The new precariousness of safe seats

The traditional pendulum analogy used to describe the safety of seats in terms of margins for the ALP or Coalition doesn't work for a system where more than two parties can win seats, and increasingly that is proving the case in our elections.

The federal electorate of Melbourne, and this election other inner city seats like Melbourne Ports, Higgins and Batman, and the rise of Xenophon in South Australia are showing that the two party duopoly is being challenged and perhaps starting to break down.

While initially this process was limited to the Greens challenging in formerly safe ALP inner city seats in Melbourne and Sydney, recent state elections in NSW and Victoria, and this current federal election, have extended the challenge to Greens versus Liberals or Nationals in safe seats, and Xenophon challenging the Liberals in SA.

This emerging trend for serious challenges of duopoly control of what have previously been considered safe seats means that voters in those seats have to be engaged by the duopoly party that has taken them for granted.

This is an improvement in the quality and engagement of our democracy as it increases the number of voters who `matter' in elections. Given the number of voters who are alienated from the process that can only be a good thing.

The undermining of the concept of a safe seats also means a possible increase in the diversity and proportionality of parliament making it more representative. This is minimal at present, but the number of formerly safe seats being challenged is increasing.

We are moving slowly towards a multiparty system, despite our flawed, duopoly controlled system, and again this is something that would work against voter alienation. This slow move towards a multiparty system is probably the best we can hope for in terms of improvement in our democracy in the short term in the absence of actual democratic reform.

Long term we should work towards the introduction of Mixed Member Proportional which would largely overcome the issue of safe seats limiting the focus of elections to swinging voters in marginal seats, and making parliament proportional.

Mixed Member Proportional Representation

Mixed Member Proportional Representation

Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMP) is a system of proportional representation that retains local electorates, and combines the best features of proportional systems and traditional electorate based systems. 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 proportionally reflects the vote of the electorate.

Most often this 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 so tactical voting is a problem. A single vote system is certainly possible and is obviously easier, and entails other benefits for providing incentives for parties to engage all voters..

Use of preferential voting in electorates means that voters can put their preferred party first, allowing a single vote approach unlike in jurisdictions like New Zealnd. Therefore 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.

The cumulative primary vote in electorates determines the totals for parties to be used to add seats from the lists to achieve proportionality. As this total is based on the total electorate there is 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. That is it would address the neglect of safe seats, making elections about more than just swinging voters in swinging seats.

It is suggested that the lists could be automatically generated from those candidates from the respective party (independents could be treated collectively) not elected to seats, in order of highest percent of vote received. Again this creates an incentive for candidates for seats where their respective party might be unlikely to win to campaign so as to be as high as possible on the list.

In contrast to introducing an upper house which would duplicate the costs and bureaucracy with more limited gains in the oversight of the executive, especially when control of both houses is secured by a single party, MMP efficiently retains the current unicameral system and would would more effectively liberate the parliament from the executive due to the fact that the parliament, in its entirety, is unlikely to be controlled by one party.

MMP would be very proportional even in contrast to any likely reintroduced upper house that would be small with a still reasonably high threshold for entry. More importantly this proportionality would be achieved in the Legislative Assembly where government is formed MMP.

It also avoids one of the most obvious pitfalls of upper houses as seen in the Senate and other recent elections, the election of random, obscure candidates due to backroom preference deals. While there would be preferences for the electorate seats there are no preference involved in the proportionality embodied in the lists.

A mixed member proportional system ensures that the proportions of parliament are as best as possible in line with the proportion of support for each party. It does not have the cost factors involved with either an expansion or a duplication of parliamentary services that would be associated with reintroducing an upper house. It provides many options for oversight through diversity on committees unlikely to be controlled by a single party.

It would lift the bar for majority rule to 50%, requiring that parliamentarians from different parties work together to achieve their goals. At the same time it lowers the bar for entry to new parties making a greater diversity in parliament much more likely, much better reflecting the actual electorate, and also reducing the likelihood of one party controlling a majority in the parliament.

MMP would efficiently retain the current unicameral system while introducing proportionality in the house of parliament where government is formed. It would counterbalance the arbitrary nature of electorate boundaries. It would make significant progress towards liberating the parliament from the executive. There would likely be a useful byproduct introduce some internal competition in political parties as candidates compete for positions on their respective lists. MMP would in a number of ways significantly increase the robustness of our representative democracy.

Off with our head

Do we need a head of state? In the context of a revival of discussion about Australia becoming a republic there is consequently a revival of the debate about how the replacement head of state should be selected, given disagreement on this derailed the last attempt to become a republic.

However taking a step back I think the question needs to be asked, "Why do we need a head of state?" What do they actually add to the functioning of government? Is the argument of elected versus appointed one worth having when we could just do away with the whole concept altogether, abolishing this vestige of monarchy that serves no real purpose.

In our system the Governor-General, or the monarch on those rare occasions they deign to drop by, as head of state swears in ministers and sign bills into law but really that is just ceremonial, as our the rest of their duties, and none of it is really necessary. They are by convention only meant to act on the advice of council, making the head of state more of an unnecessary appendage.

Once a bill has passed parliament why does it need to be signed by someone else? Being passed by parliament should be sufficient, and in a republic we don't need royal assent. Couldn't parliament just appoint ministers? That would in fact be preferable as it would highlight they are meant to be accountable to parliament rather than the stand-in for some absentee landlord. This would assist parliament to get some power back over the executive.

So why don't we just make parliament sovereign, subject of course to the constitution (preferably with a bill of rights) and as much as possible the people, but in the sense that the parliament fulfills the functions of a head of state like appointing ministers or declaring bills to be ratified as laws. There is no role currently performed by the head of state that would not be more democratic if taken over by the parliament. So off with our head in true republican style.

Filling the empty seats in parliament - representing the disengaged and enraged

The legitimacy of our democracy is already highly questionable given the obvious issue of the lack of proportionality in the translation of votes to representation in parliament. Of course this issue could be considerably overcome with the introduction of well explored alternatives like a system of Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMP). Then of course there is the issue of the corrupting influence of money in politics.

However beyond the issues of proportionality and money the legitimacy of our democracy is also undermined by another less commonly acknowledged issue, the increasing proportion of people who believe that participating in our democracy doesn't make any difference.

At every election towards the bottom of the results is a generally ignored report on the number of people who voted informally. While certainly some of these are genuine errors of not filling in the ballot correctly many are meant as a protest, impotent though that protest is. If you look more closely you will also find the number of people enrolled in the seat is significantly greater than the number of people who voted, meaning a huge number people didn't think it was worthwhile spending a couple of minutes voting.

Even more disturbingly, but much harder to get figures on, is that beyond the informal and non-voting enrolled that there are estimates of a huge number of people who are eligible to vote but not enrolled.

"The AEC studied the 2010 election and found more than 3 million Australians did not vote. Of those 1.5 million people were not enrolled, 900,000 people were enrolled but did not vote and nearly 750,0000 people cast an informal vote." http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-21/figures-show-25-per-cent-of-young-people-failed-to-enrol-to-vote/4903292

These informal votes, those who didn't vote, and those not enrolled add up to a huge number of people not being represented in our parliaments at all beyond any issues of lack of proportionality. Such a significant proportion of people in our society disengaging from the process and going unrepresented inherently undermines the legitimacy of our democracy, and the levels of disengagement seem to be increasing and likely to continue doing so.

One possible way to seek to address this disturbing level of disengagement would be allocating parliamentary representatives for the disengaged via sortition, the random allocation of positions from among the eligible so all have an equal chance of holding positions. The disengaged could be represented proportionally in parliament by representatives chosen at random from the population, like jury duty, possibly just for annual terms.

In an MMP system these seats could be incorporated into the list system, which by design is meant to allocate seats to the underrepresented. Opting for sortition could even be offered on the ballot, at the top of the ticket so also somewhat addressing donkey voting, as an essentially none-of-the-above option that unlike voting informally doesn't mean the vote goes uncounted, and the protest that this often represents is effectively ignored by the political establishment.

As a fringe benefit sortition would allow a much greater cross section of society to be represented in parliament beyond the usual lawyers, union officials, electorate officers and graziers, who are also disproportionately older, white men. Sortition would get a much more representative sample of representatives in parliament, at least for that proportion of the seats so determined.

It would also importantly provide an incentive for political parties to try to engage the disengaged, something that they mostly don't have at the moment as demonstrated by the almost total lack of effort to do so. This sortition process would give political parties as institutions, incredibly powerful, virtually unregulated institutions in our democracy, some competition. There is also some research that suggests a proportion of parliament being randomly selected would be beneficial to the functioning of parliament.

Political parties would have an incentive to engage all potential voters (also a characteristic of MMP generally that overcomes the issue of neglect of safe seats) so as to reduce the proportion of parliamentary seats determined by sortition and therefore not under the control of the party whips. This lack of control by the whips would also help liberate parliament from the executive, something parliaments are all increasingly subject to, especially in lower houses, especially in Queensland.

Restoring the legitimacy of our democracy requires that something be done to engage, or at the very least take into account, the huge and growing proportion of citizens completely disengaged from the democratic process and completely unrepresented in parliament. A random selection of representatives are likely to reflect the general will of the electorate at least as well as the representatives from political parties dominated by an elite and beholden to wealthy donors.

Some expression of the protest, active or passive, that this disengagement demonstrates, should be reflected in the election results. Expecting the disengaged themselves to fix the system clearly won't work, so an incentive has to be created for the political class to engage them, or at least take them into account, and a sortition process like this could be such an incentive. A democracy without legitimacy is not really a democracy at all.

Union reform

There are reports that the Australian Labor Party are going to propose improvements to union governance.

It is of course doubtful that anything proposed by the ALP will address the core issue of the lack of genuine democracy within unions, without which there cannot be accountability.

Unions have played an important part in making our society more equal and democratic, but are not playing that role to any significant degree any longer.

While there are of course other factors like structural changes in the economy, this diminished role is in large part due to the capture of the union movement by the union bosses, largely indistinguishable from the bosses unions were formed to counter.

This has undermined the ability of unions to evolve in a changing environment as union bosses instead focus on their careers in the ALP and other perks.

While certainly not all unions are as undemocratic as the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association (SDA), controlled for decades by Joe de Bruyn who runs it more like a rightwing Catholic cult than a union, or the Australian Workers Union, or the Health Services Union, all unions tend to be controlled by a small cabal that is essentially immune to democratic control by their members.

Australian unions are an excellent demonstration of the iron law of oligarchy, where organisations, even those ostensibly in favour of democracy, over time tend to become controlled by a small elite able to consolidate power and defend their position from the workings of democracy.

There are some things that could be done to reinvigorate the union movement and put it in the hands of the rank and file rather than union bosses:-

1. A requirement for union positions to be determined in free and fair annual elections conducted by an electoral commission. No donations from non-members to internal campaigns, and limits on donations and expenditure.
2. Other democratic reforms such as recall mechanisms, term limits, requirement for significant decision to be made by referendum, and a template for democratic constitutions.
3. Union official’s compensation to be tied to average wages of the industries they represent.
4. Unions to be subject to financial accountability similar to companies.
5. Political donations by unions to require consent of individual union members on an annual basis.
6. Any party and factional affiliation is on the basis of individual union members opting in on an annual basis and paying an additional fee.
7. Union members to be able to initiate de-amalgamations of their unions, and be able to initiate sections of unions splitting and joining other unions.
8. Union membership be portable to allow members to join the more democratic union, and provide an incentive for less democratic unions to change to avoid losing members.
9. Lowering barriers to new unions. Demarcation to be determined by individual member affiliation.
10. Other possibilities might be the use of Delegative Democracy for internal governance, a possible way of combating the iron law using technology.

Unions as organisations of working people should be making a significant contribution to bettering our society as they have historically, but it seems likely that in order to do so rather than the current rearguard action and functioning as a step in the career path for opportunists, they will need to undergo significant democratic reform.

State income tax

I thought that it was the case, and a quick check seems to confirm, that while the federal government has first bite of the cherry the states could still levy income tax, though it might be impractical to do so, and that the federal government could in turn deny them grants.

This doesn't make it impossible though for the states to levy income tax and would address the narrow tax base with which the states currently operate. And apparently the states collecting an income tax surcharge via the ATO is being considered by the Henry Tax Review.

Aside from addressing the narrow tax base this is a good idea because it would mean the states would not be as reliant on indirect taxes which are inherently regressive. Though what is meant by a surcharge would have to be developed.

However the suggestion to remove stamp duty seems to be an effort to move more of the costs of speculation on to those who don't speculate, generally those who can't afford to do so. It would facilitate idle speculation at the expense of those who are productive.

Taxpayer funding of brainwashing?!?!

The Greens have just managed to uncover significant increases in government funding for Exclusive Brethren institutions, that are generally being referred to as schools despite a merely superficial resemblance to anything resembling education being conducted.

Apparently taxpayers are not only subsidising this cult (as designated by Kevin Rudd) to warp the minds of their young, they are doing it to an increasingly greater extent as time goes on.

Disturbingly the EB institutions get significantly more than the resources provided to public schools. Apparently under the Howard government the Exclusive Brethren somehow managed to have their schools rated at the same level of need as remote Aboriginal schools.

In unrelated news, in Tasmania the Liberal Party is facing court next week over advertisements made in conjunction with two members of the Exclusive Brethren during the last state election. The EB's fronted an attack campaign against the Greens, but the campaign was coordinated by the Liberals.

So again and again the Exclusive Brethren attack the Greens on behalf of the Liberals. At the same time the Liberals arrange millions of dollars of taxpayer funds to be diverted from public education to the Exclusive Brethren. It really seems like someone should be going to jail.

Of course of most concern is the warping of so many young minds by this cult, however the fact that this warping is being funded by taxpayers, and is coming at the expense of funding for public education does add salt to the wound.

"The ink of the scholar is more holy than the blood of martyrs"

There is a lot of interesting things in what might be termed Islamic history but probably more accurately Middle Eastern history. Especially of interest is the period that is now called the Islamic Golden Age. In this time, long before the European Enlightenment, even before the Renaissance the middle east was playing host to a civilisation that was by far the epicentre of progress.

Interestingly, like the European Renaissance the impact of foreign thinking was a significant part of what stimulated this revolution in thought. The House of Wisdom was a library that also undertook the process of translating texts from Persian, and subsequently other languages, into Arabic. Irionically this process would preserve many European classical writings, lost in Europe itself, that when translated into latin would help start the European Renaissance in much the same way.

The Middle Eastern Enlightenment also had an encyclopedia, the Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity, very much like the Encyclopedie of the European Enlightenment. Apparently this work was similarly compiled by a team of intellectuals, covered the whole gamut of human knowledge of the time, and as much as possible given the cultural context indulged in freethinking beyond the strictures of the dominant faith.

The thinkers of this enlightenment, to a large degree free from the constraints of the local religion, made incredible strides forward in many facets of technology, mathematics, and the development of science, as well as in many of the sciences individually. These advances were later imported into Europe and might otherwise have been lost.

What went wrong? It seems likely that many of the smartest people in this culture were trying to break free of Islam, at least to a degree. They managed for awhile, but ultimately failed and the conservative backlash destroyed the enlightened subculture that they had developed.

It seems likely the christian invasion of the Middle East during the Crusades most likely contributed to the end of the Middle Eastern Enlightenment, though the Mongol hordes probably didn't help. Whatever happened it meant that Europe, comparatively a backwater at the time managed to race ahead when it experienced its own Enlightenment.

Of course our religious types too try to lay claim to anything good in western culture despite their representatives having often actively opposed the progress at the time. Of course the worst among them are also simultaneously doing their utmost to return us to a time before the Enlightenment, and of course they may yet succeed, as this certainly seems to have happened previously in the Middle East.

Will history find balance by the Islamic attacks on the West contribute to the end of the Western Enlightenment?

Secularism versus atheism

I have been thinking recently about secularism versus atheism. Certainly atheism is a more militant concept, and perhaps because of that more enjoyable. It is easy and amusing to mock the religious fundamentalists.

However there is the risk that you come to resemble that which you despise, strident and intolerant. Not necessarily, or inevitably surely, but a risk. However, perhaps that kind of militantism is indeed what is needed to combat the rise of religious fundamentalism.

Maybe in the ecology of ideas perhaps fire must be fought with fire, fundamentalism with strong atheism. Certainly the former has spread dangerously far outside of its original niche, and the latter is similarly evolving and adapting so as to move out of its traditional niche, in large part in response to the former.

However I have my doubts that strong atheism will by itself be able to turn back the rising tide of superstition. The niche for strong atheism, whilst growing, would have difficulty capturing the middle ground.

The costs involved in becoming and being a strong atheist, essentially independent thought, are too high for most people. In contrast in terms of thinking it is relatively easy to become and be a religious fundamentalist, just uncritically accept whatever you are told by a designated source.

Actually by requiring the outsourcing of thinking to others fundamentalism has an evolutionary advantage over a meme that requires time and effort to be invested in thinking, though obviously the quality of the thinking is detrimentally effected.

However strong atheism does play an important part in balancing the ecology, as it changes the environment it which it operates, and the middle has to adapt to it as well, instead of just the fundamentalists.

Secularism however is not militant, and is all about the middle ground, staking it out as a common ground where everyone can safely come together.

"George Holyoake's 1896 publication English Secularism defines secularism as:

Secularism is a code of duty pertaining to this life, founded on considerations purely human, and intended mainly for those who find theology indefinite or inadequate, unreliable or unbelievable. Its essential principles are three: (1) The improvement of this life by material means. (2) That science is the available Providence of man. (3) That it is good to do good. Whether there be other good or not, the good of the present life is good, and it is good to seek that good.

Holyoake held that secularism and secular ethics should take no interest at all in religious questions (as they were irrelevant), and was thus to be distinguished from strong freethought and atheism. In this he disagreed with Charles Bradlaugh, and the disagreement split the secularist movement between those who argued that anti-religious movements and activism was not necessary or desirable and those who argued that it was." (Wikipedia Secularism article)

So secularism significantly reduces the costs to an individual in comparison to atheism and religion, by simply declaring that it isn't worth the effort to argue about that which can't be known. Instead it advocates just acting on what what we can know and presumably agree on, that this life is real and must be lived.

It also seeks to reduce the costs involved in conflict between different religious groups, by seeking to have public life based on common secular values, based on what it is required for people to survive and get along.

Such a system has been essential to the evolution of modern society, and history has shown that the costs of sectarianism can be very high indeed. It has never been easy for one sect to establish a seeming monopoly on a society, and the ability to do so is less so now due to the realities of the modern world.

LiPA 4 EB

It seems possible that the Liberal Party of Australia (LiPA) and the Exclusive Brethren (EB) have been caught in bed together, again.

It is possible that the Liberals have been forced to do their own dirty work in the Mayo by-election, but they are of course big believers in outsourcing.

Therefore I suspect that the Liberals are once again using the EB's as their footsoldiers in campaigns they don't want to be seen fighting.