I am not the most expert person on this list with respect to voting methods
or the Democrat approach to them, and I hope that perhaps someone who knows
the scene better will come in at this point. However, in the meantime I'll
reprint Albert's questions for reference and do my best to respond.
-------------
[AL]
Although I understand the above [in a previous exchange -- DG] being the
reason behind the Democrats
bizarre support for propping up the two party system by illegal coercion
I am curious about what we need to do to help Democrat members change
that party policy. Is it your estimate that Democrat members are widely
aware that their party has supported the ALP and Coalition on this and
do you expect them to change that policy? What can Neither do about it?
On a related matter, for the same reason I suspect that the Greens are
more likely to wake up and start seriously fighting for PR than the
Democrats
who seem happy enough to remain the "half" of the "two and a half party
system"
doing preference deals. Are the Democrats a write off on this or they
likely
to end up seriously fighting for PR?
Likewise, what can Neither do to persuade both the Democrats and Greens
to take this up as a fight rather than just a wish (and One Nation for
that matter)?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
[DG] to the best of my understanding, the Democrats are quite serious about
extending PR to all Houses in Australia and have everything to gain from
this in terms of their own representation.
There is, however, little interest in extending PR to the extent of making
Senate representation proportional to voting strength other than within each
State -- i.e. no. of Senators from a State proportional to the size of the
State. They're not against this as a group but it simply hasn't got on to
the agenda and would I believe be divisive if it did. Division is poison to
every political party.
Aside from that issue I do not believe the Democrats are half-hearted about
PR but rather that
(1) there are higher policy priorities for their limited resources, such as
social issues, Aboriginal rights, economic issues, individual rights issued
related to gender and sexual orientation.
(2) opportunities for exercising a say in policy questions (including PR)
are not there continuously -- the major parties normally set the context and
out-of-context sallies leave scarcely a ripple after a day or so. When a
smaller party can take a lead on an issue of no interest to the major
parties is when there is a groundswell of interest among the mass of the
people as there was for instance over environment (which the Democrats and
the Greens ran with before it got on to theclorporate business parties'
agenda) or over those issues which One Nation pursues.
I would expect that this will also be why the Greens and One Nation sppear
quiescent over PR.
I believe on the other hand that there is probably a division of view
between much of the Democrat rank and file and the parliamentary wing
(including rank-and-file power groupies) when it comes to OPV or what is
termed "Langer votes" meaning CPV but giving the same number (other than 1)
to more than one candidate. It is interesting that internally the voting
system (e.g. for office-bearers) is OPV as it is in many organisations (e.g.
academic governance for example, or union ballots). However, when it comes
to parliamentary elections OPV threatens the preogativers of power brokers
to horse-trade preferences in order to maximise the ability of candidates to
get elected without having to inspire enough people to give them a primary
vote. This imperative is greatest in single-member or high-quota
multiple-member electorates.
I repeat that I am not very expert in this field and that others can give
better info. I'll try, off line, to get hold of a clearer picture which
might better lead to policy changes especially on OPV. Re PR I suspect that
the best that can be achieved in any party which generally supports is to
lift the profile of the issue in the priority pecking order. It would of
course come to a head if Neither were at any time to field candidates on its
policies, and if any one party decided to make it a major electoral issue
there would be a greater impetus for others to so so as well.
Dion Giles
