Half-time report: upper house

72 comments on “Half-time report: upper house”

1. HoV & Ron

   As Luke has said, its not that Margetts had no support, but that it was recognised that her vote was important. There is also an issue of personality. Margetts is by training an economist, and is good with the minutae of bills. She also responds to the attentions of her constituents. In 2001-02 those constituents (or at leadt the most vocal of them) were all but pleading with her to not pass the legislation. Now, she might have been swayed by this more (ie; not supported any part of the reforms) excepting that the party spent a long time discussing the issue, attempting to tease out the various issues. Sharp, who previously might have supported 1v1v in both houses then settled on the dual model (1 house with 1v1v, the other not) as an effective compromise and began championing that position. Essentially Margetts then had a position to support. Margetts can be an excellent person to have in parliament, but she can also be a tricky person to deal with.

   The problem with this is that, although the party did have a number of options to consider (try bio-regional, which doesn’t work effectively with 1v1v, a separate indigenous list, ala New Zealand, or including ‘representatives’ for non-human interests – advocates for animal interests and the ‘environment’ more generally) alongside straight electoral models, outside of the normal meeting process, and including a couple of general meetings, this position was not put to the party. If it had been I suspect it would have not been supported by the general membership. And trying to force Margetts into another position simply entrenches her position in her own mind. That did happen in one of the general meetings.

   As for Dee’s support within the party, well, she did win a preselection ballot to become a Senator, and retained that preselection. There had also been some interest in the Agricultural Region from people outside the party, although I would always have considered it a very long shot (Mining & Pastoral is the same, although Chapple almost doubled his vote between 2001 & 2005)). But yes, Margetts had not been expected to win.

   And Ron, hindsight they say is ’20-20′ vision…

2. OK bludgers, I have gone away and researched this, and naturally I was right. In 2005 the Greens refused to pass the Labor government’s election reform bill unless the government accepted their terms on the Council. These were (a) the retention of the gross disparity of enrolment between the urban and rural districts, and (b) the creation of six districts each electing six members. The result is an even number of districts electing an even number of members. This means Labor or the Libs/Nats must win 57% of the vote in one district and 43% in the other five to gain a majority, regardless of their statewide vote. In districts this large, that is highly unlikely. As a result, the Greens are virtually guaranteed the balance of power in the Council forever, regardless of how the people vote. They also have two districts with very low enrolments, where they can win a seat with less than 10,000 votes. In other words, they sabotaged the principle of one-vote-one-value in the Council, which they claimed to support, in order to achieve arrangements that will maximise their own power. I call that opportunism. All parties do opportunistic things, but only the Greens combine cynical opportunist actions with pious self-righteous rhetoric denouncing everyone else.

3. Adam, what you might be overlooking is the high possibility of 4-2 right-left results in Agricultural and South West (indeed, a near certainty in the former case) balanced only by a lower possibility of a 4-2 left-right result in East Metropolitan, thanks to rural vote weighting. This creates a high possibility of 19 or even 20 seats for the right out of 36, and thus no Greens balance of power.

4. William,
   You are right, it is a possibility. However, it is also a possibility that the situation outlined by Adam may occur. I would say that it is more of a possibility under the current system than under the former, meaning that Adam’s analysis is substantially correct.
   The surprising thing in Adam’s comment is that he seems surprised that a political party would be guilty of “…opportunist actions with pious self-righteous rhetoric denouncing everyone else.” I would have thought this par for the course.

5. Adam

   You might also have researched what people such as Campbell Sharman and other political scientists had to say about the 6×6 model – that in fact it had a far greater opportunity of resulting in 3-3 splits than for a minor party to get elected – unless they were successful with vote harvesting. Your characterisation of this process simply belies your dislike of the result. The “large district number” seats which you comment on were taken from the Queensland legislation, which I note the Queensland ALP seems perfectly happy with, and was intended to ensure to partly (and I admit very partly) address the issue of elector contact with MP’s. If you think that MP’s should have contact with their electors then they require an effective mechanism for doing so. The report from the Leg Council Legislation Committee which looked at the legislation, chaired by Jon Ford (ALP), does discuss what might be needed, and also included comments on Indigenous seats, but makes no further recommendations. The report is on the WA Parliament website:
   http://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/web/newwebparl.nsf/iframewebpages/Committees+-+Past

   On opportunism, far better if the Greens had gone with 5 electorates of 7 (retaining but reducing the rural-urban weighting as 3 would have been city based, and 2 rural) or moved to statewide electorate with a threshold (which was discussed in the negotiations) – these scenario’s would have significantly improved the Greens chances both of balance of power and retention of seats, while also potentially limiting micro-parties ability to preference harvest (like Libs4Forests almost managed). That would have more closely fitted your characterisation of opportunism AND fufliled 1v1v for both houses.

   As I said before, hindsight has ’20-20′ vision.

6. On the question of improving the Greens chances of winning seats (with a 6 seat model) due to a lowering of the quota, there was some debate about this in the lead up to the bills being introduced, with people such as Harry Phillips, Cambell Sharman and David Black suggesting that an odd number of seats was more likely to deliver a seat to a minor party than even numbers. This would particularly be the case (for 6 seat electorates) in close elections where the ALP & Lib/Nat vote would both be close to 3 quota’s – as evidenced by what occurred in the last Federal election. Greens can poll 10% (as in Vic) and still not win a seat. Odd numbers of seats in electorates (say 7 as was the case in South West & North Metro) was far more likely to deliver seats both from the lower quota and that there would be over-quota votes available for a third party.

   I would suggest that this election will not improve the Greens position, and the election is likely to deliver balance of power to parties such as Family First and the CDP. Indeed, the cross benches could be quite interesting with up to 4 minor parties (Greens, Nats, FF & CDP) potentially represented. And I would suggest that the potential for further changes to the electoral system should not be ruled out as it would also be in those parties interests to have, say, a single statewide electorate (maybe with split terms such as in SA & NSW).

7. Adam and others,

   What do you think a good model for the WA upperhouse is???

   I am not trying to defend the 6×6 which I think is potentially very bad for the Greens, I am genuinely interested in your views.

8. Quota preferential voting should always operate with an odd number of seats. With an odd number of seats, if a party receives a majority of the vote, it has the chance to win a majority of seats. That is very very difficult with even numbers, with the exception of rotten boroughs like Agricultural Region. In 7 Federal elections where 6 member Senate elections have been held, there is 1 case in 42 (QLD 2004) of a party achieving a majority of seats. The result at many elections would have been very different with odd numbered elections.

   An example of how it works is my local council in Sydney. At the 1999 Marrickville Council elections, the Labor Party was afraid of losing control to the Greens and No Aircraft Noise. So they created three Wards of 4 members, meaning Labor only needed to win 40% of the vote to get half the seats. They won 6 of the 12 vacancies.

   In 2004, with Labor thinking its vote had risen, they created 4 wards of 3 members, thinking they could win a majority. Instead, their vote was exactly the same and they only one 1 councillor in each ward, 4 of the 12 councillors. They were defeated by their own gerrymander.

   Tasmania used 6 member electorates until the 1950s, when after a run of deadlocked elections, they hit on the idea of electing an odd number of members. Many years ago I read the report of the inquiry that recomended this change, and it stressed the point that if you believe in proportional representation, you also have to believe in a party with the majority of the vote being able to win a majority of seats.

   Ireland uses a variant of quota preferential voting to elect the Dail. It uses a mix of 3, 4 and 5 member divisions. There have been various papers over the years illustrating how parties shuffle the seats around, putting odd numbered constituencies in areas where their own vote was likely to reach 50%, and even numbered seats where their opponents might reach 50%.

   9 elections since 6 , and my commentthat applies to the Senate as well. If a party receives a majority of the vote, it should be entitled to win a majority of the seats.

9. There was a ‘one’ that should have been a ‘won’, and two lines of stray junk edit text at the end. Sorry.

10. And by the way, I think William is entirely right. If Labor has a particularly good election, it and the Greens might have a chance of getting enough seats for a majority together. But the Libs and Nats will almost always get four up in Agricultural, sometimes in South-West, and you wouldn’t discount them winning five in Agricultural. They’ve won four out of five in the past in Agricultural.

    But if you’re not aware of how the Greens got the balance of power at the 2001 election Adam, it is very amusing. One Nation stuffed up their preferences. Thinking the Greens wouldn’t win a seat in either region, One Nation decided to show the Libs and Nats a lesson in how independent they were by passing their preferences through the Greens before reaching the Liberals. But One Nation ended up with more than a quota in both regions, their surplus flowed to the Greens and stayed there until the Greens were elected. The two extra Greens took seats the Liberals would otherwise have won, in which case One Nation would have had the balance of power in the Legislative Council, and Labor Plus the Greens would have had only 16 of the 34 seats. That would have given the Gallop government a very tough LC to deal with, and made it impossible to get the electoral reform bill through, unless the Liberals had decided to cut a deal with Labor.

11. One Nation stuffed up their preferences – that’s right up there with the “Strange Man on Public Transport” headline.

12. Possum, a former Electoral Commissioner told me some excellent stories on the subject of One Nation and their understanding of preferences.

13. Speaking of strange boroughs, I’m disappointed that the Greens didn’t nominate for Sydney’s Botany Bay Council. In an election for Mayor and for three wards of two councillors, there were two labor nominations in each ward, Ron Hoenig was the only nominee for Mayor, the whole Council uncontested. I think it will be the only council in Sydney where Labor won’t get a pasting on 13 September.

14. I could imagine Antony…

    Well, actually I probably couldn’t – every time I thought I’d seen it all with that mob, they transcend new depths of confusion.

    Like the last Federal election where One Nation WA was running in QLD for the Senate.

    I’d be interested to hear your One Nation tales sometime – psephology sitcom on a stick.

15. Answer to Bird of paradox.
    I am very disturbed by your comments on the Christian schools. Which school did you attend? I have been a teacher at one of the CPCS schools for 21 years and I am delighted with the education children receive there. Education is in a mess. Politicians are seeking solutions in the wrong places. We want common sense education and character building for our students.

16. Antony@63
    Well, we might have nominated someone if we had someone willing to be nominated… We managed it in 2004, so maybe next time around.

17. StewartJ:

    You’d think the Greens would stand a fairly good chance of 33% in Botany.

18. Botnay Bay doesn’t use PR. Two member wards but both elected by majority preferential voting.

19. As Antony says – you need 50%, and if you get that your votes go back in to elect the second person. This of course means that a ticket of 2 ALP candidates will almost always get elected (assuming people follow the ticket) Wollongong had the same, but the competition was quite different due to the presence of many non-ALP voters in the northern parts of the Illawarra. Botany doesn’t have that.

20. Based on the Victorian experience it seems like the possibility of winning makes it harder to find Green candidates. One of the good things about Green members is that most of them (naturally with some exceptions) aren’t willing to run for something they might win unless they’re confident they’d actually do a good job.

    Of course there are some who would be bloody terrible and are just delusional, but there are even more who have a better understanding of their own weaknesses than those of their opponents. Results, we’ve had some people who’d be at least reasonable councilors pull out because they have heard what it takes to be a great councilor and don’t realise they’d still be doing something good for the local residents if they ran and took the seat off some useless hack. Result, spots we could win going begging.

21. Wow, Antony, I just checked the Botany Bay website. With one exception every councillor has been there since 1995, and most for much longer. Not exactly a mix of new blood and experience. That voting system is atrocious, and one can see it in the results.

22. [ Answer to Bird of paradox.
    I am very disturbed by your comments on the Christian schools. Which school did you attend? ]

    I was home schooled. That experience, and my Christian father, filled me with such a love of all things Christian that I’m not one any more. Imagine Ephesians 6:1 with maximum violence. 😉

    By the way, I’m assuming you’re Nick’s mother / CDP candidate in Gosnells… if so, could you explain to me why he’s running for the Liberals in South Metro? He seems a much more natural fit with the CDP… it seems odd.