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QUOTA
Newsletter of
the Proportional
Representation Society of
Australia
QN2005B
June 2005
www.prsa.org.au
British
Columbia Referendum: Over
57% Vote for ‘BC-STV’ -
One 60% Hurdle Met The
voters of The Liberal Government of the province had initiated the process that led to the referendum in response to widespread criticism of and disaffection with the existing electoral system. The New Democratic Party had remained in majority government at the 1996 election after obtaining 39.5% support compared with 41.8% for the Liberals, but was virtually wiped out at the 2001 election, the Liberal Party winning 77 of the 79 electoral districts, after gaining 57.6% of the vote. The
wording of the referendum
proposal, and the type of PR
system it proposed, which
was termed BC-STV ( Some Australians - among them our longest-serving Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies - have remarked on the difficulty of altering Australia’s Constitution, where a proposed alteration must be approved by both a simple majority (just over 50%) of voters overall, and a simple majority of voters in a simple majority of States to succeed. That double majority is child’s play compared with the difficulty of gaining a 60% double majority! The table that follows summarizes the percentage of votes at the 2005 referendum in favour of the single-member system being replaced by the BC-STV system, and the percentages of votes for the three largest parties at the concurrent 2005 elections and the previous 2001 elections.
A
most impressive feature of
the referendum result was
the extent to which the
other demanding proviso for
the referendum to become
binding was exceeded. A
majority was required in at
least 47 of The table overleaf details the referendum and the 2005 election results in each electoral district. It shows that, of the 16 districts where the YES vote exceeded 60% and is shown in bold type, the Liberal Government won 7. The remaining 9 were won by the New Democratic Party. Support levels between 57% and 60% were achieved in a further 23 districts. The two electoral districts where the NO vote won a slim majority appear with a bold border. In 61 of the 79 electoral districts (77%) the representative elected obtained less support (see the asterisks in the table below) than the YES referendum option in that district. The Liberal Government had made clear the legal reality that if re-elected it would not be prevented from introducing BC-STV if the result of the referendum fell slightly short of one or other of the two special majority percentages of 60% that it had imposed.
As the overall YES vote was so close to the 60% special majority, its supporters called on the Premier, Mr Gordon Campbell - the first Assembly leader to win consecutive terms in two decades - to proceed with electoral reform. Australian
electoral commentator,
Malcolm Mackerras, visiting
The Speech from the Throne when the new Parliament is opened in September 2005 will outline the Government’s legislative program. On election night, the Premier saw the strong positive early vote as showing "a real hunger to move and to look at ways of improving our system of electing our legislature.” Thanking
Contributors to the PRSA’s
Donation to the BC-STV
Campaign The
Proportional Representation
Society of Australia
appealed in QN2004D
for contributions to let the
PRSA assemble a worthwhile
donation to the “Yes
Campaign Committee” leading
the campaign for a strong
YES vote in It is pleasing to report to members that the PRSA was able to make a donation of $A1,420 ($C1,344.60 on conversion before transfer) to the Yes Campaign Committee. That donation was gratefully received, not only for the practical financial assistance it represented, but also for the feeling of international recognition and support that it denoted. The PRSA’s Victoria-Tasmania Branch contributed $500, the NSW Branch gave $150, and the balance was made up of contributions by the ACT Branch, the National Society, and individual members of PRSA Branches, including the Hon. Neil Robson, a former Tasmanian Minister administering that State’s Electoral Act. Call
for Nominations for
Elections of PRSA
Office-bearers for 2006-07 The
Returning Officer is Mr Jim
Randall, Secretary of the
PRSA's NSW Branch. Under the
PRSA
Constitution
the Returning Officer
rotates among the Branch
Secretaries. The order, by
precedent, is
Victoria-Tasmania, NSW, SA,
WA, Victorian
Redivision
for Upper House PR The Electoral Boundaries Commission of Victoria has begun its process of inviting written submissions from the public on proposed names for and boundaries of the eight electoral regions for the November 2006 elections for the Legislative Council (See QN2004D). The PRSA’s Victoria-Tasmania Branch made a written submission in April 2005, which was displayed on the Victorian Electoral Commission Web site. The PRSAV-T submission recommended using broad geographical names for the eight regions, which were each formed by grouping 11 contiguous Assembly districts as compactly as possible. The Branch noted advantages of a more radial model, but concluded that a compact model would be more practical, and be much better received. The
Branch’s suggested names for
the regions it proposed were
Eastern Victoria, Western
Victoria, Port Phillip East,
Port Phillip West, Northern
Central, Eastern Central,
Southern Central and One
proposed region, Western
Victoria, included no
Assembly districts from
either the UK
House of Commons Polls: May
2005 The table below (UK Electoral Commission data) shows the Opposition Conservative Party won 32.3% of the national vote, but won a slightly lower percentage of the seats. Other parties and candidates together, with their historically high percentage of the votes, slightly outdid the Conservatives, but won just 14.2% of the seats. Over 50% of all votes were for defeated candidates, and those votes were thus totally wasted. In
The
Blair Government’s election
manifesto echoed its
electoral reform words of
2001, “A referendum remains
the right way to agree any
change for The Prime Minister insisted the review would not be a pointless exercise, but gave no assurance “that it will result in a referendum on proportional representation”. Sceptics may well see all this as embroidery on Labour’s reneging on the promise of a referendum on a fairer electoral system it made before it won office in 1997. Submissions
to Municipal Reviews The PRSA’s Victoria-Tasmania Branch has made written Preliminary Submissions to the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) for all but one of the 38 Representation Reviews of municipal electoral systems that it has conducted since March 2004. The PRSAV-T made a written Response Submission to the VEC’s Preliminary Report for twenty of those. The patchwork electoral arrangements now underway in Victorian local government were explained in QN2004B. The Local Government Minister has so far accepted all the VEC’s Final Recommendations, which has resulted in 20 of the municipal electoral systems now having one or more multi-member electoral districts with an odd number of councillors per district, and having within each of those municipalities an equal number of councillors per district. At the other extreme, there are only six municipalities where a purely single-member electorate arrangement was recommended and approved. The remaining municipalities have a variety of arrangements that include some wards with PR, and some not, and sometimes the wards were unfortunately established with an even number of councillors per ward. Northern
Territory Polls: Electoral
System After the close outcome of 2001 (see QN2001C) and a redistribution whose boundary changes were minor, the elections in June 2005 for the 25 seats in the Northern Territory’s Legislative Assembly returned to the pattern of leaving an artificially attenuated Opposition. On this occasion, support for the Martin Labor Government increased by over 11 percentage points to 51.9% while that for the Country Liberal Party, led again by Denis Burke after a period with Terry Mills at the helm, fell from 45.4% to 35.7%. In
the greater Quota-preferential counting in five five-member electorates would have given Labor a comfortable majority as set out in the table below. CLP support in two of these electorates was so low that its second seat would have been in jeopardy. Eight electorates had just ALP and CLP candidates, while nine others had just a third, often from the Greens.
All governments, and those they govern, benefit from the scrutiny and development of alternative proposals that an Opposition party provides, and they are weakened when the Opposition strength is not adequate for that task. This
effect is particularly
conspicuous in a very small
body politic with a full
spectrum of responsibilities
such as the ©
2005 Proportional
Representation Society of National President: Bogey Musidlak 14 Strzelecki Cr. NARRABUNDAH 2604 National
Secretary: Dr Stephen Morey 4
Sims Street Tel: (02) 6295 8137, (03) 9598 1122 info@prsa.org.au Printed by Prestige Copying & Printing, 97 Pirie Street ADELAIDE SA 5000 |
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