Democratic dysfunction in thumping Queensland result

And electorate representational work suffers overall because government MPs are less likely to rock the boat on behalf of constituents.

Also, many of the unexpected Government MPs are not the sort of people equipped for the job - the sort of people who have a crack at an impossible seat with no expectation of winning just for the experience.

Both the democratic dysfunctions can be fairly easily overcome – not with full proportional representation but with partial proportional representation.

Full proportional representation can hamper effective government if the major party has to rely too much on too many tiny parties. A few single-issue parties can hold a government to ransom. Imagine Campbell Newman having to bend to the will of the Mad Katter Party. Also in a full proportional system, voters do not have a local member to take up local issues.

In a partial proportional system, you have the present system but have a quarter or a third of the seats listed as national (or state-wide) seats, which are voted separately according to party and allocated according to the percentage of party vote. The parties would provide an ordered list of candidates. If a candidate got a local seat you would call on the next candidate down.

This system would have the added advantage of obviating the silly, distractive argument about the possibility of a party leader, such as Campbell Newman or John Howard, not getting elected in their own seat while their party won the election overall.

It would also enable talented people in marginal seats being saved for frontbench duty if they happened to lose their local seat.

A system like this works in Germany and variant of it applies in New Zealand, but the New Zealand version has some defects (which are too boring to go into here).

In the corporate and charity world in the past couple of decades, “governance” has become a critical question. Boards up and down the country look at their constitutions and processes, improve them and change them as experience suggests.

As a result, many of these organisations improve their performance.

But when it comes to governing the nation or the state we are strangely shy of doing anything to improve “governance”. By “governance” I mean the machinery of government, as distinct from “government” which is the use of that machinery to put policy and programs into effect.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” the argument runs. But it is a silly argument. Few would suggest that the system of government in Australia is seriously flawed, but even fewer would insist it is perfect and could not be improved.