An exercise in practical politics
As a few of you may be aware, the Australian Liberal Party under the command of Prime Minister John Howard was recently reelected in a public, totally transparent and legitimate election by the adults of Australia. Unlike in the US there is no controversy about the fact that his party's success was the will of the people, so while I disagree with their decision, the will of the people must be accepted.
But the interesting thing about this recent election is that Mr Howard was returned to power with control over both the House of Representatives (to gain government a party must gain numerical superiority in this body either by themselves or as part of a coalition) and the Senate (through which all legislation must be sent for approval. Traditionally the stronghold of the minor party and the independent, since the 70s it has stood as a bulwark against total control due to its regular opposition to partisan political agendas of both sides of politics).
Naturally our beloved PM vowed to never abuse the power given to him by the people. And yet already, less than three months after the election and even before newly elected officials will sit for the first time, we already hear the call for electoral reform. Whilst any Australian already knows the significance of electoral reform, for those few foreigners who read my blog I'll spell it out a little. Voting rights and responsibilities are not actually part of the constitution in Australia and other Westminster political systems. They fall under a series of conventions called Common Law which can be overturned in Parliament simply through legislating on the Common Law issue. The High Court can overturn such changes, but only if such a ruling infringes on the Constitution; given the current nature of this document, that is quite rare.
So in theory the Liberal Party could remove voting rights from everyone who is not a Liberal Party member. They're not stupid though, so that isn't going to happen. But they can limit the effect of the rolls through other means. The first, and one recently proposed by the PM, is to close the electoral rolls upon the announcement of the election. In the US this isn't such a big deal. Everyone knows the date the election is going to be held; closing the rolls six weeks before that date won't be unexpected. But in Australia the date of the election is up to the incumbent PM. There is no set minimum length of time between elections, although the maximum is around 4 years.
However there is a legal requirement that all Australians are on the electoral rolls. The natural consequence of this is fairly obvious - people being what they are, most don't bother to enroll until after the election is called. So in the last seven days the Electoral Commission receives roughly the same number of applications as they did during the entire year to that date. Most of those people are under the age of 25, and are first-time voters. Which group in the community is least likely to vote for a conservative Liberal government? This same group. Perhaps the PM merely wishes to take some of the stress off the EC during the election campaign, but that seems a little optimistic, and rather out of character for someone who cut the Public Service by over a third during his first few years of government.
The other proposed change involves electoral boundaries. It is commonly known political science knowledge that political persuasions often band together in geographic locations. Strange but true. Whilst this is of little use in electorates that are decidedly pro-one side or the other, in marginal electorates this can have a significant effect. One need only look at the sweeping changes carried out by Joh Bjelke-Peterson in Queensland, which kept Queensland Labor until generational change brought it back to neutral. The targets of these proposed changes are almost solely marginal seats. Once again it might simply be an attempt to improve electoral efficiency, but once again it seems a little dubious.
Through techniques like these it is possible for a government to retain control for a very long time.
Of course these are the normal political tactics of parties which gain total power. They seek to consolidate it at all costs, and prevent its capture by rivals. And this is the weakness of all Westminster systems. They are extremely vulnerable to popular parties. Is it worth denying the will of the people though to prevent a popular dictatorship? Probably not. But it's probably about time that measures were taken to limit the power of the system when it is under the control of a single party. A division of power like the US possesses is possibly the best solution, but of course such a system has its own problems. However if we don't think of and carry out these things now, it is entirely possible that it will be impossible to carry them out later. Dictatorship is here, and it's time for every citizen to make sure that it doesn't cost us too much.