All aboard the electoral reform bandwagon

Not surprisingly since 'other' parties worked out how to rort the Senate voting system into electing them on six year terms with a sliver of the popular vote, electoral reform has suddenly become a hot issue. Nobody seemed too concerned when the major parties used to run the joint unhindered, but now the big hitters are clubbing together to demolish the micro parties for good.

As much as I'm a "Vote Other" fanatic these proposals are not without some justification considering that only questionable electoral practices stopped a man being elected on the ‘Sports Party’ ticket at the last election, presumably ready to introduce pro-Modern Pentathlon legislation. The only issues I have with the new proposal (other than the loss of comedy value from people inadvertently winning election) are that they go slightly too far against the smaller parties, and that the Senate is a dud house to start with. What genius thought of electing these people for six years and leaving the terms unbalanced with the House so people get voted out but still hang around for a few months for the laughs.

Hearing other people's proposals for this sort of thing is usually as welcome as somebody giving you a run-down of their Supercoach team, but be that as it may I've come up with an alternative proposal that I’d like to bore you shitless with.

First it should be noted that this system could be applied to the Senate only with an extension of members and terms tied in with the lower house but I'm going to take the extreme position and suggest we abolish the house entirely. This is usually a terrible idea, but under my plan you don’t have to be like Queensland (except for that uncomfortable period when they elected a swathe of One Nation members) and entrench hands in the power of the governing party for a full term. If you like stable government I've practically got you covered, if you like novelty minor parties I can do that for you too.

We'll achieve this by merging the houses, with half its members to be elected in the traditional manner to represent electorates and the other half chosen via party lists. When you roll into the polling place on election day you'll be given a preferential ballot paper for your local seat and one for a party as part of a single national vote. There’s no below the line because you have to wear whatever order the party puts the candidates in, nobody cares now so I'm not expecting them to in the future.

This is where it starts getting complicated - to have 200 MPs made up of 100 each you'll need to reduce parliament by 26 members overall with 50 fewer electorates and 24 more members elected via the list. There’s my first cost saving - $5.2 million a year on salaries alone, which should pay for the renovations required to build a super-chamber which fits 200.

I've arrived at my reduced electorate numbers by using the same proportion of seats each state has in the current 150 strong (?) and fitting that to 100. It involves a stitch-up for Tasmania which is promised five seats minimum in the Constitution, but as this is going to take the sort of tinkering with the electoral system that will require a referendum anyway so let's pretend we all ganged up on the Tasmanians and made them earn their seats by population like everyone else.

The other minor loser is Victoria, who was closer to a full percentage point than the ACT and Northern Territory but I decided it was fairer to leave them with what they have now.  

State	150 seats	100 seats
New South Wales	48	32
Victoria	37	24
Queensland	30	20
Western Australia	15	10
South Australia	11	7
Tasmania	5	3
ACT	2	2
Northern Territory	2	2

So once you've voted in your electorate seat you turn to the list vote. Everyone in Australia is looking at the same ballot paper, and it's up to the parties to deliver a fair and attractive balance of candidates from around the country - none of which will appear on the ballot paper, you’ll have to do your research in advance or peruse the list at the polling station.

Your one vote above when the line used to be will give us an overall national figure for each eligible party (there will have to be a reasonable fee to participate, as well as some major party registration rule changes to stop it turning out like the 1999 New South Wales Legislative Council election where there were so many candidates that the letters went from A, through AZ into the C’s plus a handful of mad bastards who ran ungrouped in the hope that enough people would number a thousand boxes to elect them) and one seat from the list allotment shall be distributed to each party who meets or passes the quota of 1%.

This isn’t just an arbitrary mark to make calculating a winner easier, it’s just enough to get a few unusual parties into parliament without them automatically becoming a large enough block to cause trouble knowing they have a six year free ride before presumably being voted out. Under this system they will remain a chance of re-election unless they stuff up in spectacular fashion so that should help them behave accordingly. It still leaves parties vulnerable to members doing a runner a’la Lambie, Lazarus, Madigan etc.. but so does any system.

So one member per percentage point is easy, but how dealing with the leftovers is where it gets tricky. I propose a two stage strategy, each party that hits the quote gets an extra seat from the highest vote getter until all seats are allocated. Any further leftovers from there are distributed to the parties which went closest to achieving a full percentage quota. It's not perfect but it’s a small price to pay for the balance between putting group voting tickets out on their ear and still making it realistic for small parties to be elected.

There are probably big enough holes in this plan to drive a truck through, but one is not Antony Green so indulge me an electoral fantasy. Here’s an example based on the 2013 Federal Election results for the Senate. To try and better simulate the effects of voters knowing their votes for minor parties might mean something I've subtracted 1.75% from each of the two major parties and 0.50% from the Greens and added +20% to the vote of each party below them.

Party	2013 vote	Adjusted total	% Seats	Bonus	Extra
LNP	37.71	35.96	35	1	1 (for 0.96)
ALP	30.11	28.36	28	1	0
Greens	8.65	8.15	8	1	0
Palmer United	4.91	5.89	5	1	1 (for 0.89)
Liberal Democrats	3.91	4.69	4	1	0
Xenophon	1.93	2.31	2	1	0
Sex Party	1.37	1.64	1	1	0
Family First	1.11	1.33	1	1	0
Shooters	0.95	1.14	1	1	0
Katter Party	0.89	1.06	1	1	0
DLP	0.84	1.00	1	1	0
HEMP	0.71	0.85	0	0	0
Animal Justice	0.70	0.84	0	0	0
Wikileaks	0.66	0.79
Christian Democrats	0.54	0.64	0	0	0
One Nation	0.53	0.63	0	0	0
Motoring	0.50	0.60	0	0	0
Christians	0.40	0.48	0	0	0
			87	11	2

As you can see that Clive Palmer does better in this thinly veiled ‘model’ because he ran a nationwide campaign. On the other hand Nick Xenophon would no doubt have won more than three seats if this system had been in place because he'd had picked up votes from around the country on name value rather than being concentrated in South Australia.

The Liberal Democrats also make out like bandits here, almost entirely because of their spot on the ballot in New South Wales, but if that’s because dopey people thought they were the real Liberal Party (despite them being on the ballot as well) that’s where putting party logos on the ballot paper should help.

This is the best I can do without proper analysis, but as you can see under this estimation we get a good spread of parties but not in such numbers that they be completely obstructionist. The big two end up with 66% of the seats on about 64.5% of the vote, so it’s as close to the will of the people as you’re going to get on that front.

If you just applied this system to the Senate you’d still be left with the government of the day trying to herd cats to get legislation through, but that’s before we add the results of the electorate seats which will in all likelihood bias towards the big parties like it always has.

In estimating the figures for the electorate seats I've made the assumptions that both Clive Palmer and Bob Katter choose to run on the party lists to get an easier ride, so the LNP take both their seats. I'm going to give the Greens seat back to the ALP based on the larger electorate size, but will go with the two independents retaining their seats. Whichever party, coalition or grouping gets to 101 members by any means necessary wins.

	Electorate seats	List seats	Total seats
LNP	61	37	98
ALP	37	29	66
Greens	0	9	9
Palmer United	0	7	7
Liberal Democrats	0	5	5
Xenophon	0	3	3
Sex Party	0	2	2
Family First	0	2	2
Shooters	0	2	2
Katter Party	0	2	2
DLP	0	2	2
Independents	2	0	2

Look, everyone gets a friend to sit with. I couldn't see too many situations where there were so many parties that hit the threshold that they didn't all get the bonus point, but it could have happened in the example above if about 3% more of the formal vote was lost to the parties who didn't qualify so it's not impossible for somebody to end up sitting on their own for three years.

In this example the LNP had a relatively comfortable election victory but still has to find three more numbers to govern, leading to them doing small deals with small parties rather than bending over backwards doing massive deals to try and win over one of a limited number of options. Obviously the closer and more spread out an election gets the more complicated it’s going to get, but as you can see from the figures above it’s not impossible for one of the majors to score an outright majority.

Added benefits include all the business of the parliament being conducted in the one house so time isn't wasted bouncing bills back and forth. Additionally all the action is happening in the one place, with all ministers and shadow ministers on the same battlefield in front of the camera instead of being hidden away or wasted in a house nobody cares about until they want something from it.

The next cost-saving is to eliminate all by-elections and just directly appoint a member of the same party no matter what the reason.

I'm not realistic enough to think this could ever get up, even if MPs agreed to put the question to the people and effectively sack 26 of them I know Tasmania is already going to be a no because they would lose their disproportionate representation across both houses, and under the ridiculous referendum laws of this country that’s as good as Victoria or New South Wales voting for it.

Still, I think there’s some merit to this compared to either the existing system or the one now being proposed. If you've got any suggested alterations I’d be happy to hear them and update the post accordingly to credit your additions.

And if the PM is reading, and I know he always hangs out patiently for a new TSP post, I'm happy to donate this system in return for a night out at The Lodge and you don't even have to show up.