Liberal Senator Helen Coonan has called on the Labor Party to support changes to the Senate voting system to reduce the power of minor parties.
Senator Coonan, of NSW, said that proportional representation introduced in 1948 combined with the increase in the size of the Senate in 1984 combined with an habitually opposing Opposition had resulted in too much power for minor parties in the Senate.
The Democrats had shifted their emphasis from “”keeping the bastards honest”, to laying claim to be the “”legislative powerhouse” of the Parliament.
The minor parties and independents had become “”an obstructional competitor in the government of the country, frustrating or at least substantially delaying urgently required responses to national problems”.
Senator Coonan proposed a tougher quota requirement before a candidate could be elected to the Senate.
At present a candidate could obtain a quota (of 14.3 per cent of the vote) by relying on the trickle down of preferences from other candidates. She pointed out that of the six successful minor-party and independent candidates at the 1998 half-Senate election, only One Nation’s Helen (check) Hill got a quota on first preferences, with 14.83 per cent of the vote. Democrat Senators Greig (6.4 per cent), Ridgeway (7.35) and Woodley (7.81) were well under.
Senator Coonan proposed a minimum first-preference quota be set, suggesting several possibilities, up to 11.43 per cent, or 80 per cent of the ultimate quota of 14.3 per cent. The balance could be made up of preferences.
She rejected an earlier proposal of dividing the states into electorates because that would deny virtually all minor-party representation. She acknowledged that giving minor parties a say in government had advantages of consensus building and harmonisation.
“”The problem arises however when minor parties insist on a share of power out of all proportion to their numbers and electoral support,” she told the Sydney Institute in a speech this week.
Senator Coonan, who is deputy government whip, quoted leading Labor figures expressing frustration with minor parties in the Senate.
She thought electoral change might be difficult because Oppositions opposed it and minor parties joined them to block it but “”frustration with tactics adopted by minor parties can reach a point where the major parties will vote together to restore a coherent administration”.
“”My challenge to Labor is to have the courage of your public utterances and no doubt your private convictions and support a properly thought out proposal to reform the Senate,” she said.
She rejected the view that the Senate had not be obstructionist because numerically most of the Howard Government’s legislation had got through because it was not a question of numbers of Bills, but the importance of the rejected Bills. And the rejected ones had been very important.