THE result of last month’s election in Tasmania has resulted in a predictable tirade against Tasmania’s (and the ACT’s) Hare-Clark voting system and calls for a single-member, first-past-the-post system.
It has been four weeks since the election and the name of the next Premier is not certain, tough most likely to be Labor’s David Bartlett with Green support.
The length of time is cited as a reason to have an electoral system that delivers the result more quickly and more decisively.
But the four weeks is really neither here nor there. Governments throughout the democratic world go into caretaker mode once and election is called, so no matter how quick and decisive an electoral system there is always at least a month or two of hiatus before the election anyway. A few extra weeks afterwards makes little difference. The caretaker government and public service can run the place quite well.
It is worth the extra wait to get a fairer result. And the Hare-Clark system definitely delivers a fairer result.
Besides, a lot of the uncertainty has been caused because of the role of the unelected and unnecessary Governor. More of that anon.
Back to the fairness question.
In the South Australian election held on the same day with single-member electorates, the Labor Party got 55 per cent of the seats with just 37.5 per cent of the vote. Labor, in effect, got seats for all of its vote plus all of the Greens vote and some extra seats for nothing – just because of a faulty single-member electorate system.
In the words of Paul Keating, you could refer to the Rann Labor Government as “unrepresentative swill”.
If you took away the preferential system, the Liberals with just over 40 per cent of the vote would have won handsomely with nearly 60 per cent of the seats – 27 instead of the 18 they in fact won. Even more “unrepresentative swill”.
Without preferential voting, the Greens vote would have taken votes from Labor, allowing the Libs to win a lot of seats with a minority of the vote.
We would have been talking about a Liberal landslide, just as they spoke of a Conservative landslide in first-past-the-post Britain when Margaret Thatcher won handsome majorities with a voting percentage in the low to mid 40s.
You get a quick, decisive result, all right, but it is a quick, decisive, undemocratic result.
Let’s return to Tasmania under Hare-Clark. The Libs won 40 per cent of the seats with 36.5 per cent of the vote. Labor for 40 per cent of the seats with 35 per cent of the vote. The Greens got 20 per cent of the seats with 25.5 per cent of the vote – their highest in any election to date. This is much more reflective of voter preference than in South Australia.
In Tasmania it would have been unfair and undemocratic for the Greens to have been shut out of the Parliament with such a high vote, as they were in South Australia with eight percent of the vote.
There is a bit of a lesson in the Tasmanian Green vote which is quite apposite a hundred years after the first Labor majority government in Australia (and perhaps in the world).
In 1998 the major parties ganged up against the Greens and reduced the size of the Tasmanian Legislative Assembly from 35 to 25 seats. It meant that each of the multi-member electorates had five, instead of seven, members. It meant the quote to win a seat rose from 12.5 per cent to 16.7 per cent – a much bigger task.
The Greens lost seats, at least initially. Their only hope was to broaden their appeal beyond the mung-bean eaters and basket-weavers. This they have done. Further, it is likely that many Tasmanians did not approve of the major parties’ tactic to shut the Greens out. It has certainly backfired.
We often assume that the existing regime will continue, roughly as is, into the indefinite future. We assume there will be evolution not revolution. In England the Liberals (Whigs) fought the Conservatives (Tories) for a century or more and it was much the same in Australia. In the early days of federation the Protectionists fought the Free traders on much the same lines.
But when systems change they often change suddenly and unpredictably. In 1988 everyone presumed the Cold War would go on forever. In 1909 the Whigs and Tories and Protectionists and Free Traders were expected to battle indefinitely.
It may not be likely, but it is not off the planet to suggest a realignment of political forces in Australia. Some in the Labor and Liberal Parties see eye to eye on many issues – corporatism, high immigration and social conservatism. Stephen Conroy and Tony Abbott have a lot in common. More than Stephen Conroy and Bob Brown. Others in the Liberal and Labor Parties see eye to eye with the Greens on many issues – good governance, transparency, refugees, sustainable small business, individual liberty and so on.
Sure, if the Greens remain dogmatic and uncompromising (as they were with emissions trading) not much will happen. But if the Greens seek broader appeal, who knows, Liberal and Labor could become a Fusion Party, like the Protectionists and Free Traders in 1909.
And this might become more likely if the major parties attempt another rigging of the electoral system.
But back to Tasmania. Without a Governor, there would have been no hiatus. The ACT does not have a Governor. The Electoral Commission determines who has been elected. The elected MLAs meet after an election with the Chief Justice in the chair. The first business is to elect a Speaker. The Speaker then presides over the next item of business – the election of the Chief Minister. ACT transitions have been smooth.
If you add a rule that you cannot have a no-confidence motion without naming the new Chief Minister, the system is self-executing. The unelected Governor – more unrepresentative swill — is redundant.
All Tasmanians have to do is wait for their elected representatives to elect their Premier.
CRISPIN HULL
This first appeared in The Canberra Times on 17 April 2010