Given that 'local' representatives do not 'represent' their electorates in any meaningful way but merely represent another warm body to fill a slot for the party that has endorsed them, perhaps it's time to get rid of local electorates altogether, and create electorates based on more relevant properties than the accident of where you happen to reside -- gender, age, income levels, work status, even ethnic background. This would produce a far more representative parliament than the current requirement to recruit one MP from each area, whether that area can supply a credible candidate or not.

Having read other discussions elsewhere about the SA election, the problem seems to lie with their electoral 'fairness' provisions. A close outcome seems inevitable under the SA system, and with that the likelihood of a hung parliament or independents holding the balance of power increases.

What both sides fail to acknowledge is that it happens to both parties at different times.

Most recently prior to this was the election won by John Howard against Kim Beazly . Howard's government was not ever called illegitimate.

Labor's 2010 win was incessantly called illegitimate by shrill conservative voices overlooking the fact that the two party vote, counting every vote, favoured Labor by the slimmest margin of 30,000 votes.

It's not the voting that is wrong, it's the system. Then again, maybe it is not... think of it this way:

If you live in a seat where only the very wealthy or the very poor live, 70% of the voters there will vote for their preferred party. Take a few seats like that and then put them up with seats where the vote is more evenly split and you can get these anomalies.

First past the post with run offs to get the preferred candidate in each seat would be a fairer way to go but then you'd end up with Labor governing 80% of the time because they usually get more votes than the Liberals,(not the coalition). That is federally, not so sure about all the states.

Finally, the fairest way would proportional voting where every significant view in every seat would be represented in parliament. That would mean, with a 150 seat parliament, you'd have to divide the number of seats by two, three or five. No Party would ever enjoy a majority in the House but most views in the community would be represented.

So, before you go off complaining about a result that does not fit with your thinking, consider what it might take to ensure that it never happens again. One note of caution: Boundary fiddling, to be fair, does not work because people move all the time. Over time the same issues would arise and we'd start these arguments all over again.

To be unfair, boundary fiddling works a treat; just ask the survivors of Joh Bjelke Petersen era