
broad question, on the final day, dealing with
provisional resolutions of the Convention on
consequential matters, the proposal for a future
convention to deal with matters including the
'system of governance and proportional
representation' was supported by 102 delegates and
opposed by 16, with 32 abstentions. Yet, on the
questions that the public saw as the Convention's
main task, the results were not as clear-cut,
particularly when the attitudes of the elected
delegates alone (who, all being elected by a form
of proportional representation, were the closest
Australia has seen to a 'mirror of the nation's
mind' on this subject) are considered against all
delegates taken together. The greatest
illustration of this was the vote on the motion
'That if Australia is to become a republic, this
Convention recommends that the model adopted be
[the AUSTRALIAN REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT'S] Bi-Partisan
Appointment of the President Model'. The
overall result of this vote, when held on Thursday
12th February, was 75 'Yes', 71 'No', and 4
'Abstain'. A closer reflection of community
opinion was shown by the elected delegates taken
alone: 33 'Yes', 42 'No', and 1 'Abstain';
the reverse result. The
Proportional Representation Society of Australia
can, on balance, be proud of the role that PR had
in the make-up of the Convention; however it can
at best only take solace that the necessary role
of proportional representation in Australian
public life is likely to get at least some airing
at any future convention. I hope that members of
the Society, and others with pro-PR views, will
take every opportunity to push the essential PR
barrow at such a convention. * * * * * * * * * Note 1: Andrew
Gunter, 34, is a solicitor and a Vice-President of
the PRSA's NSW Branch. He is a former National Secretary
of the PRSA. He has been a North
Sydney municipal councillor
since 1995 and, on the Convention ballot-paper for
NSW, he successfully headed the ELECT THE HEAD OF
STATE group, whose Web site is at www.suburbia.com.au/~mickgg/ethos.htm Note 2: The PRSA's policies focus
on the election of groups rather than single
offices. PRSA members have a range of views about
Australia's Head of State. The PRSA advocates that
both Federal Houses should be elected by a
Hare-Clark PR system. Note 3: At a
Women's Constitutional Convention, which preceded
the official Convention, PR was high on the
agenda. Ms Julie McCarron-Benson, a PRSA ACT
Branch Committee member, made significant amounts
of literature, including a new brochure on why
proportional representation is important for
women, available to delegates there. She did
likewise at the 21st annual national conference of
the Australian Democrats. Tasmanian Local Government
Uncertainty Tasmanian municipal councils
decreased in number (QN73) from 46 to 29 in 1993, following a
report of the former Local Government Advisory
Board. Their elections are now all under the
Hare-Clark system, but without Robson Rotation.
Postal voting, conducted by the State Electoral
Office, applies to all councils. The elections
are, with one exception, conducted at large.
Half of each council faces the people every two
years. The Minister for Local Government, Hon.
Denise Swan, in May 1997, directed the Local
Government Board to carry out a review of the
boundaries of the municipal areas of all
councils to reduce their number to no more than
15, with single councils covering greater Hobart
and Launceston respectively. On
1st December, the Board's exposure draft
proposed that the mainland have nine councils
only, and that King and Flinders Islands each
have a separate council. It proposed direct
election of all Mayors and Deputy Mayors, and
general elections of councils (of standard
sizes) every four years. The Board warned
against breaking the new councils into wards or
electoral districts as that would tend to
encourage sectoral
views on the part of those elected. Several councils, particularly around Hobart, have strongly fought the prospect of amalgamation. Ten or so official elector polls have indicated 70-90% voter opposition to the published proposals. Two members of the Local Government Board have resigned this year, including former chairman Julian Green, following publication, without his being consulted, of a newspaper advertisement by the Board responding to arguments placed by councils in another paper. Amid significant ongoing public uproar and constant political sniping, the Minister, in mid-February, asked the Board to reconsider its proposals, taking the results of elector polls into account. Under current laws, she will decide whether to implement the proposals put forward in the final report due by 31st May. Liberal Party Seeks Nominations for Tasmania's Legislative Council Nothing came of the renewed round
of Government optimism at the start of December
(QN
1997D) about its proposals for reducing the
size of the Tasmanian Parliament being enacted.
Following a Liberal Party State Executive decision
to set aside a long-standing Party policy, the
Party's State President, Mr Jim Bowler, on 27th
February 1998, sought expressions of interest from
Party members in gaining official endorsement for
the three periodic Legislative Council elections
due on 23rd May 1998. He claimed that this new
approach was to counter ALP policy to 'dominate
the Legislative Council by stealth', and to pursue
the goal of having a Legislative Council 'more
responsive to the development of Tasmania' (QN62, QN70, QN1996B). Labor's incumbent in Buckingham, Dr David Crean MLC, immediately called on voters to treat that election as a referendum on local government reform and the sale of the Hydro-Electric Commission. A large field is expected in Macquarie as Hon. George Shaw MLC is retiring after 30 years. Another Independent, Hon. Colin Rattray MLC, will be re-contesting South Esk. Mr Bowler has subsequently announced that no Liberal will be officially endorsed in Buckingham, and hinted likewise for the other two seats. S.A. Polls: Comparing the Two
Houses The
South Australian State elections were held on
11th October 1997. The House of Assembly is
elected using 47 single-member electorates,
while the Legislative Council uses proportional
representation to elect 11 members (half the
Council). This gives an ideal opportunity to
compare these two electoral systems.
Single-member electorates
are used for the House of Assembly, yet there is
now, as a result of this election, a minority
government, with the Liberals needing the
support of at least one of the two Independents
or the one National. It is interesting to note
that South Australia has had more minority
governments (using single-member electorates)
over the past thirty years than Tasmania, where
proportional representation is used for the
Lower House. For the House of Assembly,
only 54% of South Australian voters found that
they had voted for winning candidates. Of the
past eight State elections (QN56, QN72), this was the worst in terms
of the proportion of voters that found their votes
did not elect any of the 47 MPs. This is in spite
of the requirement now that there be an electoral
redistribution, based mainly on voting patterns,
after every election. While it
appears that the Australian Democrats were the big
losers in the election, winning 16.4% of the votes
but no seats in the House of Assembly, it was
actually the Liberal and Labor supporters living
in the 'wrong' electorates that lost more. Of the
400 000 Assembly voters whose votes did not count,
167 000 supported the Liberals and 147 000 the
ALP. If the major parties want to win majority
government in future they will need to consider
these supporters whose loyalty must be wearing
very thin. n contrast to
the House of Assembly, the result in the
Legislative Council elections was that only 56 000
(6.6%) of South Australian voters found their
votes did not count. Unfortunately the method used to elect the Legislative Council - proportional representation with the State as one electorate - is not without its faults, including mandatory indication of all preferences (if a below-the-line vote is to be valid), political parties' power to decide the order of their candidates on the ballot paper, and incorrect procedures in counting the votes. Reforms that are well overdue include the Robson Rotation and optional preferential voting for the Legislative Council. For the first time since proportional representation was introduced for the Legislative Council in the 1970s, an Independent was elected to it. A similar result at the next State elections will see both major parties very much short of a majority.
S.A. Municipal Electoral
Systems In South Australia, local
government has a choice of voting methods -
either proportional representation or the
'bottoms-up' method. Regardless of the method
used, the size of electorates can range from
single-member wards up to a whole council being
elected at large (QN1997A,
QN63). The SA
Branch of the PRSA (the Electoral Reform Society
of SA) with support from the PRSA nationally, has
analysed the results
of the May 1997 local government elections to
compare the two methods and to make comments on
other improvements that could be undertaken. Currently
two-thirds of councils use proportional
representation. Under this method, voters must
mark as many preferences as there are vacancies to
be filled, or their ballot papers are treated as
informal. With the
'bottoms-up' method, optional preferential voting
is allowed. With this method, the candidates
lowest in the poll are successively excluded. The
ballot papers for those excluded candidates are
transferred to the remaining candidates with the
next available preference on each ballot paper, or
exhausted, as the case may be, until there remains
just the number of candidates to be elected. An
examination of the two methods shows that
proportional representation seeks to maximize
effective voting by placing all elected candidates
on an equal footing through the distribution of
any surplus above the quota of votes required to
be elected. On the other hand, the 'bottoms-up'
method merely seeks to exclude the necessary
number of candidates, without regard to achieving
an accurate overall reflection of the voters'
wishes. As this method pays no regard to
surpluses, it is entirely possible that majorities
of voters will not be reflected in the composition
of the council. Perversely, the more support the
individual candidates attract, the greater is the
likelihood of a result that thwarts the wishes of
the people. The SA
Branch of the PRSA recommended that
proportional representation should be used for all
local government elections in South Australia. It
is pleasing that during the recent State election
campaign the Liberal Party released its policy on
local government advocating proportional
representation for all local government elections
where there is more than one member per ward. The analysis
also compared the outcome in relation to the size
of the electorates. For example it was noted that
for almost 60% of single-member wards there were
no contests - this declined to less than 20% where
there were six or more vacancies. Also the larger
the number of vacancies, the more likely there was
an increase in the number of candidates. The
voters get more choice and more effective voting
when there is a larger
number of vacancies. The SA
Branch considers that at-large elections provide
the most balanced council participation, and that
if wards are created they should return more than
three representatives. Other findings from this
analysis were: closer examination is
needed for all councils where more than 5% of
votes were informal in at least one ward, to try
to establish whether ballot-paper layout, or
confusion between several elections, might have
contributed to those high levels of unused voting
power. Optional
preferential voting should be allowed when
proportional representation is used. With
proportional representation, the calculation of
the transfer value presently used needs refining,
and casual vacancies should be filled by countbacks. The SA
Branch gave copies of the analysis (available from
Deane Crabb, below) to the Local Government
Association, the Review of Local Government
Elections being conducted for the Office of Local
Government, and the City of Adelaide Governance
Review.
© 1998 Proportional Representation Society of Australia National President: Bogey Musidlak 14 Strzelecki Crescent NARRABUNDAH ACT 2604 National Secretary: Deane Crabb 11 Yapinga Street PLYMPTON SA 5038 Tel: (02) 6295 8137, (06)
295 8137, 04291 76725 quota@prsa.org.au Printed by PANTHER PRINTING 97 Pirie Street ADELAIDE SA 5000 |
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