Scrambling Chambers

During the Victorian state election last year, there was renewed discussion of our problem with group voting tickets, although the impact of 'vote whispering' was somewhat blunted in the 2022 results. Nonetheless, I and many others want to abolish that practice, and indeed we are the only state in Australia to still use it. I also noticed a few wanting more extensive reform to how we elect our Legislative Council, with the odd commentator wishing for just one state-wide electorate that proportionally elects all Members of the Legislative Council (MLCs). I'm reasonably content with the current 'five members per eight regions' model but exploring new parliamentary models does interest me. Here, then, are my suggesions.

If you elected all 40 MLCs from one state-wide electorate at every election then each could be elected on a quota of only 2.4%. This seems rather to low to me. It brings to mind a rule in Germany stating that a party there must have at minimum 5% of the vote to elect representatives - this law is a response to past German experiences of forms of totalitarianism. While Australians can possibly be more relaxed about extremism, it is still worth having a somewhat more stringent test of public support.

One way to do that is to resume the practice of electing half of our MLCs at each election to overlapping eight year terms, as is done in New South Wales. This would give us a quota of 4.8% for campaigners to work towards. But eight years is a long time and entrenched upper house members are remembered by some as a relic of traditional authority. In response I would say that today such longer terms can have a more reformist character - what our world needs is more long-term thinking to address challenges like climate change.

But now that I have messed with our upper house I'm suddenly tempted to do the same with our lower house. And once more I draw some inspiration from Germany. I recently discovered that one chamber there - the Bundesrat - is never elected directly but rather can change composition every time there is a state ('lander') election within Germany. It is a true 'states house' in that those separate governments determine the composition of each state delegation there. What if Victoria had a chamber for local government representation. Stay with me here.

We have 79 local governments across Victoria. What if the mayor of each sat in a Victorian municipal assembly to replace our current Legislative Assembly? Or alternately each municipality could directly elect one Member of the Municipal Assembly (MMA) every four years. These areas directly affect the lives of Victorians in a way that ever-changing local electorates cannot. They more fully understand local concerns. They tend to be more independent of party machines (although that would likely change). And voters are far more likely to know municipality than electorate names. Local elections are currently held between state elections but they could always be harmonized.

And now I have one more concept to bring into play. There is a lot of interest right now in forms of indigenous consultation or representation and Victoria will be undertaking a treaty process. My suggestion is that Victoria adopt one more municipality but that it be demographic rather than geographic - a statewide 'community hall' for all Indigenous Australians residing in Victoria. Our current indigenous population of 66,000 falls well within the range of populations had by our various local government areas. Such a government could have a hand in designing and managing services specific to its constituents as well as advocating for them in Spring Street. Anyone enrolled to vote in this demographic municipality would only get marginally more representation than any other Victorian (40 MLCs and 2 MMAs rather than 1 MMA).

With these changes I have also improved the 'nexus' to one chamber having exactly half the membership of the other (with 80 MMAs and 40 MLCs). Only problem is I seem to have switched the funtions of upper and lower houses (compared with what happpens at a federal level). Which originates legislation and which reviews it? Maybe both could do either. Which majority forms government? Maybe that could be determined by a joint sitting. For it to work you would have to entrench local government in the state constitution and set parameters for maximimum and mimimum sizes.

My concepts may have started modestly but turned rather extravagant by the end. Be aware however that my hands are far from the levels of power.