Gough Whitlam 1916-2014

Gough Whitlam is probably the most intensely studied of all Australian Prime Ministers, not just in his home country but around the world. In just three years he brought sweeping changes to Australia, whether in education, health, foreign affairs, relations with indigenous Australians, the government of the Northern Territory and so much more. Even the Queen's title was changed to be more Australian.

It is in constitutional affairs that Whitlam attracts much global attention. Literally from its very first moment to its very last his government saw precedents broken and argument ensued. Rather than wait the customary period to assemble a full ministry and take office, he instead had himself and his deputy sworn into no less than twenty-seven different posts just a few days after winning the 1972 election in order to hit the ground running and immediately start implementing the government's agenda. Over the next few years more precedents would be broken and the two sides of Australian politics would fiercely argue over what practices were fundamental constitutional conventions and which were optional agreements to be set aside as and when.

Throughout its three year life the Whitlam government struggled with a hostile majority in the Senate. More legislation was blocked in three years than in the entire preceding seventy-two years of the Australian federation. Not even a "double dissolution" - a full election of all seats in both houses - resolved the gridlock beyond a few individual bills being passed (though they included the introduction of universal health care). How casual Senate vacancies were filled became another battleground with both sides crying foul about particular vacancies in Queensland. And then the Senate obstructed Supply, leading to Whitlam's dramatic dismissal by the Governor General Sir John Kerr on 11 November 1975. (The above picture is of Kerr's Private Secretary, David Smith, reading out the proclamation of the dissolution of Parliament in less than ideal circumstances with Whitlam literally glaring over his shoulder.)

Beyond the personalities and the use of the reserve powers of the Governor General, the Dismissal was a struggle over competing visions of how parliamentary democracy works in an elected bicameral system. It was more than just a dispute over the specific issue of both houses having powers over supply - the Senate was blocking much other legislation as well - and went to the heart of democracy and mandates. Did a government with a solid majority in the House of Representatives have the right to govern or did the Senate have the right to veto bring it down? Which democratically elected body was more democratically elected? Was it right for an upper house to demand an early election just because the political wind was blowing the opposition's way? Those considering elections for the British House of Lords would do well to look at the struggle between the Senate and House of Representatives in the Whitlam era to see how conventions are not enough to prevent check & balance powers being used for naked partisan aims.

The disputes about 1975 will last forever. Whitlam is probably arguing about it with Kerr right now. On this mortal coil we must look to see how these messes can be avoided.

Bicameral deadlocks

As I write this, the US Congress is still in deadlock as the two chambers disagree over the budget, with the potential for the federal government to be shut down. Each chamber can claim a democratic mandate (although how an overall minority can veto an overwhelming majority's desire to even debate a measure is interesting - News from ME: Majority Rules, Minority Drools has more about the "the Hastert Rule") and add in the President's democratic mandate and there's not a great deal of progess.

Second chamber reformers here rarely want to give the Lords (or Senate or whatever they want to call it) budget powers but that doesn't mean there's any less of a risk of a deadlock between the two over some other key legislation. It's often forgotten that when the Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was dismissed there were no less than twenty-one pieces of legislation other than supply in formal dispute between the two houses, or that the previous year key legislation such as universal healthcare insurance had only been got onto the statute book through the nuclear option of a snap "double dissolution" election of the whole parliament. It may be budgets in one place and time and healthcare in another and doubtlessly a different issue in a third but the problem remains that when multiple elements in the system claim separate democratic mandates the result can be a recipe for gridlock and chaos.

Leading from outside parliament?

Party leaders don't always have to be in Parliament. Sometimes they can lead their party and seek the premiership from outside. Today we may discover if one such leader in Australia has been successful and if a party in Canada will pick another.

Right now the Australian state of Queensland is voting in its state election. As noted before (Leading from outside the chamber), the Liberal National Party is being led from outside the state parliament by Campbell Newman, until last year the Mayor of Brisbane. If he succeeds both in leading the LNP to power he will be the first Australian premier since at least federation to pull this trick off. Mayors of other big cities in other countries may wish to try and follow his example. But we won't know until later if he's been successful in taking the target sat of Ashgrove.

Canada has a much more developed tradition of this with many leaders being picked who do not initially sit in the parliament. Even premiers have won their party leadership and been appointed to office either before winning a by-election, such as current British Columbia premier Christy Clark, or going straight to a general election, such as current Yukon prmier Darrell Pasloski. Today is the final day of the New Democratic Party leadership election to pick a new leader for Canada's main opposition party. Two of the contenders do not have seats in the Canadian House of Commons, Brian Topp and Martin Singh, and if either of them wins (it's rather more likely to be Topp than Singh) then they will have to either try to enter the Commons via a by-election or else lead their party from outside parliament until the next general election, then hope they can pick up a target seat. The latter option was followed by the last two NDP leaders (Alexa McDonough & Jack Layton) but since then the NDP has become the official opposition and waiting may no longer be an option. The former route is more mixed - there's a partially observed tradition that a new leader trying to enter the Commons is not opposed by the other major parties, but not all follow it. Way back in the 1940s the attempted comeback by Conservative leader Arthur Meighen was scuppered when he lost his by-election to the NDP's predecessors. More recently the Ontario Progressive Conservative leader John Tory saw his leadership destroyed by by-election defeat in 2007.

Should we try this more often in the UK? Alex Salmond pulled it off in Scotland and there's no reason why Salmond should by sui generis. The obvious comparison to Campbell Newman would be Boris Johnson but there's equally no reason why someone who's been successful completely outside Westminster politics couldn't become a party leader and lead a bid from there. Or perhaps someone could take a mid career break from politics and then come back refreshed and renewed. I suspect it would take a smaller party to try this first - perhaps the Liberal Democrats in their quest to be "different" could give it a go? (But no, not Lembit!)

Leading from outside the chamber

The announcement that Tom Harris is to seek the Scottish Labour leadership has led to calls for other Labour MPs to throw their hat into the ring. But it's also exposing a growing fact in our post devolution arrangements - there is more than one place to find political leadership.

Traditionally there has been a single source for a leader - the parliamentary chamber in question. It has been taken for granted that only a sitting MP/MSP/AM can contest the leadership and the loss of one's seat can be a near fatal setback for ambitions. But it's also led to the assumption that if someone leaves the chamber or politics altogether then they can't return and resume their ambitions.

That may have been a truism in times past, but we now live in an age where there are multiple parliaments and other positions. Is it really so wise to limit the choice of leader in a particular parliament merely to those who are currently members, and never consider talent that happens to be elsewhere?

And this goes beyond Westminster and the devolved parliaments. Why can't elected Mayors and council leaders be candidates for leadership? For that matter why not private citizens? Too often people complain about an insular political class - well here's a way that would allow people to dip in and out:

Allow anybody to contest the leadership of a party. If they're not an MP/MSP/AM etc... then they can either seek to enter the parliament in a by-election or await the next general election. A deputy can handle the parliamentary duties in the meantime and leave the leader with more time to tour the country. After all there's so much more to leading a political party than taking part in parliamentary questions.

This is not a novel idea by any means. Alex Salmond wasn't an MSP when he won the SNP leadership for the second time, and he didn't return to Holyrood for another three years. And outside the United Kingdom it's surprisingly common.

If Boris Johnson really has ambitions to be Prime Minister, he could do no worse than to watch the Liberal National Party in the Australian state of Queensland. Earlier this year the LNP picked as its new leader Campbell Newman, who is not an MP but rather the just stepped down elected Mayor of Brisbane, Australia's largest local authority. Newman is leading the LNP into the next election from outside the state parliament. If successful then Boris may want to pick up some tips.

Canada's tradition in this regard is far more advanced with both federal and provincial parties regularly picking leaders who are not sitting MPs, and it's common to find provincial leaders standing in federal leadership elections. Leaders who have not been sitting MPs when elected include Stephen Harper, Jean Chrétien and John Turner (all of whom were former MPs who had left parliament for industry but who then won their party leaderships), Jack Layton (who was a Toronto city councillor when elected to the NDP leadership), Brian Mulroney (a private businessman who had never held elected office before winning the Progressive Conservative leadership) and Robert Stanfield (who was Premier of Nova Scotia when elected to the federal Progressive Conservative leadership). There have even been Prime Ministers and state Premiers who have been appointed before being elected to the chamber - current Yukon premier Darrell Pasloski is not (yet) a member of the territorial assembly whilst British Colombia premier Christy Clark was sworn in in March despite not winning a seat in the legislature until May.

To the public at large it probably won't matter if a party's selected leader is an MP/MSP/AM or not. It certainly won't matter what precise title they hold. But it will be more problematic if a party is unclear about who their leader/"candidate for Prime/First Minister" is, leaving the media confused. Plaid Cymru found itself in this mess a few years ago before it changed its structures and what hasn't received much attention so far is that the post Tom Harris is standing for is technically only the leader of the Labour Party in the Scottish Parliament, a point that will be far more than pedantic in rows with MPs and councillors.

The other issue is getting the political and media culture to accept leaders who are not on the parliamentary benches, but time and precedent will accomplish that. Rival parties may mock a leader's "absence" but once they have done it themselves that line of attack will diminish.

Of course despite all of the above, Tom Harris is wrong to seek the Scottish Labour leadership for one very good reason. He is clearly in the wrong party!

Extremists and AV - Australia's One Nation

As the Alternative Vote referendum approaches the debate's heating up and the argument has turned on how extremists like the British National Party will do under the system. With so few countries using AV there aren't that many comparisons out there, but there's one Australian party with a record to look at - One Nation.

One Nation was founded in 1997 by Pauline Hanson, a sitting federal MP, David Oldfield and David Ettridge. Hanson was originally nominated as the Liberal candidate in Oxley in the 1996 federal election but between nominations and polling day she was expelled from the party after she gained national fame from calling for the abolition of government assistance for indigenous Australians. However it was too late to nominate an alternative candidate or even remove "Liberal" from her place from the ballot paper. She went on to win the hitherto safe Labor seat. The following year she joined with Oldfield and Ettridge to form One Nation and the party had some successes, particularly in Queensland at the 1998 state election.

However the major Australian parties responded to One Nation by both trying to undercut its vote base and encouraging tactical voting against it, with Hanson defeated at the 1998 federal election. One Nation was also riven by splits with most of its elected members leaving the party and the New South Wales branch went solo (with the farce of the "One Nation" name in NSW being used by one group for state elections and another for federal elections) and losing its sole elected member as well. Some members founded breakaway parties like the City Country Alliance or the New Country Party; these parties also went nowhere.

Psephos - Adam Carr's Election Archive has all the election results from this period and shows the outcome. So without further ado:

Federal 1996 - House of Representatives in Queensland

Federal elections are conducted under the compulsory preference version of AV in which a voter needs to indicate preferences for all candidates in order for their vote to count at all.

(For the pedants out there, there were two minor exceptions at the time, though one has since been eliminated. If a voter numbers all but one candidates in order the blank space is taken to be a last preference and their vote is counted. There was also a provision in the law that if a voter numbered candidates but either skipped or repeated a number then their vote would be counted up until the "error" and then no longer transfer or "exhaust". There was a campaign in the early to mid 1990s to get voters to take advantage of this error overcoming mechanism to get de facto optional preferencing - see Langer vote for more - and by the 1998 election the provisions in the Electoral Act were changed so such votes are now invalid.)

As mentioned above Hanson was nominated as the Liberal candidate in Oxley but between nominations and polling day she was expelled from the party but it was too late to nominate an alternative candidate or even remove "Liberal" from her place from the ballot paper. Compared to the Liberal performance in 1993 she nearly doubled the first preferences to take 48.6%. Following the elimination of three Independents and the Greens she took enough transfers to get over 50% (although the majority transferred against her). Though not necessary to determine the winner, the elimination of the Australian Democrats saw transfers in her favour, pushing her to 54.7%.

Queensland 1998

One Nation won eleven seats in this election, which used the optional preference version of AV in which a voter need only indicate a single preference to be valid and which the UK will be offered. In none of the seats did they get 50% of first preferences. The seats broke down as follows:

Most first preferences but under 50% and won

• Barambah (43.5%)
• Burdekin (33.1%)
• Lockyer (39.8%)
• Maryborough (42.6%)
• Tablelands (42.0%)

Second on first preferences but won on transfers

• Caboolture (29.9%)
• Hervey Bay (33.8%)
• Ipswich West (38.6%)
• Mulgrave (31.0%)
• Thuringowa (34.9%)
• Whitsunday (30.7%)

Most first preferences and defeated on transfers

• Burnett (36.4%)
• Crows Nest (39.5%)
• Gympie (29.2%)

(None of these seats had separate Coalition candidates from the Liberal and National parties)

Crudely translating first preferences only into First Past The Post results would have given One Nation 8 seats under FPTP. Instead they won 11 under AV.

The overall result was Labor 44, the Nationals 23 & the Liberals 9, One Nation 11 and Independents 2. In theory One Nation could have held the balance of power but one of the Independents agreed to support a Labor government. Subsequently a One Nation MP resigned from the parliament and Labor won the resulting by-election, gaining an outright majority. The remaining One Nation MPs split with half forming the City Country Alliance and the rest going independent.

Federal 1998 - House of Representatives in Queensland

One of the biggest problems for de facto independent one member parties is that boundary changes can often undermine their electoral base. Changes at the 1998 election nominally made Oxley an Labor seat and Hanson contested the new Blair constituency, taking in parts of Oxley.

With competing Liberal and National candidates in the field plus more independents, Hanson topped the poll on first preferences with 36.0%. However Labor and the Coalition recommended preferences to each other. The Liberal candidate started in third place but overtook Labor on National preferences, then took the bulk of the Labor preferences to defeat Hanson 53.4:46.6. Note that Hanson still picked up 10.6% or over 7000 votes in preferences.

Queensland 2001

Most first preferences but under 50% and won

• Lockyer (28.3%)
• Tablelands (36.0%)

Second on first preferences but won on transfers

• Gympie (25.7%)

Most first preferences and defeated on transfers

There don't appear to have been any such cases.

Once again the crude comparison is FPTP 2, AV 3.

The overall result was Labor 66, the Nationals 12 & the Liberals 3, One Nation 3 and Independents 5. This time One Nation was a little more coherent and managed to lose only 1/3 MPs in the parliament.

Queensland 2004

Most first preferences but under 50% and won

• Tablelands (47.0%)

...and none of the other cases so no crude comparisons are necessary.

One Nation was now in heavy decline and riven by splits. Its sole MP here basically functioned as an Independent.

The overall result was Labor 63, the Nationals 15 & the Liberals 5, One Nation 1 and Independents 5. For once One Nation ended the parliament with all the members it started with.

Queensland 2006

Over 50% of first preferences

• Tablelands (50.4%)

One Nation only ran four candidates in this election; the other three secured tiny results of less than 5% each.

The overall result was Labor 59, the Nationals 17 & the Liberals 8, One Nation 1 and Independents 4. Once again One Nation managed to keep its only member for the full parliament.

Queensland 2009

The regular scourge of Independents and minor parties, boundary changes, abolished Tablelands. One Nation ran only two candidates including their sitting MP in the new Dalrymple constituency but she came second on both first preferences and final transfers. Their sole other candidate got just 2.9%.

The overal result was Labor 51, the now merged Liberal Nationals 34 and Independents 4.

Other victories

Between 1998 and 2001 One Nation also won seats in the federal Senate and the state upper houses in New South Wales and Western Australia (Queensland doesn't have an upper house); however these are all elected by Single Transferable Vote. For what it's worth all their NSW and WA elected members left the party as well, with the NSW branch going solo and losing its sole elected member as well. Yet another breakaway party was formed by two WA members, called the New Country Party.

So overall what do these results tell us about AV and extremists? Well Pauline Hanson's defeat in 1998 despite getting the most first preferences is easy to zoom in on as she was the party leader and in the federal parliament; however it's worth remembering that it was under compulsory preferencing and she would have had a stronger chance under the optional system the UK is being offered. On the other hand One Nation had 16 victories in Queensland under optional the very system the UK will vote on; the crude FPTP comparison would have given them 12. If anything that suggests optional AV was marginally in their favour.

It's also clear that other parties declaring One Nation to be pariahs did not mean every single other voter followed those parties. And whatever voting system is used this alone will not decide the fate of extremist parties; it's how the political mainstream responds to voters' concerns that has the greatest effect, along with the propensity of small parties to disintegrate into squabbling fractions.

The BNP may have decided to oppose AV but the above figures show that a far right party has done better under AV than it likely would have under FPTP. Nick Griffin may well have miscalculated.

AV in action or inaction? New South Wales

The Australian state of New South Wales voted at the weekend, in an election that saw the 16 year old Labor government swept out of power in an avalanche. Such has been Labor's dominance in New South Wales that there's been no end of the use of words like "historic", "seismic", "unprecedented" and other clichés.

The main feature of interest for the UK is that New South Wales is one of two Australian states (Queensland is the other) which use optional preferential voting, i.e. the precise form of the Alternative Vote that we will voting on in May. Whereas in elections for the federal parliament and in most other states a voter is required to number all the candidates on their ballot paper for their vote to count, in New South Wales & Queensland state elections a voter need only indicate a single preference to be valid and does not have to worry about which of two utterly obscure independents they prefer to the other.

At the time of writing the results for the lower house so far:

88.3% counted.
Last updated Thu Mar 31 9:59 PM

Liberal 38.4% 51 seats
Labor 25.7% 20
Nationals 12.7% 18
Greens 10.2% 1
Others 13.0% 3

(ABC News: New South Wales Election 2011)

I stress these are not yet final results. Australia has different rules of voting and counting, the key ones being in relation to postal and "pre-poll" voting, plus a much greater emphasis on precision over speed than the UK, and with results declared at the polling station ("booth") level there's a heck of a lot more to be precise about. Postal votes can arrive in a period of some days after polling day - in a large country with limited rural postal services it's rather unworkable to require all postal votes to be received by polling day.

(A lot in the UK seem to think Australian elections take a long time to finalise counting because they use the Alternative Vote. This isn't true - Canada also takes a similar time for much the same reason, despite using First Past The Post.)

Despite this about 92 of the 93 seat results seem certain. The one uncertain one is Balmain, currently listed as a Green seat. This is a three way fight between the Liberals, Greens and Labor with uncertainty over who will be in the last two - see Antony Green's Election Blog: The Tight Finish in Balmain. The one prediction that seems solid is that whoever wins the seat will not have at least 50% of the total valid votes cast.

Of the wider results it's notable that the Liberals have secured a majority in their own right on just 38.4% of first preferences. Some of this is because they didn't stand in 20 seats, instead giving the Nationals a free run (and indeed they will be governing as a Coalition), but there is no requirement for a party to contest every seat. Critics of First Past The Post like to jump on such results but as this election shows they can happen under AV as well.

92 seats seem to have been won by the party who topped the poll on first preferences - the exception being the aforementioned Balmain. In general the Liberals, Nationals, Labor and Greens declined to recommend preferences to each other on the "How To Vote" cards given out at polling stations. For those hoping to see AV producing radically different results it's not lived up to expectations. However Balmain may see a victory from third place.

Of potential more interest for the UK is the upper house election but that's for another post...

The Alternative Vote in action: New South Wales

In the run-up to the Alternative Vote referendum in May there will be a lot of talk about other countries that use the AV voting system. And there will also be an election using the precise variant of AV that the UK will be voting on.

The Alternative Vote has a number of versions around but the one we will be voting on is the "full optional preference" version, practised in the Australian states of New South Wales and Queensland for state elections, whereby voters can number as little as a single candidate for their vote to be valid. (Elections for the federal parliament and most of the other states use the "compulsory preference" version where voters have to number all candidates to count.) New South Wales will be going to the polls on March 26th and it will be possible to compare the claims made in our AV referendum.

(For those who want to see & find out more of the election in the wider context the best guide is the ABC 2011 New South Wales Election.)

At least two claims have been made that are already possible to check against existing experience in the state. Quickly running through them:

Claim 1. AV will mean parties can fight elections as a Coalition, offering voters candidates from both parties.

The full number of candidates in the last (2007) election is available at ABC News Election Preview. There were 93 seats and with the Liberals and Nationals fighting as a Coalition it was possible for voters to have a choice.

However the table shows that each seat had only one Coalition candidate. In fact it would have been playing with fire for the Coalition to offer competing candidates in all but a few seats. There would have been a real risk of votes for one Coalition party failing to transfer to the other, not least due to many voters "plumping" or just using a single preference. For parties aiming to win as many seats as possible this is not a desirable situation and so it's unsurprising that the Coalition stands a single candidate. (In Queensland it proved even harder for the Coalition parties to agree such an arrangement and eventually the two parties merged to eliminate the problem.)

Claim 2. AV will put an end to negative campaigning and parties will have to offer positive reasons to vote for them.

This is one of the wilder claims, and frankly feels like a typical case of seizing on any unpopular element in politics and pretending the proposed change will magic it away. In fact the types of campaigning used reflect the political culture, the effectiveness of methods and any laws governing it far far more than the voting system in use. New South Wales is certainly not free of negative campaigning as this Labor party advert from the last election shows:

If you can find one positive reason to vote for Labor in there (beyond their ability to make cartoons and catchy songs) I'll buy you a pint.

(By the way there is one myth about AV that stems from New South Wales that can be cleared up. There's a belief in some quarters that AV will lead to ballot papers that are the size of tablecloths - some of you may remember David Dimbleby producing one such monster on a few election nights. In fact those monster ballot papers are for the state upper house which is elected by Single Transferable Vote with an option to use a Group voting ticket. That's something different from AV and there are plenty of good reasons for voting against it without the need to resort to such scare myths.)

The Australian AV deadlock

Australia has one of the strongest two party systems in the world. So it's amazing that yesterday's election has produced a hung parliament and potential deadlock that makes our election outcome look simple by comparison.

Hung parliaments are historically rare in Australia. I can think of only six previous ones - the 1901, 1903 & 1906 elections when the party system was still in flux with three sizeable groups (Free Traders, Protectionists and Labor), the 1922 and 1934 elections when the Coalition between the Nationalists/United Australia Party and Country Party (now the Nationals) wasn't operating but it was soon assembled afterwards, and 1940 when the Coalition and Labor were neck & neck, with two independents holding the balance of power. The two independents supported the Coalition for a year, but then when Robert Menzies was deposed as Prime Minister the independents deserted and Labor took office without an election. The 1901-1910 period also saw a lot of parliamentary musical chairs as three parties vie for an outcome.

This time round the situation could be very messy. Firstly a note on the results figures floating around - these are provisional. Australia counts by the polling station and the formal declaration usually doesn't come for a couple of weeks. In the meantime most results are clear enough but a few knife-edge seats could tip either way, not least because postal votes can still arrive for the next two weeks. (The Australian: Count continuing and state swings notes how in 2007 the initial projection and final outcome varied.)

The second key point is that contrary to the way a lot of the national figures have been presented, one of the Nationals MPs is not going to be part of the conservative Coalition. The Nationals in Western Australia take a different approach from their eastern counterparts and operate as an independent third force focused on the needs of regional Australia. They are willing to work with Labor if it will help their constituents (and their counterparts in South Australia have already done so) and want the federal party to do the same. And if Tony Crook (who ironically defeated the only sitting MP with a criminal conviction) can't get that then he will probably be another independent force.

So the current provisional seat count is as follows:

Labor 72
Liberal/National Coalition 72
Independents 4
Greens 1
WA Nationals 1

Three of the Independents are ex Nationals & sitting MPs re-elected - see Third parties & independents under AV - the Australian experience for more details. The fourth independent is an ex Green candidate and anti-war protester who has won the urban seat of Denison.

So the balance of power rests with a disparate "Gang of Six" on the crossbenches and these six will not all work together as one block. There's also no real clarity over which of the two main parties have at least a plurality - they're equal in seats and the "Two-Party-Preferred" vote is very close and will take to finalise. So there isn't even anything to guide the six towards which party has a stronger democratic basis to form the next government. And whilst the three ex National Independents have publicly announced they will have discussions amongst themselves about what to do, they're giving slightly different signals about their intentions. And of course even if they do work as a block of three they can't deliver a majority in & of themselves. If the WA National joins them then they could at least offer a two vote majority but of the other two floaters the Green says he will support Labor and the the ex-Green independent would probably do the same, though he also wants a redress of the way federal funding goes in his state.

Advocates of hung parliaments and coalitions are fond of claiming that hung parliaments are good for countries because they produce compromises. But I don't think Australia is going to have that in pursuit of a majority. Instead it's likely that whichever party forms a government will do so by pumping extra federal spending into the various crossbenchers' constituencies. It's a great advert for hung parliaments isn't it?

Third parties & independents under AV - the Australian experience

Tomorrow the Australians will be electing a new parliament, doing so with the Alternative Vote that we will soon be considering here in the UK. Many of the individual election results will provide examples and points of argument, but one contest in particular is attracting attention, that for the Division of Melbourne, focused on the city's central business district. This is because there is a prospect of a third party making a breakthrough into the House of Representatives, traditionally a very two party place (the Liberal-National Coalition is basically one party in this line of argument). Now people like Antony Green are asking Can the Greens Win Melbourne? Tomorrow evening we will find out. (Unless of course it's really close and we have to wait longer for postal votes and recounts.)

With a coalition in the UK and so many smaller parties in the Commons people are naturally wondering if the introduction of AV will continue the trend or instead reverse it - indeed some Labour members have declared they will vote for AV precisely because of the limited success of third parties and independents in Australia. I am doubtful whether direct comparisons are meaningful in this regard, not least because Australia's elected Senate has given third parties an alternative target, but it seem a good time to look at the success rate of third force elements in Australia.

1949 is the best watershed to pick in Australian electoral history as it saw a change of government (with the victorious Coalition holding power for no less than 23 years) and a significant increase in the House of Representatives, whilst the party system has predominantly stayed the same since then. So what has been the record of the Alternative Vote in electing third parties and independents since then?

Very few is the answer. Only one federal general election since then has seen any MPs from a "third force" party elected at all, and that was in the circumstances of the 1987 election when the Liberal-National Coalition split and the Nationals fought as an independent force. I don't think this one really counts at all.

Only one other third party MP has been elected in the last sixty-one years, and that was Michael Organ who won the Cunningham by-election for the Greens in 2002, taking the seat from Labor. But this was a by-election in which the governing Liberal-Nationals did not stand a candidate whilst there were many minor and independent parties who directed preferences (via "How To Vote" cards) to Organ. He won despite having polled barely 23% of the first preferences. In 2004 it was a return to normal with the Liberals running a candidate who pushed Organ into third place whilst Labor regained the seat.

And that's it for third parties, although we wait to see if that changes at the weekend.

What about independents? Well in 1949 Lewis Nott (who had served as a Nationalist MP in the 1920s) won the Australian Capital Territory division with the help of Liberal transfers, but MPs for the territories did not have full voting rights at the time and this was not as significant a victory as a full voting seat. Nott was defeated in 1951.

The next successful independent was Sam Benson in 1966. He was a sitting Labor MP until expelled from the party for his support for the Defend Australia Committee, a predominantly right-wing body. He polled third but was elected thanks to Democratic Labor Party transfers getting him over the Liberals, in turn getting him over Labor. On both occasions the transfers were over 90% in his favour - a tribute to the effectiveness of How To Vote cards. Benson served one further term before retiring.

No more independents were elected until 1990, when Ted Mack was elected for North Sydney. Mack was the first of several independents who had built up a political profile at other levels of government, first serving as an independent member and then Mayor of North Sydney council. On the back of his profile he then won a seat in the state parliament as an independent. In 1990 he ran for the federal parliament and topped the first preferences, then took Democrats and Labor transfers to defeat the sitting Liberal. Mack was re-elected in 1993 and served until 1996.

Another independent was elected in the same parliament. Phil Clearly was the first independent in the period who did not have a previous political record. He was a former Australian rules football player and coach. In 1992 Bob Hawke resigned from parliament and the resulting Wills by-election attracted 22 candidates, mostly independents. In a crowded field and a high profile election Clearly took a third of the vote and benefitted from most other candidates' transfers. Clearly was subsequently disqualified for being a Crown employee when elected but won the seat again in the 1993 election. He lost in 1996 when boundary changes weakened his position and Labor retook the seat.

The 1996 election saw no less than five independents elected, all of whom can be easily categorised:

Ex Liberals:

* Pauline Hanson was selected as a Liberal candidate in a safe Labor seat but expelled from the party after she gained national fame from calling for the abolition of government assistance for indigenous Australians. She was expelled from the Liberals, but too late for the ballot papers to be changed; however her national fame saw her take nearly half the first preferences and achieve a two-candidate preferred result of 54.7%. She subsequently formed One Nation but was defeated in 1998 due to a combination of boundary changes and the mainstream parties directly tackling both One Nation and the roots of its support.

* Allan Rocher, a sitting Liberal MP who was defeated for renomination (in Australian parties sitting MPs can be directly challenged for nominations) but stood as an independent and held the seat, largely by outpolling Labor and then taking the latter's transfers to defeat the Liberals. He was defeated in 1998.

* Paul Filing, another deselected Liberal MP who held his seat as an independent, though this time using Liberal transfers to beat Labor, before being defeated in 1998.

Ex Labor:

* Graeme Campbell, a sitting Labor MP expelled for support for various far right causes and organisations. He absorbed Liberal transfers to defeat Labor, subsequently forming the "Australia First", a fringe nationalist party. In 1998 he was defeated.

Independent "celebrity"

* Peter Andren, a broadcaster who won Calare from the Nationals after a tight three-way contest in which Andren ultimately benefited from Labor transfers. Andren was the only one of the five independents to retain his seat in 1998 and served until 2007 when the regular scourge of independents, boundary changes, put his parliamentary future in doubt. He announced he would stand down from the House of Representatives at the 2007 election and instead stand for the Senate; however he abandoned his plans when diagnosed with cancer later that year and died just after the dissolution of the parliament.

In 2001 Andren was joined by two more independents, and since his retirement a third was elected in a 2008 by-election. All three have served up to now and are restanding, and all are ex National Party politicians:

* Bob Katter, a sitting National MP (and former state MP and minister) who left the National Party as he disagreed with it on economic and social issues. In 2001 he polled nearly half the first preferences, easily dwarfing his old party whose transfers joined with One Nation's to helped Katter defeat Labor. Katter's primary vote has since stood at about 40% in both subsequent elections but the bulk of transfers have helped him reach the final two and easily defeat Labor each time.

* Tony Windsor was originally picked as a National candidate for the New South Wales state parliament in 1991, but deselected over accusations about drink driving. Standing as an independent he won and held the seat for ten years, before standing for the federal parliament in 2001 in a normally National held seat. He took nearly half the primary vote and absorbed transfers from One Nation and Labor to defeat the Nationals. At the two subsequent elections Windsor has polled a primary vote of around 60% each time.

* Rob Oakeshott was a sitting National state MP in New South Wales when he left the party in 2002 after a period of disillusionment and disputes about influences in his constituency. He held his state seat as an independent until 2008 when a federal by-election occurred in the wider Lynne seat. Oakshott stood and took the seat from the Nationals with 64% of the primary vote (with Labor not standing a candidate) and most small party transfers.

What does this rundown show? Well of the twelve independents elected in the period most were the products of splits within their party (even if the split was localised to themselves). Only three had no background in a major party and only two had no prior political experience at all. None lacked any public profile at all. Furthermore no less than seven were elected in a single decade (even if one was to be re-elected in the following). By UK terms this is predominantly a collection of independents like Sylvia Hermon and the late Peter Law rather than Martin Bell and Richard Taylor.

And the UK practice and culture will likely be different. Some of the Australian independents were able to get a strong enough personal vote to be elected in their own right, but others only won their elections because they were able to outpoll one of the two big parties and then take that party's transfers to defeat the other. A system of optional preferencing where How To Vote cards are (at least initially) likely to be rare (and the British election law about what can be given to voters going into a polling station differs from Australia's) would have made it much harder for some of these independents to be elected. The Greens would also likely have lost in Cunningham had the Liberals stood a candidate in that by-elections - in the UK there is no real tradition of major parties not contesting by-elections, at least outside of Northern Ireland (and that's a repeat of the general election pattern). So in many regards third parties face an even tougher struggle.

On the other hand as I previously explained one doesn't always need 50% of people voting to win under AV, and there are several already established smaller parties along with a greater floating vote that is willing to go outside the big two, so the third parties and independents would have greater scope for election. It is all swings and roundabouts.

Alterative Vote: What does 50% mean?

I've recently written a few pieces answering various questions about the operation of the Alternative Vote, including ConservativeHome CentreRight: The Alternative Vote in Australia – what does it produce?. There's another question that's come up a bit, namely:

"Who are the '50%' needed to win election?"

This is actually more complex than it sounds because an awful lot of the comment on this is confusing several distinct definitions. For example Nick Clegg, in evidence to the Commons Select Committee, stated:

"...it also means that people elected to Westminster know that, through the redistribution of the votes, they have a mandate of 50% or more of people in their community..."

(Quoted in The Constitution Society: Briefing Paper: Alternative Voting, page 3)

Clegg's statement is as confused as much of it. By "community" does he mean:

1. Every single person living in a constituency, including children, eligible but unregistered adults and ineligible adults (mainly non-citizens)?
2. Every single adult living in a constituency...?
3. The full registered electorate, including many "ghost voters" who are still on the register despite having moved?
4. The "actual" registered electorate, excluding the "ghost voters"?
5. Voters who turn out and cast ballot papers?
6. Voters who turn out and cast valid votes?
7. Voters whose ballot paper is still the count at the crucial stage electing an MP?
8. Voters whose ballot paper is still in the count at the "Two Party/Candidate Preferred" stage?

(The "Two Party/Candidate Preferred" stage is little known in the UK and in the numerous AV elections I've counted over the years I've never seen it done when a winner is already clear. It involves taking the count all the way to either the last two surviving candidates or the candidates from the two main parties to see the full distribution of support, even when the election has been decided at an early stage.)

Sure some of these are relatively close definitions but there's a big gap between others. Non-voters are a part of the community, but they're not part of the election process and I've not noticed anything in the proposed referendum that's going to change that. Similarly "ghost voters" are effectively out of the process (though get counted in the official turnout statistics). And there's no clear evidence as to whether AV will actually lead to an increase in turnout or what the impact will be on the level of spoilt ballot papers. There will be all manner of claims made in all directions on those points, but the one thing that can be said for sure is that compulsory voting is not on the table.

The crucial "50%" actually refers to a stage in the count when one candidate gets more votes than all other candidates still in the count. If votes don't transfer then a candidate can get elected with less than 50% of all valid votes cast. This isn't just hypothetical. The Australian state of Queensland uses the "optional preferencing" system that the UK will be offered, and although turnout is compulsory you can still get members of the Legislative Assembly elected with less than 50% of the vote. In the last state election 16 of the 89 seats were won with this - and that's when the votes are transferred all the way to the Two Party/Candidate Preferred. (Psephos: Queensland election of 21 March 2009) There would probably have been many more cases if the Liberal and National parties had not merged and instead fielded separate candidates in many seats.

Closer to home over the years I've been involved with many many AV elections for a large variety of organisations. When there were quite a few candidates (usually four or more) it was quite common for large numbers of voters to fail to use their transfers, with the frequent result that the winner again had significantly less than 50%.

To explain how this works, a constituency might have the following first preferences:

Conservative 40
Labour 35
Liberal Democrat 15
UK Independence Party 6
Green 4

Nobody wins on the first round. Transfers might go as follows:

Exclude Greens

Conservative 40
Labour 36
Liberal Democrat 17
UK Independence Party 6
Non-Transfers 1

Exclude UK Independence Party

Conservative 43
Labour 37
Liberal Democrat 18
Non-Transfers 2

Exclude Liberal Democrat

Conservative 49 ELECTED
Labour 45
Non-Transfers 6

You'll see that the Conservative has won with less than 50% of the total votes cast but it's still more than 50% of the crucial stage. And if turnout is only 60% of registered voters then the winner has the support of only 29.4% of voters on the crucial round, 24% of first preferences and an even lower proportion of the entire population.

These figures are rather different from the image being thrown about by some AV supporters that the system is going to result in MPs suddenly having huge mandates and the support of the "majority of the community". The choice at the forthcoming referendum is not so clear cut as it may first seem.

Female Prime Ministers

Early today a sudden change occurred in Australia. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was facing a collapse in support within his own Labor Party so called a leadership election. But the power brokers within Labor turned against him and by the time it came for the vote his support was so weak he opted to not even stand. And so Australia now has a new Prime Minister, Julia Gillard.

(Rudd will no doubt be upset at being dumped by his party so early. In fact only one previous Australian Prime Minister has suffered a comparable fate. But that was Robert Menzies who bounced back to retake the leadership of his party and went on to be Australia's longest ever Prime Minister. The second longest, John Howard, also had an earlier period of leadership, albeit in opposition. So will Rudd return?)

But for now the moment is with Gillard. Around the world many Australians are proudly pointing out that they now have their first female Prime Minister.

Around the world many New Zealanders are loudly pointing out that they had their first one thirteen years ago. (Remember Jenny Shipley?)

And here in the UK we had ours thirty-one years ago, but some left-wing feminists are keen to downplay that, as though they want airbrush Margaret Thatcher out of the history books. Perhaps it's because she doesn't conform to the socialist-feminist perspective on what a female leader should be like. Perhaps it's because she, like so many women, was not concerned with implementing the more radical feminist agenda and called the bluff of those who claim all women have the same outlook. Maybe some feminists just don't like women who conform to their viewpoint - frankly a highly sexist attitude.

(The UK was actually beaten by an interesting mix of countries including Sri Lanka with Sirimavo Bandaranaike in 1960, India with Indira Gandhi in 1966, Israel with Golda Meir in 1969 and the Central African Republic with Elisabeth Domitien in 1975.)

But whilst the UK may have achieved this back in 1979 it's hard to pretend that since then women have been at the forefront of politics. Looking just at the leadership elections of the big three, since 1979 there have been sixteen different people on the ballot papers for the Conservative Party leadership, of whom Thatcher (in both 1989 & 1990) is the only woman. Labour have had nineteen different candidates, of whom Margaret Beckett (in 1994) and Diane Abbott (in 2010) are the only women. The Liberal Democrats (including predecessor parties) have had thirteen candidates including just one woman, Jackie Ballard (in 1999). There have been various other candidates who have launched bids for the leadership but abandoned them before appearing on the ballot paper - Stephen Dorrell, Don Foster, Alan Duncan, Malcolm Rifkind and John McDonell all spring to mind but no women.

I find it hard to believe that a male to female ratio of 11 to 1 remotely reflects the ratio of political talent in this country, no matter how many people may proclaim the absence of any formal barriers. There are a mixture of problems including time commitments, the fact that politics puts off disproportionately more women than men, and some attitudes. When women rise high in politics and fail they are often denounced as over promoted because of their gender. The same comments aren't made about failed men.

(Sure there are some women who have been over promoted because of this. I think it is perfectly valid to criticise Harriet Harman as over promoted because of her gender when even she made it her central pitch for the Labour deputy leadership, so it's hard to deny that she has got where she is because she is a woman. Theresa May has also danced around the edges of this - remember how when she was appointed Conservative Party chair her gender was stressed heavily? But the likes of Caroline Spelman and Yvette Cooper have not ridden the waves. If and when they fail big time it will be no different if they had been men.)

There isn't an obvious solution. Requiring X number of candidates/MPs/Cabinet members to be women risks over promoting mediocrities whose failure will merely set back the prospects of a level playing field. And the aim must be a level playing field not statistical exactitude. Helping talented women acquire the necessary skills and experience that they might not otherwise obtain so they can come forward and overcome the entry barriers is a much better way. Hopefully when David Cameron retires in a decade or so there will be women who come forward as candidates not as a mere token but as strong competitive contenders on equal terms.

Could Abbott become Prime Minister?

I have just seen news I never thought I would see. It seems there has been a major shift amongst political betters, with more than 90% of recent bets backing Abbott for Prime Minister. Opinion polls are also starting to shift. It seems that many people, including myself, who thought that an Abbott premiership was electorally impossible may well have to soon eat our words.

So could this soon be a Prime Ministerial portrait?

Yes, this is Tony Abbott, the man who gamblers think will be the next Prime Minister of Australia.

What, did you think I was talking about someone else?

The Age: Punters back Abbott for PM has more details.

Alternative Vote: The Australian experience

Antony Green is Australia's answer to Tony King, Peter Snow and more all rolled into one, a permanent part of the ABC's coverage of Australia elections. Antony Green's Election Blog is a wonderful source of psephological detail and analysis, particularly shedding light on the different voting systems in use down under. This week Green has produced an updated version of his article "Preferential Voting in Australia", specifically because of the renewed interest in the Alternative Vote (known as "Preferential Voting" down under) coming from the UK.

What is particularly surprising from a British perspective is that AV was introduced in Australia by a conservative government and for a long time it proved to be the glue that maintained the conservative "Coalition" of the Liberal and National Parties (and their predecessors) by allowing the two parties to simultaneously compete with each other and fight Labor. The article is worth a read as it shows how often preferences have played a role in the outcome of elections and how the parties benefiting have changed over time:

There is a remarkable conclusion to the article. In the high period of the DLP [Democratic Labor Party] between 1955 and 1972, the Coalition won a total of 34 seats at seven elections after trailing Labor on the first preference vote. In the same period, Labor came from behind to win in just one seat.

Since 1980, the operation of preferential voting has had the reverse political impact. At the 11 elections since 1980, the Coalition has won only five seats where the combined Coalition vote trailed Labor on the first preference count. In the same period, Labor has won a total of 61 seats having trailed the combined Coalition vote on first preferences.
...
Given this record, it is a wonder that hard-heads in the Coalition haven't realised they are being beaten by compulsory preferential voting, and perhaps optional preferential voting might be worth a try.
...
The 2007 election joins 1990, 1961 and 1969, as examples of preferential voting electing a government that could have fallen short of a majority under simple majority voting.

How much we can conclude about introducing AV in the UK is hard to say, because it would almost certainly be optional preferencing and it's not clear how many votes would be "lost" to the main parties at the first preference stage and fail to return. Still it's good fodder for the discussion here.

The election count - get it right not get it first

I have just seen Iain Dale's Diary: Election Night Bill Needed in which he's now calling for legislation to have all the counts done immediately on the night. You'd think from all this "Save Election Night" campaigning that things have been done this way since time immemorial.

But as some my readers will remember, there have been many parliamentary elections when the votes haven't been counted until the next day. In 1945 the votes weren't counted for a whole three weeks. I have no idea if the 1945 equivalent of the blogosphere got worked up about this. (The reason for such a lengthy delay was that time was needed to collect the votes of servicemen overseas.) At most other elections there have been many constituencies that have not counted on the night, usually because of the time it takes to bring all the ballot boxes together - has this caused uproar and fraud? Seats in Northern Ireland have almost always counted the next day after all!

Nor have governments always changed immediately on the day after polling. In 1929 polling day was on May 30th but Ramsay MacDonald didn't kiss hands until June 5th - was there widespread outrage at Stanley Baldwin still being in office for a few days?

And in many other countries the final result, and the change of leadership, often takes days on end. In the last Australian election polling was on November 24th but the formal result took nearly two weeks to finalise, and Kevin Rudd's government wasn't sworn in until December 3rd. In the last US Presidential election some of the counting went on into December.

Counts in Australia, the United States and many other countries take so long for one main reason - postal votes (and other forms of distant voting) do not reach the count by the end of polling day. The requirement is usually that the vote be sent by polling day, not that it be received by then. There are also other arrangements for remote voting in various countries, including one provision that allows a voter to walk into any polling station in the country on polling day, provide proof of their address and receive valid ballot papers for their local polling station that they are away from. Again these votes take time to make it back to the relevant count.

The way the count is done in many countries differs from our methods. Instead of taking all the ballot boxes to a central location and counting them on one site, they are often counted at the polling station and the individual results declared. The ballot papers can, of course, be recounted at a central location if the result is close and/or there are disputes over the rulings on questionable papers. This isn't so different from the European Parliament or devolved parliaments or Greater London Authority elections where for all the list elections and the London Mayoralty the votes are counted at several different locations.

Now in none of these cases did civilisation collapse just because the final election result wasn't available on the night. And in all of them the provision for postal/overseas/absent ballots meant that it wasn't possible.

Which brings us to the UK counts. Whilst simple cost and travel logistics are and always have been reasons for some seats not counting on the night, there is a new factor - the massive increase in postal voting on demand. With postal votes arriving even at the end of polling day the system going to come under a much greater strain than before in order to carry out accurate verification. That is going to make the whole thing take longer, increasing the risk of mistakes because the counting staff are ever more tired.

Speedy, sloppy election results benefit no-one. And if the election is incredibly close and hinges on one or two very tight seats, is it really in anyone's benefit if there are disputes and questions about the results in those seats because of the judgement calls made in a hurry to get the result out on the night?

If this means a lameduck government leaves office on a Saturday or Sunday rather than a Friday, so what? And yes it will mean political junkies don't get the full fun of results at 3 o'clock in the morning, but democracy should not be run as a spectator sport.

(And we've barely touched on the cost. Are the "Save Election Night" campaigners willing to personally stump up for the overtime rates? Or do they expect it to come out of our council taxes?)

So let's stop worrying about whether the vote is counted on the night or the next day and put election accuracy first. It may take a little longer but it will be well worth it.

The future of the monarchy

My final thoughts on last week's events in Australia relates to the issue down under that usually generates the most interest here - the republic debate. The new Liberal leader, Tony Abbott, is a firm monarchist, in contrast to his predecessor, Malcolm Turnbull, who is a former chair of the Australian Republican Movement. So people will be wondering whether this makes the monarchy any safer in Australia, and in turn whether this will have any knock-on effects in the other Commonwealth Realms including the UK.

Personally I think the current revolving door on the Liberal Party leadership is not going to have the slightest impact one way or the other. That's because I don't think a decisive move is going to happen any time soon for three reasons:

1. It's only ten years since the Australian public rejected a republic at a referendum and many have a "been there, done that" attitude to the question.
2. The present Queen is personally very popular and many Australian republicans have openly stated they don't believe the issue can be won in her lifetime.
3. Republicans are split over what form of republic they want because of a realisation of the potential consequences.

It's the third that's the main problem, whether in Australia or elsewhere (although the problem is even worse in Australia than in the UK).

The problem is that under the system of government in both countries, the monarch (or their representative the Governor General) has HUGE powers but by convention they are almost never exercised except on the formal advice of the government of the day or in exceptional political crises where the monarch/Governor General has to step in to force a resolution. The main ones I'll focus on are:

• The ability to dissolve Parliament.
• The ability to appoint and dismiss ministers and whole governments.
• The ability to withhold assent to legislation.

They don't seem much but that's because the monarchy has acted with restraint, precisely because of the fear that acting wrongly will bring down the institution.

But to simply replace the monarch with a President with no other changes to the system will mean that suddenly the powers are wielded by a person with a mandate. And depending on what mandate that is - a directly elected President could claim their very election to the post as a mandate; even a parliamentary appointed President could argue they have the same legitimacy as the government of the day - there is a real danger that the powers could be used.

Imagine, for an instance, that the government of the day is going through a period of midterm unpopularity of the type early all suffer, and the opposition wish that an election could happen right now as they would win a thumping victory. Now supposing the President was from the opposition party and exercised their powers to force a snap election - would that be right? But what is to stop them? The answer isn't convention. The 1975 Australian constitutional crisis saw several conventions broken for the sake of political expediency, with only lip service given to higher reasons for breaking such conventions, culminating in the opposition using their control of the Senate to force an early election. (Whether Australia had a monarch, Governor General or President in the role of umpire probably wouldn't have made any difference. One might argue a President would have to face the electorate for their decision, but then the opposition did and they gained/retained control of both houses.)

Or what is to stop a President intervening to sack individual ministers under fire? Or to veto legislation? The answer would be absolutely nothing.

There are two possible ways round this, but both have their pains. The first is to rigidly define the President's powers and either reallocate some of them or remove the problem altogether - for instance the power to appoint other ministers could be transferred completely to the Prime Minister. The second is to build in a mechanism that can in the first instance allow for political or popular overriding of the President's decision and in the second remove the President from office before the expiry of their term.

Both of these can be done, but most current republics have been republics since at least the adoption of their current constitution and have developed solutions at the outset. They haven't had to radically alter their constitution when everything else is functioning normally, or have to face the political fallout. And they haven't had to answer other questions - e.g. if the Parliament can immediately override a Presidential veto, why does it take so much longer for the lower house to override a veto in the upper house and shouldn't that also be changed?

(Australia has the yet further problem that constitutional amendments must pass at referendums with the double requirement of a majority of those voting plus a majority in each of at least four states. Only 8 of the 44 referendums have passed. In the UK whilst we would probably have a referendum on the basics of the monarchy vs the general sort of republic proposed, the detail would be thrashed out in Parliament.)

That's not to say this is impossible, but for a republic to come about it will need far more than just dislike of the royals - all the remarks of the Duke of Edinburgh or the foolishness of certain younger royals or silliness from hangers on like Princess Michael of Kent are not going to bring this about. It will require much discussion and agreement on the detail and real solutions found to the potential for abuse of power. The 1999 Australian referendum saw a divide between those republicans who supported the proposed parliamentary-appointed model and those who favoured direct election and so voted against the proposal on the table - one of the details attacked the most was the proposal for the Prime Minister to be able to sack the President.

Of course once such a model is found that can work within the political traditions and culture of the country then it could well be only a matter of time before change comes. And given the links between the various Commonwealth republican movements (see Common Cause) it is probable that the basic model that works for Australia will work for other Commonwealth countries and spread there. But it will take time. A lot of time.

It's even grimmer down under

I've just seen the news that the Liberal Party of Australia have elected as their new leader Tony Abbott. (ABC News: Shock win for Abbott in leadership vote)

This is the equivalent of if the UK Conservative Party in its darkest years had ever elected John Redwood as leader.

So anyone who ever thought that either the William Hague or Iain Duncan Smith years were so horrible and there was no lower that the Conservatives could have sunk, think again. There truly was a lower point possible.

And to Australian conservatives, I'm afraid this looks even worse than the Downer Months. You have my deepest sympathies.

It's grim down under...

Once upon a time Australia had a successful conservative party called the Liberal Party, for reasons of Australian history. It governed Australia for 42 of the last 60 years. Sure it had its ups and downs but it persevered and gave conservatives around the world hope and inspiration. Not for nothing were Robert Menzies and John Howard so admired by the British right.

Sadly that was then and this is now. In the last two years the Liberal Party lost a federal election and has imploded. First it elected as leader its very own version of Iain Duncan Smith, Brendan Nelson. Then it deposed him after only nine months. Next it elected Malcolm Turnbull who has lasted until now despite rubbish poll ratings and endless speculation.

But in the last week the party has descended into chaos over proposed climate change legislation. A large number of front benchers have resigned and at a meeting of the parliamentary party a motion to hold a leadership election was defeated by only 48:35, despite the only challenger coming forward being unelectable even by current Liberal standards. (ABC News: Defiant Turnbull takes on climate rebels & Conservativeinternational: Six frontbenchers quit Liberal frontbench in protest at Malcolm Turnbull's climate change deal with Kevin Rudd) One of them, Tony Abbott, is likely to be the credible challenger for the leadership that Turnbull has so far not yet faced.

What makes this even more ridiculous is that it's highly likely the Australia's Labor government will get climate change legislation passed one one way or another - either moderate proposals now with Liberal backing in the Senate or radical proposals after a potential "double dissolution" election that will give the Green Party the balance of power in the Senate. But common sense and pragmatism seems lacking in all this.

Here in the UK the Conservatives went through a horrible six years of naval gazing, infighting and umpteen leadership elections before we even began to get our spirit back. Now it seems that affliction has spread to the Australian Liberals and will harm them for a long time to come.

Oh and yes the Liberals have had leadership problems in the past. They once had an eight month leadership by Alexander Downer that few remember with praise - see YouTube: The Downer Months. But the party then had ideas and alternative talent, and soon found a viable new leader who swept them to election. Today it seems to have none of these.

Election debates from around the world

I have just seen BBC News: New pressure for TV leader debate which reports that the prospect of the next election featuring a debate between the party leaders is getting stronger because Sky News is willing to go ahead with one even if any one leader refuses to take part.

Such debates are most familiar from US Presidential elections, but they take place in many countries around the world, including countries that have a similar parliamentary system to the UK where leaders regularly go head to head in parliament. Here are a few examples courtesy of YouTube:

First we have the start of the leaders' debate from the 2007 Australia election, featuring John Howard (Liberal/National Coalition) and Kevin Rudd (Labor):
Next we have the start of the leaders' English speaking debate from the 2008 Canadian election featuring Stéphane Dion (Liberal), Gilles Duceppe (Bloc Québécois), Stephen Harper (Conservative), Jack Layton (New Democratic Party) and Elizabeth May (Green):

UPDATE: This clip is no longer available on YouTube but can be seen on the CBC website. Many thanks to forumer Severian for this link.

And thirdly we have the start of the leaders' debate from the 2008 New Zealand election featuring Helen Clark (Labour) and John Key (National):
Quite a mixture of formats but all show that the basics can work and offer a broader scope than parliamentary questions. (And the Canadian line-up including Duceppe suggests it would be possible to include the Scottish Nationalists & Plaid Cymru, although I'm not sure if the Northern Ireland parties could be so easily incorporated.)

So will we have a leader' debate at the next election? We shall see...

When a Speaker is under attack

Another clip from a Commonwealth Parliament, this time from Australia in 1995. John Howard was moving a motion of censure against the-then Prime Minister Paul Keating, but look at the exchanges involving the-then Speaker Stephen Martin in the first 1:20 and again from about 5:15 onwards:
It's of a level that not even our House of Commons reached on Monday.

Malapportionment in the UK?

One of the issues that has exercised many fingers in the Conservative blogosphere in recent years is the basic question of apportionment of constituencies for the House of Commons, with discussion of concepts of "fairness", "how many votes does it take to elect an MP from each party?", "Scotland is overrepresented" and so forth being thrown around. And a lot of the discussion is frankly poorly informed, out of context and mixing up several different concepts. See for example some of the comments below ConservativeHome: John Leonard: Don't reduce our representation at Westminster.

So I'd like to try and have a go at looking at what the various issues and confusions are, to see if there really is a bias in the system and whether it's deliberate or not.

Firstly a note on a few terms. "Gerrymandering" is the deliberate fixing of political boundaries to secure results. "Malapportionment" is when some people/areas have more representation than others. Although the two can be combined they can also occur separately - the United States has taken the principle of exactly equal sized constituencies to ridiculous extremes (with courts rejecting even a difference of just 19 voters) but has amongst the worst gerrymandering in the democratic world, whilst Australia has seen virtually no gerrymandering in its history but has a long history of malapportionment.

The other key terms are the "Boundary Commission", one of four impartial bodies that amend parliamentary boundaries, and the "quota", which is both the average number of voters per constituency in the existing constituencies and the desirable target size for each constituency on the new boundaries. I'll say upfront that I don't believe the Boundary Commissions have an inbuilt bias. Rather they are trying to apply the various rules and precedents to a situation that is far more complicated than its critics often realise, but are coming from a non-partisan background.

This brings us neatly to the first key distinction. All too often the population, the total electorate and the people who actually turn out to vote are used almost interchangeably. But these are three distinctly defined groups. One of the biggest confusions comes because constituencies in the UK are designed on the basis of the total number of registered voters and not just those who turn out. Since the turnout varies across the country this often means that even if the constituencies have exactly equal numbers of registered voters there will still be some seats with more people voting than others. And because turnout in safe Conservative seats is invariably higher than in safe Labour seats this is the start of the numbers appearing to show a bias.

(A further factor in this is the accuracy of the electoral register. In urban areas in particular there is often a high turnover of population with the result that there are many people still listed on the register at both an old and new address, thus reducing the nominal turnout. Similarly many people with multiple addresses like students are registered at both addresses but can only vote once per election. The Boundary Commissions are presently not allowed to take either of these factors into account. Changes to the way voter registration is done in this country are likely to have a significant effect on the numbers.)

The second distinction is the point in time at which equality must occur. The Boundary Commissions are required by law to use only the numbers on the electoral register at the start of the review. But reviews often take a few years to complete and in turn the resulting boundaries are often used for several elections - for instance the boundaries produced in a review based on voter location in 1976 were not replaced until 1997 (bar a few minor local changes). The result is that by the time the boundaries come in they are already out of date and as time goes on the perceived problem worsens. It is no coincidence that this issue has arisen in the last few years, when the current boundaries date to 1991.

The obvious solution is to have more frequent boundary reviews, but this presents other problems, as discovered by the political parties at the 1955 election when the boundaries were changed after only five years. Several MPs found their seats disappearing, there was political chaos when new seats had two (or more) "sitting MPs" who battled for the nomination, local parties had to be reorganised and voters became confused by the sudden changeover. As a result of this it was agreed to have a longer period between reviews so as to minimise the disruption.

By far the most complicated set of number variations comes with the main stage. As you can probably guess an attempt to redraw boundaries for 533 constituencies in one go would overload the work of the Commissions, as well as make it very hard for members of the public to hold it to account. The result is that the review is broken into smaller amounts, usually at the level of the county. Invariably this forces some rounding - for instance Surrey in the most recent review has 11.43 quotas and so is rounded to the nearest whole, 11. Generally this effect balances itself out, though as urban unitary authorities tend to be smaller than provincial counties the rounding effect does create a slight urban bias.

A further bias comes in the use of the local government ward as the basic building block. Rather than face a potential infinite number of lines on the map that can be proposed and counter-proposed, the Boundary Commissions reinforces their neutrality by rarely going below ward level. This make the process much easier to follow, but once again the ward forces a rounding effect. Some wards in Birmingham have getting on for 20,000 voters and can leave the Commission facing either a 10,000 undersized seat or a 10,000 oversized one. Once again this effect is more urban as the wards usually have more voters there, though some rural wards are awkward combinations of several scattered villages. (And these can be further complicated if different villages in the same ward have different main towns.)

The cause of the most extreme variations is physical geography. Often there are some incredibly natural boundaries in existence, whilst in many rural areas it is difficult to represent the scattered voters if the seat is too large. The result is that some big variations come. As I've blogged before (A nice big seat) the constituency with the most voters is the Isle of Wight, because it's just too small to split in two and having a seat span the Solent is absurd. Similarly the smallest seat is Na h-Eileanan an Iar, formerly known as the Western Isles, where representing a scattered cluster of islands is already difficult enough without adding on the mainland as well. Mainland areas can also have undersized seats - the Scottish Highlands, Cumbria and Northumbria all get extra seats because of this.

Such a practice is followed in most parts of the world. The Division of Kalgoorlie (to the right) is not well known in the UK. If it were people would be amazed to learn it has a single MP. For this constituency in the Australian Parliament covers most of the non-Perth & environs area of Western Australia - a "mere" 2,295,354 km². At the last election it had 80,773 voters. Representing the seat must be an onourous task and perhaps this is why despite regularly being held by the government of the day it has not been represented by a minister since 1949.

The Division of Lingiari (to the left) has fared better, with the present member currently sitting in the Cabinet. But Lingiari is another monster seat, covering the entire of the Northern Territory except for the city of Darwin, and also includes the Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands. It has an area of 1,347,849 km² and still has one of the smallest electorates, only 60,341 at the last election. And it's not just Australia with such large constituencies - Canada has the Nunavut electoral district covering the entire of the territory of the same name. It has an area of 2,093,190 km² and just 17,088 voters.

And there are many others. Whilst some of the earlier biases have benefited urban areas, and thus Labour, this one is anti-Labour. The extra seats in Northumbria and Cumbria are both Conservative, whilst all five seats, and thus the two extra, in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, are not held by Labour. It's also interesting to note that, as with some of the other causes of grievances in the system, this is also one that was agreed in recent times. In 1944 when the rules for the current system of reviews were agreed, proposals for a greater equality of constituency size resulted in many natural communities being broken up. It was agreed that a greater level of discretion would be allowed to cover natural communities and rural areas. (I don't think it's a coincidence that a large part of the complaints about the current set-up come from people in urban areas where this is less of an issue.)

Perhaps the biggest myth is that Scotland is still overrepresented compared to England. Since 2005 this has no longer been the case as Scotland now has seats based on the English quota. The reason it has a slightly lower number of voters per constituency is because of the extra seats in the Highlands and Islands, but as this rule also applies to England there is no imbalance.

There is however an imbalance when it comes to Wales. Firstly legislation gives Wales a minimum of thirty-five constituencies when on the same numbers as England it would have only thirty-two. Unlike Scotland this provision has not been repealed. Secondly Wales also has geographically sparse areas, with most of its smallest seats in the north and west (not the Labour the heartland in the south). Thirdly because each part of the UK has a separate Boundary Commission, the quota for each part is calculated separately and imbalances are rarely explicitly reset, and Wales has been operating on separate figures since 1944 (although amendments to both the Scottish and Northern Irish provisions in the last thirty years have had a reset effect).

This has been quite a detailed post so far but I hope it has shown that the imbalances in the system are not deliberate and are instead the by-product of several individual factors designed to make the system easier to use. There is, however, one area where political influence can make a difference.

As part of the public accountability of the review, the proposals must be subjected to a public enquiry if there is sufficient demand. At these reviews local parties and individuals will comment on the proposals and sometimes argue alternative proposals. Some of this is with an eye to partisan benefit, but argued on the basis of what the natural ties in an area are. Others are simply concerned with local ties, such as having a village in the same constituency as its main town, or matching the seat to things such as school catchment areas, bus routes and local newspapers and so forth. Unfortunately if one side makes a fantastic effort and the other a dire one it can have a distorted outcome. And during the 1990s review the Labour Party devoted central resources to supporting and co-ordinating responses to the individual sections of the review. By contrast the Conservatives left it to local parties who often wound up arguing against each other, with some in safe seats seemingly prioritising having the largest majority in the area over all other concerns! But to blame the Commission for accepting the better argued Labour cases is like an amateur who knows nothing about law arguing in court with a top QC and accusing the judge of bias for accepting the latter's outcome.

My very last point on this is the whole notion that there should be equity in the "number of votes it takes to elect an MP from a particular party". Such a concept is totally alien to a constituency based electoral system. If a party has a weak and scattered vote (as the Conservative vote has been in recent elections for reasons that having nothing to do with the boundaries) then it will find it difficult to win seats. By contrast if the vote is strong and concentrated it becomes easier. The first past the post electoral system has always carried this risk, regardless of constituency size, and trying to rig the boundaries to make the seats deliver a predetermined outcome would be a gerrymander that produced hideously unnatural seats. If people want "fairness" and "equality" in this area, the logical solution is a change in the voting system (though few proportional systems deliver absolute "equality" either), not a boundary fix. But I doubt many want to take that leap into the dark just yet.

I hope this post has helped enlighten what is a very complicated process. I don't believe there is any simple solution in this area because the problem is in the detail. The simplistic changes proposed in some quarters would produce awkward alternatives that no-one is actually advocating in and of themselves. And the differences are hardly on the grand scale of some of the grand malapportionments around the world in the past. The way to get more seats is to get more people voting Conservative.