The Victoria-Tasmania Branch of the Proportional Representation Society of Australia (PRSAV-T)1 supports the adoption of the Hare-Clark electoral system for the Victorian Legislative Council. The Hare-Clark system is a form of quota-preferential proportional representation (also known as the Single Transferable Vote) with rotation of candidates' names on ballot papers, and the filling of casual vacancies by recounting the original ballot papers. The Society also advocates a referendum on the matter of the choice of electoral system, and the entrenchment of the electoral system so a bare majority of sitting members in each House cannot, alone, change significant aspects of the electoral system.
The main item in the Commission's terms of reference that our submission addresses is the first one: the responsiveness and responsibility of the Legislative Council (we concentrate particularly on its responsiveness). There are several points in the terms of reference for the Commission that the Society has no set opinion on, but we do discuss their inter-relationships. For example, the size of the Legislative Council, whether there are overlapping terms, the number of members per province and the number and size of provinces are all inter-related. We do not comment at all on some other points, such as the length of the parliamentary term and the powers of the Legislative Council.
Our submission is structured as follows. In Section 2 we outline four key principles that are a prerequisite for our support of any new electoral system. In Section 3 we discuss these principles in more depth, with specific reference to aspects of electoral systems that might threaten these principles. In Section 4 we present more detailed models of how Hare-Clark could be used for the Legislative Council. In Section 5 we suggest a mechanism for moving to a reformed Legislative Council, including a referendum and a new Electoral Act with key aspects entrenched. Appendix A presents analyses of recent Legislative Council elections, showing how undemocratic the current system of single vacancy elections is compared to Hare-Clark. Appendix B summarises how our submission relates to each of the Commission's terms of reference.