Upper House... meh, MMP Yeah!

Periodically reform of Queensland's democracy becomes a topic of conversation, but all too often it is restricted to a very narrow focus of reintroducing an upper house, as it has again recently with Pauline Hanson's recent vague contribution to the debate.

This preoccupation with an upper house is perhaps understandable because it is familiar as it operates at the federal level and in other jurisdictions, but a closer look at how it operates in those places should give us pause, and let us consider if in fact there isn't something better than simply a better version of what was abolished, and what isn't solving the problems elsewhere.

An upper house would be an improvement on the status quo, but in Queensland that is saying very little at all. Indeed upper houses are often portrayed as being more remote from the electorate than lower houses given the smaller size, large electorates and general role of reacting to the government. The somewhat unfair `unrepresentative swill' label has stuck for a reason.

Historically upper houses operated as a break on democracy, and it is only an accident of history that in Australia they are now more proportional than lower houses, and they are still in that original sense as an institution essentially conservative like the original upper house, the House of Lords. They can play a useful role in terms of scrutiny but they aren't seen as where the power is, which is where the government is formed. That is where the change has to come.

Yes, the Senate and state upper houses (or Tasmanian lower house) are more proportional compared to the corresponding lower house (or upper house), and do give smaller parties a better chance of representation. Though Tasmania and the ACT have demonstrated how this can be manipulated by collusion by the ALP-LNP cartel to exclude minor parties by increasing the quotas. Regardless as the lower houses are extremely disproportionate in their representation of the vote, upper houses being more proportional isn't much of an accomplishment. Lower houses are effectively designed to give a majority to either Labor or the Liberals regardless of the level of support those parties get.

So the Senate for instance is more proportional by comparison to the House of Representatives, but it is still not as proportional as it could be, and not only because it retains the structure of being a `States house', a concept that didn't survive the first encounter with partisanship, but also because of high thresholds to get seats. Meanwhile the House of Representatives is where the government is formed, and in the current system it is almost entirely abandoned to de facto control by the executive except on those rare occasions when the balance of power is held by the crossbench.

The crossbench in the Senate does more commonly hold the balance of power, and in doing so the Senate can, if the Opposition agrees, veto government legislation. It should be noted that there is the further complication of half-Senate elections meaning that almost half the chamber reflects the result of the election before last rather than the most recent election. However the Senate can effectively never pass legislation without government support because the House of Representatives is operating as a rubber stamp for the executive. Mostly the House of Representatives might as well not bother meeting once the numbers have been determined and just proxy to cabinet, which often in turn just defers to the leader.

Similarly Queensland mostly operates with a Legislative Assembly that is just a rubber stamp for the executive, aside from those rare times such as now where by chance the crossbench holds the balance of power. It should be noted that this current circumstance doesn't really reflect a close vote as such, as a similar vote could and have produced very different results. It reflects very concentrated support for the Katter party and an independent and a fair amount of random chance. A proportional democracy in Queensland would look very different. An upper house would improve the situation, but not resolve the basic issues of executive domination and lack of proportionality in the Assembly.

It is generally taken as a given that if an upper house were reintroduced in Queensland it would be in some way proportional (though this is not a requirement). It is also taken as a given that if an upper house were reintroduced the total number of parliamentarians would not be allowed to increase substantially, if at all. That severely limits the ability of any such upper house to be proportional as the number of members would be so small as to create a high threshold for entry. It is also likely it could be so designed as to make it difficult for any third party to get over the threshold, for instance with five electorates of five members each, so a threshold of 16.7% which would mostly keep out parties from beyond the ALP-LNP cartel.

This small chamber with perhaps only a few or even no crossbench would struggle to hold the executive to account as a house of review, even in those instances where the crossbench held the balance of power. However what needs to be understood is that the struggle for accountability is between the parliament and the executive, not the houses of parliament. What is required is to make the lower house that is already in place proportional rather than leaving it in the hands of the executive.

The best way to make parliament proportional is via a system of Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMP). MMP is a system of proportional representation that retains local electorates, while allowing a greater degree of proportionality than found in the Senate or similar upper houses. It elects a unicameral parliament where the allocation of seats is split between geographical electorates and a number of ‘list’ positions where the latter are used to ensure the overall makeup of parliament result proportionally reflects the vote of the electorate. Having a house that most accurately reflects the will of the electorate there would be no point then adding on to that another house with a less proportional system of representation.

Most often MMP is done with voters casting two votes, one for the electorate and one for the list. This does allow voters to indicate support for different parties but is mostly only necessary because the electorate counts are first-past-the-post where it is used, so tactical voting is a problem. Use of preferential voting in electorates means that voters can put their preferred party first, thereby meaning that the process of voting in an MMP system can remain as simple as possible with just the one vote.

To voters the process of voting can stay the same as it is; local representation is retained and it allows fair and accurate representation of voters due to the balance provided by the ‘list’ positions. This approach combines the best features of proportional systems and traditional electorate based systems. It would efficiently retain the current unicameral system by introducing proportionality where it is needed, in the Legislative Assembly where government is formed.

If the lists were automatically generated from those candidates from the respective party not elected to seats in order of highest percent of vote received this would increase accountability to the electorate. This would create an incentive for candidates for seats where the party might be unlikely to win to campaign so as to be as high as possible on the list. This automatic list generation would also avoid the issues of lists used for more traditional upper houses where election of candidates is mostly due to intra and inter party backroom deals. 

MMP also has other advantages such as counterbalancing the arbitrary nature of electorate boundaries, where the same vote can produce radically different outcomes depending on arbitrary changes in electoral boundaries. It also addresses the neglect of safe seats, making elections about more than swinging voters in swinging seats. It is the cumulative primary vote in all electorates that determines the proportion of vote for lists. There is therefore an incentive for parties to campaign in all seats, rather than just marginal seats, as any increase in the vote regardless of where it is might result in a more seats.

Another major advantage of MMP is that there would be greater diversity of representation. Aside from the entry into parliament of other parties the lists would mean the one electorate could have representation from more than one party. If independents were treated collectively they too would be more likely to be able to gain entry into parliament. There is no need for a formal threshold, merely the inherent limit due to the number of seats in parliament.

Perhaps most importantly MMP could makes significant progress towards liberating the parliament from the executive, as it is much less likely that parliament will be dominated by one party, accurately reflecting the proportional support for the respective parties. The accuracy of the proportionality would be significantly beyond that provided in an upper house, even when not considering the continuing lack of proportionality in the lower house. MMP could be proportional to within a percentage point due to the lists, not having the high thresholds of an upper house. This would result in parliaments accurately reflecting the diversity of the vote, and therefore require negotiation between the parties for legislation to pass, returning power to the legislature.

The debate about electoral reform is severely diminished when restricted to simply reintroducing an upper house, which while easy to understand due to familiarity was originally a solution to a very different problem. Such a reform would be an improvement on the status quo, but a relatively minor one that would not get at the fundamental issues afflicting our parliament which are centred on the house where government is formed. Again, that is where the change has to come. We need to open up the parameters of the debate and give serious consideration to more radical ideas like this somewhat modified version of MMP.