If the ALP hopes to win the upcoming Election, it’s vital to introduce electoral system reform and improve Australia’s democracy, writes Dr Klaas Woldring.
THE ALBANESE Government published its report about Australian democracy in July 2024. The then Minister of Home Affairs, Clare O’Neil, spoke about the report in September at the Museum of Democracy in Canberra, also identifying the hurdles in Australia.
In 2024, USA-based Freedom House reported that global freedom had declined for the consecutive 18th year.
Minister O’Neil said:
“Over the past decade, the number of people around the world who live in a democracy declined and many democratic countries became less democratic.”
Among her observations about the state of democracy today, the Minister said democracy was being challenged in genuinely new ways all over the world. She also suggested Australia was uniquely positioned to lead the way in innovating through these difficulties.
O’Neil said:
“Australia not only has a choice to do this but an obligation to show the rest of the world that democracies can thrive and survive.”
Given the current withdrawal of support for democracy by the new Trump Administration, this research has taken on a particularly timely character. But what about Australian democracy itself? The talk was presented around five major “ideas”.
The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) launched the Global State of Democracy Initiative (GSoD) in 2016. This initiative provides evidence-based, balanced analysis and data on the state and quality of democracy for 173 countries across the world. It aims to contribute to the public debate on democracy and inform policy interventions to strengthen democracy.
The overall decline nevertheless “is real”. The situation in Australia also is far from perfect. A short summary of O’Neil’s contribution is provided here. In reality, major improvements could be made in Australia as well.
It is not enough to argue that Australia is doing “reasonably okay”. The reality is we can do much better and that should include major improvements in teaching civics in high schools, as have been signalled recently also by the Australian media. The universities seem to still concentrate on analysing the system but, quite disturbingly, fail to come up with improvements and ideas on how to renew governance systems.
As a first idea, ‘a practical agenda for democratic resilience’ was presented by the Minister for Strengthening Australian Democracy, which is a system of government ‘worth protecting’. This included, she claimed, ‘free, fair and trusted elections and the right to choose’. In a democracy, citizens have the right to have their say and democracy was presented as a valuable system of government also in times of crisis.
A second idea was that Australians could draw inspiration from the country’s ‘long traditions of strengthening democracy through ingenious means’. The Minister drew attention to the country’s pioneering inventiveness, integrity innovation and reform. She sought to demonstrate that Australia had developed into a vibrant, participative civil society.
However, as idea number three, O’Neil recognised that while Australian democracy is strong, it is also vulnerable and acknowledged that there are problems in practice. Idea 4 was presented under the heading, ‘Like others around the world Australia’s democracy faces a new constellation of challenges’. Some of these are connected with ‘rapid technological change, deteriorating conditions of public trust, foreign interference, misinformation and disinformation, artificial intelligence and the social dynamics of division’.
However, the Minister continued, a ‘strong democracy is a resilient democracy’ and that should include ‘experimentation and innovation’.
This is where the presentation became somewhat questionable. Reforms have been scarce since the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 was passed. In November 2024, a reform was introduced to manage and reduce financial gifts better – an important improvement no doubt – but otherwise important system changes have hardly been made until 1983 when the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform was introduced to consider electoral reforms after each federal election.
However, this committee of ten, later renamed the Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, comprising representatives of the two major parties, essentially considered reforms that suited, actually favoured, the major parties.
In short, no major system changes in electoral reform have been seriously considered for over 100 years.
My at least three submissions to this committee, advocating the introduction of proportional representation for House of Representatives elections, obviously fell on deaf ears but this is the kind of reform that is long overdue.
In 2022, I again explained the importance for Australia to adopt proportional representation, particularly because it has increasingly become a multicultural society since 1945 but also because new smaller parties, like the Greens, remain seriously under-represented in the main Parliament.
Furthermore, the existing two-party polarising, adversarial culture has been a major hindrance to renewal in many governance spheres. The Minister did not speak about this at all in her address to the Museum of Democracy. (My submission can be found in the records under number 219.)
The discussion about electoral reform in recent months has been led by Senator Don Farrell who sent me a polite personal “thank you” letter, however, without entering into a debate about proportional representation. The Senator later expressed his views stating that he strongly supported the Westminster system and seemed to believe that the existing electoral system was part of that. Clearly, it is not and I pointed that out to him, also mentioning that several Westminster-based countries had actually changed their electoral system.
Furthermore, strong campaigns are in progress to change this also in Britain itself and in the U.S. It is high time that the major parties in this country get their act together. It is quite obvious that the Australian people want major changes to happen as these major parties are now battling to get one-third of the vote.
The case for improving Australia’s democracy is very obvious. If the ALP hopes to win the Election, it would be wise to actually demonstrate awareness of this reality and take steps to introduce reforms.
Dr Klaas Woldring is a former associate professor at Southern Cross University and former convenor of ABC Friends (Central Coast).
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