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QUOTA Newsletter
of the Proportional Representation
Society of Australia
QN1999B
June 1999
www.prsa.org.au First
PR Polls to Elect All of the UK’s
Members of the European Parliament The European
Parliamentary Elections Act 1999
this year became one of the very few
Acts of the UK Parliament to have ever
received Royal Assent without it
having been passed by the House of
Lords, however reluctantly. The
Government invoked the Parliament
Act 1911 to advise the Queen to
assent to the Bill. As reported in QN1998B, the Lords’
resolute view that the closed
party list proposal in the Bill lacked a
mandate was fortified by speakers from
the Electoral Reform Society of Great
Britain and The polls
to elect the Members of the European
Parliament (MEPs) representing the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland held in June 1999 were
the first held under the above Act, and
were thus the first polls when all MEPs
from Great Britain (England, Scotland
and Wales) were indirectly elected (by a
restrictive closed party list PR
system) from multi-member electoral
districts, instead of the previous
direct election using the
unrepresentative single-member district
system with first-past-the-post voting.
On the same day, the MEPs for
The three
MEPs directly
elected for Party), 28.4% of first
preference votes; John Hume (MEP, MP and
Assembly member for the Social
Democratic and Labour Party), 28.1%;
and James Nicholson (MEP and Assembly
member for the The
turnout in Concerns
by British Electoral Reform Society
Members about Hybrid Option A group of
members of the Electoral Reform
Society of Great Britain and The PRSA has
participated positively in
quota-preferential PR (Single
Transferable Vote) campaigns overseas,
such as the first of New Zealand’s two
electoral system plebiscites, when our
preferred quota-preferential PR (STV)
was one of the options, and likewise
San Francisco’s recent referendum on
PR. Unfortunately it appears that the
promised UK referendum might lack such
an option, and that is not the fault
of the ERS. The PRSA does not involve
itself negatively in disputes within
fellow overseas societies, but
publishes, for the information of PRSA
members, the following succinct
statement circulated by the above
group, which includes a former
Chairman of the ERS Council: "THE
CASE AGAINST JENKINS The Electoral
Reform Society has campaigned
single-mindedly for STV for over a
century. That has been its raison
d'être, based on an awareness of
Many
long-standing members believe it would
be profoundly wrong to do so, not just
out of a fastidious regard for the
Society's integrity, but because of
the importance of what is at stake.
The Society must be true to itself
precisely because the political
parties, over a long period, have
deliberately obscured what is
involved. The Jenkins recommendation
is a result of that obscurantism. It
is based primarily on so-called
political realism, i.e. a need to meet
the government's wishes, and only
partly on the four criteria laid down in
its terms of reference. The only
institutional voice of significance
now in a position to argue that the
implementation of the Jenkins
recommendation would be a historic
mistake, is that of the Society. The key
institution of the British
governmental system is the political
party. It is a private institution
which fills the constitutional vacuum
within which the state functions. The
accountability of MPs is far greater
to their party than it is to their
constituents, and the pressure on them
to obey the party whip is immense.
Thus governments, through their
control of party, usurp the authority
of parliament. To justify
such arbitrary authority, party has to
be more representative of the
electorate, not just in the crude
sense of seats and votes being
proportional, but as a more
comprehensive reflection of the
attitudes and views of voters at
large. To achieve that
representativeness voters
within a constituency must be able to
rank a party's candidates as well as
supporting the party. In this way they could
'fine-tune’ party nearer to their
liking, a process leading to more
representative and prudent government.
The Jenkins recommendation guarantees
neither proportionality nor
fine-tuning. The Commission has missed
an historic opportunity. A final
point: no one should be deluded that
the Commission's recommendation is a
step towards STV. If it is
implemented, there will be little
chance of further reform in the
foreseeable future. Constitutional incrementalism
will yet again have pulled off the
trick of appearing to meet demands for
greater democracy while keeping the
polity resolutely undemocratic. The
Society must not be seduced by the
‘change at any price’ argument of
those who do not appreciate exactly
what is at stake." Local Government Electoral
Laws In December
1998, partly in response to
representations from municipal
councils, the Tasmanian Parliament
amended its Local Government Act
1993 to apply Robson
Rotation to the printing of
ballot-papers in municipal polls.
The amended
Local Government Regulations
1994 prescribe the
details. The system has
applied to polls for both of The Robson
Rotation cancels out the effect of
‘donkey voting’. It also ends the
undeserved power of groups that
print and distribute ‘how-to-vote’
cards, which invite voters to cast
their vote in a manner that the
group favours, rather than have
voters choose their particular order
of preference. Without the Robson
Rotation it is far too easy for
voters to take the line of least
resistance, by copying a how-to-vote
card and thus helping to hand
parties ‘safe seats’ rather than
voters deciding and indicating their
own preferences among the
candidates. Both Houses of
Tasmania’s Parliament and, more
recently, the ACT’s Legislative
Assembly, have greatly benefited
from this useful reform. Earlier
this year the South Australian
Legislative Assembly passed the Local
Government (Elections) Bill 1999,
which would
discontinue the idiosyncratic
‘bottoms up’ electoral procedure (See
QN1998A) that SA
municipalities have been able to
adopt, up till now, as their only
alternative to using quota-preferential
proportional representation. Fortunately
that quite unsound procedure is used
by a diminishing minority of
municipalities, and the Legislative
Council, which is now examining the
Bill, is likely to accept its end. One weakness
in the Bill is that it still leaves
the minimum number of vacancies to be
filled at any one poll as one. Hon.
Ian Gilfillan MLC, an Australian
Democrat, proposes that the Bill be
amended to require the minimum number
to be increased to three, to let
quota-preferential counting give
proportional representation of
electors, which is impossible if an
electoral district returns only one
representative. His proposed
amendments also include a requirement
for Robson Rotation in the printing of
all ballot-papers. Its introduction
and recent successful municipal use in
There
are also moves in the Upper House to
amend the Bill to make postal voting
or attendance at a polling booth
compulsory, which has never applied in
municipal polls in ACT’s
Hare-Clark Likely to be Strengthened At the 1998
ACT general elections, there were
several close contests within
parties for a number of vacancies.
For instance, in Molonglo, just over
400 first preference votes separated
five of the seven ALP candidates,
and in the recount the last two
exclusions were determined by
margins of 3 and 23 votes
respectively. In Brindabella,
Liberal Louise Littlewood
was excluded when just 45 votes
behind her then colleague Trevor Kaine. While
Robson Rotation again performed well
overall, it was noticeable that a
high proportion (between 35 and 55%)
of votes for Liberal and Labor
candidates with limited support was
obtained straight down the column
when they were at the top (this high
‘party-linear’ vote contrasts with
the more deliberative patterns under
Tasmania’s Hare-Clark system). A
consequence was that, when some of
these candidates were excluded,
their continuing colleague closest
to the top of the column, when it
was occupied by the person excluded,
obtained a much stronger flow of
preferences than did others. Even
though no defeated candidate cried
foul about losing, it was clear that
a small number of MLAs could count
themselves somewhat lucky to be
elected. In 1997,
ACT Greens MLA Kerrie Tucker sought
to double the number of rotations by
always adding the reverse of the
order currently below any top
position. For instance if ABCDE was
a Robson
Rotation column
order, AEDCB would be too. Such a
scheme would automatically share out
the down-the-column or party-linear
vote for two-candidate comparisons,
but it could introduce anomalies in
situations where three or more
candidates were vying closely for
elected positions. Front-runners
might be excluded in some cases just
because others shared the
party-linear vote. At the
time, the PRSA’s ACT Branch
therefore urged MLAs not to amend
the entrenched original rotations
(it would require two-thirds of them
to make a change). This stand was
vindicated in 1998 because the
second ALP candidate to be excluded
under the operation of the Robson
Rotation would have been elected in
Molonglo under such revised
arrangements because of the times at
which he would have received flows
of party-linear votes. In December
1998, when ACT Electoral
Commissioner Phil Green published
detailed figures about the extent of
party-linear voting in his review of
the operation of the ACT’s electoral
legislation, he suggested that the
number of rotations be significantly
increased by letting each colleague
appear in the second spot when
someone was at the top of a column.
Instead of column orders matching
candidate numbers, for five and
seven candidates there would now be
20 (5x4) and 42 (7x6) orders
respectively. New
printing techniques direct from disc
made that technologically feasible.
Hon. Neil Robson has said that he
had devised a more elaborate system
of rotation in the 1970s, but was
persuaded to simplify it for ease of
printing. Independently
of those efforts, in March 1998 the
Canberra Branch of the Statistical
Society of Australia undertook a
project to seek to eliminate chance
effects from the operation of Robson
Rotation. In December, sampling
specialist Dr Ken Brewer circulated
an alternative proposal based on
known optimal properties of 4x4 and
6x6 Latin Squares (arrays where each
number appears just once in each row
and column).
[www.ozemail.com.au/~ssacanb] He
showed that under his proposal the
advantage to any candidate when it
was not possible to share out the
next-best places perfectly evenly
(for instance, if there are 42
column orders and four continuing
candidates, they cannot all obtain
an advantage from the same number of
columns) was minimized. Deputy
Chief Minister Gary Humphries
announced the Government’s
in-principle support for additional
rotations in February, and the
PRSA’s ACT Branch also obtained
publicity for its endorsement of
improvements that did not also
create new anomalies. Since that
time, Dr Brewer and the Electoral
Commissioner have extended their
ideas. The Select Committee on the
Report of the Review of Governance,
chaired by Independent MLA Paul
Osborne and comprising also Liberal
Speaker Greg Cornwell and Labor
Opposition Leader Jon Stanhope,
reported unanimously in June 1999
that there should be additional
rotations, and that the maximum
number of candidates in any column
should be reduced from the current
twelve. From an
individual voter’s viewpoint, such
changes would make no difference at
the poll, but candidates lacking
sufficient support to be certain of
election should appreciate
differences in flows of preferences
from excluded colleagues reflecting
just the considered wishes of
voters. It is
pleasing to see the ALP’s apparent
endorsement of such changes, after
accepting recommendations of Michael
Aird
(MLC, The report
to fellow members by these two
‘external’ reviewers of the ALP’s
dismal 1998 electoral showing said
‘because the Federal seats are not
marginal seats, the sub-branches do
not have a marginal seat campaigning
culture’. It recommended an ongoing
close relationship between the ACT
and Tasmanian Branches ‘to exchange
Hare-Clark campaigning expertise’,
and against urging ALP voters to
follow a recommended order for
numbering candidates. The Osborne
Select Committee quoted from the ACT
Branch’s submissions when it made
other recommendations disagreeing
with some of the less satisfactory
aspects of the Pettit Review. For
instance, all said that the Assembly
should not automatically increase
with population, and a majority
indicated that on balance there were
no current grounds for an increase
in Assembly numbers from 17 to 21. A
different majority rejected calls
for the reintroduction of
how-to-vote cards on election day. The
Committee also took up the ACT
Branch’s suggestion that the
Electoral Commission devote
considerably more resources to
explaining the mechanics of
preferential voting to help many
more voters realize the implications
of curtailing the number of
preferences they indicate. Another
long-standing concern of the ACT
Branch was addressed when the
Committee agreed with the Electoral
Commissioner’s proposals to tighten
party registration procedures to
deny sitting MLAs sham structures. The 18
months that the Review of
self-government has taken has seen
ill-thought-out proposals largely
fall by the wayside. Improvements in
the rotation of names on the
ballot-paper are now likely. This
shows the importance of maintaining
ongoing contact with the political
process, making constructive
suggestions, and clearly stating why
particular defective ideas should
not be entertained. SA
Branch Treasurer Retires after 59
Years Mr Leonard
Higgs has retired as Treasurer of the
PRSA’s South Australian Branch (the
Electoral Reform Society of South
Australia - founded in 1930) after
having held that position
continuously, and with distinction,
since 1940 – a period of 59 years,
possibly a record term of office for
any Branch. Len remains a keen member
of the SA Branch. Len went on to very
ably serve the Society as its National
Treasurer as well, for
the ten years from 1986 to 1995. Len
was elected an Honorary Life Member of
the SA Branch at its special meeting
held in 1990 to commemorate the 150th
Anniversary of the world’s first
public PR election - that for Adelaide
City Council in 1840 (QN60). The PRSA
greatly appreciates Len’s long
service, and is very grateful for all
he has done. Few of us have witnessed
the improvements that Len has:
quota-preferential proportional
representation introduced for the
Senate in 1948, then PR for not only
his own State’s Legislative Council,
but also later for that of NSW and
then that of WA, and then PR for the
ACT Legislative Assembly. He has also
seen PR introduced for local
government in NSW, then SA, then for
all of He has also
shared in the success of our PR
movement, in the cases where party
list PR was originally proposed (NSW)
or introduced (SA and ACT), in having
that inferior party list approach
replaced with the quota-preferential
principle. Like all of us, he remains
watchful as current attempts to tamper
with the Senate’s PR system persist. Northern
Ireland’s Assembly Elections One
feature that As each of
the 18 Assembly districts has six
members, the percentage quota for
election is 14.3%, the quota that elects
State senators in the periodic elections
to the Australian Senate. The table
below gives results for those polls and
the 1997 polls for Each of
the 18 districts used in the 1997 polls
to elect a single member of the Commons
by plurality count was used in the 1998
polls to elect 6 Assembly members by a
quota-preferential PR count. The
single-member poll gave gross
over-representation to the Ulster
Unionist Party.
Inaugural Nunavut
Assembly Elections © 1999 Proportional
Representation Society of National President: Bogey Musidlak 14 Strzelecki Cr. NARRABUNDAH 2604 National Secretary: Deane Crabb 11 Yapinga Street PLYMPTON 5039 Tel: (02) 6295 8137, (08) 8297 6441 info@prsa.org.au Printed by Prestige Copying & Printing, 97 Pirie Street ADELAIDE SA 5000 |
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