adoll's Journal: Essay: Canada should look to Australia for Democratic Reform

Few people consider Australia when asked to name an "innovative democracy". But they should -- Australia has demonstrated it is immune from some of the traps democracies like Canada fall into.

Briefly summarizing Australia's system: it is a constitutional monarchy with a two-house federal government, six states, two major territories, and several small island protectorates. The federal government consists of a lower house elected by "preference ballots" and an upper house elected by a form of proportional representation. The Queen's representative in Australia is the Governor General who signs acts into law, calls elections (usually on the recommendation of the Prime Minister) and intervenes if parliament breaks down.

Canada, by contrast, has a two house federal government where the lower house is elected by "first-past-the-post" ballots and the upper house is not elected at all. The Governor General is the Queen's representative in Canada who signs acts into law and calls elections on the recommendation of the Prime Minster.

Lower House
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Canadians elect candidates who, often, the majority of the electorate don't want. This is how first-past-the-post operates: the ballots are counted once and the candidate with the most of them wins. Australia gets around this by using "preference ballots" where citizens indicate their feelings towards ALL candidates by numbering them sequentially in order of preference. After an election, all the ballots are allocated by first preference. Then the candidate with the least votes is declared a loser, and his votes are reallocated based on the citizens' second preferences. For example, somebody who listed the Green Party as first preference and Labor Party second would see his vote counted towards the Labor Party when the Greens are declared to be losers. The allocation of preferences continues until one candidate garners in excess of 50% of the votes, including preferences.

The end result is the majority of voters in a district are at least somewhat happy with the candidate who is elected. In practice, the vote-splitting that exists in Canada where the NDP and Liberals fight over the left-wing vote would disappear. If an NDP candidate loses in a riding, then the second preference on those votes would likely flow to the Liberals. Thus if the majority of people in a riding don't want to see a Conservative MP, then either the NDP or Liberals will be elected and the majority of citizens will be somewhat happy. The conservative vote splitting that used to exist with the Reform Party and PCs would have similarly been eliminated.

Upper House
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The difference between the Australian and Canadian upper house is even more remarkable. First, Australian senators are elected whereas Canadian senators are appointed by the Prime Minister. Second, the Australian states appoint replacement senators in the case of death or resignation. Thus the states can tip the balance of power in the federal senate by their choice of replacements. Contrast this with Canada where succession is the only option a provincial government has to influence federal politics.

In both systems, the upper house approves or rejects acts that originate from the lower house. Traditionally both upper houses give the sitting government in the lower house freedom to carry out their "mandate" from the electorate. Infrequently both senates have flexed their right to block acts stalling bills that Prime Ministers want to see passed. The Canada-US Free Trade Agreement was one such example. The Canadian Prime Minister responded by fabricating six new senate positions and then appointing friendly senators to these positions, thereby tipping the balance of power in the senate in his favour. Such an event can't happen in Australia because the number of senate seats is not set by the Prime Minister and because the senators are elected.

(more on GST senators
  http://www.4reference.net/encyclopedias/wikipedia/Canadian_Senate.html )

The Australian mechanism to deal with a deadlocked upper and lower house is a 'double-dissolution election'. If the PM feels that the senate is being unreasonable refusing to pass a bill, he may request the Governor General dissolve both the upper and lower house triggering elections for both. Then after the elections a joint sitting of combined upper and lower house representatives reconsiders the bill that triggered the election. If it passes a simple majority of the combined houses, then the bill is submitted to the Governor General for proclamation as law.

(more on double-dissolution elections:
http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rn/2002-03/03rn45.htm )

The activities of the Governor General in the two countries appears to be similar. Both centre around enacting laws and approving recommended dates for federal elections. On paper, at least, both Governors General have far more power to intervein in the workings of Parliament than actually happens. Canada has never, to my knowledge, had a Governor General remove an elected government for failing to do its duty. Australia has had one Prime Minister dismissed by the Governor General (Gough Whitlam, 1975).

(more on the Whitlam sacking: http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Australian_constitutional_crisis_of_1975 )

Which of the Australian practices would be the most valuable if implemented in Canada? The elected senate and giving the power over the senate to the provinces would go a long way to preventing the defacto dictator rule we have seen from recent Prime Ministers. This is the one reform Canada should adopt along with the associated double-dissolution mechanism and senate seats by provinces.

The preference ballots would prevent vote-splitting in ridings, but also tends to elect the people who are the "least objectionable" instead of the "most preferred". The merged Conservative party now makes this reform somewhat redundant in Canada. The NDP and Liberals do split some of the left-wing vote, but the two parties articulate quite different policies and so may not be interchangeable in preferences. Quebec federalists may benefit from preference ballots since a vote for a party other than the Liberals and BQ is now effectively a spoiled ballot. Under a preference system, a Quebec conservative would be able to list the Conservatives first, Liberals second and separatists last. But on the whole, the last election saw the allocation of seats roughly matching the popular vote totals, so it is doubtful that implementing preference ballots in Canada would change outcomes in the lower house.

(more on Canadian popular vote totals:
  http://enr.elections.ca/National_e.aspx )

The most valuable reform Canada could copy from Australia is the election of senators who are responsible to the provinces.

-AD

Canadian Senate

[geoswan]

Interesting JE. I was not aware of the details of the Australian system.

I would like to speak in favour of the diligence of at least some Canadian Senators. In 1985 I attended a day of hearings of a joint interparliamentary committee. I was holding hearings, across Canada, to get opinions from the Public as to whether Canada should accept Reagan's invitation to sign aboard SDI.

At this time Mulroney had a very large majority. The only Conservative there, who showed an inkling of having any brains, wa

Complicated scrutineering

[geoswan]

The procedure that the Australians follow for determining the winning candidate would considerably complicate the process of vote counting.

I have served as a scrutineer a couple of times. It was interesting.

For those who don't know, on election day each poll has two officials staffing it. One is the "deputy returning officer". The other may be the "poll clerk". I can't recall. But each candidate is entitled to appoint up to one scrutineer per poll. The poll staff are supposed to allow the scrutine

Re:Complicated scrutineering

[adoll]

The scrutineering isn't, to my knowledge, a problem even though they have two sets of ballots (upper/lower house on separate papers). Counting takes no more time than it does in Canada. The last Aussie election was decided the night the polls were closed and there were recounts in a few close ridings that took a couple of weeks (exactly like here in Canada).

I have never been in an Australian polling centre, but I can imagine their scrutineers put up with a lot more abuse because voting is mandatory in Au