Very interesting article. Essentially, in the opinion of Murdoch's parrots, the flaw in MMP is that it didn't result in a conservative government. As the author points out Coalition governments have been elected on a minority of votes and rural gerrymanders have a notorious history in Australia.

In the Westminster system parliaments are elected, not governments.

Critique all you like, but the New Zealand system is more democratic than our "preferenced" to death system, which can and has allowed someone with just 15% of the vote to win a seat, with the assistance of preferences! Back room deals done, like all dirty deeds, done in the dead of night? And not necessarily uniform, by any measure? Just done to maximise the number of seats? Even where that requires them to get into bed with the devil?

Or if you will, someone 85% of the electorate rejected and in an optional preference system, would have just been another also ran! The New Zealand result with its proportional representative system is very hard to Gerrymander!

Whereas here, par for the course. I mean, if we had proportional representation? The National party with a tiny, tiny percentage of first preference votes,[ less than 5%,] would have long since been history! Without their National partners making the numbers, the Liberal Party would be in opposition mostly!

And rightly so, given they were, I believe, central to, or complicit in hollowing out rural Australia?

Moreover, the greens are also very dependant on preferences for their numbers, which all to often gives them the balance of power and results in outcomes some 90 odd percent wouldn't have agreed to in a blind fit, when the greens rolled out their policy paradigm platform!

Safe in the knowledge, they'll never ever have to deliver or fund their pie in the sky promises!

Fix it here before pointing out the alleged flaws in a vastly more democratic system! And that may need every thinking voter to put the incumbent at the bottom of the ballot along, with their preference partner!?
Alan B.

Only a daft country like New Zealand would muck about with the unfathomable 'Hairy Legs' system, and it's got them a saddled with another environment-above-all-else and 'wumens' issues Labor dud, plus a septuagenarian egomaniac as deputy. Soon there won't be any Kiwis in NZ (they'll all be living in Australia) any they won't need a government.

Good on you Phillip, what a sensible piece. Great to have a website on this. Will have a look. Proportional Representation - Party List will always result in majority government. The ignorance in Australia about this system is a serious handicap indeed. The New Zealanders who had a Royal Commission on this in the mid-1980s are miles ahead of Australia. I did four short interviews on governance change with the SBS recently. I just repeat the one on electoral reform here (see below). The Australian electoral system for most lower house legislatures is based on the single-member-electoral-districts, a variant of the British heritage. It has resulted in a very adversarial parliamentary system in which much time and energy is spent on blaming the other party. It often means that in reality the country is governed by the major faction of one of the two major parties representing perhaps 30% of the electorate. We can do much better than that and adopt Proportional Representation - Party List system as used in no less than 86 countries in the world including New Zealand since 1996. This results in coalitions representing majorities of the middle ground.

http://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/dutch/en/content/australian-democracy-part-4-adversarial-voting-system

Klaas Woldring, Ph. D. A/Prof (ret)

And here I was thinking that democracy was of the people, by the people, & for the people.

Guess I was wrong, & it should be of the few, by the few, for the few.

You only have to look to our senate to see the result of proportional representation. A system guaranteed to give you a government where a tiny minority can wag the tail of the majority, leading to either an ungovernable country, or the dreadful decisions forced on the majority to get anything passed.

A quick look at the disaster that is Tasmania, & you just know it has a proportional electoral system.

I would like a return to first past the post, or electors enabled to expire their vote, rather than see it percolate down to a candidate they definitely did not want.

we saw here in Australia Oakshott and Windsor pooped on their electorates becoming part of a Government that has set in place generational pain with idiotic spending and gw religion policies. A similar thing looks to be occuring in NZ. Who could not remember the pompous speaches these two jokers gave in Parliament sprouting off the great opportunities when in reality self interest smirked all over their faces. We are all paying for the treachery except for the culprits receiving their life long tax funded pensions and travel.