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QUOTA
Newsletter of the Proportional Representation Society of Australia QN63 September 1991 www.prsa.org.au
Single-member
Electorate System Would Work in the ACT Parliamentary
elections in the The People's Action Party has had a large
majority of Singapore MPs since 1959. In 1980 the PAP gained 78% of the vote,
and won all seats. By 1988 the party's share of the vote had fallen to 63%,
yet its MPs gained 80 of the 81 seats, even though there were opposition
candidates contesting each of 70 electorates. In mid-August 1991 a snap poll, two years
earlier than required, was called for 31st August. When nominations closed on
21st August opposition parties had nominated for only 40 seats - less than an
absolute majority of the seats. This was said to be so the 1.7 million voters
could elect an effective opposition without any fear of the PAP losing its
majority of seats. This time the PAP vote fell to 61%, which
won it 77 seats. The remaining 4 seats were won by two opposition parties,
which intend to form a coalition. Such a skewed result, with the system
prompting parties to drastically curtail the choice offered to voters, would
not have occurred with multi-member districts and quota-preferential PR. At the ACT Advisory Poll in February 1992
voters will choose a system, either like Singapore's or like Tasmania's, as
the replacement for the discredited Consolidated d'Hondt procedure. ACT Appeal Reminder
We
remind everybody that donations to the PRSA's National Appeal for Campaign
Funds for the February 1992 ACT Advisory Poll (letting all ACT voters choose between
Hare-Clark and single-member electorates for the ACT) are still needed. The PRSA Treasurer, PRSA Victorian Branch, PRSA NSW Branch, Tax
Reform Australia, D.R. Davies, C. Aitken, Lew Ellis, N.G. Ellis, G. Goode,
J.H. Mitchell, F.M. Pillinger, A. Richter, R. Stapleton and H. Southcott. Nominations for Election of
National Office-bearers for 1992-3
Under
the PRSA Constitution, it is the turn this year for the Returning Officer for
the above PRSA elections to be the Secretary of the Western Australian
Branch, Mr Norm Cox. Nominations, for President, Vice-President, Secretary
and Treasurer, which need to be signed by the candidate only, as consent to
nomination, should be received by Mr Cox at 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 1992. If any poll is required, ballot-papers will be posted on
7th November 1991 and the poll will close on 14th December 1991. Results will
appear in December's Quota Notes. National Seminar of Independents
and Balance of Power MPs
Discussed were common concerns such as how
such MPs are working together in their own parliaments to introduce
legislation, to participate in select committees, to draft motions, and
generally to work towards realizing the principle of parliamentary supremacy.
The only invited speaker was Deane Crabb,
Secretary of the SA Branch of the Proportional Representation Society of
Australia. He led the discussion on a fair electoral system for all, and
spoke about the need to cater for both elector and party representation and
how that can be achieved by using Tasmania's Hare-Clark system
of proportional representation. Although such a system does improve the
chances of independents and minor parties being elected, that is not an
unfair advantage, but instead remedies the glaring defects of winner-take-all
procedures so that all voters and candidates are treated as equally as
possible. As a group, those MPs at the seminar (from The next National Seminar of these MPs is
to be in Colin Ball Retires
The
article described Mr Ball as a strong booster of He
believes a vital solution to "You
may say a lot of things about the American education system, but they do know
their politics, because they are taught it in school all the time. It is not
some optional system they can duck. They have a more sophisticated
understanding of the political process, even though they have an unfair, and
far less sophisticated political system. In Most PRSA
members would probably agree. Mr
Ball's experience was tapped internationally when his advice was sought for Colin Ball has always been very helpful when the
PRSA has approached him for his advice on technical aspects of the Hare-Clark system. When the PRSA National President, who had
been appointed to the Synod Voting System Sub-committee of the Anglican
Diocese of Melbourne, was recently advocating the inclusion, in the Synod
Elections Bill being examined,
of the Tasmanian Assembly method of filling
casual vacancies in the House of Assembly, Colin responded to a request for
advice by very persuasively describing the rationale and merits of that
extremely sound and sensible method of direct election. The
PRSA wishes Mr Ball well in his retirement from official duties. Perhaps he
may emerge as a campaigner for the merits of the Hare-Clark system. He could
do that well, and would certainly be listened to. Local Government
The biennial
local government elections were held throughout One system
is quota-preferential PR, and more councils are adopting it. Some 50% of
councils use PR now, whereas only 25% used it in 1985. As most councils have
a fairly small number of seats, they quite wisely often abolish wards as
well. The
other system available is officially called the optional preferential method,
although that is really only a description of the fact that only the first
preference is required to be marked. This idiosyncratic system appears to be
peculiar to SA, and is aptly described there as the bottoms-up method. In
counting the votes, the candidate with the fewest first preference votes is
excluded, and those votes are transferred to the continuing candidates until
the number of candidates remaining in the count equals the number of
vacancies. The procedure appears to be peculiar to In the
UK the term single transferable vote is taken to mean quota-preferential
PR, but
Australia's electoral tinkerers have blurred that description by using, in
multi-member electorates (the Senate 1919-48, and now the City of Melbourne
and some other Victorian municipalities) an STV with election by absolute
majority only, and in SA's bottoms up, using an STV with election by
relative majority after distribution of preferences. The latter is little
more than a poor palliative for first-past-the-post multi-member systems, which are disastrous. Two
cheerful municipal notes were sounded recently. Melbourne City Council's
Chief Executive Officer, Ms Elizabeth Proust, proposed that Parliament should
allow the municipality to be a single electorate where all councillors are
elected as a group by quota-preferential PR. Also the Vice-President of the
PRSA's Queensland Branch, Alderman John Campbell, was elected Deputy Lord
Mayor of The NSW Branch's NRMA
Campaign May Yet Bear Fruit
In 1988
members of the PRSA's NSW Branch formally but unsuccessfully moved at the
Annual General Meeting of the New South Wales National Roads and Motorists
Association, having given due notice, that PR should replace the longstanding
common law block voting electoral system used to fill periodic multiple
vacancies on the NRMA Council (See Quota
Notes Nos 52
& 53). Since then
certain independent councillors such as the media personality, Jane
Singleton, have fortunately been elected and have queried the electoral system. That and
other concerns have caused the NRMA to have established a committee to review
such matters. Query by WA Readers
Quota
Notes has received
queries from readers in Nevertheless,
the situation differs from that in Tasmania subtly but significantly because,
if a WA Lower House election is held in the last twelve months of the MLCs'
term, the Governor may cause an election for all the Upper House seats to be
held on the same day, although that election is not to fill the seats of the
current MLCs, but instead the seats of those whose terms will begin on the
next 21st May. By contrast, in A better
wording in the article in Quota
Notes No. 62
on the Tasmanian Upper House would have been "...
despite the (Tasmanian) Upper House being the only one in Seventh Senator Not
"Directly Chosen by the People"
The
resignation of Senator Paul McLean (AD, NSW) has led to his replacement,
under Section 15 of the Constitution, by Senator
Karin Sowada (AD, NSW), a 29 year old archaeologist. She was sworn in on 3rd
September 1991. The party that Senator McLean belonged to when elected (the
Australian Democrats), and not the electors of NSW that elected him,
determined his successor. Those electors are not even officially advised,
even by a statutory newspaper advertisement - no wonder the public is
apathetic. Under the Hare-Clark PR system Senator
McLean's electors alone would have determined his replacement directly, at
the previous poll. The 76-member
Senate now has 7 senators, over 9% of its members, unelected by their nominal
constituencies. The Commonwealth
Constitution's Protection of Direct Election
of
Individual Candidates at Federal Polls
Many readers
may be aware of the requirements of the Commonwealth Constitution that, at
both general and periodic elections, senators and MHRs are to be directly
chosen by the people (Sections 7 and 24 respectively). These requirements ought to, but
do not yet, extend to the filling of Senate casual vacancies. Although the
Constitution may appear to have a clear meaning, it is the power the High
Court has been given to interpret it (Section 76) that
ultimately matters. It is therefore pleasing that the Court has given its
view on this matter and that it has held that ... the Constitution
requires electors at a Senate election to vote for individual candidates ... The extract
from the Australian Law Reports shown on Page
4 explains the Court's findings. © 1991 Proportional Representation Society of National President: Geoffrey Goode 18 Anita Street BEAUMARIS VIC 3193 National Secretary: John Alexander 5 Bray Street MOSMAN NSW 2088 Tel: (03) 9589 1802, (02) 960 2193 info@prsa.org.au Printed by Pink Panther Instant Printing 12 Pirie Street ADELAIDE SA 5000 |
