4 ms·

I am dual Oz / British. I grew up under AV in NSW, with Senate being full PR. I voted NO because FPTP seems good enough. I don't miss Australia's monster ballo

by tezza 15y ago

I am dual Oz / British. I grew up under AV in NSW, with Senate being full PR. I voted NO because FPTP seems good enough. I don't miss Australia's monster ballot papers. Most of the theoretical advantages of AV , PR dont happen in practice. I was in Wentworth an unshakeably Liberal seat, whatever your preference. down the road was Maroubra, unshakeable for Labor. Who can forget the nightmare concessions all the time that Brian Harradine from TAS used to get because he had Balance of Power in the Senate under PR??

nl 15y ago
Yes, there will always be safe seats - I think any system where Wentworth wasn't liberal would be suspect. Your vote is still important in the Senate (as Harradine showed). I'm from South Australia, and we have a independent senator and it's worked out much better than just having senators from the major parties. It means they end up representing the state instead of just voting on party lines. Yeah, some of the concessions are annoying (especially with Harradine), but in a way that is more democratic than the normal vote-down-party-lines system.