The Labor–Green Accord was a 1989 political agreement between the Labor Party and the Tasmanian Greens (then called the Green Independents) to form government in the Australian state of Tasmania after the 1989 general election had resulted in a hung parliament .
58-677: The election took place on 13 May 1989. Tasmanian elections use the Hare-Clark Proportional method of Single Transferable Votes , and in 1989 the Tasmanian House of Assembly (the lower house of the Parliament of Tasmania ) consisted of 35 seats—seven members from each of Tasmania's five electorates. The Liberal Party led by Premier Robin Gray suffered a two-seat swing, leaving them with 17 seats, one short of
116-585: A candidate-based PR system, has only rarely been used to elect more than 21 in a single contest. Some PR systems use at-large pooling or regional pooling in conjunction with single-member districts (such as the New Zealand MMP and the Scottish additional member system ). Other PR systems use at-large pooling in conjunction with multi-member districts ( Scandinavian countries ). Pooling is used to allocate leveling seats (top-up) to compensate for
174-506: A commission has started the government cannot stop it. Consequently, governments are usually very careful about framing the terms of reference and generally include in them a date by which the commission must finish. Royal commissions are called to look into matters of great importance and usually controversy. These can be matters such as government structure, the treatment of minorities, events of considerable public concern or economic questions. Many royal commissions last many years and, often,
232-661: A different government is left to respond to the findings. Royal commissions have been held in Australia at a federal level since 1902. Royal commissions appointed by the Governor-General operate under the Royal Commissions Act 1902 passed by the Parliament of Australia in 1902. A defunct alternative is known as a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry. Royal commissions are the highest form of inquiry on matters of public importance. A royal commission
290-476: A few cases—compelling all government officials to aid in the execution of the commission. The results of royal commissions are published in reports, often massive, of findings containing policy recommendations. Due to the verbose nature of the titles of these formal documents they are commonly known by the name of the commission's chair. For example, the “Royal Commission into whether there has been corrupt or criminal conduct by any Western Australian Police Officer”
348-475: A few list-PR systems). A country-wide pooling of votes to elect more than a hundred members is used in Angola, for example. Where PR is desired at the municipal level, a city-wide at-large districting is sometimes used, to allow as large a district magnitude as possible. For large districts, party-list PR is often used, but even when list PR is used, districts sometimes contain fewer than 40 or 50 members. STV,
406-641: A loose alliance with the Greens to govern in a minority until 1998, when the major parties voted to restructure the House of Assembly (from 35 to 25 seats) in an (ultimately, unsuccessful) attempt to make it more difficult for minor parties to be elected. Rundle immediately called an election, which Labor won comfortably, leaving the Greens with only one seat. Christine Milne led the Tasmanian Greens from 1993, when Bob Brown left to make an unsuccessful bid for
464-418: A majority. Labor (led by Michael Field ) won 13. The Green Independents won 5 seats, giving them the balance of power in the parliament. The five Green MPs and their electorates were Dr Bob Brown ( Denison ), Christine Milne ( Lyons ), Dr Gerry Bates ( Franklin ), Lance Armstrong ( Bass ) and Di Hollister ( Braddon ). On 29 May 1989 the results of the general election were officially declared. On
522-480: A number of seats roughly based on its population size (see degressive proportionality ) and in each member state, the election must also be held using a PR system (with proportional results based on vote share). The most widely used families of PR electoral systems are party-list PR, used in 85 countries; mixed-member PR (MMP), used in 7 countries; and the single transferable vote (STV), used in Ireland, Malta,
580-491: A proportional allocation of seats overall. The popular vote, the number of district seats won by each party, and the number of district and party-list PR seats are all the same as in the MMP example above, yet the parties' share of total seats is different. Parallel voting (using non-compensatory party seats) (Number of districts won) under parallel voting under parallel voting Royal Commission A royal commission
638-514: A sure sign the government was unlikely to control the floor of the House. Subsequently, a motion of no-confidence in Gray's government was put and carried in the early hours of 29 June. Later that day, after the Governor held discussions with Field and each of the five Greens, Gray resigned and advised the appointment of Field as Premier. The formation of the Labor–Green alliance resulted in one of
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#1732791026362696-482: Is a major ad-hoc formal public inquiry into a defined issue in some monarchies . They have been held in the United Kingdom , Australia , Canada , New Zealand , Norway , Malaysia , Mauritius and Saudi Arabia . In republics an equivalent entity may be termed a commission of inquiry . Such an inquiry has considerable powers, typically equivalent or greater than those of a judge but restricted to
754-504: Is allocated seats based on its party share. Some party-list PR systems use overall country-wide vote counts; others count vote shares in separate parts of the country and allocate seats in each part according to that specific vote count. Some use both. List PR involves parties in the election process. Voters do not primarily vote for candidates (persons), but for electoral lists (or party lists ), which are lists of candidates that parties put forward. The mechanism that allocates seats to
812-420: Is also randomness – a party that receives more votes than another party might not win more seats than the other. Any such dis-proportionality produced by the district elections is addressed, where possible, by the allocation of the compensatory additional members. (Number of districts won) (party-list PR seats) under MMP MMP gives only as many compensatory seats to a party as they need to have
870-419: Is described here. The mixed-member proportional system combines single member plurality voting (SMP), also known as first-past-the-post (FPTP), with party-list PR in a way that the overall result of the election is supposed to be proportional. The voter may vote for a district candidate as well as a party. The main idea behind MMP is compensation , meaning that the list-PR seat allocation is not independent of
928-554: Is formally established by the Governor-General on behalf of the Crown and on the advice of government Ministers. The government decides the terms of reference, provides the funding and appoints the commissioners, who are selected on the basis of their independence and qualifications. They are never serving politicians. Royal commissions are usually chaired by one or more notable figures. Because of their quasi-judicial powers
986-456: Is more complicated than first-past-the-post voting , but the following example shows how the vote count is performed and how proportionality is achieved in a district with 3 seats. In reality, districts usually elect more members than that in order to achieve more proportional results. A risk is that if the number of seats is larger than, for example, 10 seats, the ballot will be so large as to be inconvenient and voters may find it difficult to rank
1044-551: Is no need for a single office (e.g. a president, or mayor) to be elected proportionately if no votes are for parties (subgroups). In the European Parliament , for instance, each member state has a number of seats that is (roughly) proportional to its population, enabling geographical proportional representation. For these elections, all European Union (EU) countries also must use a proportional electoral system (enabling political proportional representation): When n % of
1102-489: Is not considered to make an electoral system "proportional" the way the term is usually used. For example, the US House of Representatives has 435 members, who each represent a roughly equal number of people; each state is allocated a number of members in accordance with its population size (aside from a minimum single seat that even the smallest state receives), thus producing equal representation by population. But members of
1160-580: Is used with 5-member districts, it is common for successful candidates to receive 16.6 percent of the vote in the district. This produces a high effective threshold in the districts, and the country maintains a very strong two-party system. However, about 4000 voters in a district would be enough to elect a third-party candidate if voters desired but this seldom happens. Conversely, New South Wales, which uses STV to elect its legislative council in 21-seat contests, sees election of representatives of seven or eight parties each time. In this election about 1/22nd of
1218-653: The Australian Senate , and Indian Rajya Sabha . Proportional representation systems are used at all levels of government and are also used for elections to non-governmental bodies, such as corporate boards . All PR systems require multi-member election contests, meaning votes are pooled to elect multiple representatives at once. Pooling may be done in various multi-member voting districts (in STV and most list-PR systems) or in single countrywide – a so called at-large – district (in only
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#17327910263621276-436: The terms of reference for which it was created. These powers may include subpoenaing witnesses, notably video evidences, taking evidence under oath and requesting documents. The commission is created by the head of state (the sovereign, or their representative in the form of a governor-general or governor) on the advice of the government and formally appointed by letters patent . In practice—unlike lesser forms of inquiry—once
1334-486: The 200-seat legislature as large as in the examples that follow, about 67 three-seat districts would be used. Districts with more seats would provide more proportional results – one form of STV in Australia uses a district with 21 members being elected at once. With a larger district magnitude, it is more likely that more than two parties will have some of their candidates elected. For example, in Malta , where STV
1392-707: The Federal House of Representatives . He was elected as a Senator in 1996, and Milne followed him to become a Senator in 2004. Proportional representation Condorcet methods Positional voting Cardinal voting Quota-remainder methods Approval-based committees Fractional social choice Semi-proportional representation By ballot type Pathological response Strategic voting Paradoxes of majority rule Positive results Proportional representation ( PR ) refers to any type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in
1450-540: The Greens were implemented, including: The Greens terminated the accord after 409 days on 1 October 1990, when the state cabinet announced its adoption of the Federal Government's Forests and Forest Industry Strategy (FFIS), however an election was not required until 1992. The accord was never considered a coalition government , as the Green MPs had no ministerial responsibilities, and as such had no say in
1508-510: The House are elected in single-member districts generally through first-past-the-post elections : a single-winner contest does not produce proportional representation as it has only one winner. Conversely, the representation achieved under PR electoral systems is typically proportional to a district's population size (seats per set amount of population), votes cast (votes per winner), and party vote share (in party-based systems such as party-list PR ). The European Parliament gives each member state
1566-670: The US House of Representatives). Votes and seats often cannot be mathematically perfectly allocated, so some amount of rounding has to be done. The various methods deal with this in different ways, although the difference is reduced if there are many seats – for example, if the whole country is one district. Party-list PR is also more complicated in reality than in the example, as countries often use more than one district, multiple tiers (e.g. local, regional and national), open lists or an electoral threshold . This can mean that final seat allocations are frequently not proportional to
1624-433: The absence or insufficient number of leveling seats (in list PR, MMP or AMS) may produce disproportionality. Other sources are electoral tactics that may be used in certain systems, such as party splitting in some MMP systems. Nonetheless, PR systems approximate proportionality much better than other systems and are more resistant to gerrymandering and other forms of manipulation. Proportional representation refers to
1682-611: The adoption of the forestry policy. Michael Field and Christine Milne spoke about the breakdown of the accord to the ABC program Stateline in 2006. Field compared the relationship between Labor and the Greens to a "forced marriage" which ended in a "very acrimonious divorce". Milne stated: "What destroyed the Labor-Green Accord was the betrayal of the Greens by the Labor Party over resource security legislation." After
1740-497: The biggest scandals in Tasmanian political history. Launceston businessman Edmund Rouse was the managing director of ENT Limited, Tasmania's largest media company. Returning to Tasmania from an overseas trip shortly after the election, Rouse was dismayed to find the Greens in a position of power in government, and was determined to take on what he saw as a grave threat to the Tasmanian and Australian economies. In particular, Rouse
1798-494: The breakdown of the accord, an election was called for 1 February 1992. Although the Greens retained all of their five seats, Labor lost two seats to the Liberals, led by Ray Groom , who now had a majority. The next election in 1996 saw Labor regain three seats and the Greens lose one. Ray Groom, who had promised before the election to only govern with a majority, resigned and handed the leadership to Tony Rundle , who formed
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1856-547: The bribe was offered and discussed a possible Labor defector. Gray's conduct was criticised by the commission, however, and his political career and reputation were tarnished. In return for the promise of stable government, the Parliamentary Accord committed both parties to work towards common objectives, balancing broad changes to environmental management policies with Tasmania's economic and employment concerns. Several environmental and social policies requested by
1914-412: The candidates determine the winner. This is done using a preferential ballot . The ranking is used to instruct election officials of how the vote should be transferred in case the first preference is marked for an un-electable candidate or for an already elected candidate. Each voter casts one vote and the district used elects multiple members (more than one, usually 3 to 7). Because parties play no role in
1972-491: The commissioners are often retired or serving judges. They usually involve research into an issue, consultations with experts both within and outside government and public consultations as well. The warrant may grant immense investigatory powers, including summoning witnesses under oath , offering of indemnities, seizing of documents and other evidence (sometimes including those normally protected, such as classified information ), holding hearings in camera if necessary and—in
2030-510: The context of voting systems, PR means that each representative in an assembly is elected by a roughly equal number of voters. In the common case of electoral systems that only allow a choice of parties, the seats are allocated in proportion to the vote tally or vote share each party receives. The term proportional representation may be used to mean fair representation by population as applied to states, regions, etc. However, representation being proportional with respect solely to population size
2088-529: The disproportional results produced in single-member districts using FPTP or to increase the fairness produced in multi-member districts using list PR. PR systems that achieve the highest levels of proportionality tend to use as general pooling as possible (typically country-wide) or districts with large numbers of seats. Due to various factors, perfect proportionality is rarely achieved under PR systems. The use of electoral thresholds (in list PR or MMP), small districts with few seats in each (in STV or list PR), or
2146-504: The elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions ( political parties ) among voters. The essence of such systems is that all votes cast – or almost all votes cast – contribute to the result and are effectively used to help elect someone. Under other election systems, a bare plurality or a scant majority are all that are used to elect candidates. PR systems provide balanced representation to different factions, reflecting how votes are cast. In
2204-469: The election are as follows (popular vote). Under party-list PR, every party gets a number of seats proportional to their share of the popular vote. This is done by a proportional formula or method; for example, the Sainte-Laguë method – these are the same methods that may be used to allocate seats for geographic proportional representation (for example, how many seats each states gets in
2262-432: The electorate support a particular political party or set of candidates as their favourite, then roughly n % of seats are allotted to that party or those candidates. All PR systems aim to provide some form of equal representation for votes but may differ in their approaches on how they achieve this. Party-list PR is the most commonly used version of proportional representation. Voters cast votes for parties and each party
2320-450: The example below, the Droop quota is used and so any candidate who earns more than 25 percent of the vote is declared elected. Note that it is only possible for 3 candidates to each achieve that quota. In the first count, the first preference (favourite candidate) marked on each of the ballots is counted. Candidates whose vote tally equals or passes the quota are declared elected as shown in
2378-497: The example below. (first preferences) Next, surplus votes belonging to those already elected, votes the candidates received above the quota (votes that they did not need to be elected), are transferred to the next preference marked by the voters who voted for them. Continuing the example, suppose that all voters who marked first preference for Jane Doe marked John Citizen as their second choice. Based on this, Jane Doe's surplus votes are transferred to John Citizen, John Citizen passes
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2436-400: The following day, Gray had a discussion with the Governor in which he indicated he intended to tender advice recommending a new election in the event that he lost a motion of no-confidence. The Governor, who had sought independent legal opinions, indicated he would be unlikely to accept the advice were it to be proffered. When Parliament convened on 28 June 1989, a Labor Speaker was appointed —
2494-530: The general principle found in any electoral system in which the popularly chosen subgroups (parties) of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. To achieve that intended effect, proportional electoral systems need to either have more than one seat in each district (e.g. single transferable vote ), or have some form of compensatory seats (e.g. mixed-member proportional representation apportionment methods ). A legislative body (e.g. assembly, parliament) may be elected proportionally, whereas there
2552-401: The many candidates, although 21 are elected through STV in some elections with no great difficulty. (In many STV systems, voters are not required to mark more choices than desired. Even if all voters marked only one preference, the resulting representation would be more balanced than under single-winner FPTP.) Under STV, an amount that guarantees election is set, which is called the quota . In
2610-442: The number of seats of each party be proportional. Another way to say this is that MMP focuses on making the outcome proportional. Compare the MMP example to a mixed-member majoritarian system, where the party-list PR seat allocation is independent of the district results (this is also called parallel voting ). There is no compensation (no regard to how the district seats were filled) when allocating party-list seats so as to produce
2668-463: The offer, and the call was dismissed as a hoax until an instalment of $ 5,000 arrived at Cox's home. Cox reported the bribery attempt to Tasmania Police , who placed a tap on his phone and arrested Aloi on 23 June as he called Cox from a telephone box. Rouse was arrested several days later, after Aloi revealed his role in the affair. Rouse was charged with attempted bribery, and sentenced to three years in prison, of which he served eighteen months. Aloi
2726-419: The parties' vote share. The single transferable vote is an older method than party-list PR, and it does not need to formally involve parties in the election process. Instead of parties putting forward ordered lists of candidates from which winners are drawn in some order, candidates run by name, each voter marks preferences for candidates, with only one marked preference used to place the vote, and votes cast for
2784-408: The parties/lists is how these systems achieve proportionality. Once this is done, the candidates who take the seats are based on the order in which they appear on the list. This is the basic, closed list version of list PR. An example election where the assembly has 200 seats to be filled is presented below. Every voter casts their vote for the list created by their favourite party and the results of
2842-511: The party's seats. 81 percent of the voters saw their first choice elected. At least 15 percent of them (the Doe first, Citizen second voters) saw both their first and second choices elected – there were likely more than 15 percent if some "Citizen first" votes gave their second preference to Doe. Every voter had satisfaction of seeing someone of the party they support elected in the district. for candidates of party Under STV, to make up
2900-409: The quota and so is declared elected to the third and last seat that had to be filled. Even if all of Fred Rubble's surplus had gone to Mary Hill, the vote transfer plus Hill's original votes would not add up to quota. Party B did not have two quotas of votes so was not due two seats, while Party A was. It is possible, in realistic STV elections, for a candidate to win without quota if they are still in
2958-528: The results of the district level voting. First-past-the-post is a single winner system and cannot be proportional (winner-takes-all), so these disproportionalities are compensated by the party-list component. A simple, yet common version of MMP has as many list-PR seats as there are single-member districts. In the example it can be seen, as is often the case in reality, that the results of the district elections are highly disproportional: large parties typically win more seats than they should proportionally, but there
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#17327910263623016-421: The running when the field of candidates has thinned to the number of remaining open seats. In this example, the district result is balanced party-wise. No one party took all the seats, as frequently happens under FPTP or other non-proportional voting systems. The result is fair – the most popular party took two seats; the less popular party took just one. The most popular candidates in each party won
3074-651: The same day the Tasmanian Parliamentary Accord was signed by Michael Field, Leader of the Opposition, and Bob Brown, a member for Denison. Field submitted the Accord to the Governor of Tasmania , Sir Phillip Bennett , in support of a proposition that the Governor should commission a Labor-led minority. The Governor declined Field's proposal and a new minority government with Gray as Premier
3132-402: The vote count, STV may be used for nonpartisan elections, such as the city council of Cambridge, Massachusetts . A large proportion of the votes cast are used to actually elect someone so the result is mixed and balanced with no one voting block taking much more than its due share of the seats. Where party labels are indicated, proportionality party-wise is noticeable. Counting votes under STV
3190-481: The vote in the state is enough to take a seat, and seven or eight parties take at least that many votes, demonstrating a different voting pattern than Malta exhibits. Mixed-member proportional representation combines election of district members with election of additional members as compensatory top-up. Often MMP systems use single-member districts (SMDs) to elect district members. (Denmark, Iceland and Sweden use multi-member districts in their MMP systems.) MMP with SMDs
3248-478: Was concerned with the effect on the Tasmanian timber company Gunns , of which he was chairman, and which he thought stood to lose between $ 10 million and $ 15 million as a result of the Greens' environmental policies. Using a former employee, Tony Aloi, as an intermediary, Rouse offered Labor MP Jim Cox A$ 110,000 to cross the floor and vote with the Liberals to defeat the presumed motion of no confidence against Gray when parliament resumed. Cox informed Field of
3306-427: Was sentenced to twelve months prison, with eight months suspended sentence. A Royal Commission ( Royal Commission into an Attempt to Bribe a Member of the House of Assembly ) was held in 1991, which attempted to determine the involvement of Robin Gray in the affair. Gray was cleared of involvement in the bribe attempt, as no connection between him and Rouse was established, although he had met with Rouse shortly before
3364-469: Was sworn in on 1 June. Gray's public position in the immediate aftermath of the election was that he would resign if he lost a vote of no-confidence when Parliament resumed. However, he was quickly persuaded by a colleague and advisers that he might have the option of a new election. During June the proposal for a new election was developed and supportive advice obtained from a number of eminent constitutional lawyers. On 27 June, with Parliament set to convene
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