QUOTA Newsletter
of the Proportional Representation Society of QN64 December 1991
www.prsa.org.au ·
The ACT Branch's Campaign for the Advisory Poll - How Is It Going? ·
Last National ACT Appeal Call before Advisory Poll ·
Greiner Government Threat to PR in NSW Local Government ·
National Office-bearers for 1992-93 ·
Melbourne Synod Adopts a PR Electoral System ·
SA Boundaries Commission Report The ACT Branch's Campaign for the Advisory Poll
- How Is It Going?
As the last two issues of Quota Notes have reported, the Commonwealth Government is to
conduct, in February 1992, concurrently with the scheduled ACT Assembly election,
an Advisory Poll of all electors in the Australian Capital Territory to
determine whether a majority prefers a single-member electorate system or a Hare-Clark
PR system as the electoral system for future elections of the
Assembly. It is intended that the Assembly will have the power to enact its
own electoral laws, but the Federal Minister expects it to implement the
system chosen by ACT electors at the Poll. The ACT Branch of the PRSA has been magnificently active, and has greatly appreciated the funds it has received to date from our National Appeal. A key part of the Branch's campaign is its involvement in the ACT's Hare-Clark Campaign Committee, which includes the local Liberal Party, Australian Democrats, several parties in the ACT Assembly, and the PRSA's ACT Branch. The ACT-based psephologist, Malcolm Mackerras, is also advocating the Hare-Clark option. The H-CCC has produced and distributed large numbers of three excellent leaflets: a. Hare-Clark The Fair Voting
System for the ACT, which asks, What are the differences? It
answers: Hare-Clark o
Fair
outcomes in line with voters' wishes o
All
significant groups in the Assembly o
A
full choice of candidates to vote for o
Control
by voters, not party machines o
Choice
of at least 5 local members to consult o
Stable
boundaries o
No
safe seats Single-Member Electorates o
Distorted
outcomes favouring the largest party o
A
probable one-party Assembly elected o
"Choice"
of only 1 candidate per party (most with no chance!) o
Party-machine
domination of the system o
Only
one representative to consult o
Costly,
destabilizing by-elections o
Frequent
boundary changes o
Safe
seats for party hacks o
b. Robson Rotation puts you in charge, which explains that system, mainly by a question and answer approach. c. ALP VOTERS Why You Should Support Hare-Clark, which seeks support from those that intend to vote for ALP candidates, but may prefer Hare-Clark. It quotes Mr Ken Fry, ALP MHR for Fraser (ACT) 1974-84, from a debate where he said, "When I was active in the ALP in the ACT Branch ... nearly all of my colleagues strongly supported proportional representation. There was no question about it ... Under Hare-Clark with the Robson Rotation, they would not be there for life. They would have to perform or they would be rejected, whereas under the other system we all know once you're elected and the party continues to support you, you've nearly got to commit murder or something before you would be rejected. It really is a job for life... I think the Follett government here is performing very well. I think they would win under Hare-Clark. They don't have to get the power-hungry single-member electorates to secure government." The H-CCC and the PRSA's ACT Branch organized
a very successful and well-timed visit to At a second press conference the
next day that again was well reported on the electronic media, Mr Robson
authoritatively demolished the claims of a leaflet, The Case for Local Members, that was issued by the Australian
Labor Party, and that tried to give the impression that only single-member
electorates could produce so-called local members. On that evening
he was the very informative guest of honour at a dinner attended by over 50
people, which raised enough to pay the costs of his travel from On Friday he was interviewed on
ABC radio at the peak audience time of 8:30 to 8:40 a.m. An abridged
transcript of that interview is given below. Later Mr Robson joined the PR
side in a debate on the ACT Poll choices held at the Efforts are being made to amend
the Commonwealth legislation that governs the February 1992 elections for the
ACT Assembly so that the discredited Consolidated d'Hondt would be
replaced, for that last election directly under Commonwealth law, by a
Senate-style system, as has been recommended by the Australian Electoral
Commission. The PRSA's ACT Branch has also lodged formal objections with the
Commission to MHA Craig Duby's registration of the Hare-Clark
Independence Party, pointing to that Party apparently lacking any
members other than himself, and to his recent testimony to a parliamentary
committee in which he strongly supported Consolidated d'Hondt. Neil Robson on ACT Radio
ABC
Morning Show reporter Matthew Abraham's interview with the Tasmanian MHA, Mr
Neil Robson, greatly helped in putting the PR case before ACT voters: ABRAHAM:
Why would you think that ROBSON:
Well, I must say, what is the purpose
of an election? It is to put someone there to represent you, and you are
there to represent the people. And so if you're put there with a highly
accurate system that is so fair that everybody in the world admits its
fairness, and it's so easy to run in the actual electorate process, then
everybody knows that their vote will count. In the single-member electorates,
when you get to the polling booth your vote's most probably going to be
wasted - whereas, in the Hare-Clark system, everybody's vote counts. And the
next thing is that under Hare-Clark you're given a choice of candidates. And
the party itself puts up a choice, particularly to amass a bigger vote. ABRAHAM:
But you also reduce representation,
direct representation because you don't know who your local member is. ROBSON:
Oh, get out. ABRAHAM:
... the local members - if there's
five, or as we have here, 17 - can really dodge accountability because they
could say: well, you know, it's not me; it's the other four, or the other 16.
ROBSON:
You come to Launceston and walk down the
streets, and you ask the people there who their local member is - just who
their local member is. ABRAHAM:
Well, they'll say: there's one of five
of them - there's Neil Robson. There's one of five. ROBSON:
No, but they'd pick one out. They know
who their member is. ABRAHAM:
So they adopt one? ROBSON:
Yes, they adopt one. And you watch them
go into the polling booths - little old ladies and little old gentlemen -
they pick up the thing; they put on their glasses, and you'll see them hunt
up and down the column to find their favourite, then they look for their
second favourite, then they go to their third. And then, since the electorate
officer tells them to vote for 7, or the party tells them to vote for 7 for
their valid vote, they fill out the lot. An anyway, many of them go to 16 and
17 to make their vote really count. ABRAHAM:
You say that the primary purpose of
elections is for people to get the government they want. ROBSON:
I didn't say that. I said to get a
representative. ABRAHAM:
... a primary purpose of having an
election system is to get stable government, surely. ROBSON:
... is to get a government and to be
representative of the people. ... it's the people's election, not the
government's election, not the party's election. The election is for the
people, and it's for them to choose who their representative is. ABRAHAM:
But you can do that with single-member
electorates. You get the choice of however many candidates there are in your
electorate, in your single electorate. ROBSON:
You don't get to choose, in a
single-member electorate, who your candidate's going to be to fight the next
election, you only get one stuck up in front of you. And with this stupid
Senate system and other systems around, you could have a labrador dog in the
box, and the parties dominate too much, too much. ABRAHAM:
The argument by the pro-Hare-Clark
forces in ROBSON:
One. Last National ACT Appeal Call before Advisory
Poll
This
is the last opportunity for Quota Notes
to call for 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) before that poll is
held. The
PRSA Treasurer, Mr Len Higgs, Greiner Government Threat to PR in NSW Local Government
Incomprehensibly, for a Government that owes
its very existence to the NSW electoral authorities' proper insistence on
strict marking of preferences at the last elections, rather than allowing
ticks and crosses to be accepted as indications of first preference votes,
and the successful defence of that position in the Supreme Court of NSW, the
Greiner Liberal Government has a local government Legislative Review Unit
producing a Discussion Paper on the Reform of Local Government in NSW that
actually proposes replacing the existing quota-preferential PR electoral
system with the archaic first-past-the-post block
vote (multiple X voting) procedure! The Discussion Paper has clothed
the wolf of multiple X voting in the sheep's clothing of the euphemism equal
value voting. The PRSA's NSW Branch, in a forceful submission in response to
the Review Unit's invitation for public comment, wrote, "While the term equal-value voting might
imply a new system, the proposal amounts to a reversion to nineteenth and
early twentieth century electoral practices. The block vote form of
first-past-the-post voting was comprehensively abandoned for all Senate
elections in 1918, and for all NSW local government elections in 1953. There
were numerous inconsistencies in its operation at both levels which, together
with what became an intense clamour from the public and politicians,
ultimately saw both the Senate and NSW local government change to
quota-preferential PR." The Branch went beyond merely defending PR,
and suggested some improvements to existing arrangements. In ironic contrast, the PRSA's
NSW Branch has also been asking a different Review Committee, chaired by National Office-bearers for 1992-93
The Returning
Officer for the recent elections of PRSA National Office-bearers, Mr Norman
Cox, has declared the candidates below elected unopposed to the following
positions within the Society from 1st January 1992 to 31st December 1993: National President: Mr Geoffrey GoodeNational Vice-President: Mr David HigbedNational Secretary: Mr John AlexanderNational Treasurer: Mr Leonard Higgs The
session of the Melbourne Anglican Synod reported in Quota Notes No. 62 to have adjourned in May,
and to have referred a Bill on a proportional representation electoral system
for examination by a Committee appointed by the Archbishop in Council,
resumed in October. The
Committee, which included the PRSA National President, was chaired by the
Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, Bishop James Grant. It submitted a modified
Bill, which met concerns that had been expressed over drafting matters. This
Bill left the details of the method of counting to be prescribed by
regulations, which the Committee is expected to draft. The Bill had the
following features:
"Votes
will be counted according to the quota-preferential method of proportional
representation prescribed by Regulations under the Regulations of Elections
Act 1980." PRSA
members should always make a point of advocating that the rules governing
elections require that the name of the method of vote counting (whether it is
PR or not) be stated on each ballot-paper, as it is usually the only
dependable way that all voters will have the method
drawn to their attention, at each future election. Unfortunately
the Tasmanian Assembly method of filling casual vacancies, which was envisaged by the
May Bill, was replaced by the English General Synod method (which is also WA's Upper
House method) of recounting all the ballot-papers at the previous election,
disregarding preferences marked for the vacating candidate. At its second reading, which was
carried on the voices with hardly any noes, the Bill was supported by a
member of the Committee, the Hon. Robert Fordham, who reminded Synod members of the
electoral system that the Bill would remove and its recognized deficiencies,
and indicated his approval of the change from the May Bill in the method of
filling casual vacancies, and the provision for a periodic review and report
to Synod of the operation of the new system. After
minor amendments in the Committee of the Whole Synod, two members of the
Committee appointed by the Archbishop in Council, Mr Rick Brown and Professor
John Scott, moved and seconded respectively that the Bill now pass. In both
the House of Clergy and the House of Laity the Bill was passed on the voices,
with no voices against. The Archbishop, Dr Keith Rayner, then announced that he expected he would give his assent
to the Bill in
due course. SA Boundaries Commission Report The
PRSA's South Australian Branch has congratulated SA's Electoral Districts
Boundaries Commission on its recent report in which it did not attempt to
hide the fact that single-member systems cannot guarantee a fair result, as
recent Canute-like legislation has called for, and it admitted that: It
was unable to confirm that, if the Liberals receive 51% of the popular vote,
they would obtain an absolute majority of seats. At
least one electorate will be larger than the 10% statutory tolerance. As
Liberal MP Graham Gunn said prophetically in the SA Parliament on 21st
November 1991, "It
is obvious that, the way we are going, the single-member electoral system has
just about run its race." The PRSA's National Research Officer,
Mr Bogey Musidlak, has obtained interesting information from the Japanese
Embassy on September's electoral reform bill, which unsuccessfully tried to
institute a German style mixed member electoral system for the
Japanese Lower House. Such an indirect and arbitrary procedure is attractive
to party machines, but not to voters. Bogey also obtained information on the
UN-sponsored peace plan for © 1991 Proportional Representation Society of National President: Geoffrey Goode 18 Anita Street BEAUMARIS 3193 National Secretary: John Alexander 5 Bray Street MOSMAN 2088 Tel: (03) 9589 1802 (02) 99602123 info@prsa.org.au Printed by Pink Panther Instant Printing, |
