The Australian Electoral Commission has introduced a program called “Get Voting” described as “a nation-wide education initiative supporting the conduct of free and fair school elections”. This is, as Electoral Commissioner Ed Killesteyn claims, “A new practical program providing on-line information and tools for schools to conduct elections for their student representative bodies”. This aims “to develop good voting habits in the electoral process as adults”. When checking out the Get Voting website, we note that there are only two electoral systems described there as “informed resources”: Preferential voting and “first-past-the post”.
Surely this is a seriously inadequate initiative by the AEC. There is no mention of proportional representation, in any form. It has existed in this country for over 100 years as the Hare-Clark system. There is also no mention of other, even more suitable, proportional systems which would be a great improvement on the two mentioned by the AEC. They are used in dozens of other countries with proven success. If this program is to be introduced, as suggested, a great opportunity would be lost to educate school children about various systems, used both in Australia and elsewhere. It would not be a “practical and meaningful experience of voting”, as claimed. Amazingly, the Garran School in the ACT is the first one on the list. The ACT territory itself has a proportional representation system in place!
As a political scientist, I offer to design, free of charge, the missing elements of this program.
Dr Klaas Woldring
Pearl Beach
