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QUOTA Newsletter of the
Proportional Representation Society of Australia QN2012C September 2012 www.prsa.org.au As anticipated in the
PRSA’s March 2012 letter to the then Northern
Territory Local Government Minister, Malarndirri
McCarthy, although the local government elections
using the quota-preferential method improved
representation greatly, there were cases of
informal voting levels above 10% and one of a
transfer value increasing in a scrutiny. A reply
in May noted the issues on avoiding by-elections,
reducing informal voting and improving transfer
value definitions raised before polling, and said
any law changes needed would be reviewed
separately by the Northern Territory Electoral
Commission and her department. Legislative Assembly
elections on 25 August 2012 followed the Henderson
Government’s introducing fixed four-year terms. It
had minority status after 2009
turmoil. In the 25 electorates,
86 candidates nominated, 32 of them women (in 20
electorates), with two candidates four times,
three eleven times, four on seven occasions, five
twice and seven once. Territory Labor and the
Country Liberal Party both made one nomination in
each seat, there were 10 NT Greens, eight from the
new First Nation Peoples Party (FNPP) and five
from the Australian Sex Party. With a 76.9% turnout
and 3.2% informality rate, there was a
two-party-preferred swing of 5.1% to 55.8%
(2 ALP seats were uncontested in 2008) for the
CLP. It took government, with 16 seats, on 50.6%
of first preferences. Four remote and pastoral
seats changed hands on 10-18% swings: one was
previously-uncontested Arnhem. Alison Anderson,
who had stood alone in Macdonnell, won its
successor Namatjira for the CLP after becoming an
independent and switching parties mid-term.
Indigenous communities, unhappy about forced
council amalgamations and other matters,
particularly supported indigenous CLP candidates.
Labor won eight seats, mainly in Darwin suburbs,
and Independent Gerry Wood retained Nelson.
Support for the NT Greens fell to 3.3% and that
for FNPP was 2.2%. Urban incumbents
generally strengthened their position. Labor won
five of the six previously-decisive northern
Darwin seats with some 55% of the
two-party-preferred vote, but took just two of
seven pastoral and remote seats despite its 49%
overall support there. Had the Territory been
divided into five-member electorates with
quota-preferential methods used, the likely result
would have been 13 or 14 CLP, 10 Labor and one or
two independents, with fair representation in all
regions. The former Chief
Minister, Paul Henderson, quickly resigned as ALP
leader. His deputy Delia Lawrie replaced him,
unopposed. The previous CLP deputy leader, Kezia
Purick, was ousted by the Centralian, Robyn
Lambley, but was then elected unopposed as
Speaker. The Joint Standing
Committee on Electoral Matters of the current
Parliament of New South Wales has been
conducting three
inquiries that have yet to report. One of those is its Review
of the Parliamentary
Electorates
and Elections Act 1912 as well as
election funding, expenditure and disclosure
legislation. At the third
public
hearing of that Review, Dr Anne Twomey,
Professor of Constitutional Law at the
University of Sydney, made many interesting
contributions relating to the Electoral
Commission’s submission
request that it not be so hamstrung by fine
detail of legislation. She opposed transferring
any significant control of electoral principles
or substance from the Act to the NSW Electoral
Commission for reasons of clarity, consistency
and certainty, and separation of legislative,
executive and judicial power. She also stressed the
importance of the final oversight by the
Executive Council in ensuring that regulations
made under delegated authority were widely and
meticulously checked before receiving Royal
Assent, but agreed that some of the entrenched
fine detail surrounding Legislative Council
elections (such as the number of preferences to
be marked and how the counting is to proceed)
regularly created practical problems. Regarding entrenching
provisions so that they cannot be altered
without a referendum, her view is that the Australia
Acts limit these to matters regarding the
constitution or the powers and procedures of
parliament. The Queensland Parliament removed an
entrenched provision about appointments to the
public service without a referendum, and without
subsequent legal challenge. A second inquiry is into
the conduct of the 2011 NSW elections. Antony
Green, the electoral analyst, suggested
that, for the Upper House polls, which use a
single State-wide electoral district, paper and
costs could be saved by giving voters a choice
of a small ballot-paper, if they wanted to vote
above-the-line, or a larger
ballot-paper, if they wanted to vote below-the-line. The third inquiry
relates to administrative funding for minor
parties. Separately, a 2011
Coalition polls promise led to a Panel
of three experts being set up to judge the
merits of providing for recall of MPs in NSW.
The Panel’s
Report rejected recalls relating to
individual parliamentarians, but two members
supported provision being made for recall
elections for the entire Legislative Assembly
and half the Legislative Council in the period
between 19 and 42 months after polling day. Professor Twomey made very
penetrating comprehensive written,
and spoken,
comment on the recall concept on which she had
an open mind, warning of the considerable
pitfalls in implementing it. She pointed to the
undoubted clash between the proportional
representation system used to elect MLCs and the
way an MLC’s recall would have to occur,
followed by the filling of the vacancy produced. There has not been a formal
follow-up of Senator John Faulkner’s 2009
Green
Paper on electoral reform, but ad hoc electoral
legislation to enact Joint Standing
Committee on Electoral Matters recommendations
on matters such as automatic enrolment changes
continues to be introduced. The Electoral
and
Referendum Amendment (Improving Electoral
Procedure) Bill 2012 proposed inter alia to automate the
dispatch of postal votes (rather than checking
elector status at application stage), double
Senate and Lower House nomination deposits to
$2,000 and $1,000 respectively and the number of
supporting signatures for candidates not from
registered political parties to 100, allow
individual signatures to be counted once only
where a request for a group column is made, and
alter provisions by which those no longer able
to understand the significance of voting may
have their names removed from the electoral
roll. It was referred in June for a committee
report. The PRSA
submission focused attention on the
underlying problem driving such nomination
changes, unreasonable requirements to lodge a
formal vote (except where Senate group voting
tickets are endorsed, often blindly), when later
preferences are often not looked for once
transfers of ballot papers have begun. Making
nominations harder for smaller parties and
independents is not good democratic practice,
and can be thwarted by those wealthy and
determined enough to make a mockery of the
electoral process and interest media in extra
formality hurdles confronting voters. The PRSA asked the JSCEM to
articulate why avoidable complexity is good for
Australian democracy if it were not prepared to
advocate its removal, indicating that only a
disaster “is likely to push those seeking to
maximise tight control over potential outcomes
into a long overdue principled consideration of
the fundamentals of voting”. The Committee recommended
that the proposed legislation be passed, except
for provisions extending beyond medical
practitioners the group on whose assessment
those declared to be of “unsound mind” may be
removed from the roll. The legislation was still
before the House in October 2012. The planned
change requiring 100 unique signatures per
candidate to make a non-party grouping request
can largely be circumvented, and the ballot
paper extended, if participants split all their
activity into groups of two.
The Prime Minister, David
Cameron, could not persuade Conservative
backbenchers, 91 of whom voted
against the second reading of the House of Lords Reform Bill 2012
and more who forced a “programme motion” to be
withdrawn, to accept time limits on debate. As
Labour would give assurances only on individual
closure motions, it was likely that copious
parliamentary time would be eaten up when the
community expected a focus on economic issues. Mr Clegg said this setback,
despite reform having featured in all election
manifestos, would affect proposals to reduce the
number of MPs in the House of Commons from 650
to 600 as the Liberal Democrats would not vote
for any new proposed boundaries. He had offered
a compromise of a referendum on the House of
Lords proposals in 2015 followed by initial
elections in 2020 if approved. Elections
for the 65-member East Timor Constituent
Assembly held in July 2012, involved 21 parties
with national
lists of 65 candidates and at least 25
replacements. Every fourth member at least must
be a woman. Seat distribution is by the basic
d’Hondt highest average process among groups
with at least 3% of the national vote. Three parties obtained
between 2% and 3% support and a fourth 3.1%,
highlighting the arbitrariness of the threshold
that led to some 20% of the votes being wasted.
The National Reconstruction Congress (CNRT), led
by Xanana Gusmao, obtained 30 seats (46.2%) for
its 36.7% support, the Revolutionary Front
(Fretilin) 25 seats (38.5%) after its 29.9%
vote, the Democratic Party 8 seats (12.3%) on
its 10.3% support, and the Front for National
Reconstruction 2 seats that matched its 3.1%
vote. CNRT and the two smaller parties formed a
governing coalition. After extensive Supreme
Court and parliamentary
action over the way in which an ailing Sir
Robert Somare had been replaced
as Prime Minister, Papua New Guinea voters had opportunities
over several weeks in June and July 2012 to cast
their vote to fill one of the 111 vacancies in
the expanded Legislative Assembly. Of the 3,443
candidates,
ranging from 8 to 72 in single-member
electorates, 134 were women and 2,198
independents. This time, voters had to
mark three
preferences by writing individuals’ code
references or names. Election funds were not
enough to buy electronic aids, so counting
was slow. Seats were won by 16 independents, and
95 candidates (three women) from 21 of the 42
registered parties involved. Over 60% of those
elected were not incumbents. The People’s National
Congress Party won 27 seats, and its leader,
Peter O’Neill, remained Prime Minister. Other
parties won respectively 12 seats, 8, 7 (twice),
6 (twice), 3, 2 (six times), down to a single
seat (seven times).
© 2012 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 |
