The Australian Electoral Commission is currently conducting our nation's eighth Senate general election. I know that is an unusual way to describe the event of July 2, but let me tell readers the dates of the eight Senate general elections.
They have been held in March 1901, September 1914, April 1951, May 1974, December 1975, March 1983, July 1987 and July 2016.
What is unique about July 2, 2016, is that it was preceded by a so-called "Senate reform" which was by far the worst electoral reform, federal or state, in Australia's history.
Before last Saturday's vote I had given up hope that Australia would ever have a decent Senate electoral system. The results, however, have revived my hope for Australian democracy.
In articles over the past two years in this paper and elsewhere I have condemned all the federal politicians (and their media cheer squad) who wanted this new system. My main condemnation, however, has been reserved for Senator Nick Xenophon, Malcolm Turnbull and Senator Richard Di Natale, in that order. So let me now ask this question: what did the three men get out of it?
Xenophon emerged as the biggest winner of the entire election, as I predicted would happen. He was given exactly what he wanted, which means he was given two more senators and two members of the House of Representatives, in the South Australian divisions of Grey (possibly) and Mayo, certainly.
So I must congratulate Xenophon on his astuteness.
Di Natale? His Greens have gained nothing in seats even if, in some places, they have gained some extra votes which are useless to the party. He entered his party's leadership with 10 senators, six of whom were elected when Bob Brown was leader and four of whom were elected when Christine Milne was leader.
Di Natale may be lucky. He may emerge with nine senators – a loss of only one senator from South Australia. However, it is worth noting that in the three states where The Greens may get a second seat the quotas are only 1.47 in Victoria, 1.42 in Tasmania and 1.40 in Western Australia. It is still possible The Greens will have only six senators and one member of the House of Representatives.
The voter punishment meted out to Turnbull is, in my opinion, more severe than that to The Greens.
The Coalition has probably lost three Senate seats, which is the loss I predicted. They had 33 senators in the last term, the 44th Parliament. They look likely to have 30 in the new Senate, as I predicted.
But something worse has happened to the Coalition, and I am the first to admit that I did not predict this particular disaster for them.
In the old Senate there were three crossbench senators who displayed goodwill towards the Coalition government. They were David Leyonhjelm (NSW), Bob Day (SA) and Dio Wang (WA).
It looks as though Turnbull has succeeded in cleaning out from the Senate those three de facto supporters, to be replaced by Pauline Hanson, another Hansonite from NSW and Derryn Hinch from Victoria.
In the light of this disaster I ask the leaders of our five big political parties – Turnbull, Barnaby Joyce, Bill Shorten, Di Natale and Xenophon – to acknowledge that this Senate reform has been an abomination and must be scrapped during the 45th Parliament.
In its place should be inserted the reform I have long advocated.
I call this Xenophon-Turnbull-Di Natale method the "semi party list system". The reform I want would be called the "third Single Transferable Vote system" and I explain it as follows: The semi party list system is characterised by four contrivances.
The first contrivance is the thick black line which runs through the ballot paper. It is known in the industry as the "Senate ballot dividing line".
The second contrivance: they are the party boxes which lie above the line.
The third contrivance is the deceitful instruction to voters who wish to vote above the line.
The fourth contrivance is the deceitful instruction to voters who wish to vote below the line.
All four contrivances should be scrapped. The instruction to voters should follow the instruction to voters under the Tasmanian Hare-Clark system. Note my wording – NOT the ACT Hare-Clark system.
For some details of the difference between "the original and the best" Tasmanian system and the "second best Australian electoral system" in the ACT I ask readers to consult my article titled "Xenophon has foisted upon us a dishonest Senate system".
Under a decent reform of the kind I want there would be an instruction at the top of the ballot paper which reads: "Number the boxes from 1 to (here insert the number of candidates) in the order of your choice".
At the very bottom of the ballot paper it would read, in bold letters: "Remember: your vote will not count unless you number at least six boxes".
In the meantime, all I can say is that the semi party list system has been comprehensively discredited by the votes of the Australian people. It must go
Malcolm Mackerras is a visiting fellow at the Australian Catholic University's Canberra campus.