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Mirror of the Nation’s Mind |
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'...
it is for us to
provide machinery that may make the legislature,
with at times some inevitable defects of focus,
the mirror
of the nation's mind.'
Hon.
Patrick McMahon Glynn MHR, Minister for Home and
Territories, introducing into the House of
Representatives the Commonwealth
Electoral Bill 1918, which began the
system of preferential voting for Australia's
House of Representatives (Commonwealth
Parliamentary Debates 1918, Page
6682). That excerpt is at the end of that
page. Contents Table
of Illustrations Page 9 Acknowledgements
Page 11 Foreword
Page 13 1
TAKING
PART IN GOVERNMENT Page 17 2
PEBBLES TO SECRET BALLOTS AND BEYOND Page 21 3
THE RULES OF THE GAME Page 33 Methods
used in single-member districts Page 33 Methods
used in multi-member districts Page 42 List
proportional methods Page 47 Quota-preferential
proportional methods Page 47 4
HORSE AND BUGGY Page 51 5
BRAVE
EXPERIMENTS Page 57 Queensland
Page 58 Western
Australia Page 61 Victoria
Page 63 New
South Wales Page 64 South
Australia Page 66 The
House of Representatives Page 68 A
fair distribution Page 72 Voters
or people? Page 77 Marking
of preferences Page 79 Voters'choice
Page 82 Disappointing
record Page 83 6
NO
SAFETY IN NUMBERS Page 85 Block-vote
method Page 85 Majority-preferential
method in multi-member districts Page 87 New
South Wales local-government elections Page 91 7
FREELYCHOSEN REPRESENTATIVES Page 93 Party-list
method Page 94 Quota-preferential
methods Page 95 Tasmania
Page 98 The
Senate Page 110 New
South Wales Legislative Assembly Page 121 New
South Wales Legislative Council Page 127 New
South Wales local-government elections Page 131 Australian
Capital Territory Assembly Page 133 8
FINDING THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE Page 135 Multi-member-district
methods Page 139 Quota-preferential
methods Page 141 The
critics answered Page 145 The
optimum arrangement Page 148 Bibliography
Page 152 Index
Page 155 Table
of Illustrations
Frontispiece:
Election night outside the Argus office,
Melbourne (Australian Sketcher, 9 June 1877,
National Library) A
voting machine proposed in 1906: Page 25 William
Westgarth: Page 25 William
Nicholson: Page 25 Early
ballot boxes: Page 26 Ballot
paper from Murrumbidgee district, 1875 (below):
Page 56
Ballot
paper for House of Representatives election,
December 1977 (above): Page 56
Results
in single-member districts, Queensland Legislative
Assembly elections, 1893-1902: Page 60 Results
in Queensland Legislative Assembly elections,
1932-1941: Page 60 Elections
and governments in Victoria, 1909-1955: Page 62 Patrick
McMahon Glynn: Page 69 Percentages
of votes received and seats won by parties in House
of Representatives election, December
1977: Page 75 Percentages
of votes received and seats won by parties in
Victorian Legislative Assembly elections, June 1964
and April 1967, before and after redistribution:
Page 75 A
typical 'how-to-vote'
ticket: Page 80 Percentages
of votes received and seats won by Labor and others in Senate
elections with
the multi-member majority-preferential method,
1919-1946 88 Catherine
Helen Spence: Page 97 Andrew
Inglis Clark: Page 97 Professor
E. J. Nanson: Page 109
Ballot
paper for Senate election May 1974 showing 73
candidates in New South Wales: Page 119 * * * * * * * |
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