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 < Back 'Howard and Carr Threaten Democracy' says Chesterfield-Evans June 9th 2003 - "Both John Howard and Bob Carr are a danger to Democracy in Australia", according to Dr Arthur Chesterfield-Evans NSW MLC." "Australian democracy is flawed in that parties that do not get even 40% of the primary vote can get over 50% of the lower house seats, and this translates into 100% of the power. Effectively single member electorates create a gerrymander and those who vote for minor parties or independents get 22% of the vote but often no seats". "Now John Howard wants to curtail the Senate. Bob Carr supports this, but he also wants to abolish the Upper House and rule with much less than 50% of the popular vote. Carr also wants to abolish local councils, and lessen the number of councillors, which will magnify the power of the major political parties. Because individuals and local people will have less input, the political system will become even more out of touch with the people", said Dr Chesterfield-Evans. "The Upper houses have seats proportional to what the voters wanted, so have more diversity of opinion. What Howard and Carr are in fact asking for is to have 100% of the power on less than 50% of the vote. They must not get away with it." "People are sick of governments bickering. They bicker because they have an adversarial model between two big parties. The rest of society has moved beyond this model. Most groups try to make consensus decisions with a wider range of opinions. This would happen with proportional representation. Simplistic solutions by the dominant party can be modified and the final outcome will be a wiser decision." "If the government is serious about democratic reform, it should change to proportional representation in the lower house, rather than abolishing the upper houses", concluded Dr Chesterfield-Evans. |
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updated:
August 14, 2003
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