Agreed - multi member electorates seem like a good solution to proportionality but also maintaining the existence of a geographical link between members of parliament and physically existing communities
I've been a little shocked at the ALP/CLP duopoly's collusion in things like electoral funding. This isn't because I expected a higher level of morality. I expected a higher level of self-interest from the ALP which seems to me to have a clear interest in not favouring the LCP over the Teals. Tasmania has multi-member electorates (in the lower house) and is famous for bad government at least as far as economic development is concerned. But, having witnessed some of it, (having had a minor role in the dramas behind the proposed new stadium), I do come away thinking that the strength of the cross-bench there is a big asset.
Replace geographical electorates with age-based ones. Geography is an outdated way of dividing our population. We mostly use it because that's how we've always done it, and we started doing it that way because it was the only practical option. Once upon a time you likely had a lot in common with your neighbours, materially, politically and culturally, but no longer.
There are all sorts of exotic things we could sort people on, but not without gathering extra data at considerable effort and cost to privacy. However, the electoral roll already includes people's date of birth. Even if someone lies in giving their date of birth when first enrolling, that will remain as they age and so no great harm has been done. You could simply divide the population into 8 roughly equal age cohorts and elect five members for each one.
Having says that, I find I'm increasingly leery of proportional representation; the benefits of decisiveness shouldn't be underestimated. I highly recommend Samuel Bagg's book arguing the purpose of democracy isn't representation but holding elites to account.
In these terms, the particular electoral system a country has is not the most important thing. As long as it has the capacity for turfing out the ruling party, anything better than first past the post is probably fine. To see this, consider a country with two main parties, both funded and controlled by the same individual, who also controls the media. The niceties of the electoral system aren't going to fix that mess. On the other hand, consider a one party state, in which control of the party is contested democratically between multiple factions, informed by free and independent media coverage. Who cares that only one party is permitted to contest elections?
What's that got to do with age based electorates? Not much, really, except that while it may be fun to think about changing the electoral system, what actually matters is fixing Labor. I think the post-election factional shenanigans support that point pretty strongly.
Similarly, if you want to know what's wrong with American politics, look beyond the Electoral College and consider the Democratic Party. They let George Santos beat them in a congressional race in New York, despite the fact he was a monumental fraud. Any competent party would have done their homework. Similarly, the 2024 presidential campaign was a shambles from start to finish.
Teals have divided the remaining Conservatives, there are those in the LNP who want to go hard right and those who want to go to the centre, wherever that is. There are all sorts of politicking going on, in both Nats and Lib camps, so I expect that for the foreseeable future they will not be competitive. However, if Labor doesn't properly address historical issues like inequality (taxes), climate change and closing the gap they could be in trouble - their margin isn't a comfortable one.
An honest canvass of the views of the electorate (through say a series of citizens' assemblies) would I'm sure yield a policy platform quite different from that of our two present alternative governments, and certainly well to the left of the neoliberals. That thinking would lead analysts like Prof John to focus their attention on policy and attempt to steer the majors into a direction more in the interest of the public. But noting the Woodside decision, one is tempted to say, why even bother doing policy, Murdoch and the mining companies always get what they want.
While it's perfectly reasonable to label parties as neoliberal or otherwise, and necessary in order to discuss their platforms, ultimately those labels are not particularly useful to describe what happened at elections. Elections are heavily influenced by circumstances. Personalities, good or bad campaigns, the media, and fate such as refugee boats running aground. Let's not overthink the labels or the method by which a government is elected. I agree with Robertiton that it is more useful to work on the parties to steer them away from regressive positions such as approving gas fields or nuclear power stations; to de-legitimise the Murdoch press, and to preserve the independence of the AEC. Let's not assume that the AEC is a given, there have been recent attempts by the right to claim fraud, or to require ID, or as in Howard's day to stack the AEC with mates. Rather than change the system of electing, better to invest effort in training candidates. We don't want a parliament full of academics but a system populated with some of the lightweights now in the frontbenches of especially the "conservative" parties, will never produce good policy or good government. Why aren't all parties populated with people of the calibre of most of the teals?
### The Shift in Australia's Economic Policy and Political Landscape
It is somewhat amusing to consider that Australia is still perceived as being ruled by a neoliberal party. The reality is quite different. Our long-term tax-to-GDP ratio has hovered around 22-24%. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, government spending understandably increased to 26%, but it has not decreased despite record low unemployment since 2022. In fact, government spending is projected to rise to 28% in the coming years.
Since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), government spending has been the primary driver of job growth and investment. The job market is increasingly dependent on the public sector and non-market sectors, such as childcare, which are propped up by government subsidies. The Australian government now spends more money on the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) than it does on the military.
The current government has initiated an extensive subsidies program for green hydrogen, which has received minimal pushback from liberal politicians. The Liberal Party itself has largely matched Labour on major government spending programs. In the recent election, the debate was centered around less than 0.5% of GDP.
One of the most disappointing moments was when Peter Dutton was asked point-blank by an ABC reporter if he was considering cutting taxes, and he simply dodged the question. This evasion highlights a significant shift in the political landscape and a departure from neoliberal principles.
What is most striking to me is that the GFC was so severe that it spawned a ridiculous anti-establishment and anti-neoliberal wave. However, despite China experiencing an even larger real estate bust, these anti-neoliberal sentiments still view China as a beacon of success. This paradox underscores the complex and often contradictory nature of contemporary economic and political discourse.
"Trickle down" is an idea that long predates neoliberalism, always believed by rich people. It's one of the undead ideas I talk about in Zombie Economics. But there's a lot more to neoliberalism than that.
Hey JQ, way too much is made of Labor's low primary. Sure it's low due to the preferential system, but to a large extent indirectly. It's called tactical voting, mostly in Teal seats.
Cross-referencing with senate votes suggests about a 10% differential on seats where Labor supporters ran dead to give the independent a chance of lnocking off the Libs. The absence of this would miraculously restore approximately the historic Labor share.
Those heralding the decline of the two-party system need to get a grip.
Labor's first preference vote has been below 35 per cent since 2013, long before the rise of teals. At that election, Libs got 45 per cent. They've lost 10 percentage points since then, matched by a rise in the vote for teals and right wing fringe parties.
It remains that, all else equal, Labor's primary vote would have been measurably higher without many party supporters voting tactically in trad LNP seats. Arguably, other contingencies have been operative since the 2013 disaster.
I feel I've been reading articles about the decline of the two-party system as long as I've been reading about the demise of test cricket. Test cricket just had it's most watched series in history. Labor just equaled the record number of House of Reps seats.
Good luck to the death-riders but personally, I think it's a wasted cause.
To figure the size of the tactical vote you need to cross reference the respectivr senate vote by relevant seat. In his Q&A at the national press club, Paul Ericson said it averaged 10% in teal/realistic independent seats.
I think this was conservative, or at least it was certainly conservative in Wentworth, with which I'm personally familiar. Labor makes no effort in these seats. A full calculation could be an eye-opener.
Mind you, I have no delusions about stopping articles about the demise of the two party system or test cricket. Some topics really are perennials.
Both the ACT and Tassie have MMP. We sort of have it at senate level. The question is that it would mean aggregating lower house electorates to get say five representatives. Getting some commonality which the electoral commission tries to do would be tricky but not impossible. Tassie is already a 5 member electorate but it wouldn’t be five labour though. 2:2:1 generally and this years 3:1:1 possibly. Eastern and northern Sydney one and western Sydney one or two etc.
Thanks John for the shout out to Aotearoa New Zealand.
That is a great observation you made about our MMP proportional system.
The concept of the "tail wagging the dog" is way more objective than I think a lot of Kiwis appreciate.
If the voter disagrees with the policies of said minor parties they will then see that at "tail wagging the dog", but if the voter agree with those minor party policies, they will view that as the system working as intended.
In the mixed proportional rep system, voting for a minor party is objectively NOT a wasted vote as my Dad always used to tell me. ☺
Is there really a need for local representation other than "it's what everyone wants"? It could be argued that local members are more likely to act on behalf of the party rather than for local interests and the increase in the number of independants elected reflect a growing intolerance for this. MMR will favour parties over independants when when what Australian voters want is more independent local representation and increasing are voting for parties only because they are seen more able to form a stable government and keep the least favoured party out of power.
One way to make members more local would be to get rid of exhaustive preferential voting in the HR by allowing voters to leave two or half boxes empty. This way we wouldn't be forced to vote for either major party. This would make it harder for major parties but with the risk of no candidate getting a majority.
Since the election I have seen suggestions to increase the numbers in the HR to make MMR more palatable by keeping electorates relatively small as is the case for Tasmania.
John, I very much enjoy reading your work, but I think this conclusion about changing our electoral system is not the right one to draw.
It appears that the biggest impact this election was people voting or preferencing the ALP due to fear about Dutton and the LNP. It seems that in the context of the relative evenness of the media discussion and the polling (despite the swing to the ALP during the campaign), many individual voters came to the conclusion that they better vote against Dutton. This created a 2PP swing that was perhaps stronger than it would have been if fewer people considered Dutton to be a genuine chance. Dealing with this issue involves dealing with politics and the media, not the electoral system.
Besides, even though this election didn't deliver the result I personally wanted, I do think our electoral system is already very good. Our representative house, chosen by mandatory preferential voting, deals with supply and confidence from the relative political centre. And our proportional senate is for review. These different voting systems work really well together - the quality of it is greater than the sum of its parts.
Also, changing the house to PR appears to be at least as complex a question as the republic, so it doesn't appear practical. How long must we wait for PR to come along to help us solve the crises of our times?
The risk of a proportional house admitting the far right into government (as in New Zealand and The Netherlands, if not elsewhere too) is also a real danger.
Is there a better option? Well, what is the problem we're trying to solve? Is the problem not actually proportionality, but the fact that we have no clear vision for where the country is headed? A national vision is too precious to be leaving this up to politicians, especially when they attempt to retrospectively write their own vision as Albanese appears to be doing with his "patriotic progressivism" theory. The people need to take on that vision-making task themselves.
A Citizens' Assembly trialled at federal level would enable us to set a people's vision for Australia. It would provide the WHAT, and the role of the politicians would be to develop and explain policies for HOW to achieve that vision. Voters could then more easily evaluate their representatives accordingly. And as an extra-parliamentary trial, we could see this Citizen's Assembly set up and run before anyone is asked in a referendum whether we think it's a good idea or not.
TL:DR - We don't need PR in the house. We do need a Citizens' Assembly.
Agree with John’s analysis of parties pealing off from neoliberalism on both the left and right except for the teals. The majority seem to be closely aligned with what was known as the ‘wet liberals’ - economically conservative and socially progressive.
Multi-member electorates as in the ACT.
Agreed - multi member electorates seem like a good solution to proportionality but also maintaining the existence of a geographical link between members of parliament and physically existing communities
It was a good campaign, for Labor, but I'm worried that Albo is morphing into Howard.
I've been a little shocked at the ALP/CLP duopoly's collusion in things like electoral funding. This isn't because I expected a higher level of morality. I expected a higher level of self-interest from the ALP which seems to me to have a clear interest in not favouring the LCP over the Teals. Tasmania has multi-member electorates (in the lower house) and is famous for bad government at least as far as economic development is concerned. But, having witnessed some of it, (having had a minor role in the dramas behind the proposed new stadium), I do come away thinking that the strength of the cross-bench there is a big asset.
Replace geographical electorates with age-based ones. Geography is an outdated way of dividing our population. We mostly use it because that's how we've always done it, and we started doing it that way because it was the only practical option. Once upon a time you likely had a lot in common with your neighbours, materially, politically and culturally, but no longer.
There are all sorts of exotic things we could sort people on, but not without gathering extra data at considerable effort and cost to privacy. However, the electoral roll already includes people's date of birth. Even if someone lies in giving their date of birth when first enrolling, that will remain as they age and so no great harm has been done. You could simply divide the population into 8 roughly equal age cohorts and elect five members for each one.
Having says that, I find I'm increasingly leery of proportional representation; the benefits of decisiveness shouldn't be underestimated. I highly recommend Samuel Bagg's book arguing the purpose of democracy isn't representation but holding elites to account.
In these terms, the particular electoral system a country has is not the most important thing. As long as it has the capacity for turfing out the ruling party, anything better than first past the post is probably fine. To see this, consider a country with two main parties, both funded and controlled by the same individual, who also controls the media. The niceties of the electoral system aren't going to fix that mess. On the other hand, consider a one party state, in which control of the party is contested democratically between multiple factions, informed by free and independent media coverage. Who cares that only one party is permitted to contest elections?
What's that got to do with age based electorates? Not much, really, except that while it may be fun to think about changing the electoral system, what actually matters is fixing Labor. I think the post-election factional shenanigans support that point pretty strongly.
Similarly, if you want to know what's wrong with American politics, look beyond the Electoral College and consider the Democratic Party. They let George Santos beat them in a congressional race in New York, despite the fact he was a monumental fraud. Any competent party would have done their homework. Similarly, the 2024 presidential campaign was a shambles from start to finish.
Teals have divided the remaining Conservatives, there are those in the LNP who want to go hard right and those who want to go to the centre, wherever that is. There are all sorts of politicking going on, in both Nats and Lib camps, so I expect that for the foreseeable future they will not be competitive. However, if Labor doesn't properly address historical issues like inequality (taxes), climate change and closing the gap they could be in trouble - their margin isn't a comfortable one.
An honest canvass of the views of the electorate (through say a series of citizens' assemblies) would I'm sure yield a policy platform quite different from that of our two present alternative governments, and certainly well to the left of the neoliberals. That thinking would lead analysts like Prof John to focus their attention on policy and attempt to steer the majors into a direction more in the interest of the public. But noting the Woodside decision, one is tempted to say, why even bother doing policy, Murdoch and the mining companies always get what they want.
While it's perfectly reasonable to label parties as neoliberal or otherwise, and necessary in order to discuss their platforms, ultimately those labels are not particularly useful to describe what happened at elections. Elections are heavily influenced by circumstances. Personalities, good or bad campaigns, the media, and fate such as refugee boats running aground. Let's not overthink the labels or the method by which a government is elected. I agree with Robertiton that it is more useful to work on the parties to steer them away from regressive positions such as approving gas fields or nuclear power stations; to de-legitimise the Murdoch press, and to preserve the independence of the AEC. Let's not assume that the AEC is a given, there have been recent attempts by the right to claim fraud, or to require ID, or as in Howard's day to stack the AEC with mates. Rather than change the system of electing, better to invest effort in training candidates. We don't want a parliament full of academics but a system populated with some of the lightweights now in the frontbenches of especially the "conservative" parties, will never produce good policy or good government. Why aren't all parties populated with people of the calibre of most of the teals?
i can't imagine most of the teals wanting to represent a party, at least after the way they (the parties) have behaved in recent years.
This is very similar to the project that Next25 have initiated.
https://www.next25.org.au
### The Shift in Australia's Economic Policy and Political Landscape
It is somewhat amusing to consider that Australia is still perceived as being ruled by a neoliberal party. The reality is quite different. Our long-term tax-to-GDP ratio has hovered around 22-24%. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, government spending understandably increased to 26%, but it has not decreased despite record low unemployment since 2022. In fact, government spending is projected to rise to 28% in the coming years.
Since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), government spending has been the primary driver of job growth and investment. The job market is increasingly dependent on the public sector and non-market sectors, such as childcare, which are propped up by government subsidies. The Australian government now spends more money on the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) than it does on the military.
The current government has initiated an extensive subsidies program for green hydrogen, which has received minimal pushback from liberal politicians. The Liberal Party itself has largely matched Labour on major government spending programs. In the recent election, the debate was centered around less than 0.5% of GDP.
One of the most disappointing moments was when Peter Dutton was asked point-blank by an ABC reporter if he was considering cutting taxes, and he simply dodged the question. This evasion highlights a significant shift in the political landscape and a departure from neoliberal principles.
What is most striking to me is that the GFC was so severe that it spawned a ridiculous anti-establishment and anti-neoliberal wave. However, despite China experiencing an even larger real estate bust, these anti-neoliberal sentiments still view China as a beacon of success. This paradox underscores the complex and often contradictory nature of contemporary economic and political discourse.
Labor and the coalition both believe giving rich people more money makes poor people better off. I'd call that neoliberal
"Trickle down" is an idea that long predates neoliberalism, always believed by rich people. It's one of the undead ideas I talk about in Zombie Economics. But there's a lot more to neoliberalism than that.
Hey JQ, way too much is made of Labor's low primary. Sure it's low due to the preferential system, but to a large extent indirectly. It's called tactical voting, mostly in Teal seats.
Cross-referencing with senate votes suggests about a 10% differential on seats where Labor supporters ran dead to give the independent a chance of lnocking off the Libs. The absence of this would miraculously restore approximately the historic Labor share.
Those heralding the decline of the two-party system need to get a grip.
Labor's first preference vote has been below 35 per cent since 2013, long before the rise of teals. At that election, Libs got 45 per cent. They've lost 10 percentage points since then, matched by a rise in the vote for teals and right wing fringe parties.
It remains that, all else equal, Labor's primary vote would have been measurably higher without many party supporters voting tactically in trad LNP seats. Arguably, other contingencies have been operative since the 2013 disaster.
I feel I've been reading articles about the decline of the two-party system as long as I've been reading about the demise of test cricket. Test cricket just had it's most watched series in history. Labor just equaled the record number of House of Reps seats.
Good luck to the death-riders but personally, I think it's a wasted cause.
The whole point of the article is to explain why Labor can win a huge majority of seats with a minority of the votes.
And Labor's 35 per cent limit is pretty constant in the Senate and at state as well as federal level.
I was a bit surprised to learn that Test cricket is still going, but you learn something new every day.
Very funny!
To figure the size of the tactical vote you need to cross reference the respectivr senate vote by relevant seat. In his Q&A at the national press club, Paul Ericson said it averaged 10% in teal/realistic independent seats.
I think this was conservative, or at least it was certainly conservative in Wentworth, with which I'm personally familiar. Labor makes no effort in these seats. A full calculation could be an eye-opener.
Mind you, I have no delusions about stopping articles about the demise of the two party system or test cricket. Some topics really are perennials.
Both the ACT and Tassie have MMP. We sort of have it at senate level. The question is that it would mean aggregating lower house electorates to get say five representatives. Getting some commonality which the electoral commission tries to do would be tricky but not impossible. Tassie is already a 5 member electorate but it wouldn’t be five labour though. 2:2:1 generally and this years 3:1:1 possibly. Eastern and northern Sydney one and western Sydney one or two etc.
Thanks John for the shout out to Aotearoa New Zealand.
That is a great observation you made about our MMP proportional system.
The concept of the "tail wagging the dog" is way more objective than I think a lot of Kiwis appreciate.
If the voter disagrees with the policies of said minor parties they will then see that at "tail wagging the dog", but if the voter agree with those minor party policies, they will view that as the system working as intended.
In the mixed proportional rep system, voting for a minor party is objectively NOT a wasted vote as my Dad always used to tell me. ☺
Is there really a need for local representation other than "it's what everyone wants"? It could be argued that local members are more likely to act on behalf of the party rather than for local interests and the increase in the number of independants elected reflect a growing intolerance for this. MMR will favour parties over independants when when what Australian voters want is more independent local representation and increasing are voting for parties only because they are seen more able to form a stable government and keep the least favoured party out of power.
One way to make members more local would be to get rid of exhaustive preferential voting in the HR by allowing voters to leave two or half boxes empty. This way we wouldn't be forced to vote for either major party. This would make it harder for major parties but with the risk of no candidate getting a majority.
Since the election I have seen suggestions to increase the numbers in the HR to make MMR more palatable by keeping electorates relatively small as is the case for Tasmania.
John, I very much enjoy reading your work, but I think this conclusion about changing our electoral system is not the right one to draw.
It appears that the biggest impact this election was people voting or preferencing the ALP due to fear about Dutton and the LNP. It seems that in the context of the relative evenness of the media discussion and the polling (despite the swing to the ALP during the campaign), many individual voters came to the conclusion that they better vote against Dutton. This created a 2PP swing that was perhaps stronger than it would have been if fewer people considered Dutton to be a genuine chance. Dealing with this issue involves dealing with politics and the media, not the electoral system.
Besides, even though this election didn't deliver the result I personally wanted, I do think our electoral system is already very good. Our representative house, chosen by mandatory preferential voting, deals with supply and confidence from the relative political centre. And our proportional senate is for review. These different voting systems work really well together - the quality of it is greater than the sum of its parts.
Also, changing the house to PR appears to be at least as complex a question as the republic, so it doesn't appear practical. How long must we wait for PR to come along to help us solve the crises of our times?
The risk of a proportional house admitting the far right into government (as in New Zealand and The Netherlands, if not elsewhere too) is also a real danger.
Is there a better option? Well, what is the problem we're trying to solve? Is the problem not actually proportionality, but the fact that we have no clear vision for where the country is headed? A national vision is too precious to be leaving this up to politicians, especially when they attempt to retrospectively write their own vision as Albanese appears to be doing with his "patriotic progressivism" theory. The people need to take on that vision-making task themselves.
A Citizens' Assembly trialled at federal level would enable us to set a people's vision for Australia. It would provide the WHAT, and the role of the politicians would be to develop and explain policies for HOW to achieve that vision. Voters could then more easily evaluate their representatives accordingly. And as an extra-parliamentary trial, we could see this Citizen's Assembly set up and run before anyone is asked in a referendum whether we think it's a good idea or not.
TL:DR - We don't need PR in the house. We do need a Citizens' Assembly.
Agree with John’s analysis of parties pealing off from neoliberalism on both the left and right except for the teals. The majority seem to be closely aligned with what was known as the ‘wet liberals’ - economically conservative and socially progressive.