Two things occurred at the Federal election, the major parties won all the seats (bar one), but not not all the votes, just 85% of the first preference vote, down from 93% at the '93 and '96 elections. Ian Henderson wrote on October 22, "that voters are less than enthusiastic about the main political parties". He advocates the parties open up procedures for selecting candidates. The preferred method is a public preselection or primary as the Americans call it.
Is there a problem requiring a solution, and if so is a primary the right solution? I think there is a problem of party legitimacy, although it may be a transitional one and not overly connected to candidate selection. Nevertheless, the parties do not garner previous levels of support, their membership as a percentage of the voting population has declined, they are heavily subsidised by the public purse and the the chance of internal disputes being publicly aired in a court of law is increasing.
However, we have in the parties a very valuable tool for identifying and settling the major divisions of opinion in the electorate. They have a long established place in politics, Labor since 1901, National since 1922, Liberal since 1945. Only the Democrats are new on the block 1977. Any method that seeks to increase public involvement in the parties may well loosen the ties that bind and enable them to do their important work for the electorate. Notice I do not use the word in the electorate. The parties are not heavily immersed in the electorate, they are at most a link between the state and the electorate, and increasingly a service provided by the state to the electorate.
The Americans set out to destroy their parties at the beginning of the century, they pretty well suceeded. The tool they used was the primary. A candidate who wins a primary really has little use for the party. The US parties are weak and ill-disciplined and US politics is subject to the lowest form of vote trading in order to build a majority for each proposition. The finance for their campaigns comes from interest groups who, in the end, buy their majority. US political scientists and commentators have ever since wished for responsible government based on the discipline of parties.
So choose your poison voters, parties which have a history, a platform and a method of filtering candidates, or an interest group free-for-all, a market place for policy and candidate carpetbaggers?
There is an alternative means of assisting the legitimacy of the parties through public involvement, without destroying their internal discipline. To make sure their rules and procedures for preselection are democratic. Registered parties should, in addition to lodging their constitution with the Australian Electoral Commission ensure that their rules are registered, updated and made publicly available. This is a mild means of inspection that may make the parties more aware of their public duties and ensure candidates are selected fairly. This step does not give the public or the government the right to interfere, as would happen in a primary, the rights of private political association would be preserved.
Public debate about the parties can then proceed on the basis of good information. This does not ensure that procedures are fair or democratic, but it does allow whoever wishes to apply their own test. For example, I have just subjected the parties rules to an audit. The parties have different rules in different states which made 20 sets in all which they kindly supplied. Using six basic criteria as set out in the Commonwealth Electoral Act, which is the rule book of fair play for Federal elections I was able to judge the fairness of the preselection system of the major parties. The first time any such audit has been undertaken outside the parties. On the criteria chosen, such as the use of secret ballots, the integrity of rolls of voters, equal weight of votes and so on the score was not particularly encouraging. This, despite a long history of struggling to overcome the rorts that people dream up.
Others may apply other tests from time to time. What is promising about this approach is that public scrutiny, but not public voting is a chance for the parties to make the transition to a new era and preserve what is a very good system.
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