Immediately before the last election, in the hurly-burly of the election campaign, I, together with many other Tasmanians, I’m sure, was astonished when four former premiers delivered a paternalistic warning that if we were to vote in a hung parliament there was a grave risk that the sky over Tasmania would fall in.
The line that these former premiers were running was that government would be unworkable without a single party in charge, the logical extension presumably being that the ideal system would be a one-party system.
Substitute the pejorative term hung parliament for multiparty democracy and then look around the world and you will find that we are actually moving in a mainstream political direction. Canada has had a multiparty federal government since 2004. Britain has now joined this club, as have several European democracies. It is clear, even peering through volcanic ash, that the skies over Europe remain at their correct altitude.
How often as a voter have you looked at the platform of each of the parties and thought that it would be ideal if you could select planks from each. In political terms, it is very hard to imagine, when faced with the complexity of modern society, that any political system could function with only two dimensions — left and right or Labor and Liberal. It’s time to move on. Surely in Australia we can do better than this simplistic us and them approach.
The evolution in the West to multiparty democracy is a reflection of the changes in society. Our Hare-Clark system, whatever you may think of it, does provide representation for a wide range of opinion. It probably does this better than any other.
The current make-up of our too small parliament should tell us that the time has come for far more co-operation. The electorate is weary of the ritualistic and demeaning confrontation between members of parliament that has been the political fashion for far too long. Surely there are more important matters than merely scoring points against each other.
Our new multiparty parliament is an opportunity to take our democracy to a higher level. The voters have exercised there democratic right under Hare-Clark whether our pollies like it or not. We, the voters, have not, despite of what the former premiers might believe, failed to get it right.
Maybe it’s tough for our pollies to learn co-operation as well as confrontation but as a former prime minister famously declared, “life wasn’t meant to be easy”. I’m sure he meant this for our pollies together with everyone else.
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Absolutely. I wrote something similar back in May here:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2907567.htm
Electoral reform is going to be extremely difficult to bring about because it removes the two main party’s advantages. But maybe we have never had such an opportune time. The reality is that in the long term it will be in the interests of Labor (probably not conservatives but then again look at the UK) because with the rise of the Greens they may find it increasingly difficult to get outright majorities.
Arrgggh, moderation; second attempt:
Absolutely. I wrote something similar back in May here: abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2907567.htm
Electoral reform is going to be extremely difficult to bring about because it removes the two main party’s advantages. But maybe we have never had such an opportune time. The reality is that in the long term it will be in the interests of Labor (probably not conservatives but then again look at the UK) because with the rise of the Greens they may find it increasingly difficult to get outright majorities.
I’m a strong supporter of the Quota Preferential Method of Proportional Representation (ie Hare-Clark) – and not just for upper houses, but also for lower houses – ie for both houses.
It’s much more likely that the potential government will be formed following negotaiations between like-minded parties or between parties on an agreed set of policies.
I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Certainly the two “big” parties would resist and, indeed, would probably work together to reject the adoption of the concept.
Listening to the dead pollies burying the dying system insisting that tumescence is bonny good health is like Charles I defending the divine right of kings, right up until decapitation.