The Case For 3 Member Electorates

 Queensland’s parliamentary system is based on single member electorates. All you can really say in praise of this system is that it reliably provides all Qld voters with a local member. There is no guarantee that the winner of the two part preferred (2PP) vote will form government nor that the parliament will function as a check and balance against government excesses.

This post looks at how a parliamentary system based on 3 member electorates could overcome most of the shortcomings of the current system.

1.0: FEATURES OF A GOOD ELECTORAL SYSTEM:

Table 1.1 lists desirable features of a good electoral system:

TABLE 1.1: FEATURES OF A GOOD ELECTORAL SYSTEM FOR QUEENSLAND

All voters who live in Qld have at least one local member.

Government is awarded to the winner of the two party* preferred (2PP) vote.

Who forms government is decided by the voters, not post election negotiations.

The opposition is not reduced to a point where they will struggle to provide a viable alternative or effective opposition.

All voters are important, not just the voters in marginal seats.

Results do not depend on the location of electorate boundaries or differences in the percentage of voters for particular parties from electorate to electorate.

Does not make it too difficult for independents or small parties to win some seats.

Provides no incentive to vote strategically.

One of the members in every electorate is a member of the government.

Provides some check and balance on government decisions.

The government cannot be blocked from raising the money needed to do its job properly.

There are mechanisms for dealing with deadlocks.

It is difficult for a vote of no confidence to force an early election.

(*NOTE: In this post the term “party” will include coalitions registered before the election.)

2.0: HOW DOES THE CURRENT QLD SYSTEM RATE?

Qld currently has a single house of government made up of 89 single member electorates. This system reliably provides all voters with a local member and usually satisfies items 2 to 4. The rest are rarely or never satisfied.

(In Appendix A the results of the 2012 Qld election are used to highlight some of the problems with Qld’s current one member electorate system.)

3.0: PROPOSAL FOR A 3 MEMBER ELECTORATE SINGLE HOUSE SYSTEM:

A number of alternatives were looked during the preparation of this post but it was concluded that a single house system based on 3 member electorates had the best chance of meeting most of the desirable features mentioned in Table 1.1.

The following details a specific proposal for 3 member electorates.

TABLE 3.1: KEY FEATURES OF THE PROPOSED SYSTEM

All electorates will have three members.

The party (or registered coalition) that wins the 2PP vote becomes the government

All electorates will have one government MP and two non-government MP’s.

MP’s will not all have the same number of votes in parliament.

The parliament will not be able to prevent the government getting the money it needs to do its job.

The government would be able to put blocked legislation to a referendum (or some other mechanism for consulting the people.)

An early election in response to a successful no confidence vote can only be called if the governor is convinced that this action is justified.

Table 3.2 sets out the details for one option. Some of items in this list assume that there will be times when the government does not have a working majority.

TABLE 3.2: DETAILS – PROPOSAL FOR A QLD 3 MEMBER ELECTORATE SYSTEM

NO.	ITEM	COMMENTS
1	93 single member electorates will be replaced by 31 three member electorates.	NOTE: Qld has 30 federal electorates.
2	Registered coalitions will be treated as registered parties where relevant.
3	Registered parties can have no more than one registered candidate for each electorate.	Unregistered candidates will be treated as independents for the purpose of the 2PP vote.
4	Voters will be able to allocate preferences.	Compulsory, optional or part compulsory?
5	The first stage of the count will be a state-wide count to determine which party wins the 2PP vote.	The winner will form government. (Basic requirement.)
6	The second stage will be a count for each electorate to determine who the MP’s will be for this electorate and how many votes each member takes to parliament:
6.1	The government candidate cannot be eliminated during this count.	Ensues each electorate has one government member.
6.2	The count will follow normal preference voting procedures until only three candidates remain.	These candidates become the 3 members for the electorate.
6.3	The member with the most votes will take 45% of the electorates votes to parliament with the second and third highest getting 30% and 25% respectively.	This system will always provide a check and balance. No party will end up having enough votes on its own to pass or block legislation.
7	By-elections will be replaced by something similar to what is used in the Senate. (Party selects the replacement.)	By-elections are not practical for 3 member electorates. (Independents may be required to nominate a political heir.)
8	Members will be able to nominate a proxy to cover when they are absent.	Simple swaps won’t work because the number of votes a member has will vary.
	The above election procedures mean that no government will end up with a working majority in it’s own right. The following will help deal with this issue:
9	The parliament would not be able to block the action required to provide the money needed for the government to do its job. This includes raising loans as well as changing taxes and charges.	The relevant legislation would have to be presented to parliament and voted on before the government could decide to overrule the parliamentary vote.
10	The government would have the option of putting legislation voted down by parliament to a referendum (or some other mechanism for consulting the people.)	The relevant legislation would have to presented to parliament and voted on before the government could put the legislation to a referendum. Legislation passed by referendum could not be changed by parliament until after the following election.
11	The speaker will have the option of voting if this vote will affect an outcome.
12	An early election in response to a successful no confidence vote can only be called if the governor is convinced that this action is justified	The combined non-government parties will usually have a majority that, in theory, could be used to pass trivial votes of no confidence.

4.0: DISCUSSION

Unless there is a major change in voting patterns the proposed system would be expected to produce a Qld parliament that had about 31 LNP and 31 Labor members with the remaining 31 places going to a mix of independents and minor party members.

In terms of who forms government what is proposed in Table 3.2 meets all the relevant requirements listed in Table 1.1 except that an incentive to vote strategically for the 2PP vote might become relevant if the top three parties become closer in size. (NOTE: The potential incentive for strategic voting could be removed by allowing the party that came 3^rd during the 2PP count to challenge the winner of the initial 2PP count and to form government if it can beat both the parties that came ahead of it in a 2PP count. )

In terms of who the non-government members are most of the relevant requirements will be met. However:

1. The result will be influenced by the location of boundaries and the distribution of party supporters. (Both how many members non-government parties get and the votes members take to parliament.)
2. In some cases there will be an incentive to vote strategically.

In terms of the workability of the parliament what is proposed will allow the parliament to provide a check and balance without making it too hard for the government to go about its business. Keep in mind:

1. The government cannot be denied the money it needs to do its job.
2. No party on its own will have enough votes to pass or block legislation.
3. The referendum option could be used as a last resort to pass or modify legislation when the public supports the government’s position.

Hopefully, both sides of parliament may have enough sense to back down and avoid a referendum when the polls clearly show that they would lose the referendum.)

There are a number of changes to this proposal that might be considered including:

1. Change item 3 in table 3.2 to allow parties to have more than one registered candidate. This would be OK if the first stage of the vote count was used to bring the number of registered candidates down to one for each registered party. (Only voters who gave their first preference to the relevant party would take part in this count. The preferences of losers would be distributed and the losing candidate would take no further part in the election.)
2. Change item 6.3 so that the votes that the three members for an electorate will take to parliament will the votes they have when all except the last three candidates have been eliminated. This change will make the number of votes members take to the parliament to reflect more closely the support they received. This change means that there will be times when a government will have a working majority in it own right. (For example, the LNP would have had a working majority in its own right if this change had applied for the 2012 election.) (It might be argued that a party that gets strong support should be able to govern in its own right. Alternatively, the checks and balance could be maintained by capping the percentage of votes a party has in parliament to something under 50%. (All members of the affected party would have their vote reduced by enough to avoid exceeding the cap.)
3. Votes of no confidence could be eliminated altogether or the current no=confidence rules remain the same as they are now.
4. Numbers in clauses like 6.3, table 3.2 could be changed.

APPENDIX A: RESULTS OF QLD 2012 STATE ELECTION

The Queensland state 2012 election results highlight some of the problems associated with single member electorates. Table A1.1 provides the key results:

TABLE A1.1: RESULTS OF QLD 2012 ELECTION

PARTY	RESULTS QLD 2012 ELECTION
	% OF PRIMARY VOTE (@ 2 April 2012)	MEMBERS ELECTED (Actual Result)	% OF MEMBERS
LNP	49.7	78	87.7
ALP	26.7	7	7.9
KAP	11.5	2	2.2
GREENS	7.4	0	0
FAMILY FIRST	1.4	0	0
ONE NATION	0.1	0	0
INDEPENDENTS	3.2	2	2.2
TOTAL	100.0	89	100.0

(Details of the Qld electoral system and the 2012 election results can be found at the Wikapedia and Qld electoral commision websites.)

A good result in the sense that the party that won the 2PP vote was able to form government with a workable majority. A bad result in the sense that the main opposition party (ALP) was expected to struggle to provide an effective opposition or to be seen as a credible alternative at the next election because it only won 8% of the seats. Bad too in that the minor parties only won 2% of the seats despite winning 20% of the primary vote between them.

The disturbing thing is that the outcome could have been quite different even if every voter had voted exactly the same. Consider an extreme example: If the ALP had been able to locate all of its supporters in electorates where the ALP vote was slightly above 50%, the ALP would have won 48 seats and formed government without needing any preferences.

At the other extreme, if the distribution of votes had been identical for all electorates, the LNP would have won all the seats after distribution of preferences. Other changes in the geographical distribution of supporters could have seen minor parties and/or independents holding the balance of power.

Table A1.1 and these examples demonstrate why systems based on single member electorates:

1. Provide no guarantee that the party that wins the 2PP vote will form government. (There are numerous examples in Australia where the 2PP loser has won government.)
2. Can result in a hung parliament. In this case, who forms government will be decided by post election negotiations, not the voters.
3. Can have results distorted by the location of electoral boundaries or geographical distribution of supporters.
4. Tend to give the parties with high primary votes a disproportionate share of the members.

There are a number of other problems with single member electorates including:

1. Voters in marginal electorates have far more influence than those in safe electorates.
2. Not all voters will be represented by a member of the government. This can make it harder for these voters to influence government decisions.
3. Incumbent members have an advantage over challengers.
4. Single house systems like the Qld system only act as a check and balance in the event that the government fails to get enough seats to have a majority in its own right.

The only real attraction of single member electorates is that each voter shares “their” member with fewer other voters.