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

How can representative government have meaning when neither the government nor the opposition ends up with a geographical cross-section of its support base in the Parliament? Frequently some regions are neglected because seats can’t be won there and others get taken for granted because of the huge margins available as a buffer.

Such geographical determinism brings with it two major problems, the lack of any real political contest about policies and programs in vast parts of any jurisdiction, and the obsessive concentration on a relative handful of electorates where government will be determined.

In the safe seats, political life is not entirely quiet, at least within the dominant party when an open preselection occurs. As the Shepherdson Inquiry pursued in Queensland, branch stacking and false enrolment have sometimes become part of normal political culture when ten or twenty years of parliamentary service is the likely prize.

Of course the professionals have reserved such enthusiasm for the safest of seats because they understand the rewards and know how slim are the risks of an adverse redistribution or other upheaval once such seats have been captured.

Occasionally there is a falling out, either when a targetted incumbent decides not to just step aside, or where residual bitterness results in the person narrowly losing a preselection leaving the party and standing as an independent. Voters seem to sense that this might be their only chance in decades to have some local influence and often turf out the dominant party in such unusual circumstances.

In too many cases, the prison system has been more adept at prising holders of safe seats from their fiefdoms than have any concerns within the local branch membership.

Marginal electorates dominate campaigning

While the concentration between elections is largely on securing preselection in safe seats, during any campaigning the focus is even more narrowly on the seats that will make the difference between government and opposition – the marginals held by the smallest numbers of votes.

This is entirely rational. No advantage is to be gained from increasing the vote where there is already 60 per cent support, or in seeking swings that might occur once in a lifetime. A token pamphlet will do nicely, usually towards the end of the campaign period, as much as anything to encourage voting for the Upper House.

Except where something very unusual has occurred, the real action focuses on the small number of seats requiring swings less than 6 per cent to change hands.

Good government is hardly consistent with such distortions of political concentration. When by-elections occur in marginal electorates, often everything else virtually comes to a standstill for weeks.

Primaries as remedies?

A number of remedies have been proposed to generate greater voter involvement in the political process.

First there is the possibility of holding primaries, either by having all party members and not a small panel determine local preselections, or by having voting open to registered supporters, along United States lines.