EMC Submission No. 12 1 Supplementary Submission 2 Received 19 September 2019 CHAPTER TWELVE: VICTORIAN EXCEPTIONALISM

The beautiful proportional representation system by which Victoria’s Legislative Council is elected has applied at four elections, those held on 25 November 2006, 27 November 2010, 29 November 2014 and 24 November 2018. The explanation for those dates is the fact of Victorian State elections being fixed to be held on the last Saturday in November every four years when the entire collection of Victorian politicians is elected. Victoria and Western Australia supply the only cases of Australian bicameral parliaments in which there is no rotation of upper houses members.

The criteria I apply to decide upon the merits of the different proportional representation (PR) systems cause me to say that Tasmania’s Hare-Clark deserves a high distinction mark, the ACT Hare- Clark a distinction, Victoria a credit with 65 per cent, New South Wales a pass with 58 per cent, South Australia a pass with 51 per cent and fail marks for the Senate system (a miserable 30 per cent) and the Legislative Council system of Western Australia which gets a mark of 45 per cent from me. As I explain in the third chapter on the Extreme Vetting to which my most recent federal submission was subjected I have also described these systems in terms of female beauty. I wrote:

Therefore, I describe Tasmania’s Hare-Clark system as “gorgeous”, the ACT variant of Hare- Clark as “very beautiful”, the Victorian Legislative Council system as “beautiful”, the New South Wales and South Australian Legislative Council systems as “plain but okay, I suppose”, the Western Australian Legislative Council system as “unattractive” and the Senate system as “ugly”.

That I have such a positive view of Victoria’s system does not mean I advocate no reform. Sometimes it has been true that for the time being I have advocated no reform. That was the case during Victoria’s 58th Parliament, the one elected in 2014. I would always strongly oppose any reform that seeks to put lipstick on the pig of above-the-line voting. However, when my Senate and WA reforms are implemented I would advocate that Victoria copy Western Australia, having a system that would be the same, save only that district magnitude would continue to be five in Victoria but would be seven in Western Australia. The two States have systems in common in that there are three contrivances as part of above-the-line voting whereas the Senate system has the abomination of four contrivances. All of those contrivances should be eliminated either immediately or over a longer term.

That I have such a positive view of Victoria’s system does not mean I pretend to have been a participant in its creation. I was not such a participant. I was not, in fact, particularly critical of the immediate past system. However, once PR was in place I became an admirer of this present system. My reason for not being particularly opposed to the “old” system was simply due to my acknowledgement that every Victorian State politician was then directly chosen by the people. My main democratic principle is that every member of parliament should be directly elected – hence my lack of hostility to the old system that I now describe.

History of Victorian Legislative Council System Up to and including the nineteen forties Victoria’s Legislative Council voting system was not democratic. It was based on a restricted franchise in which the possession of property was the main source of the elector’s entitlement to vote. In 1952, however, universal adult franchise was legislated. The right to vote became identical for the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council. The system was messy, however, which led to some reforms being implemented by the government led by Sir Henry Bolte. It was a Liberal Party majority government from 1955 to 1972. He was succeeded by Sir Rupert Hamer from 1972 to 1981. The last Premier leading a Liberal 2 majority government was Mr Lindsay Thompson. He became Premier in June 1981 but led his government to defeat in April 1982.

Beginning with the election in July 1961 members of the two houses have been elected on the same day. Two ballot papers were handed to each elector with voting and counting of votes being exactly the same in principle, namely the full preferential vote for one person to be elected. Up to and including the 1964 election, there were 17 provinces (the boundaries of which had applied since 1936) each electing two members by rotation for terms of six years. So the total membership of the Council was 34.

At the elections of 1967, 1970 and 1973 there were 18 provinces, each electing two members by rotation. So the total membership of the Council was 36. However, from 1967 to 1970 the Council was composed of 17 members elected from the “old” provinces in June 1964 and 18 members elected from the ”new” provinces in April 1967. Hence the total was 35. The “new” provinces came fully into force at the May 1970 election bringing the total membership up to 36.

From 1976 to 1979 the Legislative Council had 40 members of which the 22 “new” province members enjoyed terms extending until 1982 while the 18 “old” province members enjoyed terms extending until 1979 in which year the size of the Council grew to 44. Every member always came from the Labor Party, the Liberal Party or the National Party. Casual vacancies were filled through the normal by-election process.

The Labor governments of John Cain and Steve Bracks were reformers. Between them they instituted full “one vote one value” electoral systems, fixed terms of four years and PR elections for the Legislative Council. However, in the matter of PR for the Council the Cain-Kirner government failed whereas the later Bracks-Brumby government succeeded. For the record John Cain Junior was Premier from 8 April 1982 to 9 August 1990 and Joan Kirner from 9 August 1990 to 6 October 1992. Later on Steve Bracks was Premier from 19 October 1999 to 30 July 2007 and John Brumby from 30 July 2007 to 2 December 2010. Intervening between those Labor governments was the premiership of Jeff Kennett of the Liberal Party (in coalition with the Nationals) whose term lasted from 6 October 1992 to 19 October 1999.

During the last term of majority Liberal Party government (1979-82) the Legislative Council was composed of 27 Liberals, 13 Labor members and four Nationals. The Electoral Provinces of Ballarat, Bendigo, Boronia, Central Highlands, East Yarra, Gippsland, Higinbotham, Monash, Nunawading, South Eastern, Templestowe and Western had two Liberal members, giving the Liberals 24 members. The other three had been elected in 1976 in Chelsea, Geelong and Waverley. The 13 Labor members consisted of the two members for each of Doutta Galla, Melbourne, Melbourne North, Melbourne West and Thomastown, making ten members, plus one each elected in 1979 from Chelsea, Geelong and Waverley. The Electoral Provinces of North Eastern and North Western were solidly National, having elected members of that party in both 1976 and 1979. In other words only three of the 22 provinces (Chelsea, Geelong and Waverley) had split representation.

There is a simple explanation for the lack of a Labor majority in the Legislative Council during the first term (1982-85) of the government of John Cain Junior. Elected in 1979 were only eight Labor members compared with 12 Liberals and two Nationals. In 1982 Labor won 12 seats, the Liberals eight and the Nationals two. That produced a total Council of 20 Labor members, 20 Liberals and four Nationals. The provinces won in 1982 by Labor were Boronia, Chelsea, Doutta Galla, Geelong, Gippsland, Melbourne, Melbourne North, Melbourne West, Nunawading, Templestowe, Thomastown and Waverley. That was a respectable performance by Labor given that the boundaries were still malapportioned in favour of country areas. 3

During Cain’s first term it was possible for Labor to implement a redistribution based on “one vote one value” for both houses. Henceforth there would be 88 electoral districts for the Legislative Assembly and 22 provinces for the Legislative Council. Each province would consist of four complete and contiguous Assembly districts. Thus Ballarat Province would consist of the districts of Ballarat North, Ballarat South, Gisborne and Ripon, Boronia Province would consist of Forest Hill. Glen Waverley, Knox and Wantirna and North Western Province would consist of Bendigo East, Bendigo West, Mildura and Swan Hill.

The election in March 1985 was a bitter disappointment for both Labor and the Democrats. Not expecting that there would be a noticeable swing against Labor, the two parties entered into an arrangement whereby Democrat preferences would favour Labor in the expectation/hope that Labor would gain a Legislative Council majority and bring in PR. The Democrats did not contest a single seat in the Assembly, concentrating on the Council where they contested 14 seats and gained four per cent of the vote. Both Labor and the Liberals contested all 22 seats with Labor winning 11, the Liberals eight and Nationals three. Theoretically that gave Labor a total of 23 seats when the new members took their seats in July. In those days the rotation system was essentially the same as is still the case for the Senate.

Strictly speaking the result in 1985 was that Labor won the Provinces of Boronia, Chelsea, Doutta Galla, Eumemmerring, Geelong, Jika Jika, Melbourne, Melbourne North, Melbourne West, Nunawading and Waverley, eleven in all. A problem for Labor, however, was that it needed to provide the President of the Council so, on the floor of the chamber, the numbers would be 22 Labor, 16 Liberals and five Nationals, a majority of only one seat.

But if that was a problem it paled into insignificance compared with Labor’s headache in Nunawading. After preference distribution the final result (after a recount) of the election in Nunawading was 54,822 votes for Labor’s Bob Ives and 54,821 for Rosemary Varty of the Liberal Party. Such a result could not withstand a challenge in the Court of Disputed Returns. Not surprisingly the Liberals were easily able to find “substantial irregularities” and a re-election was ordered.

After the March election was over, the most pertinent question was why Ives performed so badly – and he did perform badly. The four Assembly seats lying within Nunawading were all won by Labor and the majorities were 2,060 in Mitcham, 1,480 in Ringwood, 985 in Box Hill and 87 in Warrandyte. The total two-party preferred vote was 57,257 for Labor (52.1 per cent) and 52,645 for Liberal (47.9 per cent), a Labor majority of 4,612 votes. No one could come up with a satisfactory explanation of the differences in votes between the Assembly and the Council.

At the time there were Federal and State Labor governments so it was likely that any unpopularity for either government would depress the Labor vote at any election. Apart from Prime Minister Hawke the then senior Federal minister from Victoria was Gareth Evans. A diarist, he records this on page 171 of his book Inside the HAWKE KEATING Government: a Cabinet Diary which was published by Melbourne University Press in 2014:

Saturday, 17 August 1985 – Melbourne. The Victorian State Nunawading by-election – and it turns out disastrously, with a swing away from us of around 5 per cent despite a massive, and expensive, campaign by John Cain. Although we had never really expected to win the seat, and the bumpiness of the Government’s performance at the Federal level can’t have helped, quite apart from all the alarums and diversions that have been going on within the State itself on the BLF and other issues, I guess most of us were nurturing a kind of pollyannaish hope that things would start turning around for the better. They haven’t. 4

Permit me a piece of pedantry there. The election was indeed held on 17 August – but what should we call it? In the Statistics for the periodical election held on Saturday, 1 October 1988 the election is referred to as a “re-election”. Varty won easily in a field of nine candidates. Victorian practice always used to be that by-elections in the previous term are included in the next booklet. Anyway, Cain won general elections for the Assembly on 3 April 1982, 2 March 1985 and 1 October 1988, but his government never had control of the Council. Kennett won elections on 3 October 1992 and 30 March 1996 – which brings me to the emergence of Bracks.

The way in which Cain and Bracks came to office provides an interesting comparison. Cain’s first win was predicted by everyone. By contrast the first win for Bracks was predicted by no one. Cain’s first win was a landslide, but his second win was very disappointing for him. Bracks surprised everyone by winning his first election, but his second win was a predictable landslide. Cain took office immediately. Bracks waited a month to become Premier. It happened this way.

The general election took place on 18 September 1999, but the sitting Liberal member for Frankston East died the day before polling. So that election was cancelled. Electors in Frankston East turned up at the polls on 18 September to discover a need to vote for the Legislative Council, but no vote to be cast for the Assembly. Polling day saw the Liberals lose eleven seats to Labor, Ballarat East, Ballarat West, Bendigo East, Carrum, Geelong, Gisborne, Narracan, Oakleigh, Ripon, Seymour and Tullamarine. After the complete counting of votes in all Assembly districts except Frankston East the Government held 43 seats, Labor held 41 and Independents three (Gippsland East, Gippsland West and Mildura). The supplementary election in Frankston East, to be held on 16 October, therefore assumed great importance. If the seat were retained by the Liberal Party the Government would survive.

However, it became clear very early on the night of 16 October that Labor’s Matt Viney had won the Frankston East supplementary election. Soon thereafter the 42 Labor seats became effectively 45 when the independent members for Mildura (first elected in March 1996), Gippsland West (February 1997 by-election) and Gippsland East (September 1999) threw their support to Labor – notwithstanding that these were naturally strong conservative seats. The office of Premier changed from Kennett to Bracks on 19 October 1999.

Rather than face the humiliation of sitting on the Opposition back bench Kennett resigned his seat of Burwood for which there was a by-election on 11 December. Labor won the seat. After the exit of Kennett speculation grew as to the likelihood that the former National Party leader (and Deputy Premier to Kennett) would also resign his seat. He did so - and Labor won his seat at the by-election on 13 May 2000. Following the Burwood and Benalla by-elections a pendulum I produced was published in The Australian in which the government side was shown as having 47 seats (Labor 44 and independents three) with the majority being shown as six seats. The Opposition side was shown as having 41 seats, with Liberals having 35 and Nationals six. After that it was plain sailing for Bracks to his landslide victory for both houses on 30 November 2002. That was the first of (so far) five general elections fixed to be held on the last Saturday of November every four years. It was the last Legislative Council election under the “old” system and created for Bracks the record of being the only Victorian Labor premier to have enjoyed commanding majorities in both houses.

I am sure no historian would dispute me when I say that reform of the Legislative Council was the greatest achievement of Bracks in his political career. It was actually achieved in the second term of his government by parliamentary passage of the Constitution (Parliamentary Reform) Act 2003. However, the seeds of it were well and truly planted in the first term. On 19 March 2001 the government established the Constitution Commission Victoria. It was headed by Professor, the Honourable George Hampel QC (formerly a Victorian Supreme Court judge) and the other two 5 members were former politicians from the Liberal Party, Ian Macphee AO formerly a member the Federal House of Representatives and Alan Hunt AM from the Victorian Legislative Council.

Proportional Representation Introduced In July 2002 the Commission issued its Report entitled A House for our Future. That Report indicated the full nature of the consultation in which the Commission had engaged. It considered every aspect of the role of an Australian state upper house and listed all the people that had made submissions. I regret to inform readers that my name does not appear in the list of 196 submissions. However, the names of several friends do appear. The first submission was from the Proportional Representation Society of Australia, Victoria- Tasmania Branch, while the 19th submission was from Chris Curtis. The names of several academic friends appear, such as the late Colin Hughes and the very much living Brian Costar and Nick Economou. In almost all essentials the Report recommended the scheme now in place, the virtues of which are discussed below. The exception was the inclusion of party logos. That was done in 2018 – late in the term of the 58th Parliament.

The first virtue is doing away with the rotation of members, which is thoroughly anachronistic in the days of PR. Western Australia has also done away with rotation and I discuss its situation in Chapter Twelve on Western Australia’s Reform. The second virtue is the term of four years, which is the same as in WA but is much shorter than the term of eight years in NSW and SA. It is also shorter than the six-year term for the Senate and for the Legislative Council of Tasmania. The third virtue is that “one vote one value” applies for both Victorian houses. Redistributions (known in Victoria as “redivisions”) are held at sensible intervals, having been completed in October 2005 and in October 2013. Consequently the 2006 and 2010 elections were conducted on the same boundaries. The same was the case for the 2014 and 2018 elections. There will be another redivision during the current term and the same maps will apply for the next two elections, in 2022 and 2026.

At all these elections there have been eight regions consisting of eleven complete and contiguous Assembly districts with each region electing five members. By way of example take the 2006 and 2010 map. Then the region of Western Victoria consisted of Ballarat East, Ballarat West, Bellarine, Geelong, Lara, Lowan, Melton, Polwarth, Ripon, South Barwon and South-West Coast. At the 2014 and 2018 elections, the region of Western Victoria consisted of Bellarine, Buninyong, Geelong, Lara, Lowan, Melton, Polwarth, Ripon, South Barwon, South-West Coast and Wendouree.

At all those elections the eight regions have been Eastern Metropolitan, Eastern Victoria, Northern Metropolitan, Northern Victoria, South-Eastern Metropolitan, Southern metropolitan, Western Metropolitan and Western Victoria.

All of the above virtues are shared with at least one other upper house PR system. So let me now tell readers of the Victorian virtue that is unique to Victoria. While every upper house PR system has above-the-line voting Victoria is unique in giving voters an incentive to vote below the line. For all the others the incentive is to vote above the line. That is why I have no difficulty in describing Victoria’s system as “proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote” or PR-STV for short. For the other four upper house systems my temptation is to dismiss that system as “semi party list” or “de facto, a party machine appointment system”. Without doubt the most offensive of the four is the Senate system with its four contrivances designed to confuse and deceive the voter, thus giving the maximum advantage to the big party machines in their quest for control over the voter.

The critical feature of Victorian exceptionalism lies in the directions on the ballot paper. For all of the 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2018 elections it has read, just above the ballot dividing line: “EITHER place 6 the number 1 in one, and one only of these squares to indicate your choice”. It has also read, just below the line: “OR place the numbers 1 to at least 5 in these squares to indicate your choice”.

My reader is now invited to turn back to my Introduction where the Senate ballot paper is shown. Its designers COPIED words from Victoria. Thus we have “by numbering at least 6 of these boxes” and “by numbering at least 12 of these boxes”. The difference is that the Victorian words mean what they say: your vote is informal if you do not number 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 below the line. That is your reasonable choice if you do not want to adopt the Group Voting Ticket of a political party. However, the federal copy-cats have designed a DISHONEST ballot paper. They want you to believe that if you do not number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 above the line (or 1 to 12 below the line) your vote is informal. Huge numbers of Australian voters actually believe that – but it is not the case.

It is true that the Victorian system has three contrivances as part of its above-the-line vote. The Group Voting Ticket is the third contrivance, and it is the one to which objection is often made. I would be very happy to see it eliminated as part of a reform that eliminates all three contrivances. Until that is done, however, I agree with Chris Curtis that the institution of the Group Voting Ticket is defensible. It is a simple device to give voters for a political party a way to register an easy formal vote. Those that dislike such an idea can do an easy vote for candidates by numbering them 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 below the line.

It is also true that this system has been gamed by micro-parties that can get seats with few votes. Table 2 of the Statistical Appendix to this chapter shows the Democratic Labor Party winning a seat in 2006. That meant Peter Kavanagh was one of the five members for Western Victoria from 2006 to 2010. I am not aware of any harm done to Victorian democracy by his presence in the chamber.

Table 4 of my Statistical Appendix shows that five such cases occurred at the 2014 election. That meant the 2014-18 term included Jeff Bourman (Eastern Victoria) and Daniel Young (Northern Victoria) of the Shooters and Fishers Party. The table also indicates that Rachel Carling-Jenkins (Western Metropolitan), Fiona Patten (Northern Metropolitan) and James Purcell (Western Victoria) graced the chamber with their presence. They came from the Democratic Labor Party, the Sex Party and the party known as “Vote 1 Local Jobs”, respectively.

Later tables (especially Table 11) show that in the present 59th Parliament (elected in 2018) there are six members elected with fewer than 20,000 votes. They are:

• Rodney Barton (Transport Matters) in Eastern Metropolitan with 2,508 votes, or 0.60 per cent • David Limbrick (Liberal Democrats) in South-Eastern Metropolitan with 3,653 votes, or 0.84 per cent • Clifford Hayes (Sustainable Australia) in Southern Metropolitan with 5,404 votes, or 1.26 per cent • Andy Meddick (Animal Justice Party) in Western Victoria with 12,476 votes, or 2.71 per cent • Fiona Patten (Reason Party) in Northern Metropolitan with 14,875 votes, or 3.30 per cent • Tim Quilty (Liberal Democrats) in Northern Victoria with 17,187 votes, or 3.76 per cent

I accept the assertion that none of the above Victorian politicians would have been elected under any STV system modelled along Hare-Clark lines. Consequently I ask the big parties to adopt the reforms I propose and there would never be micro parties in the Senate or in the Legislative Councils of Victoria or Western Australia. There would continue to be micro parties in the Legislative Councils of New South Wales and South Australia because I am happy to accept the semi-permanence of their de facto party machine appointment systems. My problem with them is their continuation of eight-year terms consequent upon their retaining rotation of members. 7

Filling Casual Vacancies The essential point about the Victorian system is that it sends the right message to voters. The single transferable vote is a candidate-based electoral system. That is why, in any above-the-line type of system, there must be an incentive for voters to vote below the line. That is what the Victorian system does. Its only defect lies in the absence of any constitutional requirement (such as exists in Western Australia) that every member of the parliament shall be directly elected. If and when are adopted the reforms I propose for the Senate and the Legislative Councils of Victoria and Western Australia the Victorian politicians should behave as though such a requirement does exist in Victoria. Consequently, casual vacancies should be filled by counting votes again. The current Victorian practice of filling casual vacancies by party machine appointment is undesirable but understandable in light of the fact of the Victorian Constitution lacking the requirement contained in the Constitution of Western Australia. Counting votes again to fill casual vacancies is part of the normal fabric of PR in Western Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory but the WA system is inferior to the countback system of Hare-Clark. Countback should be extended to Victoria.

There is another point to be made: the Victorian system of filling casual vacancies is out-of-step with logic. Party machine appointment is logical where there is rotation of members. Thus it is logical for the Senate and for the Legislative Councils of NSW and SA. But there is no rotation under Hare-Clark and none for the WA Legislative Council. That is why Victoria (with its lack of rotation) should be brought into line with the three cases where there is no rotation. All four should fill their casual vacancies by recounting votes.

If the Victorian system sends the right message to voters the current systems for the Senate and for the Legislative Council of Western Australia send the wrong message. Voters should not be encouraged to believe that the purpose of their vote is just to distribute numbers of party machine appointments between parties. They should be encouraged to understand that senators and WA upper house members are required by those constitutions to be directly chosen by the people. The same should apply in Victoria.

It should be stated that these are my long-held views. Thus, for example, I made a submission in 2015 that was favourably received by the Electoral Matters Committee of the Parliament of Victoria. In its May 2016 Report titled Inquiry into the conduct of the 2014 Victorian state election I was quoted in this way on page 76:

During this inquiry there was little support for full preferential voting ATL. In their submission, the Proportional Representation Society of Victoria and Tasmania (PRSA) noted that requiring electors to mark all preferences ATL was unconstitutional, and a perversion of voter intent. Malcolm Mackerras AO, offered a similar view in his submission.

That was followed by Antony Green being quoted as recommending Victoria adopt a similar system to that applying in NSW. Towards the end of page 76 there is this:

In contrast, other inquiry participants did not support optional preferential voting ATL. Malcolm Mackerras AO notes that ATL preference voting creates the “impression of a party list system” and is unconstitutional. At the (September 2015) public hearings, Mr Mackerras explained how, in his view, there was never any need for ATL voting in Victoria, following constitutional reforms in 2006 and the provision for electors to vote BTL from ‘1’ to ‘5’.

That is followed by quoting me about the three contrivances, and there is this on page 77: 8

Had people thought these things through logically, when the system for the Legislative Council was reformed, beginning with the 2006 election, they would have realised that there was no need for these contrivances.

Finally there is this on page 81:

Malcolm Mackerras AO supported abolishing group voting tickets. As noted earlier, Mr Mackerras would like to see Senate and all Australian Upper House voting systems return to what he terms a “candidate-based” system of election, as is the case for the House of Representatives and the Legislative Assembly. He notes that the “three contrivances” – the ballot line, ATL voting and group voting tickets – are contrary to the Australian Constitution, which states that “Senators should be directly elected”.

The Committee did not make any recommendation for change in this area.

Proportional Representation Society This chapter contains another appendix to which I now refer. The Proportional Representation Society of Australia is a worthy body of well-informed people that stand on the moral high ground. However, I have found their leaders to be doctrinaire in their approach. The Victoria-Tasmania Branch is not as extreme in this way as is the case for the New South Wales Branch. Nevertheless its leading members are doctrinaire in their approach on a number of issues. One of these is the question of the Group Voting Tickets which are abominated by the PRSA. Its attitude led to the resignation of Chris Curtis to whose attitudes reference is made in several places in this book. Consequently, I ask readers to study the Appendix of Letters to this chapter and make up their minds about who is right. Curtis sent me an email dated 17 December 2017 which I now quote:

Thank you for the attached letters. I utterly reject the position of the PRSA, though I note that it seems to accept the compulsory marking of 1-5 below the line for the Victorian Legislative Council and not insist on its normal advocacy of what is effectively first past the movable post, that is, the compulsory marking of only one square. You state your case very powerfully and effectively to Gavin Jennings. As you know, I have no problem with group voting tickets, though I believe the number of preferences they can express should be restricted to the number of compulsory preferences below the line. The latter principle depends on that number being large enough to force voters to express preferences for parties other than their first one, as they are required to do in the Legislative Assembly and the House of Representatives. Consequently, I most certainly would not restrict that number to the five it currently is for the Victorian Legislative Council.

As can be seen from this quotation my position is not identical to that of either Curtis or the PRSA. Their policy is at www.prsa.org.au/policy_no_V-T_01_victoria_leg_council_2017-07-26.pdf. The truth is that independent experts are never likely to come to identical conclusions. Where Curtis and I agreed was the Victorian system that applied to the 2014 election should apply again to the 2018 election. We also agree in our rejection of the view explained by the Proportional Representation Society (www.prsa.org.au/history.htm#_5A_the) that the new Senate system can pretend in any way to be an improvement on the one it replaced. We think the new Senate system is nothing more than a greed-driven, dishonest and cynical re-contriving of the contrivances of the old Senate system – to the advantage of the machines of big political parties, especially that of the Liberal Party. We think the arguments used to promote that re-contriving were flimsy in the extreme. While we lost on the Senate front we succeeded in persuading the Victorian Parliament not to make any change, at least in the short term, to the voting system that I describe here as “Victorian exceptionalism.” 9

Bonham, Green and the 2018 Victorian Election When the 2018 election came and went it turned out to be the case that Tasmanian academic Dr Kevin Bonham had adopted a more extreme position than Antony Green. The latter seemed to accept the decision of the Parliament not to get rid of the group voting tickets – even though earlier he had predicted it would! During the campaign he made adverse comments about the GVT but he did not rail against their retention. On his blog Bonham did rail against their retention and accused the Victorian Parliament of irresponsibility for allowing so many micro-party candidates to game the system at the 2018 election. Bonham came across as an angry man, Green as a contented man.

In my chapter Extreme Vetting I quoted Bonham on the 2016 Senate election as follows:

Every one of the concerns I have mentioned above that was raised by opponents of the new system, and that it is within my ability to assess, has turned out to be either vastly exaggerated or completely false.

As I noted in my chapter Extreme Vetting the blog article he cited cut no ice with me. In any event he adopted the same attitude during the Victorian election campaign. To him the excellence of the new Senate system was so obvious any politician who could not see it must have been motivated by unworthy considerations. It was, he averred, the duty of the Victorian Parliament to implement a similar reform during the 58th Parliament, the one elected in 2014. Fortunately for Victorian democracy the State’s politicians did not see it that way. When Bonham told the federal politicians “jump” they responded by asking: “how high?” To his great disappointment the Parliament of Victoria did not respond in like manner to his commandments. My opinion, of course, is that Victoria’s politicians were ENTIRELY JUSTIFIED to ignore him.

The essential difference between my position and that of Bonham/Green is that they insist the Senate system is the way to go. I dispute that because I see it as cherry-picking between contrivances when all of those contrivances should be scrapped. In early December of 2018 one of Bonham’s correspondents, Jerry B, asked him this obvious question on his blog: “Why not simply abolish above the line voting?” Bonham replied:

Abolishing ATL entirely would be better than any form of Group Ticket voting. The main drawback of it compared to a Senate style system (which allows ATL but the ATL vote flows only to parties the voter gives preferences to) could be high leakage rates on over-quota transfers from the major parties. Tasmania doesn’t have much problem with this because it is a small place and people know who the major party candidates are. For districts with half a million voters this isn’t so straightforward. But pretty much anything is better than Group Ticket Voting.

The error of that lies in the simple fact that “how-to-vote” material would still be allowed under my reforms where it is not allowed in Tasmania. Voters would know who the candidates are by taking such leaflets when handed out at polling places. For that reason (and others) the answer I would have given to that question would have been: “That is obviously what Victoria should do during the 59th Parliament”.

Essentially Bonham displays the same state of mind as Green. Both look for (and, therefore, find) “good” reasons to disparage the reforms I propose. I dealt with Green in the Introduction to this book - and again below. I deal with Bonham above and below. Both men have the same problem. The real reason they oppose my reforms is that my reforms would shift power from party machines towards those who vote for the party. They do not want to admit that – so they find “good” reasons instead. I deal further with both of them in my chapter 6 titled The Preference Whisperer. 10

In my Introduction I described Green as “a pragmatist and a propagandist who panders to the greed of the powerful.” In my chapter Describing the Plates I nominated Green as “First Stasiocratic Propagandist”, George Williams as “Second Stasiocratic Propagandist” and Bonham as “Third Stasiocratic Propagandist”. For reasons explained in my chapter The Senate as Unrepresentative Swill I explain why I have Williams as “Second Stasiocratic Propagandist”. In any event my chapter 6 The Preference Whisperer explains why I now describe all these men as “pragmatists and propagandists who pander to the greed of the powerful.”

On the afternoon of Thursday 12 September 2019 there were 101 submissions published on the website of the Electoral Matters Committee of the Parliament of Victoria. (For more details on the enquiry see below.) My submission was published at number 12 and Bonham’s at number 58. When I next consulted the website on Monday 16 September I noticed that Antony Green’s submission had also been filed as number 103. It shocked me – as I explain in detail below.

Bonham’s document is titled Submission to the Victorian Electoral Matters Committee Inquiry into the 2018 Victorian State Election and gives an author background which includes this statement: “I was extensively involved in the process leading to the adoption of the new Senate system in 2016”. By those words he told the world of his pride in ownership of the new Senate system. Furthermore, that pride leads him to want to export it. And what does he recommend to Victoria’s EMC? It is this: “All parties in Victoria, and particularly both major parties, should co-operate to abolish Group Ticket Voting and replace it with a version of the Senate system or some other system that allows for semi- optional preferencing without group ticket transfers between parties.”

My proposed reform meets the second description. My system would allow for semi-optional preferencing between parties. What could be his objection to it? He does not explicitly say. Consequently, I can only conclude that he wants the Senate system because he owns it. For reasons explained below I now call the Senate system the “Bonham/Green/Xenophon/Liberal Party/Greens Senate Voting System”.

Antony Green’s document is titled Submission to the Victorian Parliament’s Electoral Matters Committee Inquiry into the Conduct of the 2018 Victorian State Election. Unlike Bonham he did not give an author background. He did not need to. I have no objection to the facts, figures and graphs stated/shown in the first eight pages. They are very interesting and useful facts, figures and graphs. My shock began on page 9 where he begins his statistics-mongering. They prove very little of importance but the first clanger starts with his treatment of the 2013 Senate election as follows:

Under group voting tickets at the 2013 election, a quarter of the Senators elected were from trailing positions, and the ratio of parties passed to trailing wins was much higher than at any previous election. In Western Australia, Wayne Dropulich of the Australian Sports Party was elected despite the party polling just 0.23 percent or 0.016 quotas. The Sports Party finished 21st of 27 parties on first preferences, but received ticket preferences from 20 different parties to achieve a quota, 15 of those parties having polled a higher first preference vote. Preferences allowed Dropulich to leap frog parties and defeat a Labor candidate who began the count with a remainder of 0.86 quotas. In Victoria, Ricky Muir and the Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party began the count with 0.51 percent or 0.035 quotas, receiving preferences from 22 other parties including nine with more votes, and passed a Liberal candidate who began the count with 0.81 quotas.

So, what is my objection to that? A simple answer. Dropulich was never validly elected and never became a senator. There was a re-election on 5 April 2014 and the details of the count are set out in the First Appendix to my chapter 2 Describing the Single Transferable Vote. Senators easily elected 11 were Liberals David Johnston, Michaelia Cash and Linda Reynolds, Labor’s Joe Bullock and Scott Ludlam of The Greens. Johnston, Bullock and Ludlam were elected with a quota on the first count. The minor party that won a seat was the Palmer United Party. Its candidate, Zhenya Wang, scored 156,352 first preference votes and easily reached the quota of 182,544 votes after full preference distribution. It is difficult to see anything wrong with Wang’s election.

Such is why I assert Green’s propaganda created an entirely false picture of the Senate cross-bench during the 44th Parliament. There was a large Senate cross-bench (see details below) but only two of them, Victorians John Madigan and Ricky Muir, met the description given by Green, pumped out by the media generally. That description was of a Senate cross-bench choc-a-bloc full of micro-party senators who won their seats with very few votes by gaming the system. Not surprisingly, when the July 2016 Senate general election came and went Madigan and Muir lost their seats but almost all the others on the Senate cross-bench were re-elected.

During the 44th Parliament from 1 July 2014 the Coalition government had 33 senators (27 Liberals and six Nationals) and the Labor Opposition had 25 senators. The cross-bench consisted of ten Greens, three from the Palmer United Party, Nick Xenophon, David Leyonhjelm, Bob Day and Ricky Muir, elected in 2013. The other non-Green cross-bench senator was John Madigan, elected in 2010. The ten Greens were six elected in 2010, three elected in 2013 and one (Scott Ludlam) elected in 2014. Note, therefore, that there was a total of 18 senators sitting on the cross-benches.

The Western Australian candidate Wayne Dropulich is my first example of how Green deliberately does not give information which everyone else in that situation would feel it his duty to give. It is quite improper to write about the 2013 Senate election. Reference should always be to the 2013/14 Senate election. To illustrate my determination always to stick to conventional analysis I attach to this my tables of recent Senate elections. Note the way I treat the 2013/14 election.

Diverting my reader somewhat from my anti-Green/anti-Bonham theme I invite readers to study these seven tables of mine. They illustrate two things about my commentary as given when I decided that I must campaign generally against the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Act 2016 and why I must campaign in the Victorian Parliament to ensure that group voting tickets be retained for the 2018 state election.

My first argument was that the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Act 2016 was nothing more than a blatant and dishonest Liberal Party/Greens rigging of the Senate voting system. They put that system in place by buying the Nationals to get them on board (see below) and by getting the support of three men who supported the Liberal Party fully in this matter. The three men (ranked in order of the power held at the time) were Nick Xenophon, Antony Green and Kevin Bonham. As indicated above, I have now decided to refer to the “Bonham/Green/Xenophon/Liberal Party/Greens Senate Voting System”.

The rewards to the Liberal Party and The Greens are illustrated by the tables. In the present Senate there are six fewer cross-benchers than in the Senate of the 45th Parliament. The Liberal Party took all six of those seats. You read that correctly: in net terms the Liberal Party took all six cross-bench losses. Compare Table 3 with Table 6 and Table 7.

What about The Greens? Compare Table 1 with Table 5. At each of the 2010 and 2019 half-Senate elections The Greens were able to win a seat in all six states. In 2010 they needed 13.1 per cent of the vote to achieve that outcome. In 2019, by contrast, they were able to succeed in getting the same outcome with only 10.2 per cent of the vote. 12

My second argument was that the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Act 2016 would result in Senate seats being distributed between parties less fairly than was the case under the old system. The tables fully bear out my prediction. It is true that the 2016 Senate general election distributed seats between parties fairly. I have a table in my system (which I do not intend to inflict on my readers) which demonstrates that all of the 1951, 1974, 1975, 1983, 1987 and 2016 Senate general elections produced very proportional results in distributing seats between parties. I do not need to include that table because no one will dispute me on that.

On page 10 of his submission Antony Green notes that the final version of the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Act 2016 differed from the recommendations as delivered by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters in May 2014. The first change he correctly notes as this: “JSCEM’s recommendation for optional preferential voting above the line was replaced by instructions that voters should complete at least six preferences.”

Readers should be told why that change was made. It was made as part of the Liberal Party’s need to buy votes for its legislation. The Nationals never wanted their reform. The Nationals were very happy with the old system because it enabled them to compete for the Senate in Western Australia on a separate ticket. The Nationals assessed that the new system would prevent them from doing so in future – and I told them that I agreed with that assessment. Their parliamentary party carried resolutions to that effect.

Senator Mathias Cormann was in charge of the legislation and he bought the need for the parliamentary numbers by having these words appear for the above the line option: “By numbering at least 6 of these boxes in the order of your choice (with number 1 as your first choice).” Consequently, The Nationals came on board. The problem arose when men like Antony Green and Kevin Bonham agreed with Labor predictions that such an instruction would increase the informal vote three-fold. It was not my business to help the Liberal Party but, of course, I agreed with Green and Bonham on that argument. They told the Liberal Party so because they were helping the Liberal Party. I remained silent.

On page 10 of his submission Green notes another change made from the JSCEM report: “Generous savings provisions were included. Any above the line vote with at least a valid first preference was to be formal, while a vote below the line required at least six valid preferences.”

The pretence was that these men were genuinely trying to reduce the informal vote. The truth was that the Liberal Party demanded the savings provisions (and the Nationals agreed) because the Liberal Party wanted to save itself from the embarrassment of having to listen to Labor politicians saying this: “In our 1984 reforms we reduced the informal vote to a third of that previously. Now the Liberals want to increase the number of those informal votes three-fold. They just want to reverse our reforms.”

So, no one should believe that the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Act 2016 was a case of genuine electoral reform. None of its features has a democratic explanation. Every one of its features has a cynical explanation. Once passed by the Parliament I vowed that I would now campaign for a genuine reform producing a system that would last. The Bonham/Green/Xenophon/Liberal Party/Greens system cannot last. Its dishonesty will bring it down. In time it will become discredited – and the sooner the better.

Apart from its general dishonesty the most appalling feature of the Senate voting system is the deceitful instructions to voters. These are dressed up by the official description of “savings” provisions – as though the politicians set out to save votes from being rejected as informal. What bunkum! When the Liberal Party set itself upon this course in the late summer/autumn of 2016 it 13 said two things to itself. First, clobber Labor. Second, clobber any Liberal senator who thinks the new system enables him to win re-election from an unwinnable position.

Both those ambitions came to fruition at the May 2019 elections. So, let me tell readers of the case of retired Major General Jim Molan AO DSC. When he became Liberal Senator Jim Molan it was noted that he was the highest ranked former military commander to enter any Australian house of parliament for sixty years. One would think the Liberal Party would be proud to have him as a senator. Not this faction-ridden Liberal Party, however, as I now explain.

The Coalition ticket in New South Wales was constructed in this way. First was a non-incumbent Liberal woman Hollie Hughes, second was a non-incumbent Liberal man Andrew Bragg while third was a non-incumbent National Party woman Perin Davey. Not a single commentator ever doubted that Hughes and Bragg would be elected under this highly stasiocratic Senate voting system, the Liberal Party’s very own system. Most National Party officials were confident Davey too would be elected – but there were some doubts about that.

What to do with the only Coalition senator wanting re-election? Simple. Defeat him by relegating him to the unwinnable fourth position. Though Molan and his supporters must have known he never stood a chance there was thought to be a remote chance he would be re-elected. The result was that Molan secured 137,325 votes, Davey 3,030 and Bragg 2,533. Bonham and Green think this to be terrific system. The truth is that it can at best be described by the charitable as “an improvement”, but only by taking some features of the previous Senate system and condemning that system. It is not the sort of system I would want to own. The Liberal Party achieved both its objectives with its wonderful system. At the 2019 Senate election it clobbered Labor and it clobbered Molan. That is a warning to future Liberal senators. Don’t imagine you can get elected from an unwinnable position!

Green devotes the bottom part of page 10 and the whole of page 11 to comments under this heading: “How Voters Reacted to the New Senate System in 2016”. Everything he reports is correct but he omits to mention a detail I think to be important. In mid-July 2016 there was a survey conducted by Essential Research that Green should have discussed. For details readers are invited to consult my chapter Extreme Vetting. It can be found on my website at www.malcolmmackerras.com

That survey revealed twice as many voters reported: “It was more difficult to vote under the new system than under the old” as said “It was easier to vote under the new system than the old”. I think I can say this about the new system. Voters know the truth quite well. It was driven by the greed of politicians who were helping themselves. They pretended otherwise but they were not interested in helping ordinary voters. Once people fully understand the magnitude of this system’s dishonesty it will become discredited enough to make it quite likely the politicians will decide (at last) to give the Australian people a decent system.

On page 18 Green has this:

The best solution is to adopt what has already been adopted for Legislative Council elections in NSW and South Australia, and for Senate elections. That is to abolish group voting tickets, to retain the existing divided ballot paper, and to hand control over between-party preferences back to voters.

There we have Green the arch-stasiocrat speaking. I have every objection to what he proposes. I hate the Senate voting system because it deserves to be hated. In the case of NSW and SA they get bare pass-marks from me, NSW at 58 per cent, SA at 51 per cent. The district magnitude for NSW is 21 and for SA 11. In that circumstance above-the-line voting can be tolerated. It should not be 14 tolerated in Victoria where the district magnitude is five, nor for the Senate where it is six, nor for the WA Legislative Council which also has a district magnitude of six.

The Senate and the Legislative Councils of NSW and SA have rotation of members. In that circumstance party machine appointment to casual vacancies can be tolerated. It should not be tolerated in Victoria where there is no rotation of members. Vacancies should be filled by recounting votes as is done in Western Australia and in Tasmania and the ACT for their Hare-Clark systems.

The best solution is to adopt my reform proposals and those of the Proportional Representation Society. That is to get rid of all the contrivances of above-the-line voting, adopt the best ballot paper design (as likely to be seen by voters) and to fill casual vacancies by recounting votes from the previous election. My ballot paper designs would be welcomed by voters. Their only problem is that party machines are greedy with their power and don’t want my ballot paper designs tested because they are too democratic.

My ballot papers are voter friendly and party-machine friendly. The current ugly Senate ballot paper is voter unfriendly and party-machine friendly. It is actually far worse than that. It is party-machine friendly ne plus ultra. Utterly stasiocratic it is designed so that the party machines of big parties can rig the election in their favour. In that game of rigging the Liberal Party has been far more clever and successful than Labor but both of them are guilty to some extent. That is why I vote informal at Senate elections and write this on my ballot paper: “I refuse to be manipulated by the machines of the big political parties”, signed Malcolm Mackerras.

So, should the Committee listen to Bonham and Green? Yes, it should – but not to them defending the indefensible. They should be listened to because they have interesting views on Meek’s Method of counting votes under the Single Transferable Vote. They also have interesting views on the relative advantages/disadvantages of the Gregory Method, the Inclusive Gregory Method and the Weighted Inclusive Gregory Method of transferring surplus votes. For obvious reasons all of Malcolm Baalman, Kevin Bonham, Chris Curtis, Antony Green, the Proportional Representation Society and Vanessa Teague should be heard – along with representatives of the political parties and the Victorian Electoral Commission.

THE PRESENT SENATE SYSTEM IS WHOLLY WITHOUT MERIT OF ANY KIND AND SHOULD NOT BE COPIED BY ANY STATE.

Electoral Matters Committee Considers the Question On Tuesday 25 June 2019 I received a letter from Ros Spence, MP, Labor member for Yuroke, in her capacity of chairing the Electoral Matters Committee. I responded with a letter to her explaining that I had decided to make this chapter of my book the basis of my submission to the Committee.

Therefore, I complete this chapter by explaining the 12 tables that are its Statistical Appendix. They are self-explanatory – save only this. People may wonder why I would make predictions for the 2006 election but not those for 2018. The explanation is that in 2006 it was sensible to do so. Only a fool would have tried in 2018. By then the distinguished preference whisperer Mr Glenn Druery had fully set up his business model – defying mere mortals to make predictions as to how well his schemes would work.

There is another point. It concerns Table 9. Please note that the only election at which the below- the-line vote exceeded 215,172 was that for the Victorian Legislative Council in November 2018 when it was 318,018 votes. That fact is because the Victorian system gives voters an incentive to vote below the line. That incentive is what makes Victoria’s system the best of the stasiocratic upper 15 house systems in Australia. For all the others the politicians have decided to give the incentive to be for the above-the-line vote. Victoria, therefore, provides the only upper house system in which the politicians did not set out to make it a party machine appointment system.

In any event if all my reforms were adopted then all three systems (Senate and two for the Legislative Council) would see their description change from “stasiocratic” to “democratic”. We would then have five GENUINE Single Transferable Vote systems, those three plus the two Hare- Clark systems.

FINAL NOTE: Like every chapter of my book this will be updated. My aim is to have it published by Melbourne University Publishing and launched in Melbourne by Steve Bracks on Thursday 26 August 2021, my 82nd birthday. After having had three lengthy conversations with him over the past two years I think I can tell the Committee that he fully agrees with all my views. For that reason he is very happy to write a foreword to it and launch the book. His preference is for that launch to take place in Melbourne. That is no more than a preference. He is willing to launch it anywhere – just as soon as I can actually get a publisher.

16

APPENDIX OF LETTERS

PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION SOCIETY OF AUSTRALIA (VICTORIA-TASMANIA) INC.

[email protected]

www.prsa.org.au

2017-12-13

Hon. Gavin Jennings MLC Special Minister of State Level 1, 1 Treasury Place

EAST MELBOURNE VIC 3002

Dear Mr Jennings,

Desirability of further improving the electoral system for Victoria’s Legislative Council When introduced in 2006, the electoral system for Victoria’s Legislative Council was at the forefront of good practice for mainland State electoral systems. The proportional representation system using the Single Transferable Vote (PR-STV) has provided representation for a range of views in the Legislative Council that has closely matched the support those views have received from the voters.

An excellent feature of the current Legislative Council electoral system is that voters that choose to vote explicitly for individual candidates (below-the-line) need only mark 5 boxes in the order 1 to 5 to cast a formal ballot, but can, without risking the formality of their ballot, mark as many more boxes as they wish, to potentially increase the effectiveness of their vote. The PRSA strongly supports the retention of this aspect of the electoral system.

The PR-STV system for the Legislative Council is a big improvement on what preceded it, but it could still be significantly improved. The PRSA urges the Government to further empower voters by:

• discontinuing the disempowering Group Voting Tickets (GVTs), and

• simplifying the ballot paper for voters by removing any ‘above-the-line’ option altogether. A simpler ballot paper, where the formality requirement is the marking in the order 1 to 5 (as is currently the case ‘below-the-line’), is all that is needed, and would restore just one class of voter in place of the present two different classes of above-the-line and below-the-line voters.

The PRSA considers that arrangement would be a major improvement, but asks the Government to at least match the recent improvements in the Senate and the NSW and South Australian Legislative Councils, where GVTs have been replaced with a far less disempowering option, which has given voters much greater power to indicate to whom, and in what order, their preference votes beyond their first preference are to be transferred, if needed.

In recent elections, there has been comment about the election to the Legislative Council of members that gained very few first preference votes. In a PR-STV election, candidates are elected because they receive a quota of votes, whose size depends on the number of candidates to be elected. In a Victorian Upper House election, it is one-sixth of the total formal votes plus one. 17

Whether that quota is reached entirely through first preferences or through subsequent preferences makes no difference to the preferred support that a successful candidate receives.

However, Group Voting Tickets have distorted the system, by transferring preferences in obscure orders for all of an unlimited number of candidates pre-lodged by parties, and not by voters’ explicit markings in candidates’ boxes.

That is the reason why for New South Wales and South Australia, and the Australian Senate, Group Voting Tickets have been discontinued. The PRSA urges the Government to similarly discontinue them in Victoria in advance of the 2018 election, please.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Stephen Morey President

Proportional Representation Society of Australia (Victoria-Tasmania) Inc.

cc. Members of the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly of Victoria

18

Malcolm Mackerras AO

14 December 2017

Hon Gavin Jennings MLC

Special Minister of State

Level 1, 1 Treasury Place

East Melbourne, Victoria, 3002

Dear Mr Jennings

You may remember that last year you gave me some of your time so that I could tell you of my views regarding Malcolm Turnbull’s Senate voting system and the Victoria Legislative Council system.

As you know I regard the present Senate system as an abomination. It is the worst-ever Senate voting system and the worst voting system in Australia at the present time. You may remember, also, that I strongly commended your party, the Australian Labor Party, for its vigorous opposition to Turnbull’s plan, as presented courtesy of the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Act, 2016, which came into force for the purpose of making it possible for Turnbull to have a double dissolution.

While the Senate voting system is the one most desperately in need of reform it is not the only one which needs reforming. The system which applies to the Legislative Council of Western Australia also needs reform.

Given the above thoughts I am currently writing a book which I intend to get published during the financial year 2019-20. My title would be Unrepresentative Swill: Australia’s Senate Vote Disgrace. Immediate reactions of people who hear me telling them of that title is to notice that my title is borrowed from Paul Keating in a speech he gave to the House of Representatives in 1994. My take on that is to say Keating was right for the wrong reason. His reasoning was to condemn the Senate for the malapportionment of its electoral districts. Actually I think that can be defended according to the federal nature of the Australian Constitution. What cannot be defended is above-the-line voting. The system of ATL voting is plainly inconsistent with the commandment of Section 7 of the Constitution that senators be directly chosen by the people. The book is half written and a chapter outline is enclosed. You may be interested to read the Introduction, also enclosed.

There is a similar provision in the Constitution of Western Australia. For that reason I invite you to examine the enclosed ballot papers for the two jurisdictions where I think reform to be so urgent. These are the ballot papers of what I think to be a decent new system.

(In my fourth paragraph above – the lengthy one – I made reference to the Senate’s “malapportioned electoral districts”. According to the latest population statistics used for electoral purposes the population of Tasmania is 519,050 while that of New South Wales is 7,797,791. In other words there are 15 people living in the one electoral district for every ONE person living in the other. However, I have made it quite clear that such a disparity is not the reason why I describe the Senate as “unrepresentative swill”. I do intend always to describe the Senate as “unrepresentative 19 swill” until ATL voting is scrapped and a reform implemented along the lines I propose. When that is done I shall refer always to the Senate as implementing the principle of federalism.)

I ask you to read the over-the-page commentary on my ballot papers, beginning with that for Western Australia. My plan is that the WA ballot paper be placed on the inside flap of the book facing page 1 while that for the Senate would be placed on the inside flap of the book facing page 300, in a book I plan should come to about three hundred pages. Consequently I suggest you read the WA description first and the Senate description second.

When you read the WA description you will notice that I rate the Victorian Legislative Council system highly. It is, according to my criteria, the third best of the PR systems operating in Australia at the present time, with the Senate system being the worst.

In normal circumstances I would not have written this letter to you. After all, you have no special need to know what I think about the Senate and WA systems. Let me, therefore, explain to you why I feel compelled to write this letter.

Although I have never been a member, and have no intention to become a member, I maintain friendly relations with the Proportional Representation Society of Australia (PRSA). I had hoped to enlist their support for my reform plans. I discovered quite early in the piece that there was no point in keeping up with the NSW branch. They would never support me but then I regard them as a bunch of ratbags, anyway.

I had thought that I would get the support of the ACT branch, all six members thereof! However, the unexpected death of their Convener, Bogey Musidlak, came as a shock to me. For that reason I enclose a copy of the obituary I wrote which was published in my local paper, The Canberra Times.

So I now come to the real point of this letter. The PRSA (Victoria-Tasmania) has sent you the enclosed letter. I ask you to consign that letter to where it properly belongs, in the rubbish bin. I wish to register my strong disagreement with that letter, and I wish everyone in the Parliament of Victoria to know of my most emphatic rejection of it.

I should note, however, that I agree with the first two paragraphs of the letter. My rejection lies in respect of the third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh paragraphs.

The institution of the Group Voting Ticket (GVT) does not, repeat NOT, disempower voters. What it does is simplify the process of voting for those voters who wish to vote for a particular party. However, the main function of the GVT is to give voters an incentive to vote below the line. That is a good thing.

The PRSA is currently trying to persuade you to consider recent reforms for the Senate and for the South Australian Legislative Council. Let me explain why I reject the idea that either system is appropriate for Victoria. What the PRSA is doing, and what ABC propagandist Antony Green is doing, is appealing to your greed. It was, after all, the greed of the Liberal Party, and the other collaborating parties, which gave us this dreadful new Senate voting system. Fortunately it backfired against three of the four collaborating parties, especially the Liberal Party whose only consolation prize in the whole filthy business was to get their revenge on Ricky Muir.

While I have briefly met Dr Stephen Morey I cannot say I would recognise him if I met him in the street. I have, however, had lengthy and friendly conversations with other PRSA members. The main thing I find irritating about them is their refusal to admit to the DISHONESTY of the Senate system. In particular they quibble with my description of the instructions as “deceitful”. My clear recollection of my conversation with you was that you were quick to recognise that the instructions on Senate 20 ballot papers are deceitful. In the unlikely event that you do not remember I enclose ballot papers from two states with respectable PR systems, Victoria and Tasmania, whereby you can immediately see that the instructions on the federal Senate ballot papers ARE deceitful and contrast very badly with the honest systems which operate in Victoria and Tasmania.

It is worth noting that no Labor state has copied the federal Senate “reform”. The Australian Labor Party has enough self-respect that it would never be so brazen as to copy a reform it so recently opposed! What, then, about South Australia? Two things should be noted about that state’s recent reform of its Legislative Council voting system.

The first is that, while the instructions for below-the-line voting are deceitful, those for the far more important ATL vote are honest. The second is to notice that district magnitude is a high 11 in South Australia but a low 6 for the Senate and 5 for Victoria.

In the unlikely event that you do not know this piece of psephological jargon “district magnitude” simply means the number being elected. With high district magnitude comes greater proportionality. That is why the new SA system is defensible, even if very inferior to the present Victorian system. It would be wholly indefensible to transfer arrangements which pass muster in district magnitude 11 to a state with district magnitude 5. To do that would be to rig the system in favour of the machines of big political parties while giving no benefit whatsoever to the voter.

I feel sure that you know enough about these things to know why high district magnitude gives greater proportionality than low district magnitude. The important point is that the Parliaments of New South Wales (district magnitude 21) and South Australia (district magnitude 11) have shown a goodwill towards minor parties which is shown to be so lacking in Malcolm Turnbull’s “Senate reform”. That is why I give NSW a mark of 58 per cent, South Australia 51 per cent and the current Senate system a mark of a miserable 30 per cent.

After my conversation with your good self I left with a feeling of reassurance that you would, essentially, do as I recommend. I had the same feeling after my conversations with Matthew Guy and Peter Walsh. Likewise it was the case after my conversations with your State Secretary, Samuel Rae, and with the Electoral Commissioner, Warwick Gately.

In the future (perhaps during the NEXT parliamentary term or the one after that) the Parliament of Victoria should consider reform of the present system along the same lines, in principle, as I propose for the Senate and for the WA Legislative Council. That would mean getting rid of ALL THREE CONTRIVANCES of the present system. Just in case you do not know what I mean, the three contrivances are the thick black line running through the ballot paper (known as the ballot dividing line), the party boxes above the line, and the GVT. However, such should be done only when my Senate reform and my WA Legislative Council reform are firmly in place and operating to public satisfaction.

In the above paragraph I have referred to the Senate system and that in WA. I should let you know, however, that there is one important respect where the WA system is superior to all other PR systems for upper houses. Casual vacancies in WA are filled by re-counting the votes of the departed member as though he or she were not on the ballot paper and his/her preferences are distributed accordingly. When Victoria gets around to having a truly decent system it should copy WA in that matter. Until that time arrives I am RESOLUTELY and STRONGLY opposed to any reform of your system designed to benefit one set of parties (the big ones) compared to another set of parties, the minor parties. 21

That brings me back to the very point I have been making for the past five years. The present Senate system is actually the outcome of the party machines of the big parties getting together to look at the contrivances of the then Senate system. They agreed that the first two contrivances were convenient for their machines and, therefore, should be retained. By contrast the third contrivance, the GVT, was inconvenient - and it was scrapped amidst a sickening display of moralising by those who sought to stack the system. That is why the Senate is unrepresentative swill and its voting system is a national disgrace.

Kind regards

Yours sincerely

Malcolm Mackerras

22

Victorian Statistical Appendix Table 1: Mackerras Predictions for Legislative Council, 25 November 2006 – First PR - STV Election

Electoral Region Labor Liberal National Greens Total Eastern Metropolitan 2 2 - 1 5 Eastern Victoria 2 2 1 - 5 Northern Metropolitan 3 1 - 1 5 Northern Victoria 2 2 1 - 5 South-Eastern Metropolitan 3 2 - - 5 Southern Metropolitan 2 2 - 1 5 Western Metropolitan 3 2 - - 5 Western Victoria 2 2 1 - 5 Total 19 15 3 3 40

Victorian Statistical Appendix Table 2: Results for Legislative Council, 25 November 2006 – First PR – STV Election

Electoral Region Labor Liberal National Greens DLP Total Eastern Metropolitan 2 3 - - - 5 Eastern Victoria 2 2 1 - - 5 Northern Metropolitan 3 1 - 1 - 5 Northern Victoria 2 2 1 - - 5 South-Eastern 3 2 - - - 5 Metropolitan Southern Metropolitan 2 2 - 1 - 5 Western Metropolitan 3 1 - 1 - 5 Western Victoria 2 2 - - 1 5 Total 19 15 2 3 1 40

23

Victorian Statistical Appendix Table 3: Results for Legislative Council, 27 November 2010 – Second PR – STV Election

Electoral Region Labor Liberal National Greens Total Eastern Metropolitan 2 3 - - 5 Eastern Victoria 2 2 1 - 5 Northern Metropolitan 2 2 - 1 5 Northern Victoria 2 2 1 - 5 South-Eastern Metropolitan 3 2 - - 5 Southern Metropolitan 1 3 - 1 5 Western Metropolitan 2 2 - 1 5 Western Victoria 2 2 1 - 5 Total 16 18 3 3 40

Victorian Statistical Appendix Table 4: Results for Legislative Council, 29 November 2014 – Third PR – STV Election

Sand Sex Electoral Region Labor Liberal National Greens DLP Jobs** Total F* Party Eastern Metropolitan 1 3 - 1 - - - - 5 Eastern Victoria 2 1 1 - 1 - - - 5 Northern Metropolitan 2 1 - 1 - - 1 - 5 Northern Victoria 2 1 1 - 1 - - - 5 South-Eastern 2 2 - 1 - - - - 5 Metropolitan Southern Metropolitan 1 3 - 1 - - - - 5 Western Metropolitan 2 1 - 1 - 1 - - 5 Western Victoria 2 2 - - - - - 1 5 Total 14 14 2 5 2 1 1 1 40

* Shooters and Fishers ** “Vote 1 Local Jobs”

24

Victorian Statistical Appendix Table 5: Results for Legislative Council, 24 November 2018 - Fourth PR – STV Election

Electoral Region Labor Liberal National DHJP(a) Lib Dem Greens AJP(b) Reason SFF(c) Sustainable(d) TM(e) Total Eastern 2 2 ------1 5 Metropolitan Eastern Victoria 2 1 1 - - - - - 1 - - 5 Northern 2 1 - - - 1 - 1 - - - 5 Metropolitan Northern Victoria 2 1 - 1 1 ------5 South-Eastern 3 1 - - 1 ------5 Metropolitan Southern 2 2 ------1 - 5 Metropolitan Western 3 1 - 1 ------5 Metropolitan Western Victoria 2 1 - 1 - - 1 - - - - 5 Total 18 10 1 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 40

(a) Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party (b) Animal Justice Party (c) Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party (d) Sustainable Australia (e) Transport Matters

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Victorian Statistical Appendix Table 6: Legislative Council, 24 November 2018: Total First Preference Votes by Party and Assessment of Proportionality of Results Over- Party Votes % Votes Seats % Seats representation Labor Party 1,405,475 39.2 18 45.0 +5.8 Liberals and Nationals 1,054,779 29.4 11 27.5 -1.9 The Greens 331,479 9.3 1 2.5 -6.8 Derryn Hinch’s Justice 134,266 3.8 3 7.5 +3.7 Party Liberal Democrats 89,428 2.5 2 5.0 +2.5 Shooters, Fishers and 108,280 3.0 1 2.5 -0.5 Farmers Party Animal Justice Party 88,520 2.5 1 2.5 none Fiona Patten’s Reason 49,013 1.4 1 2.5 +1.1 Party Sustainable Australia 29,831 0.8 1 2.5 +1.7 Transport Matters 22,051 0.6 1 2.5 +1.9 Others 270,356 7.5 - - -7.5 Total Formal Votes 3,583,478 100.0 40 100.0

Victorian Statistical Appendix Table 7: Likely Results for the Legislative Council Under Mackerras Electoral System, 24 November 2018 – Fourth PR – STV Election

Electoral Region Labor Liberal National Greens SFF Reason Total Eastern Metropolitan 2 2 - 1 - - 5 Eastern Victoria 2 1 1 - 1 - 5 Northern Metropolitan 2 1 - 1 - 1 5 Northern Victoria 2 1 1 - 1 - 5 South-Eastern 3 2 - - - - 5 Metropolitan Southern Metropolitan 2 2 - 1 - - 5 Western Metropolitan 3 1 - 1 - - 5 Western Victoria 2 2 - 1 - - 5 Total 18 12 2 5 2 1 40

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Victorian Statistical Appendix Table 8: Legislative Council Election, 24 November 2018: Total First Preference Votes by Party and Proportionality under Mackerras Electoral System Over- Party Votes % Votes Seats % Seats representation Labor Party 1,405,475 39.2 18 45.0 +5.8 Liberals and Nationals 1,054,779 29.4 14 35.0 +5.6 The Greens 331,479 9.3 5 12.5 +3.2 Shooters, Fishers and 108,280 3.0 2 5.0 +2.0 Farmers Party Fiona Patten’s Reason 49,013 1.4 1 2.5 +1.1 Party Others 634,452 17.7 - - -17.7 Total Formal Votes 3,583,478 100.0 40 100.0

The most notable feature of the Legislative Council result was the fact that The Greens lost four of the five seats they had won in 2014. In part this was due to a fall in their vote, from 10.7 per cent in 2014 to 9.3 per cent in 2018. That accounts for the loss of one seat, with Nina Springle defeated in South-Eastern Metropolitan. The other three losses, however, resulted from the operation of the electoral system. Under my reform The Greens would have suffered no net loss, since the election of Lloyd Davies in Western Victoria would have cancelled out the defeat of Nina Springle in the South-Eastern Metropolitan Region.

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Victorian Statistical Appendix Table 9: Above and Below the line: Victorian Senate and Victorian Legislative Council Senate November 2007 August 2010 September 2013 July 2016 Votes % Votes % Votes % Votes % “Above the Line” 3,117,212 97.9 3,122,603 97.0 3,291,314 97.3 3,314,376 94.7 “Below the Line” 65,157 2.1 96,148 3.0 90,215 2.7 185,861 5.3 Total Formal 3,182,369 3,218,751 3,381,529 3,500,237

Legislative Council November 2006 November 2010 November 2014 November 2018 Votes % Votes % Votes % Votes % “Above the Line” 2,828,083 95.0 3,086,444 96.0 3,210,816 93.9 3,267,567 91.1 “Below the Line” 148,846 5.0 129,942 4.0 207,855 6.1 318,018 8.9 Total Formal 2,976,929 3,216,386 3,418,671 3,585,585

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Victorian Statistical Appendix Table 10: Above and Below the line votes by Region, 24 November 2018 Region “Above the Line” “Below the Line” Total Formal(a) Total Formal(b) Votes % Votes % Eastern Metropolitan 377,269 90.1 41,539 9.9 418,808 418,532 Eastern Victoria 432,144 92.4 35,600 7.6 467,744 467,611 Northern Metropolitan 391,217 86.8 59,413 13.2 450,630 450,239 Northern Victoria 421,976 92.4 34,922 7.6 456,898 456,706 South-Eastern Metropolitan 412,333 94.3 24,881 5.7 437,214 436,977 Southern Metropolitan 378,455 88.0 51,471 12.0 429,926 429,657 Western Metropolitan 427,137 92.1 36,523 7.9 463,660 463,258 Western Victoria 427,036 92.7 33,669 7.3 460,705 460,498 Totals 3,267,567 91.1 318,018 8.9 3,585,585 3,583,478 (a) These numbers are the sum of ATL and BTL votes. I suspect trivial inaccuracies have crept into the calculations – done for information purposes only. (b) These statistics must be accepted as one hundred per cent accurate.

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Victorian Statistical Appendix Table 11: Comparison of Greens Lead Candidates and Other Cross-bench Winners: 24 November 2018

Region Greens Lead Candidate Other C-B Winners Samantha Ratnam(a) Fiona Patten (Reason)(c) Northern Metropolitan (Quota: 75,040) 73,102 votes 16.24% 14,875 votes 3.30% Sue Pennecuik(b) Clifford Hayes Southern Metropolitan (Sustainable Australia) (Quota: 71,610) 55,207 votes 12.85% 5,404 votes 1.26% (c) Samantha Dunn Rodney Barton Eastern Metropolitan (Transport Matters) (Quota: 69,756) 34,957 votes 8.35% 2,508 votes 0.60% Huong Truong(a) Catherine Cumming Western Metropolitan (Derryn Hinch’s Justice (Quota: 77,210) 38,079 votes 8.22% Party) 31,354 votes 6.77% Stuart Grimley (Derryn Hinch’s Justice Lloyd Davies Party) Western Victoria 20,277 votes 4.40% (Quota: 76,750) 32,398 votes 7.04% Andy Meddick (Animal Justice Party) 12,476 votes 2.71% (c) Tom Cummings Jeff Bourman Eastern Victoria (Shooters, Fishers and (Quota: 77,936) 30,000 votes 6.42% Farmers) 22,895 votes 4.90% Tania Maxwell (Derryn Hinch’s Justice Nicole Rowan Party) Northern Victoria 21,993 votes 4.82% (Quota: 76,118) 28,296 votes 6.20% Tim Quilty (Liberal Democrats) 17,187 votes 3.76% Nina Springle(c) David Limbrick South-Eastern Metropolitan (Liberal Democrats) (Quota: 72,830) 23,251 votes 5.32% 3,653 votes 0.84% (a) Sitting member appointed to fill a casual vacancy (b) Sitting member elected at the 2006, 2010 and 2014 elections (c) Sitting member elected at the 2014 election

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Table 1: Half-Senate Election, 2010

Date of Election 21 August

Further Information Seats filled: 40 Total enrolment: 14,086,869 Formal votes cast: 12,722,233 (96.3%) Informal votes: 495,160 (3.7%) Total votes: 13,217,393

Change Change Seats Votes Over-under since since Representation Party Number % 2007 2004 Number % Liberal-National 4,914,205 38.6 -1.3 -6.5 18 45.0 +6.4 Labor 4,469,734 35.1 -5.2 +0.1 15 37.5 +2.4 Greens 1,667,315 13.1 +4.0 +5.4 6 15.0 +1.9 Democratic Labor Party 134,987 1.1 +0.2 +0.6 1 2.5 +1.4 Others 1,535,992 12.1 +2.3 +0.4 - - -12.1

Note: The above statistics come directly from the Australian Election Commission. They also come from page 274 of the Parliamentary Handbook of the Commonwealth of Australia 2011 produced by the Parliamentary Library.

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Table 2: Half-Senate Elections, 2013 and 2014

Dates of Election 7 September 2013 for the seven eastern jurisdictions 5 April 2014 for Western Australia

Further Information Seats filled: 40 Total enrolment: 14,749,709 Formal votes cast: 13,380,545 (97.1%) Informal votes: 403,380 (2.9%) Total votes: 13,783,925

Change Change Seats Votes Over-under since since Representation Party Number % 2010 2007 Number % Liberal-National 4,951,196 37.0 -1.6 -2.9 17 42.5 +5.5 Labor 3,965,284 29.6 -5.5 -10.7 12 30.0 +0.4 Greens 1,234,592 9.2 -3.9 +0.2 4 10.0 +0.8 Palmer United 751,121 5.6 +5.6 +5.6 3 7.5 +1.9 Liberal Democrats 502,180 3.8 +2.0 +3.7 1 2.5 -1.3 Nick Xenophon Group 258,376 1.9 +1.9 +0.7 1 2.5 +0.6 Family First 149,994 1.1 -1.0 -0.5 1 2.5 +1.4 Motoring Enthusiasts 66,807 0.5 +0.5 +0.5 1 2.5 +2.0 Others 1,500,995 11.3 +2.0 +3.4 - - -11.3

Note (1): The above statistics do not come directly from the AEC. Rather they are a re-working from pages 274 to 281 of the Parliamentary Handbook of the Commonwealth of Australia 2014 produced by the Parliamentary Library. The pages are introduced by this note on page 274:

“The following section presents national, State and Territory results for the 2013-14 Senate elections. Note that the High Court, sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns, declared void the 7 September 2013 Senate result in Western Australia following the loss of 1,375 ballot papers. Subsequently a special half-Senate election was held in that state on 5 April 2014, the results of which are shown here.”

Note (2): If Victorian Senator Helen Kroger had won and Ricky Muir had lost, the Liberal-National seat-number would have been 18, or 45 per cent of seats. The Coalition’s over- representation, therefore, would have been 8 per cent.

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Table 3: Senate General Election, 2016

Date of Election 2 July

Further Information Seats filled: 76 Total enrolment: 15,676,659

Formal votes cast: 13,838,900 Informal votes: 567,806 Total votes: 14,406,706

Seats Votes Change Over-under since 2013 Representation Party Number % Number % Liberal-National 4,868,246 35.2 -1.8 30 39.5 +4.3 Labor 4,123,084 29.8 +0.2 26 34.2 +4.4 Greens 1,197,657 8.6 -0.6 9 11.8 +3.2 Pauline Hanson’s One Nation 593,013 4.3 +3.8 4 5.3 +1.0 Nick Xenophon’s Team 456,369 3.3 +1.4 3 4.0 +0.7 Liberal Democrats 298,915 2.2 -1.6 1 1.3 -0.9 Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party 266,607 1.9 +1.9 1 1.3 -0.6 Family First 191,112 1.4 +0.3 1 1.3 -0.1 Jacquie Lambie Network 69,074 0.5 +0.5 1 1.3 +0.8 Others 1,774,823 12.8 -4.1 - - -12.8

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Table 4: Senate General Election as Half-Senate Election, 2016

Date of Election 31 August(a)

Further Information Seats filled: 36 Other information: See Table 17 Over-under Votes Seats Representation Party Number % Number % Liberal-National 4,868,246 35.2 17 47.2 +12.0 Labor 4,123,084 29.8 13 36.1 +6.3 Greens 1,197,657 8.6 3 8.3 -0.3 Nick Xenophon’s Team 456,369 3.3 2 5.6 +1.3 Pauline Hanson’s One Nation 593,013 4.3 1 2.8 -0.5 Others 2,600,531 18.8 -18.8 Total Formal 13,838,900 100.0 36 100.0

(a) That was the date of the Senate resolution reading as follows: That, pursuant to section 13 of the Constitution, the senators chosen for each state be divided into two classes, as follows: Senators listed at positions 7 to 12 on the certificate of election of senators for each state shall be allocated to the first class and receive 3 year terms. Senators listed at positions 1 to 6 on the certificate of election of senators for each state shall be allocated to the second class and receive 6 year terms. My comment: in effect that was a case of the Senate conducting its own half-Senate election. It was carried by 50 votes to 15, that being a Coalition-Labor gang-up feathering their own nests.

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Table 5: Half-Senate Election, 2019

Date of Election 18 May

Further Information Seats filled: 40 Total enrolment: 16,419,543 Formal votes cast: 14,604,925 Informal votes: 579,160 Total votes: 15,184,085 Over-under Votes Seats Representation Party Number % Number % Liberal-National 5,548,142 38.0 19 47.5 +9.5 Labor 4,204,313 28.8 13 32.5 +3.7 Greens 1,488,427 10.2 6 15.0 +4.8 Pauline Hanson’s One Nation 788,203 5.4 1 2.5 -2.9 Jacquie Lambie Network 31,383 0.2 1 2.5 +2.3 Others 2,544,455 17.4 - - -17.4 Total Formal 14,604,925 100.0 40 100.0

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Table 6: 46th Parliament, Comparing Whole Senate Seats with 2016 Votes

Dates of Election 2 July 2016, 31 August 2016 and 18 May 2019

Further Information Seats filled: 76 Other information: See Tables 5, 14, 15 and 16 Over-under Votes Seats Representation Party Number % Number % Liberal-National 4,868,246 35.2 36 47.4 +12.2 Labor 4,123,084 29.8 26 34.2 +4.4 Greens 1,197,657 8.6 9 11.8 +3.2 Pauline Hanson’s One Nation 593,013 4.3 2 2.6 -1.7 NXT – Centre Alliance 456,369 3.3 2 2.6 -0.7 Jacquie Lambie Network 69,074 0.5 1 1.3 +0.8 Others 2,531,457 18.3 -18.3 Total Formal 13,838,900 100.0 76 100.0

Comparing the above table with Table 4 it will be noticed that Labor and Greens stay the same at 26 and 9 respectively. By contrast the Coalition has gained six seats, two from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and one each from Centre Alliance, David Leyonhjelm, Derryn Hinch and Bob Day.

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Table 7: 46th Parliament, Comparing Whole Senate Seats with 2019 Votes

Dates of Election 2 July 2016, 31 August 2016 and 18 May 2019

Further Information Seats filled: 76 Other information: See Tables 5, 14, 15, 16 and 17 Over-under Votes Seats Representation Party Number % Number % Liberal-National 5,548,142 38.0 36 47.4 +9.4 Labor 4,204,313 28.8 26 34.2 +5.4 Greens 1,488,427 10.2 9 11.8 +1.6 Pauline Hanson’s One Nation 788,203 5.4 2 2.6 -2.6 Centre Alliance 28,416 0.2 2 2.6 +2.4 Jacquie Lambie Network 31,383 0.2 1 1.3 +1.1 Others 2,516,039 17.2 -17.2 Total Formal 14,604,925 100.0 76 100.0