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QUOTA
Newsletter
of the Proportional Representation Society of Number 72 December 1993 www.prsa.org.au
·
Groom Government Attempts to Weaken Hare-Clark ·
ACT Government Breaks Its Undertakings on Hare-Clark ·
NZ to Abandon its Electoral System of Single-Member
Districts Only ·
PRSA Invited to Constitutional Centenary Foundation
Forum ·
National Office-bearers for 1994-95 ·
South Australia's Supposed "Landslide" Groom Government Attempts to Weaken Hare-Clark
A sudden attempt by Tasmania's Liberal
Party Government, without significant prior publicity or public inquiry, to
adversely alter Tasmania's Constitution Act 1934 by reverting to the
pre-1958 arrangement of having 6 members per Assembly electoral district
instead of the 7 that have been established for the last 25 years, has
suffered a temporary setback thanks to public vigilance, opposition by the
ALP and the Green Independents and, most importantly, the decidedly non-ALP
Upper House. The Legislative Assembly, whose majority forms the Government, and
which is elected by the Hare-Clark form of proportional representation,
passed a Government Bill that would return A major public meeting called to protest against the manoeuvre filled
the The Legislative Council resolved that the Bill should be subjected to
an Inquiry in 1994 before it would consider it again. Articles in The Mercury by Dr George Howatt, who
wrote the original report to both Houses of Parliament recommending the use of 7 MHAs per
district, and discussions between him and most of the 19 MLCs greatly
assisted the Upper House in its wise decision. ACT Government Breaks Its Undertakings on
Hare-Clark
The minority Follett ALP Government
tabled its Electoral (Amendment) Bill
1993 in the ACT's unicameral legislature on 16th December in response to
the 1992 ACT plebiscite where 65% of ACT voters chose a pure Hare-Clark
electoral system. Hare-Clark was specified in detail in the official
plebiscite material as the alternative option to the single-member
electorates openly favoured for the ACT by both the Federal and ACT
Governments. The news of the Follett Government's Bill reversing its public pledge
headed the front page of The Canberra
Times. The main but not the only breach of trust was the inclusion of
post-1984 Senate-style Group Voting Tickets and the associated above-the-line
boxes. Bogey Musidlak was reported saying, for the PRSA, that people would be
ticking an order above the line (the party's) that bore no resemblance to the
order of names below the line. He said, "It looks like the first attempt
in Australian electoral history to have the ballot-paper wilfully misleading
the voters. If it were a commercial document, the Trade Practices Commission
would be on to them in a flash." The independent expert, Malcolm
Mackerras, said, "Hare-Clark is inconsistent with above-the-line
and I would regard it a flouting of the wishes of the electorate." The ACT Government is breaching trust
with the voters at the plebiscite and with all future voters using a Robson
Rotation ballot-paper. Robson Rotation was a feature specified at the
plebiscite. A court challenge might be needed. Senate ballot-papers have a
fixed, stage-managed order of the names of the candidates in each Group, and
voters can and normally do expect that to be the same as the order of the
Group's candidates in the corresponding Group Voting Ticket. By the very
nature and purpose of Robson Rotation there would be no such implicit nexus
in the devious ballot-paper envisaged by the ACT Bill. The Bill will be debated in February 1994, and the voting intentions,
so far unrevealed, of Mr Dennis Stevenson MHA will be critical to the
outcome. NZ to Abandon its Electoral System of
Single-Member Districts Only
The crudity of The replacement is MMP, a sorry contrivance, with a thin veneer of
plausibility. Half the MPs will still be from single-member electorates - the
rest will not be directly elected by the people. Sadly The concurrent NZ General Election mocked the claims made by the
single-member electorate supporters. It gave no comfortable substantial
majority to one party, and 55% of the voters elected nobody - they gave their
non-transferable votes to unsuccessful candidates. PRSA Invited to Constitutional Centenary
Foundation Forum
The Constitutional Centenary Foundation
Inc. On 12th November 1993 a 2? hour
Forum was held in Victoria's Legislative Council Chamber, which was
Australia's Senate Chamber from 1901 to 1927, on the desirability of a
popularly and directly elected Constitutional Convention being established by
legislation to draft Constitutional Alteration Bills for consideration by
Federal Parliament, and decision by the electors if Parliament passed such
bills. Such a method is being considered partly because it was the remarkably
successful method by which the Constitution was drafted and approved in the
first place. The Foundation invited the
National President, Mr Geoffrey Goode, to represent the PRSA. Proceedings
began with addresses by three speakers, Professor Stuart McIntyre, Professor
of History at the Dr Costar considered that an
entirely directly-elected Convention, where each State was one electorate
returning the same number of delegates, would be feasible, but that it would
need to use a quota-preferential form of counting rather than the
first-past-the-post block vote that was used in the 1890s. He further
commented that he thought that it would be undesirable to use Senate-style Group
Voting Tickets, and that some degree of optional marking of preferences might
be favoured. He did not go into further detail, such as the use of Robson
Rotation, or the provisions for filling casual vacancies. Dr Costar remarked that some
people might consider that a directly-elected Convention would not be representative
enough, and that consideration may be given to creating positions for
various special groups, to ensure that they were not unrepresented.
Unfortunately in the subsequent discussion several speakers supported the
notion that a partly pre-ordained representation was superior to one that was
entirely directly and popularly elected. The PRSA President made the
observation, as a comment on the encouraging historical background view that
had been put by Professor McIntyre that, of the six Australian colonies that
each had ten representatives at the 1890s Constitutional Convention, it was
only in the four most advanced colonies that citizens voted directly to
decide their representation on the Convention. In the remaining then
relatively backward colonies of Mr Goode also mentioned to the
Forum that when British ministers in London proposed altering somewhat the
draft Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Bill 1900, which was presented
to them by an Australian delegation there, and which was eventually endorsed
by referendum in all six colonies, the delegates had a powerful argument for
their insistence on there being no such alterations. They argued that not
only had each colony accepted the draft Constitution by referendum, but a
majority of the colonies (which contained over 80% of those eligible to vote
at the referendum) had selected their delegates to the Convention that
produced the draft Constitution by direct election from the electorate at
large. What business was it of the The PRSA intends to make a
detailed submission to the Foundation on electoral matters relevant to a
directly-elected Convention, and on electoral provisions that should be
included in the Commonwealth Constitution. ♫ ♪ ♫ "O
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NOTES|
PERCENTAGES |
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|
|
LIB. |
OTH. |
BLOC |
REF. |
CONS. |
|
Votes
|
41.6 |
10.3 |
13.9 |
18.1 |
16.1 |
|
Seats
|
60.3 |
1.0 |
18.3 |
17.6 |
0.7 |
Real
Choices/New Voices
This is the title of a significant new
book published this month in the
"Why does
Professor Amy blames the US plurality voting system for contributing
to some of the nation's most serious political problems, including the two
party oligopoly, issue-less campaigns, low voter turnout, and lack of
minority representation. Real Choices/New Voices argues that proportional
representation would create more representative legislatures, minimize wasted
votes, eliminate gerrymandering, encourage issue-oriented campaigns, enhance
representation of women and minorities, and ultimately increase voter
turnout.
Why does the
Professor Amy
contacted the PRSA for information while he was writing his book, and he
kindly acknowledges the PRSA and its help at the front of the book.
The price of the 224-page book is US$35, and it is well worth it. It
is to be hoped that the book will help to fuel the feebly flickering flame of
proportional representation in the
National Office-bearers for 1994-95
The Returning Officer for the recent elections
of PRSA National Office-bearers, Mr Tom Round, has declared the candidates
below elected unopposed to the following positions within the Society from
1st January 1994 to 31st December 1995:
National President: Mr Bogey MusidlakNational Vice-President: Mr Geoffrey GoodeNational Secretary: Mr John AlexanderNational Treasurer: Mr Leonard Higgs Mr
Goode, who succeeded the late Mr Jack Wright as National President in 1986,
is pleased to see Bogey Musidlak elected, and is looking forward as the new
Vice-President to working with him. Mr David Higbed, the retiring
Vice-President, did not stand again.
Bogey
was the Research Officer for the NSW Branch in the early 1980s, and has been
National Research Officer since 1989. He is also the Convenor of the ACT
Branch.
Some
of the PRSA's success stories that have given him heart have been the
detection, with Jack Wright, of flaws in the 1983 Bill to amend the
Commonwealth Electoral Act (there was confusion between exhaustion and
non-transferability of votes, the election of the correct number of senators
would not have been guaranteed in practice), analyses of NSW municipal PR
elections that were helpful in repelling recent NSW Government attempts to
dispense with PR there, and undoubtedly the successful ACT Hare-Clark
plebiscite during 1991-2.
Bogey
believes strongly that we must collect more information so we can articulate
our position cogently and early in public debate and also identify clubs,
societies and other organizations that might institute fairer election rules.
As there have been some excesses under current procedures, progress might be
made with trade union and company board election rules.
South
Australia
At the South Australian election
on 11th December the Liberals appeared to have won just over 80% of the seats
in the House of Assembly, although they won only 53% of the first preference
vote. The single-member electorate system robbed them of probable office in
1989. Their margin in first preference votes over the ALP was 3.1 percentage
points then (QN56). This time it gave them an exaggerated percentage of the
seats, which will lead to a restive backbench and an enfeebled Opposition.
The table below shows how much fairer a
Hare-Clark result would be in a system of seven 7-member electoral districts.
The Opposition would have one or more members in each electoral district in
the State and not just the 9 out of 47 now likely, yet the Liberals would
still have an absolute majority of seats in the Assembly.
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PERCENTAGES |
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ALP |
AD |
OTH. |
LIB. |
|
1st
Preference Vote |
30.2 |
8.9 |
7.8 |
53.1 |
|
Hare-Clark
Seats |
33.0 |
4.0 |
6.0 |
57.0 |
|
Single-Member
Seats |
19.1 |
0.0 |
0.0 |
80.9 |
Initiative for South Africa
The
Vice-President of the PRSA's Victorian Branch, Mr Fred Ingamells, proposed
sending the Anglican Archbishop of
Mr Ingamells approached the author of the
book, Mr Terry Newman, the Chief Librarian of the Tasmanian Parliamentary
Library, to buy a copy, but Mr Newman insisted on posting him a free copy
when he heard that it was to be sent to the Archbishop.
Mr Ingamells paid express airmail postage
on the book so Archbishop Tutu could examine it before his recent visit to
PRSA members must constantly take such
initiatives when opportunities arise to promote Hare-Clark.
Obituaries
On
16th October 1993 a longstanding PRSA member, and champion in
Ron
lived to see increasing use of Hare-Clark in Tasmanian councils - some of
that was due to legislation establishing new amalgamated councils
specifically requiring Hare-Clark elections, but there is no doubt he would
have been appalled by, and would have actively campaigned against, the
Government's recent attempt to revert to 6-member districts for Assembly
elections. Mr Excell, a former Hobart City Alderman, is survived by his wife
Mary and their children.
Mr
Edward Wheeler, the newly-elected Secretary of the ACT Branch of the PRSA,
whose professional editing talents were proving of great value to the Branch,
also died recently, of a heart attack in his sleep. His passing similarly
represents a significant loss to the Society. His colleagues all attended the
memorial service held for him.
© 1993 Proportional Representation Society of
National
President: Bogey Musidlak, 14 Strzelecki Cr, NARRABUNDAH 2604
Tel: (02) 6295 8137 info@prsa.org.au
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