[AL]
Moving this to "Democracy Bill" subject thread as discussion is about PR
not One Nation.
[CD]
Hello I am a new subscriber to the Neither Public Mailing List.
I have been particularly attracted to Neither because of its support for
proportional representation. I am secretary of the Electoral Reform
Society of
South Australia and also currently national secretary of the PR Society
of
Australia.
[AL]
Was hoping you would turn up! We'll need to co-ordinate with Electoral
Reform
Societies in general ongoing campaign and in preparing submissions on PR
for
JSCEM inquiry. Could you please encourage others from PR related
societies
to subscribe to this mailing list (whether or not they intend to join
Neither)?
Also please publish links to web sites (Australian and elsewhere dealing
with electoral reform and voting systems etc - also electronic voting
etc).
More urgently, we will be fighting about denial of free elections by
requiring voters to vote in favor of candidates they want to vote
against.
This may include urgent legal challenges (High Court and Court of
Disputed Returns)
and international appeals (International Human Rights Committee). Is
that outside
your ambit or can we expect help with that (should be within ambit of
anyone
concerned about democratic elections).
Unfortunately we don't have an archive of messages from this list on our
web
site yet so I am forwarding to you separately 2 messages that you would
have
missed - one on a "Democracy Bill" and the other on a Vote No campaign
for the
Republic Referendum, which includes URL of article on web explaining the
idea
and it's connection with PR.
I am proposing orientation around defeat of "Republic" referendum with
demands
for REAL constitutional change including PR. Has that been discussed at
all
in Electoral Reform societies and is it likely to be of interest?
[CD]
I have just recieved the email with a reply about One Nation. While I
have
obviously come in at the end of a conversation, I have noted with
interest the
comments about proportional representation.
You are right about One Nation being attracted to PR - they would have
received more representation in Queensland and Australia if PR had been
used. Would have got 19 instead of 11 MPs in the Queensland Parliament.
Analyisis of the Australian election still to be done. I have had some
calls from
One Nation supporters asking about PR.
[AL]
Apart from "supporters" are you aware of situation among One Nation
policy makers?
Are any of them involved in discussion of the issues or do Pauline
Hanson's
remarks about first past the post voting reflect their current
understanding?
[CD]
While the smaller parties are obviously attracted to PR, I always push
the line
that PR could also help the major two parties as there are substantial
ALP
voters in safe Liberal seats and vice versa - more than vote for the
smaller
parties. In fact overtime, the Tasmanian experience is that the
Hare-Clark PR
system (which I support) has actually strengthened the two party system
-
certainly in comparison to SA there have been less minority governments.
[AL]
Electoral Reform societies have been pushing this line since the turn of
the
century without success. The two parties know that single member
electorates
are the best way to maintain a two party system - even though it does
sometimes
lead to minority governments. That is why the ALP is not screaming for
PR after
they won a solid majority of the two party preferred vote and saw the
Coalition
winning government. It is more important to them to maintain a two party
system
than to win office at any particular election.
In Tasmania the two parties just agreed to reduce the number of members
in each
electorate precisely because the Hare-Clarke method looked like
weakening the
two party system.
Until recently the two party system had overwhelming support in
Australia and
the Electoral Reform societies' pretence that PR does not undermine it
was at
least understandable though less than honest. We are now entering a
situation
where there is widespread and growing resentment of the two party system
and
concern about "Executive dominated Parliaments" where the result of
every vote
is determined by the numbers at the previous election and never by the
debate.
A significant minority actually WANT minority governments that would
have to
argue their case and that is why the Senate "balance of power" has made
it much
more important than it used to be.
The original strategy of PR supporters in Australia was to first
introduce
preferential voting for the House of Reps and Hare-Clarke for the Senate
so that voters
would get used to numbering ballot papers and then introduce 5-9 member
Hare-Clarke
seats for the reps as an "improvement" within the context of the two
party system that
could be acceptable to the two parties. That strategy has not worked and
will not work.
Each step in that strategy obsctructed taking the next step by becoming
frozen in place.
If 5-9 member electorates were introduced now it would be a line of
retreat to maintain
the two party system as a defence against real change to genuine PR.
Is there any chance of a switch in strategy by Electoral Reform
Societies to supporting constitutional change for "members of the House
of Representatives to be directly elected by the people of the
Commonwealth voting as a single electorate" as explained in other
messages?
This would not require change from being an Electoral Reform Society to
being a political
organization hostile to the two parties like Neither, but would be a
definate change in
strategy as to how to achieve PR - not based on support from people
elected using single
member electorates but on popular support for a change to the electoral
system to achieve
a representative instead of an Executive dominated legislature.
[CD]
More important than party representation is voter representation. With
single-member electorates usually about 45% of voters find that they
wasted
their time voting as the candidate of their choice was not elected and
they do
not have the representation they wanted. Hence my support for PR.
[AL]
An excellent reason, but one which has never appealed to the party hacks
in Parliament you
regularly present that argument to. It's way past time to present it
directly
to the people - along with the argument that 20% are now completely
unrepresented
- the highest number ever, and along with the argument that the
Executive dominated
legislature has passed the limit of public tolerance.
A change in the tone of submissions to JSCEM from appeals to their
public spirit to
denunciation of them as an unrepresentative and unfit to decide these
questions would
help shake things up. Reading past submissions I am sure they take great
comfort from
the fact that people actually beg them for electoral reform instead of
fighting them
for it. The chartists actually won the electoral reforms they fought
for. The Electoral
Reform Societies have never actually won anything. Can you switch to a
chartist strategy?
