QUOTA 
NOTES
Newsletter
of the Proportional Representation Society of
QN2004C
September
2004
www.prsa.org.au
Draft Bill for
new Tasmanian Electoral Act
The
Tasmanian Electoral Office has assisted with the drafting of a bill for a new
consolidated act to replace
Submissions
on the draft were made by the Proportional Representation Society of Australia
and by its Victoria-Tasmania Branch. Our submissions welcomed the essential
intention for the new bill that it would simplify language and procedure, and
allow certain flexibility and responsiveness by electoral authorities in
conducting Hare-Clark elections. The bill would, in line with usage in certain
other States and the Commonwealth, replace the Electoral Office with a
Tasmanian Electoral Commission.
The
PRSA submission said that the experience of the ACT has been cited in support
of the sensible move to combine all papers of the same value, and to deal with
them in descending order when a candidate is excluded.
The
PRSA said that the ACT’s procedures are driven by a consistent desire to
minimize levels of unnecessary informality or exhaustion of votes. When the
Hare-Clark option was put to the people and preferred by nearly two-thirds of
them in 1992, the official material sent to electors said that the ballot-paper
would request that at least as many preferences be filled in as there are
vacancies. It said nothing specific about the consequence of not complying.
The
ACT’s approach has been to accept votes as formal provided that they have a
single first preference. Although that results in more exhausted votes when
some candidates are excluded, the principle is that voters are being listened
to closely rather than dictated to, and there has been no complaint about
levels of exhausted votes.
The
Proportional Representation Society of Australia recognized that
The
ACT’s electoral legislation follows the PRSA’s Proportional
Representation Manual and the guidance of the Electoral Reform Society of Great
Britain and Ireland in seeking to minimize exhaustion as much as possible when
a surplus is transferred. This is done by defining the transfer value with a
different divisor from that used in Tasmania, namely the number of transferable
ballot-papers in the last parcel received rather than the total number of
papers in the parcel (with of course a proviso that that transfer value must
never rise). In other words, efforts are made to place any unused value of
non-transferable papers within the quota of an elected candidate, and, to the
extent possible, share out the surplus among only those papers that have a next
available preference.
Sometimes
an elected candidate can unavoidably be left with more than a quota of votes,
when the rule that a transfer value not increase is invoked. The PRSA commended
the ACT’s approach to defining the transfer value for the consideration of the
Tasmanian Parliament as it enhances the respect paid to individual voters’
wishes.
The
PRSA noted that the language surrounding the filling of casual vacancies when a
candidate is declared elected without necessarily receiving a quota has been
expanded since the long-established procedures were nearly the subject of
litigation in 1990. The ACT legislation in relation to countback
specifies that where a candidate is elected in these circumstances, the value
at which top-up papers will be considered is established at the time of the
general election. This is entirely straightforward because all the
ballot-papers are now entered electronically for counting in the ACT. There is
much benefit in incorporating this into Tasmanian practice regardless of
whether steps are taken in the direction of electronic entry and counting of
votes.
The
PRSA said it regards Hare-Clark as a democratic treasure, and would happily
elaborate on anything that might improve it further. It also offered to advise
in future on technical aspects if there were thought of considering more than
just the parcel of votes taking an elected candidate up to or beyond the quota
when distributing a surplus (interestingly, there are provisions before the
Western Australian Parliament to replace the current defective Senate procedure
with one free of anomalies), or of reducing the quota as ballot-papers become non-transferable
and votes are unavoidably exhausted. Points in the submission were subsequently
discussed with the Chief Electoral Officer, Mr Bruce Taylor
The
Victoria-Tasmania Branch accepted the proposed removal of certain forms and
procedures from the Act with their details in future to be decided
administratively, but said that a requirement for the form or procedure
currently in force to be publicly accessible by a public advertisement or Web
page or both was needed, as such details certainly had operational importance,
and were also useful to those seeking to learn more about the way Hare-Clark
worked.
Multi-member
Electorate Symposium – Towards a Fairer Voting System for SA
A
number of priorities for parliamentary reform were identified at last year’s
Constitutional Convention held in
Multi-member
electorates was one of the priorities identified at the Convention, but it has
been ignored so far. Greens MHA Kris Hanna therefore decided to organize a
Multi-member Electorate Symposium, held on
Mr
Hanna, a lawyer, who had resigned from the Labor Party and joined the Greens
Party a year into his current term, opened the Symposium, explaining why
The
keynote speaker was Deane Crabb, Secretary of the PRSA’s South Australian
Branch, the Electoral Reform Society of South Australia, who explained how
proportional representation works, and why it is more democratic. He used
Thomas Hill’s 1820 schoolboy election model to show in simple terms how the
principle of quota-preferential PR works. Deane contrasted the results of SA’s
House of Assembly polls (preferential voting in single-member electorates) with
its Legislative Council polls (quota-preferential PR with the entire State as
one 11-member electorate). He showed what the result might have been if the
Hare-Clark method of PR had been used to elect members of the House of Assembly
– greater voter representation and with parties better represented in
proportion to first preference votes received.
Dr
Clement Macintyre, Head of the Politics Department at the
Two
New Zealand Greens MPs then spoke about the
The
New Zealand Royal Commission that had investigated electoral systems had
outlined ten criteria necessary for
The
second NZ Greens MP, Metiria Turei, a young Maori woman, outlined the
significance of proportional representation for women and indigenous people.
She pointed out that there are now eight Maori women in the New Zealand
Parliament. There are seven dedicated Maori electorates, but with MMP there is
now 16% Maori representation in Parliament, which is greater than the
percentage of Maori in the population. Ms Turei said that Parliamentary
representation is only the start of trying to get more involvement for women
and indigenous people.
A
panel consisting of Hon Peter Lewis MHA (Speaker, and an Independent MP); Hon
Sandra Kanck MLC (Australian Democrat Leader in the Legislative Council); Hon
Robert Lawson QC, MLC (Liberal Deputy Leader in the Legislative Council, and
Shadow Attorney-General); and Kris Hanna MHA (Greens) then held a discussion. Each
panellist briefly outlined his or her opinion of multi-member electorates. Mr
Lewis pointed out that at the last State election in
Glynn
Evans, a
That
arrangement would be similar to
Finally
there was a general question and answer session to the panel of MPs. This
included a discussion on whether stability was important, with many feeling
that coalitions can give more stability than one-party governments. On the
issue of the way forward, as there had already been the Constitutional
Convention, there was debate firstly on the need for a change. Mr Lawson said
that the community is not showing the need for change. Debate on how to achieve
change led to both a Royal Commission and a Parliamentary Select Committee
being suggested. Mr Hanna said, in ending the Symposium, that he thought that a
Select Committee could be the next step.
The
PRSA prefers quota-preferential PR over MMP because it minimises vote wastage
and gives voters an opportunity to choose between individual candidates, rather
than only between lists of party candidates predetermined by the parties. All
MPs are elected on the same footing, none under the defective single-member
electorates that provide a majority of
The Launching
of Neil Robson’s Booklet at Parliament House, Hobart
On
The
master of ceremonies at the launching was David Crean, former Treasurer of
Tasmania and one-time son-in-law of Neil, who did not recontest his Legislative
Council seat of Elwick in May 2004 after being diagnosed with a kidney ailment.
Neil was the keynote speaker. The Hon Donald Wing, President of the Legislative
Council, moved a vote of thanks. About sixty people attended by invitation.
Neil
Robson has always been interested in electoral systems. In 1979 he succeeded in
having a significant Private Member’s Bill he had instigated passed by
Robson
Rotation is of the rotation of candidates’ names in prescribed positions in the
various columns of names on ballot-papers so that no candidate benefits overall
from his or her position on the ballot-paper. It has also become a feature of
the electoral system for the
The Death of
Two Former Tasmanian Premiers
On
"I have been a
smoker for 35 years and I reckon for all of that time my doctors and friends
have tried to advise me to give up smoking - I have been an idiot, I have not
listened," he said. "I have kept smoking and I now accept that in
large part I am paying the price."
Having been State
Secretary of the Builders’ Labourers Federation and then Secretary of the
Trades and Labour Council since 1989, Mr Bacon entered the Parliament as a
member for
Elected on first
preference votes in 1996 and with just under two quotas in 1998, he increased
that support to 21,391 first preference votes in 2002, the third highest number
of votes polled in any seat in the history of the State. The Liberal Party lost
both its Leader and Deputy in a major debacle, and was outpolled by the Greens
in
His opening Assembly
speech, after introduction of the Prohibited Guns Order 1996 following the
After Mr Bacon resigned
on 21st March, five unelected candidates consented to participate in the countback
to determine his replacement. David Bartlett, one of the two ALP consenting
candidates, gained an absolute majority from the first preferences (52.2%) in
the recount held on 1st April. Mr Bacon died on
Paul
Lennon entered the House of Assembly on
The Unelected
Senators Stay till 30th June
The
last report on unelected senators (QN1997D) listed a
record number of fifteen unelected senators, almost 20% of the Senate. The
present Senate contains six senators – one twelfth of the State representation
- that were never elected at Senate polls, yet they are all able to sit in the
Senate unelected for a longer term than any MHR, all 150 of whom are required
to be directly elected by the people.
The
list below shows the unelected senators that can remain in office until
|
Vacating Senator (Elected by the People) |
Replacement Senator (Unelected by the People) |
State |
Party |
Date Sworn in as a Senator (Unelected by the People) |
Years Able to Sit in the Senate Unelected |
|
J.Herron |
S.Santoro* |
Qld. |
Lib. |
|
5.6 |
|
W.Parer |
G.Brandis |
Qld. |
Lib. |
|
5.1 |
|
J.Quirke |
G.Buckland |
SA |
ALP |
|
4.7 |
|
R.Alston |
M.Fifield* |
Vic. |
Lib. |
01APR2004 |
4.2 |
|
J.Woodley |
J.Cherry |
Qld. |
AD |
|
3.9 |
|
B.Gibson |
G.Barnett |
Tas. |
Lib. |
|
3.3 |
This
anomaly of senators having to be directly elected by the people (Section
7 of the Constitution), yet those filling casual vacancies not being
directly elected (Section
15, altered in 1977), needs to be eliminated.
© 2004
Proportional Representation Society of
National
President: Bogey Musidlak 14 Strzelecki Cr. NARRABUNDAH 2604
National
Secretary: Dr Stephen Morey 4 Sims Street
Tel: (02) 6295 8137, (03) 9598 1122 Fax (03) 9589 1680 ggd@netspace.net.au
Printed by Prestige
Copying & Printing, 97 Pirie Street ADELAIDE SA 5000