There exists in the world of political commentary a certain kind of analyst who, in effect, agrees with the dictum attributed to Al Smith, the failed 1928 Democratic candidate for the US presidency: “All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.”
Sometimes this dictum takes the form of the slogan that “the solution to the problems of democracy is more democracy”. In the United States belief in that idea has produced a much greater use of primaries than was the case in the days of Smith.
Today’s modern equivalent takes the form of saying that party-list proportional representation is the ideal to which a genuine democracy should aspire. By “party-list PR” is meant the various systems generally used in continental Western Europe, but it also includes the German system known as “mixed member proportional”. (That term was invented by New Zealand which copied Germany in 1996 and gave the term to a system now used by eight countries.) The classic adherent to this view is Guy Rundle and its clearest exposition came in his Crikey article last week.
I am not an admirer of the Greek electoral system. It has the same defect as all the others: it is a system of party machine appointments to the legislature. All the electorate does is to distribute numbers of party machine appointments. However, it does have one virtue. Known as “reinforced PR”, it distributes 250 seats proportionally and then 50 seats are added to the biggest single party. Thus at the election on May 6 the centre-right New Democracy party won 19% of the votes and 36% of the seats; the second biggest was the radical left Syriza which won 17% of the votes and 17% of the seats; the third biggest party was the traditional socialist Pasok with 13% of the votes and 14% of the seats; and the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn came in fourth with 7% of the votes and 7% of the seats.
There will be another election on Sunday, June 17. Let Crikey readers mark my words. New Democracy will again be the biggest single party — and with an increased share in both votes and seats. Consequently the Greek people will have followed the lead set by the Irish people in endorsing austerity.
Greece will NOT leave the 17-nation eurozone. The drachma will NOT be restored. The reinforcing of the system (the 50-seat bonus) is what will produce this desirable result. The reason is that the Greek people will be forced to concentrate their minds on the choice they must make. That was not really the case on May 6.
Contrary to Rundle, I think Australia has good systems whereby we elect our lower houses. Every member is directly elected by the people. It is, however, true to say (as Rundle does) that it is possible under our systems for the second-biggest party in votes to win more seats than the biggest party in votes. To discuss this in detail I consider the first case cited by Rundle: in 1954 Evatt-led Labor won 50.7% of the two-party preferred vote and lost while the Menzies Coalition government won 49.3% and won.
I make two points about that election. The first is that the electoral system (essentially the same then as now) was one accepted by Labor and, indeed, the boundaries of the electoral divisions had been drawn in 1948 when the Chifley Labor government had been in power. Understanding that a losing party cannot complain about a result occurring in such circumstances, Labor accepted the result as legitimate. My second point is that the statistics quoted by Rundle were never official — they were estimates drawn up by me. That was an election for the House of Representatives only. In Bradfield, Richmond and Wentworth in NSW, Mallee and Murray in Victoria and Angas and Hindmarsh in South Australia I made up party vote figures when no votes were actually cast, the sitting members for those seats having been re-elected unopposed.
The same comments apply in approximate terms to the election wins by the Menzies Coalition government in 1961 and the Gorton Coalition government in 1969. However, in 1990 (Bob Hawke winning with fewer two-party preferred votes than Andrew Peacock) and 1998 (John Howard winning with fewer than Kim Beazley) the statistics quoted by Rundle are semi-official inasmuch as the Electoral Commission (as a consequence of a submission made by me to the parliamentary electoral matters committee in 1983) fully counted out the preferences of minor party and independent candidates.
Nevertheless, my main point still applies. Each of Peacock in 1990 and Beazley in 1998 accepted his loss as legitimate, for a simple reason. In 1990 both Hawke and Peacock owned the electoral system. The same applied to both Howard and Beazley in 1998.
I am the first to acknowledge that in cases such as these one cannot truly say that a majority of the Australian people made the choice. Rather, the vagaries of the electoral system made that choice for the people. However, I point out that in four of the five subsequent elections the people clearly made the same choice of governing party. Thus in 1955, 1963, 1993 and 2001 the people clearly chose Menzies, Menzies, Keating and Howard, respectively.
I return to the slogan coined by Al Smith in 1928. Recently I was asked to review an American book titled The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies by Bryan Caplan. He rubbishes Smith and those who think like him. The book really means “why American democracy chooses bad policies” and I go along with that.
However, he advances certain arguments of general application. Thinking about these arguments I do go along with the view that the vagaries of our House of Representatives electoral system chose bad policies in 1990. I also think that in 2004 the vagaries of our Senate electoral system chose bad policies.
Nevertheless, I believe Australia has been lucky. Our democracy has chosen fewer bad policies than most other democracies.
*Malcolm Mackerras is visiting fellow in the Public Policy Institute, Australian Catholic University, Canberra campus
It seems to boil down to whether having the least worst system is a cause for cynicism or celebration.
I say celebration, and I’m quite happy to be conservative in wanting to keep it in the absence of a compelling alternative.
” in 1954 Evatt-led Labor won 50.7% of the two-party preferred vote and lost while the Menzies Coalition government won 49.3% and won.”
This is not really the most important point. Any complaints when such a small margin in the country-wide vote are mostly crying wolf. As the author pointed out even Labor accepted this outcome.
Today the issue is the dissatisfaction, if not dysfunction of the two-party system and the way our electoral system locks it in. The really serious complaint is when a party wins 1.46 million votes (about 12% of the total) yet wins only a single seat. And further, the way the compulsory preferential voting system dissuades people from voting for the party or candidate they otherwise might.
Some cutting of the corners of democracy might be acceptable to achieve the somewhat over-hyped stability but this outcome is way beyond a minor abberation.
Further, even the uninformed should be able to look at the current parliament and see that if the Greens had won a fair share of HoR seats (approximately 17 seats but say only half of that) we would have both a stable government and a much better behaved one. And a lot would argue better government.
“Nevertheless, I believe Australia has been lucky. Our democracy has chosen fewer bad policies than most other democracies.”
Yes, lucky in the sense of Donald Horne! But an awful lot of our government does not stand up to close scrutiny. The basics are relatively easy (rule of law, policing, healthcare, education, banking etc) and all Anglo domains achieve it, including places like Hong Kong that were not democracies.
But no one is surely going to pretend that long-term planning in Australia is anything but terrible? Environmental: more species extinction than any other country; more arable land lost to over-grazing & poor practices; our major river system still abused to close to serious decline; feral pest problem is worst in the world and totally self-inflicted. Energy. Water. City planning and transport: for a long time everything looked rosy but only because until recently our cities had not reached the size threshold when lack of planning starts causing serious problems. All our east coast cities have now passed that point (Brisbane has passed the threshold at lower population because it has even less pro-active planning!) and still show no signs of seriously addressing the issues. We can’t get a single thing right with transport policy, neither roads, nor airports or public transit. It doesn’t look like we will ever resolve in an adult fashion the states versus federal impasse on so many issues.
One might be getting carried away with the moment but one could interpret the current rancour of almost all our parliaments (state & fed) owing to the fact that “she’ll be right mate” has got us thru for the first century but the problems are mounting and are not going to go away. Yet our governing systems do not seem up to the job whichever party is in power. As I have argued in my articles in Crikey and elsewhere, in support of multi-member proportional electorates, the extreme partisan two-party system is incapable of encompassing the diversity of opinion and thus the variety and flexibility of approaches needed in our complex world.
For a long time it didn’t matter. Is there anyone who still believes that? Even if his party would want to govern in a more moderate fashion if Tony Abbott gains power he is locked into a raft of 100% policy reversals. This is what our system is delivering and it is not acceptable to most politicians, let alone the populace.
[Greece will NOT leave the 17-nation eurozone. The drachma will NOT be restored. The reinforcing of the system (the 50-seat bonus) is what will produce this desirable result. The reason is that the Greek people will be forced to concentrate their minds on the choice they must make. That was not really the case on May 6.]
I have said as much on Rundle comment threads. But not necessarily because ND will be in power (if natural justice had anything to do with it these slimes should never gain government ever again) because, after all, Alexis Tsipras (of Syriza the leftist party that came second on May 6) has repeatedly claimed he does not want Greece to leave the Euro. Instead he believes he can negotiate better conditions with Merkel & Hollande.
The assumption here also appears to be that ND will bounce back but last time I read about it, the polls suggest Syriza is growing. However it may be that many of those who did not vote (>50%) are more likely to 1. vote this time and 2. vote for ND (ie. they abstained to punish the old parties).
A case can be made that it would be preferrable to have Syriza in government because there is serious risk of vast destabilizing social unrest if the old parties get back and do nothing different.
I;m surprised that so forensically diligent as psephologist as the sainted Mackerras endorses the list system (surely the ultimate machine control) AND the antithesis of democracy, the Greek 50 seat bonus. Why bother voting with such dilution of the power of the electorate?
If voters choose minority government with a multiplicity of parties constantly negotiating legislation and realignments, as in the case of most of the stable, rich northern European countries, that sounds to me like the perfect system.
Three strong governments within the Westminster system spring to mind, like gumboils, Thatcher, Blair & Howard – and didn’t they serve their countries well?