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As of Saturday: HAD two very dominant major parties. Australia just had Federal elections, and the count is still in progress, but there is a chance we will en

by femto 4y ago

As of Saturday: HAD two very dominant major parties. Australia just had Federal elections, and the count is still in progress, but there is a chance we will end up with a "hung parliament" with neither (ex) major party having a majority. 16 seats of 151 appear to have gone to minor parties or independents. Forming government should be an easy negotiation, to the extent that the new Prime Minister has already been declared, as the new government will need support from only 1 or 2 independents. In this instance a hung parliament would be an excellent outcome in that the government would be stable due to the small number of independents needed to form government, and debate would have to occur in the parliament and not behind closed doors in a party room. The general view is that this change in voting patterns will be long term, as the majors' votes have been declining for years and it has just reached the tipping point. 10 independents elected is a record. In my opinion the Australian electoral system gets several things right: * Compulsory voting. You have to turn up to the booth and receive a ballot paper, but it's then up to you what you do with it. Most people use it to vote but some use it to draw a pretty picture or tell the counters what they really think of the government. The real power of compulsory voting is that it virtually eliminates disenfranchisement as those who are not marked as receiving their ballot are handed a small ($20) fine. This creates a paper trail and a disenfranchised voter can refuse to pay the fine, turn up to court and as part of their argument against the fine tell the judge how they were disenfranchised. * An independent commission (aec.gov.au) that sets voting boundaries and runs the election on a national basis. * Preferential/RCV voting makes it more likely (than FPTP) that the result reflects the will of the majority and is harder to game. Whilst RCV might not be perfect, it's better than FPTP. Things it gets wrong: 1) Lack of disclosure of political funding sources 2) This has lead to corruption, whereby the major parties put the interests of themselves and donors above the country, with rampant pork barrelling and looking after "mates". #2 is a big reason why the major parties are losing votes, and the new government comes with the promise of an anti-corruption commission "with teeth", and a bunch of independents who plan on holding the government to this promise. Amazingly in this instance the system seems to have self-corrected. With any luck, #2 being fixed will reduce the opportunities to put the interests of parties and donors above the country and lead to #1 also being fixed in the not too distant future.

hugh-avherald 4y ago
Australia still has two very dominant major parties in terms of the main prize: who become ministers of state. I'd say there's a 1% chance of having a prime minister from outside the ALP and the Coalition in the next 50 years.
- femto 4y ago
  Right now I'd say the dominance is a thin veneer, as the winner takes all nature of each individual seat tends to hide the reducing margins by which each seat is held. The result based on seats is non-linear so when change becomes apparent it will appear to have come quickly. As an aside, this discussion about the Australian system is relevant to the original question of how to depolarise the US. Australia looked to be following the US into polarisation stasis, but this week the preferential voting system has allowed a number independents to fill the void left by the major parties as they have gone off course. Time will tell, but the signs are that either the parties will have to adopt less polarised positions or drift off either end of the spectrum into oblivion.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    > Right now I'd say the dominance is a thin veneer, as the winner takes all nature of each individual seat tends to hide the reducing margins by which each seat is held. Is this an argument that first-past-the-post reduces the dominance of major parties? It's a weird argument that the dominance of the winners is reduced because their margins were small. The smaller the margins, the larger the portion of the governed who ultimately have no say about the direction of government e.g. the US, where margins (and differences) between the winning and losing parties are tiny.
    - femto 4y ago
      No. The winner takes all nature of each seat does tend to lock out candidates who might get in with proportional representation with multiple candidates per seat, so it encourages dominance in that regard. One could say that this is a weakness in the Australian system. Maybe there should be one big electorate with 151 candidates elected on a proportional basis? The main benefit of the preferential system is that it allows people to safely take the risk of voting for a third candidate. I see it as question of incentives more than raw maths. (Everything I'm saying is from the perspective of the lived experience of being under a RCV system, not the raw maths.) By way of information the upper house does use proportional representation with typically 6 candidates chosen from each state, each state being a single electorate. Smaller parties do regularly win a number of spots in the upper house.

by femto 4y ago

hugh-avherald 4y ago

Australia still has two very dominant major parties in terms of the main prize: who become ministers of state. I'd say there's a 1% chance of having a prime minister from outside the ALP and the Coalition in the next 50 years.

femto 4y ago
Right now I'd say the dominance is a thin veneer, as the winner takes all nature of each individual seat tends to hide the reducing margins by which each seat is held. The result based on seats is non-linear so when change becomes apparent it will appear to have come quickly. As an aside, this discussion about the Australian system is relevant to the original question of how to depolarise the US. Australia looked to be following the US into polarisation stasis, but this week the preferential voting system has allowed a number independents to fill the void left by the major parties as they have gone off course. Time will tell, but the signs are that either the parties will have to adopt less polarised positions or drift off either end of the spectrum into oblivion.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > Right now I'd say the dominance is a thin veneer, as the winner takes all nature of each individual seat tends to hide the reducing margins by which each seat is held. Is this an argument that first-past-the-post reduces the dominance of major parties? It's a weird argument that the dominance of the winners is reduced because their margins were small. The smaller the margins, the larger the portion of the governed who ultimately have no say about the direction of government e.g. the US, where margins (and differences) between the winning and losing parties are tiny.
  - femto 4y ago
    No. The winner takes all nature of each seat does tend to lock out candidates who might get in with proportional representation with multiple candidates per seat, so it encourages dominance in that regard. One could say that this is a weakness in the Australian system. Maybe there should be one big electorate with 151 candidates elected on a proportional basis? The main benefit of the preferential system is that it allows people to safely take the risk of voting for a third candidate. I see it as question of incentives more than raw maths. (Everything I'm saying is from the perspective of the lived experience of being under a RCV system, not the raw maths.) By way of information the upper house does use proportional representation with typically 6 candidates chosen from each state, each state being a single electorate. Smaller parties do regularly win a number of spots in the upper house.