Jim Stanford is Harold Innis Industry Professor in Economics at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., and currently lives in Sydney.
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Australia is midway through a gruelling federal election campaign, heading to a vote on July 2. And for a recently transplanted Canadian, there's a strong sense of déjà vu: The similarities to our own election last October are amazing.
For starters, the two-month campaign is long, the second-longest in Australia's history. Canada's 2015 federal campaign (78 days) was the longest since 1872. Australia's conservative government is a coalition of two right-wing parties, the Liberals and the Nationals, with Liberal Leader Malcolm Turnbull as Prime Minister. It is fighting for re-election against a revitalized centre-left, the Labor Party. Opinion polls suggest a very close race; the lead has switched back and forth several times.
Like the Canadian Conservatives, the incumbents claim to be the best "economic managers." But their credibility has been hurt (as in Canada) by the collapse of a resource boom. Australia's economy has avoided outright recession (like the one that damaged Stephen Harper's government), but economic storm clouds are everywhere, including plunging capital spending, weak job creation, record consumer debt and outright price deflation.
Even the potholes along the campaign trail seem familiar. For example, conservative candidates have stoked xenophobic sentiment with provocative statements about illiterate, job-stealing immigrants. (Thankfully, there has been no mention of "barbaric cultural practices" and no one has been filmed urinating in a coffee cup.)
But there are several important differences between the two countries' elections. For one thing, Australia's Opposition Leader, Bill Shorten, does not possess the charisma of Justin Trudeau. But this may be a blessing in disguise; so far, Mr. Shorten has exceeded the initially low expectations of him as a leader.
Another key difference is Australia's voting system. As Canadians take up the issue about how to reform our first-past-the-post system, Australia provides an interesting counterpoint. First, voting is compulsory: Every adult is required to register and vote, on penalty of a $20 (Australian) fine. Curiously, however, there is no enumeration – everyone must register themselves. So voting-day turnout is falling anyway, despite the obligatory system. In the last federal election in 2013, 93 per cent of registered voters cast ballots, but that excluded 15 per cent of voting-age adults who weren't even registered.
Australia elects both its House of Representatives (for members of Parliament) and its Senate using a preferential voting system. Voters are required to rank candidates from most-favoured to least-favoured. If the voter's ranking is not completed, the ballot is considered spoiled.
In the case of MPs, the system has benefits but also clear drawbacks. Voters can support small parties without worrying about "wasting" their votes because they can still influence the outcome with their preferences. This avoids the quandary of "strategic voting" that has bedevilled Canadians in recent years.
However, the preferential voting system makes it very difficult for smaller parties to actually get elected, reinforcing the dominance of established parties. Similar results would be expected in Canada.
In the Australian Senate, on the other hand, preferential voting is combined with a form of proportional representation. Each state elects 12 senators. Voters can choose either the party (again, ranking at least the top six choices), or individual candidates (ranking at least 12). A previous quirk, which allowed very small parties to effectively combine their votes (and hence win Senate seats with hardly any support), has been eliminated for this election.
The system is complicated, and it can take days to count all the ballots. But it does mean that the distribution of Senate seats more closely matches the overall distribution of votes between parties. And since it is rare for a single party to win an outright majority in the Senate, governments normally need to negotiate and compromise with other parties – usually a good thing for democracy.
The Australian system is not perfect. Stalemates can arise between the two houses of Parliament, and party power brokers exploit the preferential system (with the help of "How to vote" cards handed out on election day) in often-cynical ways. But it is certainly an improvement over Canada's current system, and is worth studying further as we debate our own reforms.