A former Governor of Western Australia, Malcolm McCusker (pictured) has been named to lead a panel of four electoral and constitutional law experts to advise on modernising the Electoral Act 1907.
Minister for Electoral Affairs, John Quigley said the Government had decided to implement the independent process following “anomalous outcomes” at the March State election.
“Unlike in the Legislative Assembly, where electoral boundaries are adjusted each term to ensure there’s a relatively even number of electors, the Legislative Council is divided into six geographical regions with significantly different populations,” Mr Quigley said.
“Despite their unequal populations, each region elects six Legislative Councillors.”
He said that in March, votes cast by people in the Mining and Pastoral Region were worth 6.22 times more than those cast in the metropolitan area.
“This malapportionment is predicted to get worse over time, and other States have removed this feature from their electoral systems,” Mr Quigley said.
“Similarly, group voting tickets were abolished for the Australian Senate in 2016 in response to so-called “preference harvesting”, and still exist only in Western Australia and Victoria.”
The Minister said that at the State election, complex and opaque preference deals resulted in a Daylight Saving Party candidate being elected to represent the Mining and Pastoral Region on just 98 first preference votes — equivalent to 0.2 per cent of the total vote in the region.
“This is understood to be the lowest primary vote for any successful candidate for election to any Parliament in Australia,” Mr Quigley said.
In contrast, the Greens in the North Metropolitan Region received 27,077 first preference votes or 7.4 per cent of all formal votes in that region, but did not win a seat.
He said the panel would review the Legislative Council electoral system over eight weeks and provide options to him.
The panel is seeking submissions from the public and all stakeholders until 31 May.
Further information is available from the electoral reform website at this PS News link.
