The two-party system is falling apart

Australia’s electoral system handed Labor a landslide, but unless it uses this moment to fix our broken democracy, it may one day be the one left behind. Dr Klaas Woldring writes.

THE HUGE ELECTION WIN by the ALP is actually an overstatement of the actual result. The reality is that the first preferences for the ALP represent just over a third of the total primary vote, 34.5 per cent. That it gathered some 94 of the 150 seats, which is nearly 63 per cent of the total number of seats, is the result of Australia’s unfair electoral system based on single member districts.

The ALP is grossly overrepresented now. However, that result provides that party with an enormous opportunity to bring about major changes, domestically and in international relations. However, unless it is going to use this grand opportunity to also fix Australia’s undemocratic electoral system, next time, it may well be the losers as a result.

Remarkably, the potential split in the conservative Coalition parties is actually a further indication that the two-party system may well be on the way out. After all, its claimed strength depends on an effective Opposition party. The National Party has some definite claims – apparently four – on which it is not prepared to compromise. The maintenance of a uranium energy policy is key to this.

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The leaders of the past are up in arms, of course. The comments by former PM John Howard reflect such a voice from the past, which still made some sense in his time as PM, but the younger generation clearly has other ideas altogether. The maintenance of the uranium policy as presented by Nationals Leader David Littleproud may be accepted by the Liberal Party, reluctantly for the sake of presenting a united Opposition, but for how long? We should also ask who represents the growing number of green farmers? In a proportional system, the Green farmers would most likely have their own party.

Journalist Amy Remeikis wrote recently:

The split between the Liberals and the Nationals was obvious to anyone paying attention. We raised it as early as election night, with the Nationals getting increasingly bolshie about their election result compared to the Liberal Party. They lost a seat in the Senate and didn’t win back Calare, which before the election was considered as sure as flies on a dag — an absolute sure thing. There were also the independent challenges in seats like Cowper, but that isn’t part of the Nationals’ fairytale.

There is little doubt that if the Opposition splits, the two-party system is effectively finished. That is realised to some extent already and those who are busily engaged in putting it together again will try hard to prevent this.

Already, there is talk that the crossbenches would form a more effective Opposition, suggesting thereby that one cannot have democracy without two major parties or at least one major party and a solid coalition of two smaller parties. All of which is nonsense, of course, but it is a consequence of the mode of thinking ever since federation, if not earlier. And that despite the effectiveness of proportional representation in the Senate.

Australia can do much better than gluing the broken parts together again and realising that there is a better option if they can look beyond the two-party political culture. I realise that is a big ask, but it has actually been done by New Zealand and South Africa in the early 1990s, resulting in proportional representation in both countries.

A more effective Australian electoral system is long overdue

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

One could even argue that the maintenance of the two-party system in South Africa, essentially for Whites only, was the very reason why Apartheid could be and was introduced and maintained by the largely Afrikaner White National Party until after Nelson Mandela was released.

The notion that there has to be an official Opposition party represents he view that there are two combinations of parties possible, one based on “Labor” and the other on “capital in all its forms”. But, as Remeikis also points out, the primary votes for the Labor and Liberal parties are declining steadily.

The same is true, to a lesser extent, for the National Party. And the preferential voting system meant that primary votes did not matter much. Votes for minor parties flowed back to majors as second preferences. What mattered was the “two-party preferred vote”.

However, Independents and minor parties are doing better with every election. In addition, there are electorates where one or the other of the major parties is actually eliminated during the preference count. The reality is that the two-party system is on the way out. What is surprising is that it has taken this long for the decline to be realised and possibly acted upon, even now after this election.

This trend is a good thing, and it also suggests that adversarialism, polarisation and pork barrelling associated with the current political and electoral systems will disappear. It also suggests that Oppositions don’t have to dream up stunning alternatives, like seven small nuclear plants in conservative seats, to win an election.

Also, improvements would be possible if the parliaments were no longer shaped to reflect the oppositional/adversarial character of the existing system. In addition, money can be stopped from flowing to marginal seats to swing them to the Government or keep them supporting it.

The growing crossbenches present an unmistakable message, not to create a different Opposition but to change the electoral system. Is the ALP listening now? If not, one should ask: Is Australia waking up? Are the young who are moving away from the major parties asking what alternatives exist in the world? Where is the political education that provides material about the 90 states that have proportional representation?