|
QUOTA
Newsletter of the
Proportional Representation Society of
QN2005D
December 2005
www.prsa.org.au ·
Restoration
of direct democracy vital ·
National
Office-bearers for 2006-07 ·
Extending
voter influence not a feature of
federal electoral legislation ·
First
Woman Chancellor Heads Second
German Grand Coalition ·
Vale
Rod Donald, NZ Electoral Reformer ·
Victoria’s
Municipal Election Configurations Restoration of
direct democracy vital In
Tenterfield on 22 October Senator John
Faulkner, former Labor
Minister and Senate Leader, delivered
the
Henry Parkes Oration 2005
commemorating again the 1889 call for
a Constitutional Convention that was a
catalyst for nationhood. Following
former Labor
leader Mark Latham’s diarised
disowning of involvement in organised
politics a month earlier, Senator
Faulkner began: “In The
media publicity obtained by the speech
was largely confined to parts of a
forthright statement of the corrosive
effects of factionalism based on
spoils rather than ideas: “Undemocratic
practices are often blamed on factions
and factionalism. There is nothing
inherently wrong or undemocratic about
like-minded people voting together to
maximise their chances of success. It
is, after all, the principle of Party
politics. When such groupings are
based not on shared beliefs but on
shared venality, factionalism goes
bad. When factional interests are put
ahead of the Party's interests, the
Party rots. As
Party membership declines, the
influence of factional warriors
increases. They maximise their
influence by excluding those who
disagree, not through leadership and
persuasion. Those who defer to the
powerbrokers are rewarded with
positions in the Party and with
employment. This is not factionalism.
It is feudalism, and it is killing the
ALP.” Senator
Faulkner indicated that public
funding, originally seen as levelling
the election playing field, had merely
made campaigns much more expensive.
This placed a premium on the big
corporate dollar and resulted in a
downplaying of the usefulness of
individuals’ commitment and
contributions. Grass-roots
members were now “an afterthought and
for many in the machine, an
inconvenience.” The
Senator said that a restoration of
direct democracy was a vital aspect of
three major desirable changes. First,
there needed to be openness and
transparency within political parties
– “no code-words, no cabals, no secret
handshakes” and “as many as possible
Party officials, executives,
committees and for that matter
Senators, ought to be directly elected
or preselected by the Party
membership.” Secondly,
a level of responsibility in the media
was essential, with meaningful
corrections receiving the same
coverage and emphasis as any original
error: “Today,
as trash tabloids and opinion-for-hire
commentators destroy any semblance of
a debate of ideas, the principle of
informed decision-making at the heart
of the ideal of democracy drowns
beneath racy headlines and print-now,
retract-later coverage. Radio
shock-jocks and shallow television
infotainment do the same.” Thirdly,
although it was understandable that
“the main preoccupation for our
pioneer national democrats was to
preserve the rights of the residents
of the colonies while creating a new
democratic institution”, it was time
now to consider ways of maximising
“democratic participation in the
constitutional reform process” through
a commission into constitutional
reform as a starting point. “Without both
an understanding of the practicalities
of political change, and the
confidence that the citizen can shape
the state, Australians will drift
further and further into disengagement
and resentment. It is a dangerous
moment for our democracy. I hope it
will be the impetus for renewal,”
concluded Senator Faulkner. Many
supporters of proportional
representation are motivated by the
fairness of balanced outcomes
everywhere accurately reflecting
voters’ views. Most Hare-Clark
advocates especially value the
importance of voter influence on
election day. Because there are no
safe seats to be allocated through
backroom deals, and hence no
guaranteed short-cuts into Parliament
under Hare-Clark, there are no
incentives for branch stacking and
other unsavoury practices that
regularly go hand-in-hand with
single-member electorates. National
Office-bearers for 2006-07 The
Returning Officer for the recent
elections of PRSA National
Office-bearers, Mr Jim Randall, has
declared the candidates below elected
for the term 1 January 2006 to 31
December 2007, as follows: National
President:
Mr Bogey Musidlak National
Vice-President:
Mr Deane Crabb National
Secretary:
Dr Stephen Morey National
Treasurer:
Mr Robert Forster The
four positions were all filled
unopposed. Extending voter
influence not a feature of federal
electoral legislation Despite
the submission of the Electoral Reform
Society of South Australia
demonstrating the problems of
single-member electorates and calling
for an end to Senate ticket voting and
its replacement with optional
preferential voting to place electors
at the heart of the political system
(see QN 2005A),
the report of the Joint Standing
Committee on Electoral Matters into
the conduct of the 2004 federal
elections that was released in October
2005 (www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/em/elect04/report.htm)
did little to advance effective
voting. While the report
contained a discussion of the pros and
cons of optional preferential voting
(its application in the ACT was not
correctly summarised), it was not
centred on the role of voters in a
democracy, but dealt more with the
difficulty of achieving national
uniformity given the entrenchment of
optional preferential voting for the
Legislative Assembly in New South
Wales and the absence of consensus. Of
the ERSSA proposal, it was simply
claimed that it "does not appear to
have widespread support". Unanticipated orders of
exclusion that saw preferences from
defeated Australian Democrat and Labor
candidates contribute decisively to
the election of Family First’s Senator
Fielding in Victoria and only strong
below-the-line voting in Tasmania
thwart a similar outcome from
preference deals set out on registered
tickets gave rise to extensive public
disquiet (see QN2004D).
Coalition members and Australian
Democrat Senator Andrew Murray called
for an end to the current
arrangements, and their replacement by
compulsory marking of individual
preferences among all party boxes or
the onerous current alternative of
marking nearly all squares below the
line. Votes marked in party
boxes would remain with candidates in
a party column until all had been
elected or excluded before moving to
the highest-listed continuing
candidate in the next available
column. This change, based on altered
New South Wales Legislative Council
arrangements but without voters free
to choose how many boxes to number,
had been set out in the Senate
Voters’ Choice (Preference
Allocation) Bill 2004 by Greens
Senator Bob Brown. The Committee unanimously
supported a continuation of compulsory
marking of preferences for the House
of Representatives. In other areas, pointing
to instances of false enrolments and
claiming various Commonwealth and
State precedents, Coalition members
stated that the integrity of elections
would be improved by closing the roll
to newcomers (other than new citizens
or those about to turn 18) on the day
an election was announced, and
allowing those already on it three
days to report a new address. Others
claimed that this suggestion and a
tightening in relation to identity
requirements at the time of enrolment
constituted an attempt to tilt the
single-member playing field in favour
of the Coalition, as did a rise (the
first since 1992) from $1,500 to
$10,000 in disclosure thresholds for
individual political donations and
broader scope for tax deductibility,
and moves to disfranchise all
full-time prisoners (but allowing them
to remain enrolled). Four year terms for the
House of Representatives were also put
forward during the Committee’s
deliberations and immediately scotched
by the Prime Minister, while Finance
Minister Senator Minchin’s
publicly-expressed hope that a mandate
for voluntary voting would be sought
at the next election also brought a
swift statement that there would be no
change in Government policy. The
Committee recommended four-year terms,
encouraging more debate on
consequences for the Senate, and a
specific enquiry into voluntary
voting. Special Minister of State
Senator Eric Abetz
enthusiastically supported many of the
changes the Committee proposed (www.smos.gov.au/speeches/2005/sp_20051004_electoral.html).
However, House of Representatives
terms, voluntary voting and Senate
voting matters were not taken up in
the Electoral and Referendum
Amendment (Electoral Integrity and
Other Measures) Bill 2005
introduced at the end of the year’s
sittings. There were amendments
relating to enrolment procedures,
reporting thresholds for campaign
donations and their greater tax
deductibility, voting by prisoners,
and ensuring registration requirements
tightened in 2004 applied to all
parties without parliamentary
representation. Under winner-take-all
electoral systems, any advantage
gained from eligibility arrangements
for voting can be crucial in marginal
electorates. Where systems of
quota-preferential proportional
representation are in use, because the
effects from inclusion or exclusion of
relatively small numbers of voters are
limited, parties are more likely to
put effort into maintaining or
improving their local standing than
trying to tilt particular electoral
arrangements to their advantage. First Woman
Chancellor Heads Second German Grand
Coalition A
period of declining political fortune
for the Social Democrats (SPD) (in the
wake of continued high unemployment
and social welfare cuts) culminated in
the last state-level red-green
coalition being turfed
from office in North Rhine-Westphalia
in May 2005. Languishing in the polls
by up to 20% behind an expected
Christian Democrat and Free Democrat
alliance, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder
wanted to take the initiative by
seeking voter approval for his Agenda
2010 platform a year earlier than
necessary. On 1
July, following a precedent set early
in the first term of Helmut Kohl, 148
of his supporters abstained on a
confidence motion that was in
consequence lost. The President set
elections for 18 September after the Under
Germany’s mixed member proportional
system, electors have two votes, the
first in constituencies decided on a first-past-the-post
basis, and the second which determines
national and then state representation
in proportion to the number of those
votes won by parties meeting either of
two eligibility criteria: achievement
of 5% of the second vote nationally,
or success in three constituencies
(both waived for parties representing
recognised regional ethnic
minorities). There
are 299 constituencies that are
periodically reviewed, together with
notionally a further 299 party-list
places in the Bundestag: independents
may stand only in constituencies.
Under the Hare-Niemeyer system, total
national second votes for each
qualifying party are multiplied by 598
and divided by the sum of second votes
for all such parties: there is an
entitlement to a seat for each full
quota of votes achieved, with the rest
allocated by rounding up as many of
the highest fractional remainders as
is necessary. National
entitlements for each party are then
distributed among the states in
proportion to votes it received there,
with again as many of the highest
fractional remainders rounded up as is
necessary to exactly complete the
allocation. Total seats in a state are
therefore not always double the number
of constituencies and only become
known after an election. Normally
the number of list seats in a state
for a successful party is the
difference between its entitlement on
the basis of second votes and the
number of constituencies won through
first votes. Where a party has won
more constituencies than its state
entitlement, additional “excessive
mandates” (überhangmandate)
are created in the next parliament. There
are no by-elections. Replacements come
from a party’s next available
candidate on the state list. However,
a constituency vacancy is only filled
if the party concerned has no
remaining excessive mandates in that
state. Order
of parties on both parts of the
ballot-paper is determined in each
state by the relative magnitudes of
second votes at the previous election
for the Bundestag, the rest following
alphabetically. A total of 3,648
candidates came forward in 2005, 742
just in a constituency and 1,586 only
on a state list, and 1,320 in both
capacities. The
Social Democrats, Christian Democrats
and Free Democrats had candidates in
each constituency, the Greens in 297
of them and the Left Party (combining
the successor of the Socialist Unity
Party in the East with the Labour and
Social Justice Party in the West that
included several SPD dissidents) in
290. In the constituencies, 21% of
candidates were female, compared with
32% of those in the state lists (www.bundeswahlleiter.de/bundestagswahl2005/presse_en/index.html). During
the campaign, once the putative
Christian Democrat Finance Minister
proposed a flat tax and Dr Merkel
indicated that value added tax would
have to rise,
Chancellor Schröder
went on the offensive energetically,
asking Germans not to accept such a
radically different way of life that
favoured the rich. The gap between the
largest parties continued to shrink
rapidly in polls, but observers were
still surprised at how close the final
vote was. Turnout
was a lowest-ever 77.7%, a 1.4%
decline from the previous election,
and 4.5% lower than in 1998. Spoilt or
otherwise invalid papers amounted to
1.8% of the constituency vote and 1.6%
of the party-list vote, compared with
respectively 1.5% and 1.2% in 2002. The
Christian Democrats (43.6%) achieved
nearly a 4% margin over the Social
Democrats in The
Social Democrat vote nationally fell
from 38.5% to 34.2% and that for the
Christian Democrat coalition from
38.5% to 35.2% (most noticeably in Elections
in one Of the
constituencies, 145 (48.5%) were won
by the Social Democrats with 38.4% of
first votes, and 150 (50.2%) by the
Christian Democrat coalition on 40.8%.
Sixteen excessive mandates were
created (there were just five in
2002), nine for the Social Democrats
(who won all constituencies in
Hamburg, Brandenburg, Saarland and
Saxony Anhalt)
and the rest for the Christian
Democrat coalition (who took all but
one constituency in Bavaria and all
but three in Saxony). The table below shows
national support and seats for parties
that obtained representation in the
Bundestag, with figures in brackets
indicating the relevant proportion of
seats. As just 3.9% of second votes
were wasted this time, despite the
significant distortion in relation to
the constituencies, total seats
closely reflected overall voter
support levels. Summary of
national outcomes for successful
parties
Source:
Federal Statistical Office A
tug-of-war immediately began over who
should lead a grand coalition of the
Social and Christian Democrats (the
Left Party had been universally ruled
out as a coalition partner in
government before the election). After
three weeks, Angela Merkel prevailed
on the basis of greater national voter
support, and was ratified as
Chancellor when the Bundestag first
met on 22 November, a week after the
detailed coalition agreement was
settled. Gerhard Schröder
retired from public life and,
following an adverse internal vote,
Social Democrat chairman Franz Müntefering
stood aside from that leadership
position after the composition of the
Cabinet with 8 SPD and 6 CDU/CSU
Ministries (plus the Chancellor and a
support Minister) was negotiated with
him as Labour Minister and
Vice-Chancellor. Vale Rod Donald, NZ
Electoral Reformer On 6
November, the day before the
swearing-in of the forty-eighth New
Zealand Parliament, Greens co-leader
Rod Donald died suddenly of a heart
attack at the age of 48, before he
could take responsibility for a “Buy
Kiwi” initiative in the term of the
new Labour-led government (see QN 2005C). Political
leaders and the media paid tribute to
his personal integrity, the
consistency between his beliefs and
lifestyle, and the genuineness of his
forceful advocacy. Mr
Donald had been a major national
proponent of the mixed-member
proportional (MMP) system,
particularly in the period between the
1986 release of the report of the
Royal Commission on the Electoral
System and subsequent referendums in
1992 and 1993 that saw the previous
first-past-the-post system ditched. He
remained an articulate promoter of the
new system and, after being elected to
Parliament in 1996, originally as a
Green Party member of the While
the PRSA has no enthusiasm for MMP
arrangements because the Hare-Clark
system used in Victoria’s Municipal
Election Configurations The
November 2005 round of Victorian
municipal elections was the last
before 2008, when all councils in the
State will again hold elections on the
same day, for the first time since the
Kennett Government’s changes in 1993
(see QN2004B).
From then onwards, elections will be
held for all municipal councils every
four years on the last Saturday in
November. The
2005 polls were the first time in
Victoria where quota-preferential
proportional representation was the
only electoral system that was used in
any multi-member municipal electoral
district (ward or undivided
municipality as the case may be). Of the
79 municipalities in existence, 14 are
undivided, 11 all have three-member
wards, 12 have multi-member wards of
which at least one returns an even
number of councillors, and 13 have at
least one multi-member ward along with
one or more single-member wards. The
remaining 29 municipalities have
between 5 and 12 single-member wards
and therefore have not yet experienced
any of the benefits of
quota-preferential proportional
representation. The
PRSAV-T hopes that forthcoming
statutory representation reviews
beginning at the start of 2007 and
continuing until mid-2008 result in
further improved electoral
arrangements. The Branch has conveyed
to the Government the desirability of
having a consistent
straightforward system
under which all councils are either
undivided or have all wards returning
the same odd number of councillors, at
least three. © 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 |
