Oct 2000 Volume 81 Number 10 "serving the protectors"

Assistance Prompt, Professional

Dear Peter

I sincerely thank the Police Association of South Australia and in particular Mark Carroll for prompt and professional assistance in my recent wage maintenance grievance.

I believe the Police Association is the only organization which genuinely cares about the rights and welfare of South Australian police officers. I cannot understand individuals electing not to be members.

Yours faithfully
Ian Glenister
Detective Senior Sergeant 1851/5
Serious Fraud Investigation Branch

Apology

On Wednesday, September 1, 1999, The Advertiser newspaper published a letter that I had sent them in which I expressed, amongst other things, concerns about the DETE global funding scheme, Partnerships 21 and made reference to Focus 21. While my references to SAPOL were made to illustrate my concerns about the DETE initiative, it is possible that some readers may have construed them as being critical of SAPOL policy. This was not my intent and I apologize if my comments were misconstrued.

Peter Schulze
Senior Constable

Proportional Representation

Andrew Dunn

The article about proportional representation (Police Journal, July 2000) by Trevor Haskell has been drawn to my attention.

The Electoral Reform Society of SA was formed in 1930 with the sole aim of advocating proportional representation for elections of all representative bodies. As secretary of the Electoral Reform Society I was therefore very interested in Trevor’s comments.

I assume the Police Association holds elections for its office bearers including the committee. With any elections, the aim should be to maximize the number of eligible voters who find that their votes actually count towards electing someone. In so many elections, both for parliaments and other bodies, it is not unusual to find that up to half of those who bother to vote, voted for unsuccessful candidates - this discourages people from both voting and getting involved.

The principle behind proportional representation is to have several people elected in the one election. To get elected, each person only needs a proportion of the votes (called a quota). Hence if there was a committee of five, the quota is approximately one-sixth of the total votes (17%). Anyone who attracts 17% of the vote would be elected. At the end of the count, less than 17% of the voters would find that their votes did not count - this is a much better situation than in single-member electorates where up to 49% of voters may have wasted their votes by voting for an unsuccessful candidate.

Trevor is correct that there are systems of proportional representation where you must vote for blocks or groups rather than individuals - these are called party list systems and are obviously favoured by political parties out to control the parliamentary system.

However, in South Australia, the quota preferential method of proportional representation is now used for all local government elections. We can vote for individuals, and the final make-up of the council hopefully reflects the diversity of the residents and ratepayers, dependent, of course, on the range of candidates. And so far, party politics is not involved in local government.

From our research and knowledge of elections, I would have to say that proportional representation works best where political parties are not involved. Examples in South Australia where proportional representation is used include such organizations such as the Public Service Association, the Psychologist Council, Dairy Farmers Association, Conservation Council (SA Branch), and the Walkerville Residents Association. Sadly, to maintain their power, political parties have bastardized the proportional representation system used to elect the Senate and the Legislative Council - though even here it is possible to vote for individuals.

Trevor obviously believes that the current committee of the Police Association reflects the diversity of the membership. If this is so, neither the committee nor the Police Association have anything to fear from the introduction of proportional representation as this is the aim of this method of election.

The Electoral Reform Society would be interested in providing more information and even assisting with both the introduction and use of proportional representation for the Police Association.

Deane Crabb
Secretary
Electoral Reform Society of SA

Not Necessary

Dear Sir

I have been following with interest the continuing debate concerning proportional representation at committee, a topic which seems to erupt every several years in cycles which roughly approximate that of the election cycle within PASA.

The central question seems to be: “Why not have proportional representation at committee?” An answer is: “Because it is not necessary.”

The committee is not a policy-making body. Policy is made at the annual conference of PASA. The delegates to annual conference are elected on a proportional representation basis. One would therefore assume that the policies which come out of the conference are representative of what our members require. Once those policies are made they are handed over to the committee and the full-time staff of PASA to pursue. It is the job of the full-time staff to develop strategies to achieve those objectives and for the committee to ensure that efforts are continually directed towards achieving those objectives.

The skills required of a committee member are different from those of a delegate to the annual conference. Whereas the delegate is part of a bloc and is tasked with representing a particular policy position as stated by the delegate’s branch, a committee member is required to use his or her individual skills for the benefit of the members. An effective committee member should have a broad experience in SAPOL. We all share the common legacy of the general duties member and have regard to the onerous and dangerous nature of that job. A committee member will hopefully have the experience in PASA as a delegate or official (experience is highly prized by police officers in their own work and it should be prized in PASA). We elect individuals to the position of committee member because we trust the individual, not because they purport to represent a bloc. We ask committee members to exercise their individual skills on a collective basis on issues which need to be resolved outside of the framework of the annual conference, to shackle those individuals to the requirements of a bloc would be to render the concept of the committee unmanageable.

But my opinions are only that - opinions. It might be more useful for the proponents of proportional representation to draft a rule change which can then be considered at the annual general meeting of PASA then at least the issue could be debated in a decision-making forum.

Yours sincerely
Peter Parfitt
Former Committee Member, Vice-President and Secretary of PASA (1983 - 1998)

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