We hear a lot of rhubarb about preferences. In 1996 and 1993 they did not matter much. Indeed, the usually do not matter much, and their importance grossly over-stated. This is largely because the very freak circumstances in the 1990 election have taken on mythical proportions.
Nonetheless, yesterday both leaders appealed for the preferences of those people intending to vote for One Nation, imagining that it could make all the difference.
But what is the history? Out of 148 seats contested at the last election only seven results were changed because of preferences.
That is, in only seven seats did the candidate leading at the end of the first preference count lose to the candidate who came second on the first-preference count. Moreover, it made little difference to the overall party result. Some were Labor over Liberal, some we Liberal over Labor and one was Independent over major party.
But the mythical importance of preferences is bolstered by the fact that in a whopping 50 seats the leading candidate did not get the 50 per cent required for election on the first preference. It looked like preferences were determining more than a third of the seats, but when preferences were counted 43 of the 50 leading candidates kept the lead and won the seat.
In 1993 preferences mattered even less. The results in only three seats changed because of preferences. Two went to Labor from the Coalition and one went the other way. Though there was some collateral fall-out. One of those seats, Swan in Western Australia, returned Kim Beazley who trailed the Coalition candidate on the first count.
Incidentally, in this analysis I am counting the two Coalition parties as one block. There are usually a dozen seats where the Liberals and Nationals each field a candidate with very tight preference swapping. Most of the them are in Queensland.
The myth of the importance of preferences stemmed from the freak result in 1990. The results in seven seats were changed because of preferences, the same as in 1996. But they all went Labor’s way, three of them in Western Australia. Moreover, that election was very close. If those seven seats had gone the other way the Coalition would have won the election with a very narrow, but workable majority.
But this was an exceptional election. The losing Coalition actually got more votes than the winning Labor Party. Moreover, Labor went out to woo Green and Democrat preferences. At the time it was an unusual tactic because it carried an admission by the Labor Government that its poor performance was costing first preferences.
At federation, Australia had the British system. Voters put a cross against one candidate. The candidate with the most crosses wins, even if that is less than 50 per cent of the votes. Preferences were bought in because of the rise of rural conservative parties in World War I. The leader of the main conservative party, Billy Hughes, thought a preferential system would prevent the conservative vote splitting. But the fear was a bogey. Without preferential voting those parties would probably have done deals to stand a single conservative in each seat.
From 1955 to 1969, the preferences of the Democratic Labor Party went to the Coalition, a myth developed that they kept the Coalition in power, but in fact they only determined the outcome of the election once, in 1961.
I still think preferential voting is fairer, but their importance is over-stated, at least most of the time.
They become important, however, when the result is extremely close, as in 1990. In many countries, they would not matter at all, because elections are not very close. But in Australia we have a long history of very close elections indeed. In eight of the 19 elections since World War II the split between the major parties was narrower than 51-49. That is extraordinary. Even so, in many of those elections, preferences did not change the result.
For example, 1980 was a close election. Labor got 50.4 per cent of the two-party-preferred vote and the Coalition got 49.6. Preferences changed the result of only four seats. Three went Labor’s way and one went the Liberal’s way. The ultimate result of the Coalition winning the election with a modest majority would not have been changed.
Now 50.4-to-49.6 is as close as they come, and still preferences made no difference to the result.
Woo away Kim and John, but you are wasting your precious time.