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>Your comment only works because Australian politics lacks any real clear distinction between the two major political parties, and also lacks any real leadershi
by ux-app 8y ago
>Your comment only works because Australian politics lacks any real clear distinction between the two major political parties, and also lacks any real leadership.
Yes it fucking sucks. But please point out to me any other democratic country that is not a 2 party system? I don't know of any and maybe that says something about democracy itself. This may be any issue that can't be fixed.
- starbeast 8y agoThe UK hasn't been two party for the last few elections.
- mmusc 8y agoGermany, Italy, Greece and several other EU countries...
- icebraining 8y agoPortugal and Spain too, as of the last few years, though we'll see if that remains.
- tremon 8y agoAs are Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Ireland...
- ux-app 8y agoThanks, I appreciate it, I'm not well versed in foreign politics, so digging into these examples now. Germany, in particular seems to be a great example of political plurality.
- memeograph 8y agoNo, it's a failure mode of first past the post election systems. Politicians are incentivized to join one of the first two parties, and voters are incentivized to vote for them. This is not a failure of democracy. It's a failure to teach people about voting systems and game theory. Proportional representation is the solution to this, so that new ideas can enter government incrementally instead of only when they get the majority vote, by which time it's probably too late. But this is really hard to get through people's heads, because it is very hard to get someone to understand something, when their influence and power depends on not understanding it.
- waddlesworth 8y agoAustralia isn't FPTP though, we have preference voting which often does elect third party candidates in small or local elections. In the past decade, we've had parliaments only able to establish a majority by negotiating a deal with a third party or independents.