Advocating proportional representation instead of single member districts and compulsory preferential voting: Part 1

There are major problems with the single-member electoral district system for the House of Representatives.

There has been a lot of talk about the 2010 Hung Parliament producing a "paradigm shift". This is the result of major parties having to accommodate the demands of the Greens and four Independents.  The phenomenon of "minority Government" is very common in countries that use proportional representation (PR). However, the term is hardly used because it is the norm to negotiate after an election to find a working parliamentary majority.

Yes, that does present a different paradigm. It is refreshing to gain just a glimpse of that in Australia now but unless there is concerted action to change the electoral system we may soon be back in the adversarial mode. The conservative parties in Opposition led by Tony Abbott, already re-adopted the adversarial strategy and language the moment that the ALP-Green-three Independents agreements were in place.

The Australian electoral system is largely responsible for the two-party tyranny in Australia that has now been rejected by the voters. This needs to be understood fully and be addressed if a real paradigm shift is eventuate.

So what are the problems with the current system?

A serious lack of diversity in representation in the Australian Parliament.

This is the consequence of new parties not being able to gain representation. They may come but almost all dutifully disappear again, most recently the Australian Democrats. The 2009 Electoral Reform Inquiry’s Green paper explained correctly that diversity has increased greatly in Australian society since 1945. This is hardly reflected in the House of Representatives. The diversity that exists within the major parties is to some extent expressed in factions and there the diversity refers to different ideological position.

The operations of factions in both major parties have generally been regarded as negative, obscure and undesirable. It is not at all a substitute for real diversity and transparency. Frequently factionalism has given rise to the perversion of democracy, branch stacking and various forms of skullduggery, in both the major parties. The possibility of more diverse representation, through proportional representation, would reduce or remove these undesirable features. There would be greater transparency as a result.

The single-member district system has resulted in frequent boundary changes. 

This is a costly and often controversial process, pork-barreling, resulting in election campaigns concentrating on a limited number of marginal seats; little economic development and government assistance, or none at all, in "safe" seats. Costly by- elections are a by-product of this system. In PR (Open Party List System) casual vacancies are filled by the next on the list at the previous election. Even with Hare Clark by-elections are avoided (through the "count-back" method)

A highly undesirable system dominance of the two major parties.

This strengthens the adversarial culture in Parliament already inherent in the Westminster system. This also brings with it the fusion between the political executive and the legislature as well as the functional amateurism of Ministers.

In spite of the adversarial culture the major parties have become look-alikes in spite of sustained efforts to differentiate themselves from each other. Debates in Parliament are unreal and reflect political point scoring often on minor issues. If there are no actual differences in policy fierce differences on implementation will be generated.

Lack of democracy in representation through single-member electoral districts. 

Often candidates are elected on the basis of around 40% of first preference votes. The result of this is that their first preference candidate does not represent a majority of electors while a large minority actually ends up with an MP of the other major party. It doesn’t make sense to call this a democratic system. The idea of geographical representation by a single-district MP had some meaning in the distant past. MPs now represent a (major) party platform rather than the specific interests of constituents in a single-member electoral district, probably for the last 100 years already. 

Compulsory voting combined with the existing voting system reinforces further the undesirable two-party dominance.

It also forces the major parties to concentrate their platforms on capturing the "middle ground" (around 20% + of voters) – as a result of which they become look-alikes reducing diversity further. The over 90% voter turn-out in elections includes a very high percentage who are poorly informed, or not interested, or who are habitual voters and/or are of the view that it is not worth voting for any group other than the major parties because minor party candidates of Independents "won’t get in anyway".

The combination of these factors effectively blocks the emergence of new parties and new ideas gaining representation in the House of Representatives (lower houses generally). Voters pin their hopes on the more diverse Senate where they may have some success. In practice this creates a false image of adequate diverse representation.

The single-member district system has definitely not been in the interest of furthering women representation.

Although improving, at long last, this is still at a low level in Australia. Compared with PR systems the single-member district systems have been biased in favour of men. The Scandinavian countries demonstrate the positive effect of PR for women in particular.

The single-member district system is also biased against Non English Speaking Background (ESB) candidates and Indigenous people.

There are now a high percentage of citizens in Australia of NESB (I and II) origin.  These groups, even after more than half a century, are severely under-represented in all Australian Parliaments. What a waste not to have these people in the Parliaments.

Finally, there is another very detrimental drawback, often not realised or mentioned.

The two-party dominance has thwarted many efforts to amend the Constitution, now an archaic and inflexible document.

Proposals for constitutional and other referendums, initiated exclusively by politicians in Australia, need the support of the major parties and their campaigns, to be accepted by the voters so as to have a chance to be passed in terms of Section 128. Unless this bi-partisan support is secured the proposals are doomed from the start. The last time this was demonstrated clearly was in 1988 when the four sensible proposals, put after two years of diligent work by the Australian Constitutional Commission, were all lost once the Liberal Party decided to reject them all.

Dr Klaas Woldring is Convenor of the Republic Now Association. He retired as Associate Professor from Southern Cross University, Lismore in 1999, where he taught Australian Politics, Management, Public Administration, Multicultural Studies, Workplace Democracy, Human Resource Management, Industrial Relations and Business Ethics. Originally from the Netherlands, he and his wife Aafke migrated to South Africa in 1959, then again in 1962 in protest of Apartheid policies to what is now known as Zambia, then once more in 1964 to Australia. In the 1980s he joined the ALP and twice stood for the federal seat of Richmond. After resigning from the ALP in 1989, he stood twice more for the Senate representing the Progressive Labour Party, which he co-founded in 1996. He has published 4 books and a large number of professional articles. This year Klaas and Aafke will have been married for 50 years, they have 5 children and 8 grandchildren.