- The Guardian
- Issue #2144
Parliament and parliamentary campaigns have an important place in the whole process of the struggle to advance the interests of the people – provided that parliamentary activity is combined with vigorous struggle by the people outside parliament.
The existing political system in which government is alternately shared between the Coalition and the Labor Party (ALP) obscures and protects the dictatorship of capital over our economic and political life.
Australia’s electoral system has allowed state and federal governments to be dominated for the last century by the two-party system, in which both major parties act mainly for the dominant vested capitalist interests. This situation holds back political development and acts as a conservative brake on the whole of society.
UNDEMOCRATIC
The House of Representatives has a preferential system of voting. Although in this election Labor received a small majority of votes compared to the Coalition – 34.8 per cent to 32.1 per cent – Labor had a massive win more than twice as many seats as the Coalition (based on count at time of writing).
If the voting system were democratic then the Coalition would have around 47 seats – a few more than it has gained. Labor on the other hand should have around 50 seats, not close to 90 or more.
The Greens with 11.8 per cent of the vote are not certain of winning any seats in the Lower House. If the system were democratic they would be expected to win 12-13 seats.
Labor’s big win is to a significant degree due the way preferences flowed, in particular its exchange of preferences with the Greens. It only had an overall swing of 2.2 per cent and the Coalition a swing against it of 3.6 per cent.
The system is designed to perpetuate the two-party system – two parties of capitalism serving the interests of big business.
The present electoral system does not adequately provide for the representation of significant streams of political thinking in Australia, particularly in the most important lower house of Parliament.
The Senate was formed as a House of review and as a body to look after the interests of the states and territories. The 76 Senators are elected for six-year terms – six every three years in the states and two in the territories.
The system is proportional-preferential and this is reflected in more democratic election outcomes where the Greens are set to hold the balance of power with 11 seats.
MONEY TALKS
But for both Houses, candidates have historically been selected by the major parties. In more recent years smaller parties have also selected candidates to stand. Independent candidates such as the teals are community-based.
Prohibitive costs of registration and the process of registration make it difficult for smaller parties to stand candidates with the Party’s name on the ballot paper.
The major parties have a campaigning advantage with millions of dollars donated by their corporate patrons and in the case of the Labor Party also from the trade unions.
The Lib/Lab alliance recently legislated for a framework to provide the quarterly funding to registered political parties and independent MPs who receive 4 per cent or more of the primary vote to be increased from the current $3.346 to $5.00 per vote.
The Communist Party proposes the following reforms to the electoral system:
- The election of representatives in accordance with the proportion of votes received, that is, proportional representation.
- Multi-member electorates which are larger than single member constituencies for the Lower House to enable proportional representation.
- The requirement to produce membership lists for a party to be registered be repealed.
- The number of signatures required for a party to achieve registration as a political party for electoral purposes to be limited to 500 who do not need to be members.
- All candidates in each electorate to be given equal free time on public media to present an election statement.
- Reduction in the size of deposits to be paid by candidates to $250. Large deposits currently act as obstacles to smaller parties and individuals participating in elections.
- The permissible voting age to be lowered from 18 to 16 years.
- Elimination of all public funding for election expenses. All political parties should be dependent on their own resources and popular support and not subsidised by taxpayers’ money.
Allegations that the election of more candidates from small parties and independents will “destabilise” our political system are nonsense. We need a political system that reflects the different political views of the electorate.
The CPA calls for a compulsory, proportional-preferential voting system which gives the people a wider choice of candidates through multi-member electorates and a choice of local members to whom they can take their concerns.
