Australia has a good electoral system, one that could work well in Canada. But it’s Britain, perhaps ironically, that might adapt to the Australian system.
The new British coalition government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats seems committed to electoral reform during the next five years. Assuming they do what they promise, both the House of Commons and the House of Lords will eventually look more like the Australian lower and upper houses.
What would that mean?
Australia uses something called an Alternative Vote (AV) for its House of Representatives. Stripped to its essence, the system allows voters to list their candidates in order of preference. So, using Canadian parties, if you liked the Conservative Party, you could vote for its candidate alone. Or, you could vote for the Conservative as a first preference and then, say, the New Democrat. (This would happen in parts of Western Canada.) If a candidate got 50 per cent of the vote or more, he or she would win. If not, then the votes of the candidate who finished last would be redistributed, until a candidate got 50 per cent of first, second or third preferences.
It’s clearly not a proportional-representation system, but it has four virtues. First, AV gives voters something other than a black-or-white choice. Second, it moves a bit toward matching total votes cast for a party with seats won. Third, it means that all MPs can fairly say they received at least half the preferences, instead of in our system, in which many MPs win with fewer than half the votes. Fourth, it still usually produces a majority government.
For those who want a check on majority governments, Australia has a senate elected by proportional representation (PR) that often is not controlled by the government with a majority in the lower house. That’s the situation now, where Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has a majority in the House of Representatives but not in the Senate.
It would appear that both the British Conservatives and Liberal Democrats want an elected House of Lords (presumably, the body’s name would have to change), and they want it elected on the basis of proportional representation.
In Australia, devotees of proportional representation get some of what they want: a PR system for the upper house. Those who want majority governments get what they want: the AV system for the lower house that is somewhat more representative but does not mean perennial coalitions or minority governments.
Now comes the biggest stumbling block. It’s fine to talk about using a PR system for the upper house, but how do you divide up the seats among regions of the United Kingdom or provinces in Canada?
The Aussies settled that at the time of federation in 1901: All states would get the same number of senators, as in the United States, regardless of population.
What’s the U.K. to do? Give Scotland the same number of senators as England – never. Divide England into regions – great in theory, tough in practice. All these questions surrounding an elected upper house in Britain can be answered, but the gap between theory and practice will be hard to close.
In Canada, it’s the same problem. You can play with electing senators on a proportional representation basis, but you’ll never get provinces to agree on an equal number of seats. Any change to the composition of Senate seats would require a constitutional amendment. We know how next to impossible that would be.
The AV-PR combination that an oddball columnist once espoused in a book would make the Canadian electoral system somewhat more representative but not produce the worst of all worlds: a PR system in both houses, which would be a recipe for endless deadlock and inertia.
PR advocates confront this nightmare by saying: Abolish the Senate. Except that every federation in the world has an upper house. None uses a unicameral legislature, because federations are groupings of regions and regions need a place to be represented. There’s also the observable fact that legislatures often do stupid or goofy things in haste. Having a second look sometimes helps.
Obviously, the new British coalition is preoccupied with the economy, and will be for some time. But if true to their word, the parties are pledged to change the country’s electoral system to make it resemble Australia’s.
Canada, too, could do worse than look Down Under for inspiration.
