What’s wrong with single-member electorates - Part I

The only government somewhat contrite in recent years after winning with around 48 per cent of the two-party-preferred vote was in South Australia in 1989. Four years earlier, the Liberals had been so badly mauled by John Bannon in metropolitan areas for supporting privatisation that they didn’t look possibilities for an early return to power. And so it proved in enough of the marginal electorates.

However, the Bannon Government sought to defuse continuing Liberal protests about the unfairness of the outcome by agreeing to a change in the Constitution Act. Henceforth the Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission would aim to redraw boundaries after every election so that the party or coalition winning a majority of the votes after distribution of preferences won a majority of seats.

Of course, it can’t be done. A moment’s thought shows that for every close result that has an ‘appropriate’ outcome you can switch a few hundred votes in the tightest seats to obtain the opposite conclusion and balance these off against some further gains in really safe seats. Same two-party-preferred vote, different government.

The change sailed through, with only the Electoral Reform Society of South Australia pointing out that what was proposed was window-dressing for an intrinsically unfair winner-take-all system and that what was needed was an effective vote for individuals in a system of proportional representation.

Curiously, with the effects of the constant boundary changes being felt in factional stoushes and deselected MPs turning Independent, the Labor platform at the February 2002 election included a provision that the Constitution Act be changed again so boundaries be redrawn after only every second election.

Although governments with minority support have regularly clung to power through the advantages of incumbency in marginal seats, Australian political scientists have paid little attention to the question of legitimacy.

A wipeout for the Opposition?

The baleful effect of overwhelming electoral landslides, usually worse than suggested by the cube rule, has also been underplayed. Governments or oppositions losing 5-10 per cent of their previous support and reduced to parliamentary insignificance have often turned to internal brawling during long periods of irrelevance while their opponents have become noticeably more arrogant in government.

After the Wranslide of 1978, the Liberals and Nationals had roughly the same number of members and for a time the former gained most attention for changing leader roughly every twelve months.

The defeat of Jeff Kennett in Victoria in 1999 came as a great shock as for much of the previous seven years Labor had been reduced to bystander status, with barely a Legislative Council presence to boot. Two terms were seen as inevitable when the Kirner Government was swept aside, then three assumed when Labor made minuscule inroads in 1996.

After the Labor Opposition in Queensland was reduced to a cricket team in 1974, well over a decade transpired before it was again a serious contender for government. In the meantime, the Nationals curtailed coalition with the Liberals and only fell after the extensive Fitzgerald Commission evidence about corruption turned off voters.

Last year the Coalition was comprehensively stripped of seats in Queensland when the whirlwind of its dealings with One Nation left Peter Beattie’s Government with three-quarters of the seats for just under half the first preferences. A year earlier the Coalition in NSW was severely pummelled.

Safe seats throughout regions

Look at any map of the parties winning seats and you inevitably find extensive regions coloured pretty much the same.