Why is proportional representation fair

Home News Politics. In Depth. Would you like to receive The WeekDay newsletter? If you wish to object to the use of your data in this way, please tick here. Log in. Will Cop26 negotiators get a last-minute deal over the line? Between the lines. Quiz of The Week: 6 - 12 November. It is well known that the design of the Senate repeatedly gave rise to the most protracted disputes during the s Conventions in which the Constitution was framed.

Progressive liberals tended grudgingly to accept the Senate as the price that had to be paid for federation and the transition to the new nation. Perhaps the most exaggerated liberal view was that of Victorian framer H B Higgins.

Higgins fought for as small and as insignificant a Senate as possible, in the belief that the primary institution of responsible parliamentary government would be the appropriately named House of Representatives, from whose majority the governing party would be drawn, and to whose majority that government would be solely accountable.

At the other extreme were conservatives like Hackett, famous for his preference for federalism and States' rights over traditional responsible government: a preference which elevated the Senate into a place of co-ordinate importance with the House within the institutions of government. There were of course many views caught between these extremes, with two loose clusters associated with the two great colonial Premiers and proven masters of responsible government: on one hand, Parkes' open tolerance of a Senate designed to represent each of the States equally; and on the other hand, Griffith's more adventurous enthusiasm for reshaping traditional conventions of responsible government by conferring equality of power on the two institutions of the new national Parliament.

The first federal election of took place, of course, without any federal electoral legislation. Senators, for example, were elected according to prevailing state electoral law, with Tasmania adapting its established Hare-Clark system of PR. Although the exception, the Tasmanian model of PR was by no means inconsistent with the framers' intentions in regard to the Senate.

From time to time, delegates at the s Constitutional Conventions raised the question of the most appropriate electoral basis for a federal house of review, eventually deciding to have the Constitution leave electoral arrangements to be decided by the federal Parliament.

It is clear from the scattered commentary and such practices as the Tasmanian reliance on PR that the framers considered PR to be an acceptable, possibly even the preferred, electoral basis of the upper review house. The Convention records reveal too little for a conclusive case to be made, but what calls that there were for the use of PR attracted only scattered rebuttal.

The argument was in two steps: first, the theoretical case for protecting minority representation, by which was meant not a claim to rule by minorities but the rights to parliamentary representation of those who support the non-governing parties; and second, the practical case for the provision contained in s9 of the Constitution which kept the door open to PR by allowing Parliament to legislate as it saw fit, thereby protecting the option for PR for the Senate if there was sufficient parliamentary support.

The framers' theoretical case for PR is scattered and largely implicit. So much for the framers' political theory.

The practical case about the feasibility of PR is perhaps more surprising, in that very prominent framers like Deakin and Barton went on the record predicting that Parliament would probably opt for PR for the Senate. The Australian framers had two models of federal upper houses designed to operate as houses of review.

The first model was derived from fully-operational Senates: the set of constitutional provisions then in place for the two main examples of federal upper houses, the Senates of the US and Canada. The second model was theoretical: being derived from the influential political argument advanced by, among others, John Stuart Mill, for the institution of PR in a house of Parliament. It would certainly be possible to combine these two sources of influence and construct an upper house appropriate to the purposes of a federal polity, and credit goes to those framers who, as I shall show, attempted to do just that.

Yet the two types of models contain many interesting examples of institutional features which were not adopted by the Australian framers, but which might be important to an effective review capacity. It all depends on the task of political representation considered appropriate to the Australian Senate. Some attention should first be paid to the institutional design principles inherent in each of the two types of possible models, in order to recover the latitude of scope open to the Australian framers in equipping the Senate with a notional review function , regardless of whether the institutional review capacity was sufficiently considered.

The framers certainly had a model before them of a Senate designed to perform differently from a lower house: many commentators have recognised the powerful presence of the US Senate as an instructive working model of a house of review, even if the lessons were primarily of a sobering negative kind for constitutional designers operating in a parliamentary environment.

Still, many of the constitutional features of the US Senate held the attention of many Australian framers in search of the institutional roots of a house of review. The Australian framers derived only a limited range of provisions from the US model. Stripped of exclusive constitutional functions, the Australian Senate had no need for those other structural devices designed to differentiate the Senate from the House and so enhance the review capacity: such as the different age qualification—again attempted in but later abandoned [47] —and commitment to as small an upper house as feasible.

The creature of understandable s over-reaction against the States'-rights orientation of the US system, the Canadian Senate was an appointive body, with the gift of life-membership in the hands of the federal government BNA Act, ss Eligibility qualifications for Senators which hint at a conscious review capacity included a lower age limit of 30 years, together with tests for property and against indebtedness. The world of political theory also opened up the prospect of PR. Many important constitutional framers were convinced that PR would give substance to the promise of the Senate as a house of review, by establishing a different parliamentary institution capable of representing a range of community views either not wanted or needed in the House.

The academic literature on PR identifies two British authorities and two Australian champions as the standard bearers acknowledged by the constitutional framers. Hare is the originator of the Hare system of PR which J S Mill did so much to publicise as the best basis of parliamentary reform. This is not the place to review Hare's distinctive contribution to electoral systems but some attention should be given to the Australian reception of Hare's version of PR, first published in a series of publications in the s, and here it is instructive to note the role played internationally by Spence in promoting electoral reform.

But the international scholarship gives due recognition to Catherine Helen Spence, who stood unsuccessfully for election to the Constitutional Convention after a very busy international career promoting the ideas of her British friends Hare and Mill. Spence's Autobiography tells the story of her original discovery of the principles of PR through her observation of her father's work as town clerk of Adelaide, when he used PR-like mechanisms in Adelaide's initial city council elections of Arguably, Mill's account of the merits of a second chamber organised on PR provides one of the important missing ingredients in the framers' confident recipe for a federal house of review.

Deliberation might sound like too elevated a task for Australian parliamentary bodies, but Mill himself identified Australian discussion of PR as evidence that the Hare method was not unduly complicated and that it could be introduced and made to work. Mill's case is made most conveniently in his Considerations on Representative Government. PR makes good the promise of a friendly critic of democracy, and defender of the elusive principle of democratic equality which might otherwise suffer at the hands of the utilitarian practice of majority rule.

Institutions based on this supplementary form of political representation will never have overwhelming moral authority, or even the crude voting power, to compete with popular elective bodies for the right to rule or determine broad public policy. Nanson was an adviser to the first Commonwealth government and is regarded as the source of the legislative provisions relating to PR for the Senate. Nanson's important role has been covered elsewhere and for this occasion it is preferable to share the spotlight around and to treat others, like Spence and the Ashworth brothers, who were more politically active than professor Nanson.

She and her supporters lent their considerable support to Glynn during the Constitutional Convention and Glynn in turn publicly advocated her cause. By way of illustrating the breadth of interest in PR at the time of Federation, I can take one of the many examples identified by Reid and Forrest to suggest the colour and cogency of the electoral reform movement. The Ashworth book deserves brief comment for several reasons.

First, the book was published during the year on the eve of the elections for the first Commonwealth Parliament. It was designed to broaden Australian interest in PR at the outset of the Commonwealth. Second, the authors take pains to demonstrate the many varieties of PR and in particular to promote their own version of a list system which is designed to consolidate rather than fragment the two party system of parliamentary government, much like some contemporary critics from the major political parties.

Their target was to balance out the imbalance of seats between the governing majority and the Opposition party by protecting the parliamentary presence of the official Opposition as an integral component of the system of government.

To the Ashworth brothers, the Senate is important as a site for PR but not as important as the House of Representatives where Government and Opposition should face each other on the basis of their proportional electoral strength. Their interest in securing PR in both chambers rests on their belief that both would be driven by the pressures of party politics and ideally should fairly display the community's balance of governing and opposing parties.

The authors state that their intention in writing their book was to prevent the adoption of the block vote for the Senate. The original Senate elections were held of necessity on state-wide systems, with Tasmania and South Australia using state-wide systems for their initial election of House members as well.

But only Tasmania adopted a form of PR for the elections: indeed, for both of its federal houses. The parliamentary records for the first year of the Commonwealth Parliament include two reports which would appear to have helped prepare the ground for the government bill proposing PR.

Home Affairs minister Sir William Lyne convened a committee of parliamentary experts on electoral law and practice. This group reported to him in July in favour of PR for the Senate. This report in particular was cited as authority during the parliamentary debate over the electoral bill. The electoral bill introduced by the first post-election federal ministry was, after a false start in the House, introduced in the Senate and provided for PR as the basis for counting of the Senate vote.

The Labor party respected the occasion by granting its federal members a free vote on the issue. The proponents of PR stopped well short of advocating minority rights to rule, but they did defend minority rights to representation. The great divide was that over the merits of strong party government. The proponents of PR argued that the British conventions of party government did not suit the circumstances of the new federal polity, and that to the extent that British conventions held sway then due account should be taken of electoral reform sentiment in Britain which pointed the way to the future.

It is instructive to note the early assessments of contemporary authorities like Harrison Moore to the effect that Parliament had not yet in this case, as at given favourable consideration to any scheme for PR for the Senate: as though such consideration was only natural and would one day come to pass. Further, he defended the Senate as displaying more progressive tendencies than those evident in the House of Representatives.

Moore points out the potential for Senate reform. The aim of this listing is to illustrate the evolving depth and eventual breadth of attraction for PR. Seen against this background, the decision is part of an evolution of Australian parliamentary institutions that gives due recognition to a form of political representation long anticipated as an essential component of the Australian constitutional system.

The Labor party was ambivalent about the merits of Senate reform. By the party had committed itself to abolition of the Senate but this represents something of an ambit claim.

As we shall see, prominent Labor figures broke through the mould of formal party policy to pose PR as an alternative to abolition. The traditional Labor view is nicely captured by its original prime minister, Watson, who told the party conference that PR would entrench minority representation, and with it minority legislation.

Labor again defeated an interest in PR at the party conference. During debate on the electoral bill, the future Labor Prime Minister James Scullin recorded his support for the introduction of PR for Senate elections. Apart from the reported preference for PR by Curtin at the party conference, Labor had little to say for Senate reform until the time of the Chifley government.

But there were many interesting noises made on the other side of national politics. The leader of the Liberal party, Joseph Cook, included a policy in support of PR for Senate elections during the which he won and the general elections which he lost.

Another distinctive instance is the report of the Royal Commission on Commonwealth Electoral Law and Administration. The report provided a major stimulus to the development of a professional body of electoral administrators under the direction of a Chief Electoral Commissioner with powers stipulated in law.

The introduction of preferential voting owes much to the rise of the Country party as a demanding and capable third force in Australian politics and it is important to acknowledge that the Country party was also inclined to support a change to PR for the Senate. Government changes to the Electoral Act in and sparked extensive parliamentary debate over the merits of PR, with several proposals for the adoption of PR brought forward to test the mood of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

All the proposals for PR were unsuccessful. The government proposals were more successful. The changes included the establishment of preferential voting and the changes included the party grouping of candidates to make party preferential voting easier. Neither change would have come about if it had not coincided with the electoral interests of the major parties.

The illustrations that I will use here come from one episode of a failed attempt at a second-reading amendment in [] and from several episodes from of failed second reading amendments [] , committee stage amendments [] , and also votes over third reading of bills.

Those proposing PR for the Senate were never government ministers and they included many representatives of the smaller States. Proponents tended to argue that the Senate was not acting as a States' house because its party composition was driven by the changing tides of electoral popularity sweeping the lower house: the Senate either duplicated the party in power in the House of Representatives or reflected the lost popularity of the majority that had preceded the current government.

Rarely if ever did the Senate provide a balance of representation between the two major party blocs: Labor and non-Labor. Proponents of change noted that periods of opposition domination of the Senate can and did occur but they were not convinced that this antagonism to the political party dominating the House of Representatives provided adequate safeguards for state interests, particularly the interests of the smaller states.

Federalism was clearly an issue of considerable importance to the proponents of PR but they were not alone in their reliance on the rhetoric of federalism. The opponents of PR challenged the advocates of change to demonstrate how PR would enhance the capacity of the Senate to perform its original role as protector of States' interests. The interesting response highlighted another model of federalism that went beyond the simplistic rhetoric of states' rights to the more sophisticated rhetoric of minority rights, including those of national minorities.

In this more ambitious view, the equal representation of each of the states gave the Senate its legislative leverage and it was now up to Parliament to ensure that those using this leverage properly reflected the range of deserving if unrepresented interests across the nation. Proponents of change argued that the prevailing electoral system failed to protect the interests of many minority interests and that PR would enable the Senate to claim to represent the vulnerable minorities that the government-sponsored changes in and failed to protect.

Many proponents publicly stated their knowledge that PR would not be easily conceded by the major parties and that the struggle would be a long one. The feasibility of PR was driven home by reference to the operation of similar systems in Tasmania since and in New South Wales from The Government of Ireland bill was another frequently cited inspiration.

But it was the opponents of Senate reform who won these rounds of parliamentary struggle. Many arguments were clever distractions rather than admirable feats of parliamentary deliberation. And again, at times opponents would contend that if PR was really desirable then it was more appropriate to the House of Representatives which claimed to represent population rather than geography.

All of the above material comes from the record of the Senate. There is one important episode from the record of the House of Representatives in , in addition to the supportive comment from Scullin quoted a few pages earlier. Page proposed a series of committee stage amendments to introduce PR for the Senate, also providing for the record a chart of comparable countries where PR was in place or being introduced, particularly in relation to upper houses. The political diversity in the nations is testament to all voters being heard.

At its core, proportional representation is about a simple principle: in a democracy, seats should match how people actually vote. Instead of trying to impose First Past the Post on mayoral and PCC elections that have never used them , ministers should be looking at how to boost our democracy through scrapping one-party-takes-all voting, and giving the public proportional representation at last. Millions of voters are able to cast their ballots today in the clear knowledge their vote will make a real impact.

Proportional representation is now the norm in most parts of the UK. Voters deserve to be heard wherever they are.

On the 9th and 10th November, the House of Lords will be hosting their fifth hereditary peer by-election this year. The House of Lords Act led to the removal of all but 90 hereditary Join our email list to get up to date analysis of the broken system sitting at the heart of the political system.

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