Australia’s Labor and Green parties have reached a support agreement. The Greens won their first House of Representatives seat at the recent election. One seat, out of 150, on over 11% of first-preference votes.
One of the provisions of the agreement is that Green Senator Bob Brown will reintroduce as a Private Members Bill the Commonwealth Electoral (Above-the-Line Voting) Amendment Bill 2008. The Labor party “will consider” the bill. Among other provisions, this bill would allow voters who vote for a party ticket in Senate elections, rather than rank their preferences across all candidates running, to rank the parties in order of preference.
The agreement also includes several proposed reforms to parliamentary procedure, including guaranteeing minor parties the right to ask questions of the Prime Minister no later than the sixth question during Question Time. It further stipulates that the parties acknowledge that any of the Green’s policies for the 2010 election can be brought forward for discussion in parliament. Greens will receive Treasury briefings. There will be a “well resourced Climate Change Committee.”
All in all, a very fine agreement. There is just one catch: the Labor and Green parties remain short of a majority in the House by three seats. There are four independents, whose votes could still give the Coalition (of Liberals and Nationals) a majority if they choose to swing that direction.
The Labor and Green parties appear to have combined for over 49% of the first-preference votes, compared to around 44% for the Coalition. Yet Labor and Greens have just under 49% of the seats, despite the use of a “majoritarian” electoral system (and one that is often taken as a model here in the USA), and despite the fact that the electoral swing from Labor to the Greens was greater than that to the Coalition.
(All claims about the partisan breakdown of first-preference votes need to be taken cautiously until all votes are counted, but the pattern of swing is clear.)
The Labor-Green alignment actually falls 2, not 3, short of a majority. People have tended to assume an absolute majority of 76 is required. The constitution is quite clear that an absolute majority (76) is only required for a constitutional amendment. That may become important if Wilkie, the urban independent, abstains as he has threatened to do. 75/1/74 would be enough to sustain a government, although organising the parliament would be hell.
Seed planted by Alan — 01 September 2010 @ 20:16
Is there any recent precedent for such an agreement in Australia?
If Labor and the Greens are committing to reliably vote together until the next election, it will be hard for Abbott to promise the independent MPs any sort of the “stability” they say they want. In a year, when the new Senate sits, there would be no way for the Coalition to push through any legislation, barring a double-dissolution.
However, if the agreement is reasonably likely to fall apart should Labor not form the government, or should political conditions change, then it may not at all affect the thinking of the independents.
[T]his bill would allow voters who vote for a party ticket in Senate elections, rather than rank their preferences across all candidates running, to rank the parties in order of preference.
By my reading, it would in fact replace the single above-the-line-vote with party rankings. It sounds like it would no longer be possible to vote with just a single mark, for better or for worse.
There are four independents…
Have there been any indications yet of whether Tony Crook will sit with the other Nationals or alone? I have no idea what his policies are like, is there any chance he would sit with Labor?
Seed planted by Vasi — 01 September 2010 @ 20:19
[What Alan said, +] … or if a non-Govt MP is elected Speaker, and thus can vote only to break a tie, which won’t arise in a 75-74-1 situation. (Quaere whether the s 57 and s 128 requirements of an absolute majority impliedly override this rule? Or could we still have a Marquet Loop* at the federal level?)
* Arose under West Aust State Const. Legislative Council members favoured an electoral reform bill 18-16. However, the President could not vote as there was no “tie”, so the votes were 17-16. Which meant the Bill fell short of an absolute majority as required, because it would have amended the State’s Constitution Act. So it failed.
Mind you, WA is also the State that abandoned STV and reverted to MNTV for local council elections because the State’s shire clerks complained that preferential voting just too hard. So we’re not talking a laboratory of democracy here.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 01 September 2010 @ 20:25
@Tom
s57 and s128 apply to very specific situations and are therefore exceptions to a general rule. I suggest the relevant provision is s40:
Seed planted by Alan — 02 September 2010 @ 05:11
Alan, the Senate ruled early in its history (this is mentioned somewhere in Quick & Garran) that sec 17′s “the Senate shall… choose a Senator to be the President of the Senate” impliedly overrode Sec 23′s “Questions arising in the Senate shall be determined by a majority of votes, and each Senator shall have one vote. The President shall in all cases be entitled to a vote; and when the votes are equal the question shall pass in the negative”. Which therefore allowed the Senate to draw lots to break a tie in a ballot for President.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 02 September 2010 @ 05:59
74 Labor 3 independents 73 Coalition.
Seed planted by Alan — 02 September 2010 @ 07:47
The Speaker does not vote in the House except in the event of a tied vote.
I’ve always found this to be a strange rule:
- when a party has one seat majority and wins the speakership, every following vote is a tie and depends on the speaker
- when both parties have half the votes, the one winning the speakership (whatever the tie-braking rule for the elections of the speaker), loses the following votes by one vote.
(Sweden had this situation in 1973, government and speaker stayed in power, tied votes were decided by lottery and in 1976 the seat toal became uneven)
Seed planted by Bancki — 02 September 2010 @ 09:21
It’s no defence of a silly rule, but Australia did not have a party system when the constitution was written. In my view the rule in both houses should be that a motion needs an absolute majority to pass.
In other news, Wilkie has gone with Labor so the numbers are now 74/3/73 or 74/4/72 depending on the somewhat erratic WA National.
Seed planted by Alan — 02 September 2010 @ 11:09
From Wilkie to Franklin… No, not the 1940 US presidential election, but the Tasmanian House of Assembly. Looks like the 1998 Cutback Amendment is now going to be rescinded, ie, the Apple Isle will be returning to seven-seaters (thus overtaking the ACT as Australia’s most optimal district magnitude).*
Maybe someone looked at the federal result and twigged that small district magnitudes are no protection against being “held to ransom” by “fringe zealots”…
* 6.999 (rounded off) is the optimum. 21, as for the NSW upper house, is too large.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 02 September 2010 @ 11:49
In the following situation:
1) a government determining House has an even number of deputies,
2) the government party or parties have exact exactly half the number of deputies, 50%, not 50% +1.
3) the Speaker doesn’t vote except in case of a tie, and the government somehow provides for a speaker.
In this case, a government simply needs 50% plus one for a majority, not 50%. The government either must convince an opposition deputy to agree to become speaker, which is functionally not too different from convincing an opposition MP to defect to the government, or must convince another party to join the governing coalition.
In other words, I don’t see the difficulty with a legislature having an even number of members. Even number or odd numbers, you still need 50% +1 for control, 50% isn’t enough.
Seed planted by Ed — 02 September 2010 @ 15:52
My reading of Australian poltics is probably flawed, since I am not Australian, plus the situation now is unusually fluid.
That said is the agreement really “very fine”? How realistic would it have been for the Greens to first reach an agreement with the independents/ National defectors? A sort of Green – country bloc, if it could have been managed, would have improved the bargaining power of both groups vs. the major parties. It also would have started the emergence of a rural-based party with a clear identity apart from the Liberals, plus improved the Greens’ image with non-urban voters.
Seed planted by Ed — 02 September 2010 @ 15:57
Duverger’s Law is clearly dead, and the idea of using a voting system to artificially create Parliamentary majorities is on its deathbed.
Wonderful; but is it true?
Seed planted by Wilf Day — 02 September 2010 @ 16:05
Actually, the sudden rash of uncontrolled (or hung, or balanced) parliaments elected single member districts cuts against both sides of the proportional representation debate.
We have a clear demonstration that using single member districts are no guarantee of a majority for one party, and as another example in South Africa one party has had a majority for several consecutive elections using proportional representation.
But on the other hand, single member districts can’t be said to shut out minor and third parties or keep them from being influential.
At best, you can say that the use of single member districts, as opposed to multimember districts with proportional representation, will increase the odds of one party obtaining a majority, and reduce the number of third and minor party deputies. There are no guarantees.
The argument shifts more to the ground of proportionality vs. local representation. And why the German or the Irish systems are not satisfactory compromises.
Seed planted by Ed — 02 September 2010 @ 17:04
[Note for the record that I spotted the India/ UK/ Canada/ Aust/ NZ hung parliaments before reading Dunleavy's post a few days back... ie, did not plagiarise him without attribution.]
One could say “Well, of course NZ has hung parliaments – they voted for PR in 1992-93″. Yet (a) parties can win absolute majorities under MMP (Germany 1957), and (b) at (at least) the first MMP election, no party won a majority of the district seats either – ie, presumably FPTP, too, would have produced a hung Huss of Rips in 1996. (It probably wouldn’t have had only 65 districts – although NZ had only 75 in the 1970s – but with 120 or so seats all from SMDs, it would have been even easier for small parties and Undupundints to win seats.)
Enid Lakeman used to delight in contrasting Austria, Tasmania and Malta with Canada and France (although many British anti-PRists of the Spectator type seem to think France is a multi-party warning of the evils of PR).
However, since 1982 (when she last published), Ireland and Austria have seen “hung parliaments” become the norm, and Tasmania has seen them become a possibility (Malta remains immune, it seems, while the loi Duverger has not yet kicked in in Canada, other than impelling the Prog Cons and Reform to merge).
It does seem that absolute majorities (genuine or manufactured) are rarer under PR-List than under PR-STV, both because of -
(a) the “carrot” that STV offers (different factions can stand a common team of candidates, and if their supporters really, really can’t stand their political bedmates, they can direct their preferences elsewhere, or let them exhaust. Unlike, say, Israel, they don’t need to break away and run their own list to make sure their votes don’t elect someone from an opposing faction)
and
(b) the “stick” that STV offers – relatively high thresholds, based on small-magnitude regional/ local districts with no nationwide or large-region top-up. IOW, STV quotas are generally much higher than PR-List quotas, even without a superimposed threshold.
Apart from the NSW Leg Council, an outlier with DM = 21, and a [now rare] Australian Senate double dissolution, with DM = 12, the maximum DM I know of under STV is 9 for Cambridge, Massachusetts and formerly the ACT Advisory Council. Otherwise, it’s 5, 6, or 7 apart from the occasional 3- or 4- in Ireland.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 02 September 2010 @ 21:02
There’s a good write-up on the South Australian supply and confidence agreements here. The principle that a minister can opt out of cabinet solidarity is also followed in the Tasmanian Labor-Green coalition.
Seed planted by Alan — 03 September 2010 @ 05:00
A few town councils in Ireland have 12 members, all elected at large, and the rest have 9. City and County Councils are divided into wards, but even there I think the magnitude is 5 or 6 per ward.
Seed planted by DC — 04 September 2010 @ 16:38
I’d overlooked local councils. If we count them, then many in NSW (and possibly Victoria and SA too?) have as many as 12 seats at large, although most use 3-, 4- or 5-seat wards.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 05 September 2010 @ 06:26
Tom,
I believe that the only council in Victoria with 12 councillors is the City of Geelong. All others have between five and nine. Some councils are elected from single-member wards, some from multi-member wards, some from combinations of both and some at large. It is a real mess. When the Shire of Nillumbik had its electoral representation review, my submission argued for one ward with STV, but the commissioners went for seven single-member wards on ‘community of interest” grounds.
Here is my submission:
Seed planted by Chris Curtis — 07 September 2010 @ 00:15
In NSW a council must have between 5 and 15 members and may be a single electorate or use a ward system.
Seed planted by Alan — 07 September 2010 @ 01:34