Official: Poll on New
Zealand Electoral System in September
The
Electoral
Reform Coaltion in New Zealand has reported that
the New Zealand Parliament has passed legislation that
requires that an indicative poll of all NZ voters, on
possible changes to the New
Zealand electoral system, be held on Saturday,
19th September 1992. Provided the outcome of that poll
favours a change, a binding decision to change the
electoral system is achievable at a referendum to be
held with the 1993 General Election.Two questions will
be submitted to voters in September. The first will
simply ask whether the voter is or is not in favour of
a change to the electoral system for the New Zealand
House of Representatives. The voter is to mark
whichever of the following two statements is
preferred:
- I vote to retain the present first past the post
system.
- I vote for a change to the voting system.
The present system, which has existed since
parliamentary elections began in New Zealand, is a
system of single-
member electorates with
first-past-the-post
voting and counting in each electorate.
The second question in September, to be answered by
and counted for all voters, regardless of their
response to the first question, is to indicate which
one, of four particular electoral systems proposed,
the voter would prefer if the electoral system were to
be changed.
The four systems, in the order they are to appear on
the ballot-paper, are:
A. Supplementary Member
B. Single Transferable Vote
C. Mixed Member Proportional
D. Preferential Voting
Most unfortunately, the voting on the choice of these
four systems will be decided by a first-past-the-post
count. Thus the first question above may be carried by
an absolute majority of the vote, i.e. over 50%, but
this second question may be decided by a mere
relative majority, i.e. as few as a handful
over 25% of the vote. If none of the four options
receives an absolute majority of the vote it will
nevertheless be offered in 1993 as the only option other
than the existing system.
The tragedy with this approach is the whole fallacy
of first-past-the-post voting. An absolute majority of
voters may want reform, provided it is any of several
options except the one that is chosen by the largest
minority of voters. That is the way the first
September question could be carried, but the 1993 poll
lost. The solution would be to require September's
option poll to be by preferential voting. Any populace
considering preferential voting has to be prepared to
use it for the first time. Australia embarked on it
around 1919 for elections to both houses both in the
States and federally, with multiple vacancies being
filled in the Senate. If the largely rural and less
well-educated Australians of 70 years ago could handle
preferential voting, why can't New Zealanders today?
Option A is fairly similar to the existing New
Zealand system except that a small number of extra
seats are added to the existing large number of
single-member first-past-the-post electorates. Only
those extra seats would be filled as a group - by a
nation-wide party list, as opposed to a
quota-preferential, proportional representation
election.
Option B is a quota-preferential system similar to
that used in Australia's Senate and various State
Houses. New Zealand would be divided into a relatively
small number of multi-member electorates instead of
the present large number of single-member electorates.
It is the only type of proportional representation
that has been legislated for before in New Zealand,
and was used in certain New Zealand municipal
elections for a number of years.
Option C is similar to the German Bundestag
electoral system. Half the seats in the New Zealand
House of Representatives would be elected as at
present, except that, because there would be only half
the present number of single-member electorates, each
would contain twice the present number of electors.
The other half of the seats would be elected from a
nation-wide electorate by a party list vote on a
second ballot-paper where essentially the voter is
unable to vote for other than a registered party
ticket, with no or very little power to decide which
individual persons to advance within or among such
party groupings. This second ballot-paper is used,
unlike Option A, to augment deficiencies in party
representation overall.
Option D is the only fully single-member electoral
system, with no proportional element intended. It is
identical to the system used for Australia's House of
Representatives.
Mr Deane Crabb, Secretary of the PRSA's
South Australian Branch, recently drew attention to the
very satisfactory way in which the Australian Electoral
Commission is publicizing and conducting the filling of
casual vacancies in Regional Councils under the Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islanders Act 1989.
The Act requires that such vacancies be filled by a
re-examination of the ballot-papers that formed the
quota of votes that elected the vacating member. That
method has applied for the Tasmanian Assembly since
1918 after Mr John Humphries, the Secretary of the
British Proportional Representation Society,
courageously voyaged out to Tasmania during World War
I to urge a Select Committee of the Tasmanian
Parliament to adopt that procedure.
The ATSIC Act requires a call for continuing
candidates, and the result of the re-examination, to
be published in an appropriate newspaper. An AEC
advertisement last month announced the result for the
casual vacancy in the Ngintaka Regional Council. It
explained that declarations were received from the
following unsuccessful candidates (from the election
held on 3rd November 1990) requesting that their names
be included in the recount to fill the casual vacancy:
It
finished by stating that the result of the recount was
that Trevor Adamson received an absolute majority of
those votes and was therefore declared elected.
The term recount is specified in the
ATSIC Act, but does have the disadvantage that it can
be confused with the established and quite separate
recount necessary when a challenge to the
result of an election is investigated. Tasmanians have
long called the procedure a countback,
which does have the benefit of being a term used
solely for that procedure, although it is not of
itself very illuminating as to what is being done. The
PRSA has tended to use the term re-examination,
as it is separate from the established
recount, and lends itself to an elaboration,
if that is necessary, of what is being done.
The voters for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Regional
Councils are fortunate indeed in not only having
quota-preferential PR for their periodic elections but
also having direct control over who fills casual
vacancies. Furthermore they are informed for each such
vacancy, by statutory newspaper advertisements, as to
who the continuing candidates are, and which one was
elected. By comparison the general Australian voter
for the Senate is treated with indifference regarding
casual vacancies. Such voters have no direct vote on
who is to fill a casual vacancy, which can be nearly
all of the 6-year term, and there is not even a
statutory newspaper advertisement to explain the
procedure or announce the result.
This illustrates Professor Arthur Burns's comment
that Senate seats are being passed on almost like
seats in the House of Lords. Unlike the Australian
Senate the House of Lords has no pretensions to being
a democratic chamber. Mr Olsen resigned his SA seat to
enter the Senate, which had SA taxpayers paying for a
State by-election poll. He then resigned his Senate
seat to re-enter the State Assembly at a later
by-election, hoping to win his party's leadership, but
he was not elected as leader. Senator Ferguson was
chosen by a joint sitting of the SA
Parliament from a list with only one name on it - his.
The Parliament had not been sitting at the time and
both houses had to be recalled for this purely formal
rubber stamp exercise in sham democracy.
Quota Notes will keep reporting further such
appointments of substitute senators to remind readers
of the undemocratic nature of Section 15 of the
Commonwealth Constitution, which governs Senate casual
vacancies, and of the much better system of
re-examining General Election ballot-papers as applies
for Tasmania's Assembly.
Three names that appeared in the 1992
Queen's Birthday Honours List, for reasons not directly
related to PR, are those of people that have indicated
significant and worthwhile support for
quota-preferential electoral systems.
The Hon. Donald Chipp AO, founding Leader of the
Australian Democrats Party, which has, from when he
founded it, consistently advocated PR for lower houses
in Australia, is now an Officer of the Order of
Australia.
The Hon. Alan Hunt AM, President of the Legislative
Council of Victoria, which is the only mainland upper
house that lacks PR, is now a Member of the Order. Mr
Hunt has not been able to persuade his party to
support PR, but he is widely believed to have tried
hard, particularly when he was the Party's Upper House
Leader.
Mr Ball recently agreed to a request by the
Commonwealth Secretariat in London to give similar help
in forthcoming PR elections in Mozambique, and he is now
there as the senior electoral consultant during the 12
to 18-month lead-up to the Mozambique election. His work
there will include drawing up an electoral register
(Mozambique has a population of over 8 million), and
many of the fine details necessary for the proper
implementation of the electoral system.
Given Mr Ball's African work and Senator Gareth
Evans's efforts towards PR in Cambodia (See QN 64), perhaps
Australia could, if it increased its own use of PR, be
seen as a world leader in fair electoral systems and we
could see a new Australian export industry.
A tribute is due to Mr Lew Ellis, a longstanding
advocate in South Australia of proportional
representation, who died recently. He first joined the
SA Branch in 1946, and was President in 1962-70 and
1976-78. As Secretary in 1970-74 he was succeeded by the
present Secretary, Deane Crabb. As an Enfield City
Council alderman Lew continually pressed for PR
elections. SA's present local government legislation
reflects his efforts as it now allows PR as an option.
The SA Branch awarded him Honorary Life Membership in
1988 in recognition of his services to the cause.
Members of the PRSA offer their condolences to his widow
and family.
