“The big party machines never wanted Hare-Clark because it involves the concept of candidates from the same party competing with each other. It is far too democratic for their tastes. The big party machines hate that idea,” writes MALCOLM MACKERRAS  

THE ACT election on October 17 was the tenth election for the Legislative Assembly under self-government. 

The 25 members were elected under a proportional representation system. Given that PR is very common in Australia for upper houses but equally rare for lower houses why is it that all 10 ACT elections have been held under PR systems?

The explanation is simple. The Liberal Party refused to contemplate the conventional Australian system of single-member electoral districts because it feared Labor would win every seat. That could have happened. So, without PR the ACT would not have had self-government.

The Liberal Party had no view as to the type of PR. The result was that the first system was an above-the-line voting method whereby 17 members were elected from the whole ACT, voting as one electorate.

At the first election in March, 1989, Labor won five seats, Liberals four and minor parties eight. At the second election in February, 1992, Labor won eight seats, Liberals six and minor parties three. Both elections were shambles.

Before 1989 there was one Australian lower house elected by PR, the Tasmanian House of Assembly elected since 1909 by the Hare-Clark system.

In 1909 the party machines did not have the grip on elections they have today. Tasmania’s Hare-Clark is now thought by psephologists like me to have been the original and the best PR system in the world.

Given the increasing grip the machines of big parties have in the modern era it was not a surprise that the first ACT system was (as the Senate’s is today) a party machine appointment system. Voters were, in effect, asked to distribute numbers of party machine appointments between parties on a PR formula.

It was a miracle that the ACT would copy Tasmania in having Hare-Clark. The big party machines never wanted it because it involves the concept of candidates from the same party competing with each other. It is far too democratic for their tastes. The big party machines hate that idea – yet that is what we have.

The man who worked that miracle was the late Bogey Musidlak (1953-2017). He is thus described as the father of ACT Hare-Clark after whom there will be a Musidlak Street in the new Canberra suburb of Denman Prospect where the theme of street names is “reformers”.

If Musidlak could be described as the “owner” of the ACT version of Hare-Clark, I claim to be described as the “deputy owner”. Its details are exactly what he wanted, not exactly what I wanted. Nevertheless, I now defend every detail of his system.

The first point to notice is that the system is semi-proportional, not purely proportional. Thus, at the recent election Labor won 10 seats with 101,826 votes, Liberals nine seats with 91,047 and the Greens six seats with 36,369 votes. The averages are 10,183 for Labor, 10,116 for Liberals and 6062 for the Greens.

Some react by saying: “The system must have been rigged by the Greens”. A recent email I received said this: “I’m not sure how they did it, but I think the Greens pulled a swifty. Maybe just running three candidates in an electorate is how they did it.”

I can assure readers the Greens did not rig the system. Essentially, they were lucky in 2008 (when they won 24 per cent of the seats for a vote of 16 per cent) and again at this recent election.

At the 1998, 2001, 2004, 2012 and 2016 elections the Greens were under-represented, winning a share of seats lower than their share of votes.

The Greens were not around when the system was designed. However, when Musidlak designed this system he chanced to confer a benefit on the Greens while never realising that he was doing such a thing. 

The point is that there is a difference between the Tasmanian and ACT versions of Hare-Clark. In Tasmania, the words at the bottom of the ballot paper read: “Your vote will not count unless you number at least 5 boxes”. Since a vote is informal if the elector does not vote 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, the Tasmanian Greens always stand five candidates, as do the Labor and Liberal parties.

In the ACT the words at the bottom of the ballot paper in each electorate read: “Remember, number at least five boxes from 1 to 5 in the order of your choice”. Those words conceal the fact that a single first-preference vote counts as a formal vote for that candidate.

Understanding that point, the ACT Greens typically stand three candidates – and that does help them. In effect they cannot do that in Tasmania.

Bogey and I used to argue on this point. I insisted the ACT should copy Tasmania. He insisted on his own ideas – and prevailed.

The difference is permanent. Both systems are permanent. Both were designed according to strict democratic principles – without any regard to which party might benefit.

Malcolm Mackerras is Honorary Fellow of Australian Catholic University at malcolm.mackerras@acu.edu.au