John Kilcullen
(1) "Deliberative polling" as part of the
Parliamentary process
(2) Proportional representation in both houses
of Parliament
(3) Preferential voting not to require numbering
every square
(4) Votes "above the line" to be distributed
equally to the party's candidates
(5) Senate casual vacancies not to be filled by
the party organization
(6) Refusal of supply to be grounds for double
dissolution
(7) Overseas deployments to require
parliamentary approval
(8) Treaties to require parliamentary approval
(9) Prime Minister's power over the election
date
See also Submission
to
JSC on Electoral Matters 2007 Election | Submission 2004 Election
| Survey of 2004 Submissions
| Factionalism
One of the unhealthy features of politics in this country is the contempt in which the public hold politicians, especially political parties. I think that this is because of the childish partisanship often shown in Parliamentary debate, which I think is due to the presence of the media and the absence of ordinary people--politicians have to say sensational things to get through to the public. I would like to see a sort of "parliamenary jury"--a randomly selected panel of ordinary people paid to go to Canberra for so-many weeks to take part in parliamentary debate, without right to vote, meeting as a group from time to time to send out a communique to the public. (Perhaps there could also be other groups locally who follow debates in Parliament and pass on their reactions to the "jury" meeting in Canberra.) This arrangment would give the professional politicians some ordinary people to convince, and their behaviour could be expected to become less unattractive to ordinary people. This does not need any constitutional change (since the proposal is not to give the "jury" any power, only to pay them to be present and make their views available to the media). It would amount to Parliamentary sponsorship of "deliberative polling" (see here and here).
Another improvement would be to adopt proportional representation in the House of Representatives as well as in the Senate. This would probably often result in there being no single party or coaltion able to control the House, but I believe "responsible government" works well under those circumstances, as long as the Government has the power to dissolve the House if its program is being obstructed in a way the public would not support. See above on "minority government". When no one party has absolute control, Parliamentary debate is a real attempt to give convincing reasons and the Government must take notice of criticism.
That is, a vote should be accepted as valid even if not all squares are numbered. See optional preferential voting. This would make it possible for "minor party" supporters to cast a valid vote for their party without having to allow their vote to go eventually to one of the major parties. This would give the major parties a reason to persuade minor party voters to give them a preference, instead of taking their support for granted as they can at present. This would improve the quality of political debate.
The proportional representation voting system should be modified so that votes "above the line" are deemed to be votes only for the party indicated, with no distribution of preferences, and those votes should be distributed equally among the Party's candidates. This would mean that the successful candidates would be those for whom electors cast a vote "below the line" because they knew something favourable about besides their party membership. The point of this is to reduce the influence of the Party's administration (which at present determines the order in which "above the line" votes are distributed to the party's candidates) and thereby reduce factionalism (the party machine would no longer have power to hand out Parliamentary jobs, as their present power over the distribution of votes enables them to do, and the faction bosses would lose an important power of patronage). (See "Voting Systems".)
Section 15 of the Constitution should be amended again to put an end to the practice whereby a sitting Senator can resign to enable the party to put in a replacement Senator without an election. Section 15 should provide (a) that the preferred method of filling a casual vacancy is by "count back", i.e. recounting the votes from the previous election to find who would have been elected if the person who has vacated had not been a candidate (as in the ACT electoral act, part 13), and (b) the method currently set out in section 15 should be used only if no candidate can be elected by countback (as may happen if none of the former candidates is available).
To prevent a repetition of the crisis of 1975, Section 57 of the Constitution should be amended to add refusal of supply as a justification for immediate double dissolution. (In 1975 there was a double dissolution, but that was possible only because the Senate had already blocked a number of the Whitlam government's bills.)
To prevent a repetition of the Vietnam and Iraq deployments, Parliamentary approval should be required before Australian forces are deployed overseas.
Parliamentary approval should also be required for the ratification of treaties. At present the deployment of troops and the making of treaties come under the Royal Prerogative,. , i.e. the residuum of the original powers of the medieval monarchy not yet superseded by Parliamentary legislation. (See article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_prerogative.) The prerogative can be restricted simply by an act of Parliament, as proposed here. A constitutional amendment is not needed.
A change often proposed that I do not support is the introduction of fixed Parliamenary terms. I do not support this because I think that if a minority government's legislation is blocked, that government should be able to appeal to the electorate to resolve the deadlock. See the relevant paragraphs of "Democracy in Australia". The reason why the idea of a fixed term has become popular is that people get irritated by the "election date" games prime ministers play. Perhaps there should be a predetermined election date, subject to the condition that if government legislation is actually defeated or if the house votes no confidence in the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister then has the right to call an election short of term (a right to be exercised within a certain time limit).
Return to The Australian Constitution: A
First Reading.
Return to Home Page