PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION

Hokitika Guardian, 10 July 1920, Page 1

PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION

WASN’T A SUCCESS IN NEW SOUTH WALES. SYDNEY, June 29. Vigorous, but somewhat learned and involved argument is going on concerning the question : “ Did the system of Proportional Rerprescntation, under which the new New South Wales Parliament was elected, prove a success?” The most ardent advocate of'the system, Mr A. G. Huie, insists that, so far as it was permitted, the system was successful, while the two main opponents of its further existence are, significantly enough, the Labour Party and the National Party, each of whom control powerful “ machines.”

Some of Mr IJuie’s remarks arc of interest to New Zealand. “ The single electorate plan made the machine the power it was for evil, in this country,” says Mr Huic in a letter to tlie newspapers. “Those who work the machine know this, lienee their anxiety to regain, a strangle hold on politics before it slips for ever from their grasp.” Mr Huie combats the argument that the system did not produce a truly representative Parliament; he says that the three parties—Labour, National, and Progressive—are almost exactly represented according to the voting strength of the people. That,” he says, “is what the Nationalists and the Labour reactionaries object to. Just results do not appeal to them. No doubt the Nationalists executive wanted what Mr Massey fluked in New Zealand at the last election —58 per cent of the members on 38 per cent of the votes. .Such an electoral outrage would no doubt have appealed to them as just the thing. The Labour reactionaries no doubt wanted what Mr Ryan got in Queensland— 66 per cent of the members on a vote of 53 per cent of the electors. The idea of electoral justice is abhorrent to those who want to take the public down.” Mr Huic goes on to say that the worst disadvantages of the New South Wales system—the huge percentage of informal votes —was due to the regulation making it compulsory to vote in numerical order for every candidate on the ballot paper—a regulation devised by the State Government, and never contemplated or approved by tlie advocates of Proportional Representation. ' Under the true system the elector votes for as few or as many candidates as lie desires. However, the Labour Government promises to abolish Proportional Ropiesentation.