NEVER let the facts get in the way of a non-story. For the past few elections I have done an analysis of preference flows from the previous election.
The story has usually been that the importance of preferences in the House of Representatives is greatly exaggerated. And bear in mind that Australia is virtually the only country to have this system.
Sure, many seats run to preferences, that is, no candidate gets more than 50 per cent the first preferences – often more than half of the House’s seats run to preferences. So it seems that preferences are quite important.
But you should ask the question how often did the preferences change the order of the top two candidates at the initial count. In others words, in how many seats did the preferential system change the result that would have happened if we had had a first-past-the-post simple-majority system under which the candidate with the most votes wins.
Fairly rarely and not enough to change the election is the usual answer.
In 1998, for example, one of the closest votes in Australian history, 91 of 148 seats went to preferences, but in only three cases did the preferences reverse the order on the initial count, and one of those was One Nation MP Pauline Hanson’s seat.
So even in the very close 1998 election, preferences made no difference to the overall result.
In any event, I went through last election’s results to churn out what I thought would be the same result – a non-story.
But surprise, surprise. At the last election, 75, or fully half of the 150 seats ran to preferences. And in nine of those, preferences changed the initial order. And in every case the Labor candidate came from behind with Green preferences.
So without a preferential system at the last election, the result would have been different. Instead of a Labor victory we would have had a Coalition victory by one seat: 74 Labor and 74 Coalition supported by two conservative independents – not enough to tip the Howard Government out.
Incidentally, one of those nine seats where preferences really mattered was Howard’s own Bennelong. So he would have stayed in Parliament.
At the last election, a significant majority of the other 66 seats which went to preferences were won by Labor with Green preferences. Moreover, Labor’s shortfall was typically quite large, sometimes more than 10 percentage points, whereas Coalition candidates’ shortfall was typically quite small.
Labor is now more reliant on preferences than the Coalition, and is now more reliant on Green preferences to stay in or attain office than ever before. The Coalition needs to get the vote itself. When it gets close to the line (say more than 47.5 per cent and ahead of Labor) it can usually rely on the preferences of independents or right-wing shrapnel parties to get over the line. But if it is more than 5 percentage points shy of a majority, it usually will not win the seat, whereas Labor will often win the seat when it is more than 5 percentage points shy because of Green preferences.
On the other hand well into the 1980s, the Coalition, not Labor, got the greater benefit from the preferential system.
Indeed, the system was set up at the instigation of the conservative side of politics in 1918 because it was being disadvantaged by the first-past-the post system.
It came with the rise of the Country Party, which split the conservative vote. In a by-election in October, 1918, in Swan, Labor won with just 34 per cent of the vote. The conservative parties got 60 per cent of the vote, but it was split 30-30, so Labor had the most votes.
So the conservatives introduced the preferential system, which is now biting them on the bum. At the next by-election in November 1918 in Coorangamite, Labor’s 42.5 per cent was not enough to beat off a preference swap between four conservative parties and the farmers won the seat.
As it happens, in Coorangamite last election Labor came from behind to win the seat despite being five percentage points shy of a majority.
It is an example of the historic change of position.
From the mid-1950s the conservatives benefitted from the preferences of the Democratic Labor Party which arose after the Labor split.
Labor began to benefit somewhat from the preferential system in the Hawke-Keating years, getting more of the Democrats’ preferences than the Coalition and getting a lot more of the emerging Greens’ preferences. But the Coalition got One Nation preferences, so the position was fairly even.
By 2007, however, with the demise of the Democrats and One Nation, Labor is far more reliant on preferences than the Coalition. Labor’s dependence on Green preferences is fundamental. It cannot govern without them.
What does it mean for policy? Will Labor be beholden to the Greens or Greens policy? In theory, the Greens have got nowhere else to go. They can hardly give their preferences to the Coalition. So they are not in a position to blackmail Labor into adopting greener policies, as recent history shows.
Nonetheless, the Greens can threaten to refuse to direct preferences if Labor’s policies offend or, on the other hand, promise to actively encourage their voters to reward Labor with preferences if their policies are more agreeable.
Labor, of course, has to weigh that against offending the industrial and redneck part of its support base.
Nonetheless, it is surprising that in the past two and half years, the Greens have not crunched the numbers and been more vociferous in pointing out the Labor owes the Greens the 2007 election result.
SPEAKING of former Prime Ministers, what on earth (literally) are the planners doing with naming conventions? Surely, dead former Prime Ministers deserve full suburbs to be named after them, not mere streets. Yet this week, the ACT Government announced $15 million for John Gorton Drive connecting the Molonglo suburbs of Wright and Coombs. (As it happens, Judith Wright and Nugget Coombs were intimately connected, according to the June, 2009, edition of Monthly magazine).
Gorton should have a suburb named after him. All other dead Prime Ministers have, except Billy McMahon, Jack McEwen and Robert Menzies. Menzies stated he did not want it. Maybe as the father of Canberra a collection of suburbs should be named after him, perhaps Molonglo itself.
Prime Ministers cop enough by the way they ultimately leave office: three died in office; 10 were defeated by the people; five by their party; one by parliament and another by the Governor-General. Only six left voluntarily.
Surely every PM deserves a suburb.
CRISPIN HULL
This article first appeared in The Canberra Times on 24 July 2010.
It is grossly unfair and misleading for anyone to state that Labor won the last election because of Green preferences. If the the Greens never existed or if they didn’t run a candidate in any seat the result would have been exactly the same. The same Green voters that gave their preference to Labor would simply have voted Labor anyway. That’s why out system is better than first past the post.