Would Like a 'Parliamentary Political Systems for Americans' Primer

Politics & Elections
61

A different example would come from Denmark, which has PR in its multi-member parliamentary constituencies. One votes for a candidate, a vote which also serves as a vote for his/her party in determining the number of seats it receives in the district. If for example a party won five seats (through the total votes received by all of its candidates), the top five vote getters would be selected.

That’s known as an “open list party” type of voting as opposed to a “closed list” where the party would select its candidates to fill its allotment.

But in either case the parties are standing their initial candidates. The US is a bit of an outlier with our system of primaries.

62

I didn’t express my OP very clearly. I want to thank all of you for explaining as you have, but I didn’t actually intend that you try to compress the essentials into a post or two, I was thinking more along the lines of “recommend to me a good book or even an online course”. Be that as it may, I’m going to reread all of the above several times over. And thanks again.

63

My impression is that the UK equivalent would be closer to the Leader of the House of Commons, who is the cabinet member in charge of timetabling the government’s parliamentary business and negotiating over it with the other parties and Mr Speaker, and keeping the PM and cabinet up to speed on what’s going on in parliament. Different PMs might also tack on one of the ancient job titles that no longer carry all their medieval substantive power (such as "Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster’) - especially if they add in other responsibilities, such as government propaganda and messaging.

Actually that raises a separate point of difference - PMs (with an adequate majority) can chop and change not only ministers but also ministries quite easily. So within a month of the a Brexit referendum, there was a new Department for Exiting the EU; and as soon as Johnson realised his increased majority came from areas where people felt - and are - “left behind”, the Big Idea became ‘levelling up", so what had been "Communities and Local Government’ became “Levelling Up, Housing and Communities”. Over the decades Housing has moved from part of the Health Department to its own Ministry, to part of Environment; there’s a similar story for children’s policy, or industrial policy. And no doubt Johnson’s successor will want to put their marker on the structure of government: if they’re not going to make real substantive changes (i e., more money), they can at least reorganise and put up a shiny new nameplate outside the door and corporate identity on the publications.

64

Based on the list of Prime Ministers I believe its happened five times since WWII. The frequency has increased, and there’s been some talk of adding the ability to call an election, but it’s still relatively rare and there’s not much appetite for making such a major change. After all, the slim majorities are a result of the current political climate, so the ability to call an election isn’t a guarantee to help much or help at all.

65

My god! And I say this sincerely, you folks could probably collaborate remotely and put together a very solid international comparative civics course, or something of that nature.

There is a massive amount of knowledge and expertise here. It is very impressive.

66

I’d not heard of such a system before. I find it interesting, in that it addresses my biggest concern with a PR system - that the people who actually make it into Parliament are entirely beholden to the party apparatus that selected them to sit in Parliament, rather than to any particular voters. This system would appear to at least allow for voters to make it clear, “We like Party X, but we don’t want that asshole Candidate Y sitting in Parliament.”

67

Yes, I really like that option as well. The worst type of closed list means that the people have no power at all to vote on the approval of individual candidates. That drastically increases the party grasp on the caucus.

I like that even the PM has to contest their seat. Right, Kim? Kim?

68

Not always. Macdonald was defeated once in Kingston, but the party won a strong majority, so he got a “party stalwart” to resign his seat and Macdonald was back in Parliament.

Same thing happened twice with King. Both times, his party won government, and his grip on the party was strong enough that stalwarts resigned. That’s why he was the member for Prince Albert, Sask, for about 15 years. (And in one of the general elections, he squared off in PA with a young fellow named Diefenbaker.)

But if the PM’s party is defeated as well as the PM losing his seat, the PM is gone.

69

Oh, the man wants a book! We all over-read your OP. That’s simple. Here’s a nice little book that was first put together in 1980, by Senator Eugene Forsey, one of the experts on the Canadian parliamentary system. Now in its 10th ed., and available from the Library of Parliament.

Glad you found all the chatter useful; you’ve very welcome.

70

I got a PM that quite reasonably interpreted this to mean the alternate could be from a different party. After all that’s how the US VP was originally elected. So here’s a clarification.

The closest to being elected “on the party’s district list”. So if a party is running a list consisting of

  1. Jane Smith
  2. John Doe
  3. Jack Black
  4. Almira Singh

And Jane Smith and John Doe are elected, Jack Black will be their first alternate.

And since someone mentioned being able to contradict party lists, in national elections in Norway you can strike out candidates and change the order, though I don’t know if it has ever been successfully employed to change the outcome of a national election.

In municipal and county elections you can no longer (I think) strike out candidates, but you can add “personal votes” which gives some small percentage of extra “votage” to individuals, and also write in candidates from other parties’ lists with the same effect.

That was used effectively in one municipality in the 1971 election across all the parties to give women 27 out of 47 municipal council seats*. Men were so mad some suggested changing the election laws.

*I found no easily accessible source for the gender balance in period in other municipalities.

71

Denmark also reserves 40 of its 179 seats to balance parliament proportionally among the national electorate. So even minor parties who fail to win a seat in the district elections could gain representation if they exceeded 2% of the nation-wide vote.

Somehow this works out so that the Danes have about eight parties in the legislature without enduring the chronic dysfunctuality of the Knesset.

72

This seems to imply that all bills start in the House. Is that correct?

73

@Bootb
That implication from the diagram is not correct. Thank you for raising the point of order.
Bills may originate in the Senate, except for money and taxation bills.

74

And I note that as in Canada, money votes also require the royal recommendation (s. 56 of the Constitution).

75

Getting yourself elected to Parliament (Australian Federal).

Step 1. Are you qualified?

At it’s simplest you need to be 18 years old when nominated as a candidate, be an Australian citizen and eligible to vote.

There are fairly usual qualifications about insolvency, metal illness, convictions for treason, being in the pay of the Government and being a member of any other government.

Qualifications and disqualifications - PEO

Our youngest MP is Wyatt Roy who was 20yo when elected in 2010 and it was the first election in which he was entitled to vote.

Many of these citizenship questions were problematic at the time of Federation. Naturally enough, most of the first parliamentarians were either native born or UK born but were British citizens. This was not considered then to be a “foreign power”.

Chris Watson, Australia’s 3rd Prime Minister and first Labor PM was almost certainly a Chilean citizen by birth rather than the Kiwi (and hence a British citizen) most thought he was when he immigrated aged 18.

However the question came to substantial prominence more recently on the arcane aspects of dual citizenship, in some cases by birth, in others bestowed or inherited.

The question asked by most political parties of their prospective candidates during the selection process was simply “Do you have Australian citizenship”. If “Yes”, then that was the end of the matter.

In 1988 Heather Hill was elected as a Senator for Queensland. She was born in the UK but had become an Australian citizen before her nomination. She renounced her UK citizenship after being elected. The Court of Disputed Returns ruled that she was subject of a foreign power when nominated and she was disqualified from taking her seat.

The warning shot was generally ignored. Then in 2017 it really hit the fan.

Green Senators Ludlam and Deputy Leader Waters resigned when it was discovered they held dual citizenship (NZ and Canadian respectfully). The major parties chuckled over the Greens ineptness to lose 2 of their 5 members. The PM berated the Greens for being “careless”. But that was just the start of the can of worms.

Senators Roberts (UK citizen on basis of being Indian born) and Nash (Sydney born with a Scottish father was UK citizen by descent) were referred to the Court of Disputed Returns. The laughing stopped.

The HoR Deputy Prime Minister Joyce, and leader of the National Party was also referred as, though Australian born to New Zealand parents, he was considered by NZ law to be a New Zealand national.

The election of Senator Canavan was disputed on the grounds, though of Australian birth he held Italian citizenship bestowed through his Australian born mother who was granted Italian dual citizenship in 1983 after he was born.

The election of Senator Xenophon was disputed on the grounds he held British Overseas Citizen by descent due to his father being born in Cyprus. To add to the irony, his father had been a partisan who fought the British for Cypriot independence.

At this point the Court of Disputed Returns (who are a special jurisdiction of the High Court of Australia), who were popularly thought to be pragmatic, recognise that there would likely have been a lot of these instances in the past century and sweep it under the carpet, didn’t disappoint. :rofl:

The Court noted that the Constitution [s. 44(i)] draws no distinction between foreign citizenship by place of birth, by descent or by naturalisation. They rendered the elections of all but Canavan and Xenophon invalid. :rofl:

After this ruling a further 3 Senators resigned (by this stage there were smart alec questions being raised about whether the elected Senate was able to raise a quorum) and another HoR

A register was established for parliamentarians could declare their bona fides including the their place and place of birth, their citizenship status at the time and the place and date of birth of their parents and grandparents.

Then to show that some MPs really couldn’t read tea leaves, the wind or even newspapers HoR Feeney resigned when he could not produce any evidence of renouncing his UK citizenship and Senator Gallagher who had taken action regarding her UK citizenship but that renunciation had not become effective before her election was disqualified.

Political parties ask a lot more questions nowadays. :upside_down_face:

76

This is correct.

(Emphasis mine)

Source:

https://www.nvfc.org/the-federal-budget-process-fact-sheet/

77

Getting yourself elected to Parliament (Australian Federal).

Step 2. What are you standing for?

Are you standing for the Senate or the House of Representatives (HoR)?
Are you going as a party member or standing as independent?
I’ll leave the question of which political party to somebody else :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

House of Representatives

The HoR is where the centre of political power lies. The Government of the day need to maintain a majority of votes in the HoR. The Prime Minister is a member of the HoR. Most legislation and all taxation and finance bills originate from the HoR. HoR Menbers serve (max) three year terms, are all up for reelection at the end of each term and there are no term limits. Billy Hughes served from 1901 to 1952. The current “Father of the House” is maverick independent Bob Katter with just under 30 years service.

There are currently 151 single member electorates or divisions in the HoR. The number of electorates is defined in the Constitution as being (as near as possible) double the number of Senators which is 12 for each of the 6 states and two for each of the territories.

The 151 electorates are divided between the states based on population except there is a minimum of 5 per state, which affects only Tasmania who get an extra electorate.

Within each state the electorates are distributed so as to maintain approximately equivalent voter numbers. Hence electoral boundaries move to a degree every parliament. The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) which is non-partisan does this redistribution of electorates one year after the new parliament sits based on the latest population statistics. The Parliament has no power to reject or amend the final electorate boundaries determined the AEC.

The average electorate is about 114k voters. The target number of electors in each electoral division should be within 3.5 per cent of the average. Other considerations mean that the largest diversion from average is about 10%. With the highly urbanised Australian population equal number of voters means very differently sized electorates. Prime Minister Albanese holds Grayndler in Sydney which is the smallest at 32 km2 (12.4 sq mi). The largest is Durack in WA and is literally bigger than Texas, approaching the size of Alaska. Electorates have names, not numbers and the name is usually either a prominent local identity. Electorates with names of cities or geographical features have the problem that after a series of redistributions the named place may not be within the electorate boundaries.

You don’t need to live in your electorate.
If you are planning a run for the HoR, pick a metropolitan seat. They are much more easily administered and your electorate tends to be more homogeneous in socioeconomic factors.

HoR elections are conducted using preference voting or IRV.
For a valid vote you need to rank every candidate on your ballot paper in your preference order.

Independents have usually had a small presence in Federal Parliament. There are currently 10 which represents the high watermark since political parties became firmly established. The attitude to “non-aligned” independents by the major parties can be summed up by the recent decision by PM Albanese to cut their support staff from 4 to 1.

Senate
The Senate is considered based on the way it’s members are elected as the States House and functions as a house of review. The Australian Founding Fathers designed the Senate so as to guard against the larger states majorities in the HoR. This works to a certain extent, but party loyalty is stronger than state loyalty. Senate terms are 6 years and usually half the Senate positions are filled every Federal election.

There are 76 Senators who are elected for their State as a multi-membered electorate based on single transferable vote system of proportional representation.

On the Senate ballot, which can be extremely oversized you have two options, voting above the line for your selected party in preference order or below the line for the candidates in your preference order. The vast bulk of voters go above the line.

With each State electing 6 Senators, if you want to win a seat as a party member you’d have need 1/6th of the State vote or 685,818 votes in NSW or 51,579 votes in Tasmania. With preference flows down the major party list of 6 candidates selections your chances of success depend on how high you get ranked by your party preferably at worst #3. Very rarely do major parties win sufficient votes for 4 Senate spots.

You’d think there would be be less chance of winning as an independent, but there is a quirk in the system, which came from when the States Senate representation was expanded from 10 (when independent and minor parties Senators were extremely rare) to 12 when the independents and minors became the norm. And so people will game the system.

With 6 Senate spots up for grabs in an election it is improbable that the major parties will get sufficient votes for both to win 3 spots. Consequently the usual State Senate result is 3:2:1 with a minor/micro-party independent getting the last spot. Over a couple of half Senate elections each state will have 2 independent Senators out of 12 which are way over represented. Some of these winning candidates receive a few thousand primary but get lucky and win the lottery.

So if you want to win a place in the Australian Federal parliament, your best odds are to stand as a minor/micro-party candidate for the Senate in Tasmania and hope that by name recognition and your negotiation skills get a matrix of preference swapping deals together with a whole lot of luck which just might bundle your paltry count of primary votes up and reach quota, a single six year term (cause you are extremely unlikely to win the lottery again) of relative obscurity and a nice parliamentary pension.

78

The complicated citizenship qualification in Australia sounds quite absurd.

More absurd still Is the House of Lords in the UK, the second chamber whose job it is to revise legislation that starts in the House of Commons following the majority parties political program.

The Commons is the seat of political authority and is seats are filled by democratically elected members of Parliament. The Lords is not democratically elected can only revise legislation. Most Lords are political appointments by the present and previous prime ministers. There are also some historical curiosities such as seats reserved for the clergy of the Church of England.

Prime Ministers win support by promising knighthoods to rich business backers for their service to the nation along with more deserving experts to do the work of revising laws and committee work. Newspaper owners and editors feature quite prominently. One thing pugnacious power brokers have in common is that they are often outrageous snobs who really really want to be acknowledged as a great man by a grateful nation. There is no greater sign of being accepted into the Establishment.

Reform of the House of Lords is always on the ‘to do’ list of new administrations but as with most constitutional issues it is hugely expensive in terms of political capital and time, when there are competing priorities in the political program.

Quite soon Boris Johnson will announce his ‘Honours List’ where he will bestow honours on the great and good. The top honours are Lordships, but there are a huge array of other honours that go to lesser mortals that are recognised as having done good work. These are not so politically inspired and include a lot of sports stars and local heroes. I expect there will be quite a few medals awarded for work on the pandemic.

It will be interesting to see who Boris Johnson decides to award with a Lordship to join his famous appointment of Russian oligarch Evgeny Alexandrovich Lebedev. A notable benefactor of the Conservative party.

Johnson famously dismissed advice from the security services when they expressed concerns that Lebedev’s father is very close to Putin. This apparently was simply an example of ‘Russophobia’. Such was the influence of the Russian oligarch money within the Conservative party.

Quite the opposite of the Australian system of exacting scrutiny, but certainly not any better.

All of these systems have strengths and weaknesses.

Australia requires everyone to vote and turns elections into a community event with BBQ. I would like some of that.

79

Belgium had a pretty bad period of deadlock a bit over a decade ago, including 1 1/2 years of being unable to form a government.

80

I remember meeting a Belgian Civil Servant who seemed quite proud of the fact that the Administration was quite able to keep the country for such a long time, while all the politicians were doing all their negotiations and horse trading.

Another failure is the Northern Ireland Assembly, where the politicians have been unable to agree on forming a government. That one has been going on for quite a number of years now. The Westminster Parliament governs for the whole of the UK, but there also a Scottish Parliament, a Welsh Assembly and a Northern Ireland Assembly. These have a set of ‘devolved’ powers and budgets. This arrangement was established as part of comprehensive constitutional settlement that played an important part in the peace in Northern Ireland. Sadly there this devolved government has not really functioned in Northern Ireland and it is now at the centre of the Irish border issue that has arisen since Brexit. There is no parliament just for England.

Many European states have regional parliaments with varying degrees of autonomy. Sometimes those regions have a strong national identity and edge towards independence. As is the case in Scotland.