A more effective Australian electoral system is long overdue

The adversarial two-party political culture in Australia is in need of replacement.

Leading commentators in the media analyse the problematic situation well but have great difficulty in presenting alternatives. Niki Savva recently wrote a major piece in the Sydney Morning Herald about the ‘fight to save our politics’. However, while integrity and decency were stressed, the idea of reforming it with a more democratic, fairer and effective electoral system she did not consider at all.

Federal election results over the last 20 years demonstrate the obvious decline of the two-party dominance and the growth of other parties and Independents. Why are system alternatives not considered now?

Former ALP Minister Professor Barry Jones, recently in The Saturday Paper, presented a very well-researched article on ‘How voting systems change outcomes’, clearly concentrating on Australia, the UK and the U.S. Jones drew attention to several serious anomalies but did not suggest alternatives.

Two-party system fuels opposition for opposition's sake

Electoral reform would eliminate the nonsensical need for opposition parties to dream up unhelpful alternatives against the governing party, argues Dr Klaas Woldring.

Nick Bryant presented an article in the recent SMH Good Weekend in which he quoted Australian Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers, who said:

“Australia has imported a lot from the UK and the U.S. but our home-grown election system is the envy of the Western world.”

This may apply to compulsory voting and sound administration but little else. However, Bryant also quoted Donald Horne who wrote in The Lucky Country (1964) that the country's democratic system was ‘second-hand’. The gross problems of the single-member district system, although somewhat improved by the preferential voting system in 1919, are certainly not envied or copied elsewhere.

Consider the pork barrelling aspects, safe seat neglect, the domination of two major parties and the adversarial, polarising nature of the political culture. Who really envies that? Horne, 60 years ago, had it right. The luck has run out.

Quite frankly, these inward-looking comments are blocking renewal. The trend is clearly away from the two major party domination. That may well also have to do with Australia becoming a much more diverse society. The limitations of the single-member district system are actually blocking reforms. Surely the time has come for the political system to reflect our multi-cultural society and improve its democratic quality. The system conservatism is a major problem here.

The current discussion on what could be the possible outcome of the 2025 Federal Election is also still a product of the current electoral system. We hear about a possible “minority ALP government". This is just unthinkable in a proportional system. The outcome is always a majority government, a policy program agreement normally achieved after the election between several parties. This can take some time, but the democratic values of such a system are obvious.

Two-party system draws democratic disadvantage

It's time we address the disadvantages of our two-party system and speak up for electoral reform.

Let us consider some of the differences between the two major alternative proportional voting systems, both based on multi-member districts: Hare-Clark and party-list. There are some variations within each of them. There are some other considerations as well, such as how large a multi-member district should be with a party-list system. Would it make sense to have size variations of multi-member systems where there are large population density differences as in Australia? The principal objective is to achieve democratic fairness of representation.

This is seriously missing in most single-member district systems, especially those who use first-past-the-post as in the UK and almost all states of the U.S. Some combination of the single-member district and proportional representation is even used, as in New Zealand, introduced in 1996 although retaining the overall proportional character.

What exactly is the Hare-Clark system and where is it used? Second, what is the party-list system and where is that used?

Hare-Clark is one type of single transferable vote electoral system of proportional representation used for elections in Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory.

Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Malta and Scotland also use this system. In America, it is often referred to as ranked-choice voting in multi-member seats. In Australia, it is known as Hare-Clark. However, in almost all U.S. states the first-past-the-post system is used for single-member Seats. Ditto in most of the United Kingdom.

In both countries, strong campaigns are finally in progress to achieve multi-member electoral districts. Currently, their voting systems remain based on single-member districts resulting in two-party systems. In other words, they do not have democratic proportional systems.

The name was derived from the name of English barrister Thomas Hare. It was not adopted in England, though, which continued to use the first-past-the-post system in single-member districts as originally used in Australia. A modification was introduced by Andrew Inglis Clark in Tasmania, then Attorney-General for that state in 1907. A provision was devised by him to eliminate the element of chance in the selection and distribution of quota excesses or surplus transfer votes.

Australia's political culture needs to be depolarised

The two-party system in Australia has polarised its politics and the time has come to reconsider the structure of our government, Dr Klaas Woldring writes.

Party-list systems

The party-list system of proportional representation is essentially simpler and much more widely used. A threshold entry is required as a minimum percentage of the total vote to gain a seat in Parliament. This varies, mostly from 3-5 per cent.

In most party-list systems, a voter will only support one party. There are usually several more than two parties participating. In many multi-party systems, voters may use their only one vote for a specific list candidate. In a few systems, voters may support more than one candidate within a party list.

There are “closed” and “open” party-list systems, but in this short article, this won't be discussed in detail. There are no by-elections with party-list systems. If a member resigns, he or she is replaced automatically by the next on the list who missed out in the most recent election.

Most systems are closed in that the order of candidates is determined by the party which decides the ranking of their candidates. Voters primarily vote for a party and its platform rather than a particular candidate.