Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr Smith
We need to drop preferential voting...too many fringe MP's/Senators etc that have the balance of power but nowhere near the number of voters behind them to equate their decision-making control with the representation of the majority.
Not car related but an Animal First member together with one or two other independents elected by preferences only, had the balance of power when the vote was made for an injecting room near a primary school in an inner city suburb and yet this politician doesn't live anywhere near the affected area, in fact in a rural region, came into parliament on a one cause platform, yet can control the lives of the vast majority that DIDN'T vote for her.
On reading some of the submissions from Toyota and now Nissan which includes a request to include ADR reform (as in removal) hopefully the fed government makes a more informed and more widely accepted final decision.
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Problem is if you get rid of preferential voting and go to first past the post you end up with the US political system with two even more useless options, keep in mind these days aside from Victoria, and only in our state elections and then even further still, only in our upper house being the glaring exception, we as voters decide where our preferences go by numbering the box so we have full control over where it ends up.
The only state which still uses the 'group voting ticket' is Victoria in our state elections and only for our upper house, where if you vote above the line the party dictates where your vote goes, not you.
You can completely avoid this by simply voting below the line
The reason we are ending up with all these little parties and independents in power is that people are simply voting for other options rather than the two majors in enough numbers to create these situations - its not unique to Australia either where one group doesn't have absolute control.
I think those days are over for Australia, last federal election the majors only got something like in the low 30s on first preference votes, the 'two party preferred' system is simply out of date and no longer applicable for how Australians now vote on election day.
Also its the changing of electorates, not the total number of votes that makes the difference, if you're in a swinging/marginal electorate then you'll get everything and the kitchen sink thrown at you, if you're one of the plebs who lives in a safe seat like Calwell, then you'll get absolutely nothing because they vote like plebs and the major that holds it has a massive margin so they don't need to do anything for these people what so ever, because they win by default all the time, so you can continually take from these people and there's no repercussions.
Try shaft the people in a teal electorate and see what happens, it'll change colours quicker than your bowels after Indian.
If you look at the makeup of Victoria's upper house, the state government can't get legislation through unless they negotiate with all these micro parties, so thats why during COVID if anyone was paying attention, for the state government to get its way they had to meet these little microparties on issues that they thought was important to secure their support to get extensions on lockdowns or legislation through the upper house and all these deals were made.
If the two majors want to stop this situation from occuring then they need to stop being flogs, then they won't be bleeding primary votes like they've been stabbed in the neck.