This week to matters electoral. Peter Andren the lone Independent in the House of Representatives put forward some ideas for change federally. The ACT’s Electoral Commissioner, Phillip Green, canvassed the prospects of internet voting. And speculation is rife about the position in the ACT. Political scientist Malcolm Mackerras points out that an election would clear the air by the system does not permit it, and what would happen if Kate Carnell left the Assembly.
First to Andren. Andren is one of only a handful of people since World War II to be elected as an independent to the House of Representatives – as distinct from major-party candidates deserting.
In a speech in Canberra this week he called for a system of proportional representation in the House of Representatives. The quick response would be: “”Tell ‘im he’s dreamin’.” True, the major parties are never going to agree to it, but they may be forced to in the longer term. Andren points to a steady disillusionment with major-party politics. Last election 20 per cent of voters gave their vote to independents and minor parties (treating the Coalition as one). Andren was the only one elected. He is just 1.5 per cent of the total membership of the House of Representatives. Something wrong here. One Nation got 8.4 per cent of the vote and no seats. In 1990 the Democrats got 11.3 per cent of the vote and no seats.
Andren points to an increasing arrogance by major parties. They are getting fewer votes but still when in power claim a mandate for their whole platform. The arrogance is an assumption that the vote will eventually come back to them. No so, says Andren. Rather the voters will get more and more disillusioned with Parliament and the House of Representatives will become increasingly irrelevant.
Andren is right here. Debate in the House of Representatives is a sham. They go through the motions with set pieces persuading no-one because the House is a rubber stamp for the Government. Andren tells of major-party MPs scurrying to the chamber floor asking, “”what are we voting on”, or worse, leaving the chamber after a vote asking, “”what did we just vote on?” Question Time in a sham. Government MPs ask rehearsed tame questions like, “”Could the Minister give a free commercial on how wonderful the Government is on X, Y or Z.” And Opposition questions are all stolen by the leader or deputy leader focusing on the latest point-scoring opportunity against the Government.
Sure, we get stability, but we get contempt for accountability.
It may well be that the major parties will veto any electoral changes in the medium term, but if they continue to treat the House of Representatives with contempt, the vote for the minors and independents can only increase. One day they might hold the balance of power. When that happens, expect reform. Major parties will do anything to stay in power, even giving electoral concessions to minor parties and independents. For example, in NSW and Victoria, independents secured minimum three-year terms and various open-government provisions when they held the balance of power and critical times in the 1990s.
Andren speaks favourably of the Hare-Clark system in Tasmania and the ACT with multi-member electorates. He wants three members per electorate, but that might give too much to minor parties and independents who might win the third seats most of the time. Also, it would mean the majors would win one each and there would be little difference in their seat count despite as much as 10 percentage points difference in their votes. ACT experience shows that even with five-member electorates, the majors usually get two each. Only when you get seven-member electorates does a difference in percentage of votes result in a different number of seats.
But Andren is right that proportional representation gives greater accountability, as we are seeing in the ACT right now.
Hare-Clark is also more difficult to count. Surely, voting can be done electronically or over the internet. ACT Electoral Commissioner Phillip Green urges caution. Security, accuracy and secrecy are crucial. Too many hacking incidents make internet voting unlikely for some time. People voting at home might be coerced or bribed. Also, we get a very high turn-out now, so what would be the advantage?
Electronic voting at a polling booth would be possible, but expensive. Green thinks that a few high-turnover polling booths could have electronic voting, but no-one has come up with a user-friendly, screen-based system yet. Electronic voting would hasten the count. It would eliminate problems with poor writing.
Hare-Clark voting is especially time-consuming. Large ballot papers get passed from bundle to bundle as preferences are counted. Hypothetically, if Chief Minister Kate Carnell left the Assembly early, the count-back to work out who would replace her would be very onerous. There are no by-elections in the ACT. Instead the votes cast at the previous election are used to determine who should get the seat among the unsuccessful candidates at that election.
The unsuccessful candidates are first asked who wants to be in it. Then the 23,000 ballot papers that had Carnell 1 on them are gathered together. They are then allocated according to second preferences or further if the second preference is for an existing MLA. Once allocated, they are treated like first preference votes in a House of Representative election and the count proceeds like an election for a House of Representatives seat, excluding the bottom candidate and distributing the preferences until a candidate has 50 per cent of the vote.
Alas, for the Electoral Commission, the 23,000 Carnell votes are not in one neat pile. Because she got more than a quota at the election, they were all distributed (at a percentage value) down the preference line. They are thus mixed throughout the 70,000 or so ballot papers that made up the Molonglo vote. If it comes to it, happy hunting guys.
Expect some more support for electronic voting by the commission, even if internet voting will not be a goer for some time, if ever.