I've difficulty with the Upper House business. The Senate is only relevant because of the Committee system. There can be good work done by Committees. Without them, Australians would agree with Keating about unrepresentative swill - particularly with some Senators elected on a minuscule proportion of the primary vote.

Voters don't have a say in who gets into the Senate. Political parties ensure the majority of senators are there through their beneficence except for stragglers like Fielding and the DLP man.

Labor in Qld got rid of its Upper House in 1922. Upper House voted itself out after members were guaranteed jobs. A lot of dunderheads became judges. Except for a persistent gerrymander (Qld not the only one, even Feds did their share), democracy didn't suffer for want of the Queensland Legislative Council.

Not sure how ready I am for proportional voting. Would need to know how well the NZ party list system worked. Like the idea of multi-member seats. Some huge electorates in Federal system: Kalgoorlie, O'Connor (WA), Grey (SA), Kennedy, Maranoa, Leichhardt (Qld), Farrer, Calare, Riverina (NSW) and Lingiari (NT). It is a big ask of any human being to represent this sort of area and distance - particularly when compared with politicians who get to sleep in their own beds every night except when in Canberra.

Like the idea of the optional preferential system practised in Queensland. Hate being forced to number candidates I don't care for. Don't like systems not easily understood by all voters - clearly the case with preferential/proportional voting systems. Nothing to misunderstand in first past the post. In the recent election, preferential voting threw up some doozies. Wilkie in Denison, who came in third on primary vote and won the seat! How would it be if the Olympics delivered results like that?

Getting changes to the national voting system will be much the same as problems in Queensland in 1922. Problems will be politicians - who will win, who will lose. If voters have a say, this voter might even take proportional voting in a Hare-Clarke system if the Senate was abolished!

A big no thank you for any "hare"-brained voting system. In fact for me, a return to a first past the post is a much better, & fairer system.

Democracy is supposed to be by the majority, of the majority, for the majority. At present, federally we have a system of not too many, by even less, for just a few politicians. It is the second worst we could have had. So few, of doubtful ability have far too much control of our destiny. Good lobbying, or some cash in just a few places could influence our future.

The worst would be as in Tasmania where a small fraction of the population elected a small number of politicians, who due to their balance of power have far too much influence, bordering on control.

We can all ready see "hare"-brained policies rising to prominence, & it is going to take a very great deal of effort to prevent some very bad, far reaching legislation getting passed.

Yes, the ratbags love it, for the chance of fool pie in the sky stuff getting passed, just to buy their support elsewhere. It sure isn't good for the majority.

First-past-the-post is fairer only if a candidate wins over 50% of the vote...

As an example, in the Federal Election we had in August:

http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionFirstPrefs-15508-228.htm

Melbourne would have been won by the ALP on 38% of the vote
(in other words 62% of voters wanting someone else...) - instead the Greens won it on preferences.

http://www.currentglobalperceptions.blogspot.com/

A PLEA FOR PURE AND A MORE ACCURATE ELECTION SYSTEM

It needs to be said that the Hare Clark system, as implemented in Tasmania, is neither accurate or democratic nor is the Australian Senate System as referred to in your article ”Time to reform Our Voting System “ by Peter Jones published 26/10/2010

Tasmanian Hare Clarke

The Tasmanian and ACT Hare Clarke system uses what is known as the "last bundle segmentation" in calculating surpluses and distributing preferences and as a result the outcome of the election is distorted and non reflective of the voters choice.

If I vote for a candidate that is subsequently elected in a deferred preference count why is my vote excluded and not taken into consideration when distributing the candidates surplus? I contributed equally if not more so then the "last bundle" distribution that elected my candidate of choice and as such I should have equal say in the distribution of the candidates surplus. The Tasmanian system prevents me from determining who my vote will support beyond my first preference in instead give more weight to a vote that happens to form the last parcel of votes distributed. This is a fundamental flaw in the Tasmanian Hare Clark proportional system.

More details http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_system

DemocracyATwork
http://democracyAtwork.blogspot.com

A PLEA FOR PURE AND A MORE ACCURATE ELECTION SYSTEM

The Australian Senate rules

A similar fault occurs in the Australian Senate system. The method of calculating the surplus transfer value in the Senate vote is even more distorted in its execution. Under the Senate rules the surplus transfer value is calculated by dividing the value of the surplus by the number of ballot papers not the value of the vote. A vote that holds a fraction of a vote is transferred out at the same value as a full valued ballot paper.

In the 2010 NSW Senate vote the system used delivered a additional "bonus" value of over 14,000 votes to the LNP ticket vote at the expense of minor party supporters.

Analysis of the 2007 Victoria Senate vote shows that had the registered party ticket vote been the same as in 2010 or had One Nation preference the LNP before the ALP, Senator David Feeney would not have been elected. Not because of lack of support but because the system delivered the LNP an additional bonus of 7,000 votes and as such would have elected the Greens candidate instead.

Method of segmentation in the Senate Count

A second flaw in the Senate counting system is the method of segmentation and distribution of excluded candidate votes.

Analysis of the 2007 Queensland vote shows that the Greens Candidate Larisa Waters should have been elected to the sixth sense spot. the reason why was not was due to the method of segmentation in the distribution of the vote. If you recount the Queensland 2007 Senate vote excluding all candidates except the last seven standing (3 ALP, 3 LNP and 1 GRN) then Larisa Waters is elected to the last position.

Segmentation is an outdated and unnecessary process. There is no need or justification for it. It was introduced as a trade off to assist a manual counting process.

More details http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_system

DemocracyATwork
http://democracyAtwork.blogspot.com

A PLEA FOR PURE AND A MORE ACCURATE ELECTION SYSTEM (Part 3)

The Wright System

A much more accurate method of counting the vote is to only distribute surplus preferences and if the number of vacancies is not elected on the first iteration/distribution then the candidates with the lowest votes are excluded from the count and the count is reset and restarted as if the excluded candidate had not stood. The process of iteration of the count continuing until all vacant position are filling in one iteration. No segmentation - one transaction per candidate only. Pure, simple and much more accurate.

Surplus transfer calculation

The surplus transfer value must be determined on the basis of the value of the vote not the number of ballot papers. If a vote as a value of 0.2 then it should be transferred out as a percentage of that value to the overall surplus in proportion to its value.

The system outlined above, in what is referred to as the Wright System, ensures that all votes are treated equally and votes attributed to candidates that are subsequently excluded from the count are redistributed as if that candidate had not stood. The Wright system also allows for the recalculation of the quota required to elect a candidate at each iteration which in turn takes into account the impact of optional preferential voting in determining the outcome of the election .

With the use of a computerised counting system the above reiterative counting system is more accurate and more representative then the Senate or Tasmanian Hare Clarke system.

More details http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_system

DemocracyATwork
http://democracyAtwork.blogspot.com

the kiwi system works well

minor parties get a share of the party seats as long as they either win 1 electorate seat or win at least 5% of the votes

NZ abolished it's upper house in 1951

there are 5 Maori electorates