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PROPORTIONAL
REPRESENTATION SOCIETY OF |
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Tel +6139589
1802 |
Tel +61429176725 |
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BEAUMARIS VIC 3193 |
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2010-09-13 |
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The Debates (1863-1898) on Proportional Representation in |
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A feature
of the floor of the entrance foyer at At first sight, the 88
Lower House MPs that are entitled to sit within might be thought to
constitute a multitude of counsellors in biblical terms. Unfortunately a
little more thought soon reveals that there is little safety in numbers where
important attributes like diversity, breadth of representation, and
independence of thought are largely absent. Why have 88 MLAs, representing
only two mutually antagonistic points of view (one ALP view and one Coalition
view), and only two MLAs, representing any other points of view, as has been
the case since 2001, when other substantial minorities are left with no MLAs
at all? Of course, if those
attributes are present to excess, there might be some reduction in coherence
of purpose, but the way to avoid such a reduction is to reach a sensible
medium position between Victoria’s complete absence of any proportional
representation in its Lower House, and the alternative that occurs in
some legislatures, such as Israel’s,
where closed party lists, and a low percentage threshold of 2% for a party to
be elected, understandably do not show the proportional representation
principle at its best. The PRSA advocates a Hare-Clark system,
with multi-member electorates. The introduction of quota-preferential proportional
representation, which is the direct and preferential form of proportional
representation, for elections to A life member of the PRSA’s Victorian Branch, the
late Mr Roger Donegan of Mont Albert, had obtained for the Society
some interesting extracts from debates in Victoria’s colonial
parliament that he obtained from various volumes of the official record, the Victorian
Parliamentary Debates (more recently known as "Hansard"). A major
debate occurred when Mr Robert Murray-Smith, MLA for Hawthorn, successfully
moved, on 2nd August 1898, "That it be an
instruction to the committee to provide for the adoption of Hare’s
system of proportional representation." [VPD Vol. 88, p. 581] Mr Alfred Deakin, who later
became "... As a matter of fact, illustrations can be
abundantly cited to show that the majority does not rule under the existing
system on the questions on which the majority should rule, and that instead
of this proposal being antagonistic to the majority, it is a proposal which
will bring the legislative forces of the country and its Legislative Assembly
into touch with the majority of the peoples in the electorates, just as
directly as the referendum does for the whole of the people. [ibid. p. 669]" "I will support any measure for letting the Upper
House or this House try the system of proportional representation ... [ibid. p. 676] The only important
issue is the accurate representation of public opinion. [ibid. p. 745]" Mr Isaac Isaacs, who
later, as Sir Isaac Isaacs,
was Chief Justice of the High Court, and then Governor-General of Australia,
might have been thinking of party list PR
when, in opposing the motion, he said, "And
so each man, instead of being an independent voter, would be dragged in as
one of the mere details of the party machine, and would have to vote exactly
as he was told." [ibid.
p 746] Unfortunately neither
this nor other attempts, either before or since, to introduce proportional
representation for elections to the Victorian Parliament were brought to a
successful conclusion until the introduction of legislation in 2003 to
provide for election of Victoria's Legislative Council by PR in November
2006, which year was the 150th anniversary of the first general election for
members of that Legislative Council.. Earlier discussion of PR included the
following: The Premier, Mr Duncan Gillies, moved, on 25th
September 1888, that a Bill, that amongst other things, would increase the
number of single-member electorates from 29 to 73, be read a second time. [VPD
Vol. 58 pp. 1213-1215] The number of
multi-member electorates, with the non-preferential "limited vote" system applying, was
to be reduced to make way for this development. Such electorates, using that
voting system, which were also phased out in the United Kingdom in this era
but still, curiously, linger in some electorates for the ancient House of Keys on the Isle of Man, had
been used in William Walker 1338
votes, Charles Taylor 1323 votes. In the debate on the
Premier’s Bill, Mr John Gavan Duffy
said, "The Minister for Customs (William Walker)
had alluded to (the Victorian electorate of) Belfast as a horrid example of
an electoral anomaly; but the honorable gentleman himself was returned at the
last general election by a majority of only fourteen." The Premier
interjected, "What does that
matter?" Mr Duffy continued,
"The honorable gentleman having been returned by a majority of fourteen,
it followed that one-half of the large and important constituency of
Boroondara, less fourteen, was completely disfranchised. Was not that an
anomaly? ... Had the Premier, who chose to sneer at any line of argument
which did not exactly please him, never heard of the representation of
minorities? (Mr Gillies: "No") Then he would lend the Premier a
little book on the subject. (Mr Gillies: "By whom?") Written by a
gentleman named Hare. (Mr Gillies: "You are mistaken.") If he
(Duffy) must speak by the card, he would say that the system was called the
proportional system of representation, but it is more popularly known as the
representation of minorities.[VPD
Vol. 58, p. 1715]" In a Victorian Legislative Assembly debate, on 17th February 1881, a former Premier, Sir John O’Shanassy,
said, "I am surprised that no plan
of proportional representation is provided for in the Bill, especially as
leading statesmen and philosophers are every year more strongly advocating
the adoption of that principle in connexion with the electoral system. Why
should the representation in every district be given to a bare majority of the
electors and the minority be left out in the cold?" That former Premier of
Victoria went on to say, "Why is
the system of proportional representation altogether ignored, when it is
founded on justice, and the professed desire of the men in this country who
call themselves liberals is that the whole people shall be represented - not
merely a part, but the whole? ..." [VPD Vol. 35, p. 1484] Sir John O’Shanassy
had not made his views known precipitately. He had said, over seven years
earlier, on 26th August 1873, "I
gave an early adhesion to the principle which he (Thomas Hare) endeavours, in his
admirable treatise, to illustrate - a principle under which all classes of
feeling may be represented in a body of influence and weight. ... Mr Hare has
been described by an honorable member of another place as a "closet
philosopher", but the fact is - and I visited him when in the mother country - that he is a practical
lawyer; he drafted his own Bill; and I assert, after considering that Bill,
you can vote as easily, under Mr Hare’s system, as you can stamp a
letter and put it into the post-office. ... The machinery looks complicated,
but the elector has no more to do with that than the person who drops his
letter into the post-office has to do with the postal machinery." [VPD Vol. 16, p. 1214] Sir John O’Shanassy
had advocated the implementation of Hare’s system in 1863 when he was
Premier [VPD Vol. 9, pp.
540-541] In a debate on 4th March 1863 [VPD Vol. 9, pp. 530-538] Mr Charles Gavan Duffy said, "In their own (Victorian
Legislative) Assembly the principle (Thomas Hare’s system of
proportional representation) had been introduced; and, in a House of sixty
members, twenty-five voted for it and
twenty-three against it. Since that time nothing further had been
done. ... The honorable member (Mr Higinbotham)
also stated that it (Hare’s system of proportional representation) had
not been carried in Victoria; but it had been so, although before it could
come into operation a change of ministry took place, and Mr Chapman (the member for Mornington [VPD
Vol. 8, p. 2]), who was sent for to form a government, was opposed to
the principle." [VPD
Vol. 9, p. 538] |
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