Antony Green AO, chief elections analyst of the ABC, provides a very good commentary on election nights and his blog is most useful for those who are much into the details of Australian elections. The citation for his AO, awarded in 2017, reads: “For distinguished service to the broadcast media as an analyst and commentator for state and federal elections, and to the community as a key interpreter of Australian democracy”.
It may sound odd, but this is the man I think of as my main opponent in matters of electoral reform - but he is not my only opponent. Born in March 1960, Green has been joined by a younger man born in the seventies. His name is Kevin Bonham, and he is a Tasmanian. Like Green, he works hard at his psephology and runs a useful and readable blog. Unsurprisingly, both these men have large fan clubs.
Being aware of their opinions and personal situations, I wrote an open letter to them in June 2021 that I posted on my blog that bears the title “Unrepresentative Swill”. Their reactions differed noticeably. Green has never mentioned my name. Bonham, by contrast, quotes me on his blog. I find that endearing. His quotation from me is to the description I gave to both and each individually. “He is a pragmatist and a propagandist who panders to the greed of the powerful.”
So, what do I mean by that? Essentially, it means that I have noticed who the winners (almost always) are from the electoral reforms they want. The winners are almost always the machines of big political parties. Green and Bonham supply them with “democratic principles” that justify what the machines of big political parties want.
When it comes to having principles, I say that the opposites of Green and Bonham are the members of the Proportional Representation Society of Australia. They really do have democratic principles, which explains why their successes are so rare. I have never been a member of the PRSA, but I am something of a fellow traveller. That is why there is a street in Canberra named after a former long-term PRSA president, one Bogey Musidlak (1953-2017). For further information about “Musidlak Rise” in the Canberra suburb of Denman Prospect, readers are asked to consult my blog. It is now generally accepted that he should be described as the father of Hare-Clark in the ACT.
“Never let the perfect be the enemy of the good” is my motto when it comes to electoral reform. The problem with that, however, is deciding just what is good. And there is a special problem in today’s Australia – deciding whether Glenn Druery is good, bad or indifferent. If he is bad (as many assert) the top priority must be to drive him out of business. By contrast, that is not one of my priorities.
Glenn Druery is the man who has become known as “the preference whisperer” and he is now the chief of staff to WA Senator Fatima Payman. He became famous in September 2013 when he was able, using clever preference arrangements, to secure the election to the Senate of the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party’s Ricky Muir. Coming from rural East Gippsland Muir was a senator for Victoria from July 2014 until the double dissolution of May 2016. He became the symbol of the argument that the Senate cross bench was choc-a-bloc full of “micro party senators who won their seats with very few votes by gaming the system” with help from Druery and his ilk.
In the present context the important fact to know is that only one Australian jurisdiction keeps the institution of the group voting ticket that was once so helpful to Druery for Senate elections. The jurisdiction is Victoria where there are 40 members of its Legislative Council elected on the basis of five being elected from each of eight regions.
And it is Victoria I now seek to discuss because in July this year there was issued a two-volume report from the Electoral Matters Committee of the state’s Parliament. It is titled “The conduct of the 2022 Victorian state election”. While the report is magnificent, I have a problem with it. When it comes to the big controversial question, Antony Green and his fan club have driven its main recommendations. Essentially, the report says: “Glenn Druery is a bad man who must be driven out of business immediately.”
On the other hand, page 244 of the second volume of the report quotes my submission where I wrote: “I have a favourable view of Druery’s business, but I am quite happy for it to close as a by-product of any decision to install a genuinely good system.”. In my opinion the present Victorian Legislative Council system is the third best PR system in Australia, being exceeded in virtue only by the Tasmanian Hare-Clark system and the ACT variant of Hare-Clark. They are the best and second best, respectively. If the Committee’s report were adopted Victoria would, in my opinion, have the worst system.
Essentially, the report says: “Victoria should copy the new Senate system”, a system I denounce as “wholly without merit or virtue of any kind”. So, why my denunciation? Well, I condemn it because it is dishonest, and its ballot paper is voter unfriendly. But my biggest objection is that the legislation for it compels the federal Electoral Commissioner to tell voters lies about Senate voting and to pump out misinformation in the name of “public education”. If Victoria were to copy the Senate system, then both federal and state Electoral Commissioners would be compelled to tell lies to voters and to pump out misinformation about their systems.
By contrast, I think holders of the position of Electoral Commissioner should tell voters the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
(The words “wholly without merit or virtue of any kind” are what I said when appearing before the committee in person. I do not find them quoted anywhere in the report, notwithstanding that Volume 1 comes to 89 pages and volume 2 comes to 362 pages.)
So, what do I expect? I predict that my present campaign will succeed which would mean that the 2026 Victorian state election would be conducted without any change in the system. Then during the next Victorian parliamentary term there will be appointed a genuine independent inquiry headed by a respected judge (or, perhaps, former Governor of Victoria) and two or three genuinely independent, highly reputable persons. That will be followed by a referendum in which the people will endorse the new system – and all its principles.
So, the final result will be a Victoria divided into three regions, each electing 12 members, making a total membership of 36 in its Legislative Council. A by-product will be that Druery will be out of business. He will, however, be happy to know that he can get a highly paid job on the public purse. He will also be content to know that he has played an important role, courtesy of his contribution to the health of Australia’s democracy.
Finally, I began this article by mentioning the citation for Antony Green’s AO and that he was born in March 1960. I should mention that I too have the letters AO after my name, given on Australia Day 2006. My citation reads: “For service to the community by raising public awareness of and encouraging debate about the political process in Australia and other western democracies, and through commitment to reform and improvement of the electoral system, and to education”. I was born in August 1939. Therefore, of the three living psephologists mentioned above I am the oldest, Green is the second oldest and Bonham is the youngest.