“What Role Do Minor Parties Perform in the Australian Political System?”

In this essay I will assess the outcomes of Additional Member system, First Past the Post system and the Closed Party List system. The F-P-T-P system is used to elect the members of House of Commons and local government in England and Wales. Voters select candidates, and do so by marking his or her name with an ‘X’ on the ballot paper. This reflects the principle of ‘one person, one vote’. The Additional Members system is used in Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly, and Northern Ireland Assembly and Greater London assembly. It is a mixed system made up of F-P-T-P and party-list elements. The Regional party list (or the closed party list) is used to elect the

A voter can be defined as an individual who votes, or has the right to vote, in elections. Voting behaviour is explained using the concepts of expressive voting and strategic voting. A rational voter would act more strategically, that is, the voter would vote to produce an election outcome which is as close as possible to his or her own policy preferences, rather than voting on the basis of party attachment, ideology, or social group membership (expressive voting). Strategic voting has become more important than voting on the basis of political cleavages (expressive voting), so voters have become more rational in their approach, however there is always an element of expressiveness in their behaviour. Political parties were initially formed to represent the interests of particular groups in society however, as these parties became more universal in the appeal of their policy programmes, voting behaviour shifted from expressive to strategic. This essay explores the reasons behind the declining importance of political cleavages, and the rise of strategic voting.

It could be argued, however, that the two party system which was once in place is declining, meaning more parties have a realistic chance to achieve role as government. In the last thirty years the support for the Conservative and Labour parties has been gradually decreasing, leaving them with only 67% of the vote at the 2005 general election, which was the smallest percentage they’d gained since 1918. This is an example of partisan dealignment because the working class started to transfer their party support to Conservative instead of Labour. The Liberal Democrats support was significantly increasing, leaving them with 22% of the vote in the 2005 election as well as 62 seats. Their seat numbers had been increasing since 1974 when they only had 14 seats in parliament, suggesting a change in the dominance of only two parties. Today, the Liberal Democrats, who haven’t been considered a main party since, are currently the weaker part of a coalition government, with Labour in opposition. This shows a clear end to the two party system, with three parties in significant places of power.

The most important issue in relation to the Canadian electoral process is the debate over whether or not the state should implement electoral reform for federal elections. It is my stance that replacing the Single Member Plurality system (SMP) with the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) is undeniably in the best interest of Canadians, and I will attempt to prove this by contrasting The Limits: Electoral Systems and Electoral Reform - Or How I Came to Love SMP by Christopher Kam, who believes in the current SMP system, and Getting What You Vote For by John Hiemstra, who pushes for a change in favour of the MMP system. This paper will conclude with further critical analysis, as well as my justified stance the MMP system is clearly superior.

It can vary between models, just as a plurality model may, however most models have voters cast two votes, one vote for the party and one for the riding representative. The focus of this essay will be more on the New Zealand variation of the Mixed Member Proportional System, which works as such:

The 1996 provincial election of British Columbia, produced what was considered to be a “wrong-winner” scenario, in which the party that received a majority of the votes received significantly less than a majority of the seats available for representation. The falsely represented party and its supporters were understandably furious. As a result, many pushed for electoral reform to prevent a similar outcome in future elections. Campaigns, such as The Free Your Vote, aimed towards ensuring more accurate elections, but failed to produce any real change was made. Then in the 2001 election, the exact opposite happened; the party that had received a majority of the votes but had poor representation in the 1996 election had now received less than a majority of the votes but received a majority of the seats. Yet again, a “wrong-winner” had been named. The fundamental idea that a party and the number of

Matland and Studler (1996) found that there are larger and more justifiable amounts of female representation in governments that employ a PR electoral system and multi-member districts, as opposed to governments that utilize a FPTP electoral system and single-member districts. Baron and Diermeier (2001) found that Political Parties elected to the government are given a proportion of seats equal to the percentage of votes they receive, in a Parliamentary government with a PR electoral system. These findings are key benefits that a PR system would provide to Political Parties in Canada, which are especially important for smaller parties, such as the Green Party, and women in Canadian Politics since these benefits ensure them better representation in Parliament. In contrast, the FPTP system, an institutional constraint, prevents small parties from gaining governmental power and the diversity of candidates in its single-member districts (Kelly, 2011). Baron and Diermeier (2001) also found that a minority government would be most likely to form in an election under a PR electoral system with list system PR and multi-member districts, which is one change it could have brought to the 2015 election, but there would still be strategic voting in order to support voters' preferred policies. The 2015 federal election saw a high voter turnout, at 68.49 % (Elections Canada, 2015). Blais et al., (2014) found that voter turnout is not higher in PR elections than in FPTP and that voters are not more likely to vote in PR elections when the anticipated reward for voting is higher. This indicates that another change a PR electoral system with list system PR

When adopting plurality electoral system, many third party supporters had a strong preference for their party over all others, and therefore “reluctant to rally rather either of the top two contestants” (Blais: 2002, p.449). Moreover, many parties overestimated their chance of winning, hence did not feel that their vote would be wasted. Blais suggests that parties and political leaders are the main reasons why there are fewer parties and candidates in plurality elections, due to the fact that potential candidates perceiving their chances of winning are small and are more reluctant to run and invest a lot of money and time in their election campaign. Contrastingly, the proportional representation could demonstrate a fairer turnout for Canada, which reduces the problem of excluding candidates and lesson the problem of concentrating votes for a single candidate. For example, Chile’s reformation of adopting proportional representation demonstrates that their new electoral system have many routes to proportionality. It turned out to have “strengthen(ed) the parties” and “contribute(d) to less complex strategic coordination” (Gamboa & Morales: 2015, p.63). If our candidates are loyal to the party, the votes of candidates should not only benefit the candidates, but also the

Micro-parties have been apart of the democratic landscape in Australia for many years but rose to prominence in Australia during and after the 2013 Federal election where the election delivered the biggest Senate crossbench in modern history. Due to their size the micro-parties have no real chance of forming government but they do have a huge opportunity in influencing electoral outcomes. Competition in any industry is positive and with the influx of micro-parties in Australia, most having an impact on the electorate and appealing to voters the new look Senate can be seen as a major win for Australian democracy.

We have seen multiple states with majoritarian electoral systems change to either proportional or mixed system over the last two decades. In 1993 Italy, Japan, and New Zealand all went through major changes in their voting systems due to widespread dissatisfaction with their former election results (Dunleavey & Margetts, 1995). All three of these countries adopted a mixed electoral system that combined single member plurality ruled constituencies with additional seats per party to make the representation proportional (Dunleavey & Margetts, 1995). It is also significant to note that New Zealand was able to successfully transition from first-past-the-post to a proportional system, which is what Canada should be doing. Electoral systems vary in three broad aspects which are the ballot structure, the district structure, and the electoral formula (Teorell & Lindstedt, 2009). When considering these three factors a mixed electoral system would be easier to transition into Canadian society. Since the mixed electoral system is based upon single member plurality there is little that would need to be changed if reform occurred. The most logical electoral systems to transition to when stepping away from majoritarian governments would be either a mixed system similar to what Italy, Japan, and New Zealand have moved to or a variation on the party list system that is built off of

The Australian Labor Party is sometimes accused of not being clear about what it stands for.

These views stated by Loat and Macmillan are contradictory to other scholarly research such as in Party Constituency Associations and the Service, Policy and Symbolic Responsiveness of Canadian Members of Parliament by Royce Koop, as Koop presents though MPs are important as they get involved more intimately, which is true, but Koop states that members are important in order to maintain Canada’s democratic values of responsiveness (2012). This contrast in views presents more division in Canadian politics, as it does not seem scholars can even agree either on the productivity of members of parliament, which adds to the unattractiveness of politics. Indeed members do maintain democratic values, but that is only when they can actually do their job. Thus, one must look at how the House of Commons and party discipline contribute interfere, as all these factors

Instituted in 1924, after voter turnout had sagged to less than 60%, the new Australian election law produced stunning results, as participation rocketed to 91%.... " On the other hand the short story,"A Citizen's Duty" Gloria is just giving us examples from her social studies class. For

Why are certain political parties highly unified in parliaments? This article investigates cases of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), in order to answer this question. According to the studies of Australian politics, the ALP is not ideological cohesive and it is difficult for the leadership of the ALP to impose discipline on their MPs. Existing theory predicts that such party’s unity would be low. However, in fact, Australian MPs rarely object to their party in roll call votes. To solve this puzzle, focusing on party organization, this article argues that intra-party coordination mechanism affects party unity. Qualitative case studies show that the ALP’s policy-making organizations called the caucus policy committees functioned as an intra-party

After careful deliberation, I have solid basis to believe that it is necessary to begin the initials steps towards planning our position on electoral reform. In the recent 2015 election, Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau has vowed to bring change to our current First Past the Post formula, so there is no room for hesitation to justify our position on this matter. By taking into account of the history of our party’s own vote, the advantages and benefits that the First Past the Post electoral system would bring to our party evidently outbalance those of other formulas such as mixed-member proportional or preferential ballot systems. Before I delve further into reasons as to why we should oppose the reform and keep the present First Past the Post