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.

Has Been refers to the PR system of the Senate which is the Hare-Clark system also named Single Transferable Vote. This system was first advocated by Thomas Hare for school boards in the UK (mid 19th century). Later it was adapted by Andrew Ingliss Clark for Tasmania in 1907. VERY few countries in the world use the STV system, strongly favoured in Australia by the Proportional Representation Society of Australia (PRSA). It was introduced for the Senate in 1949 together with extensive compulsory preferencing with soon proved a problem. In 1984 the "above the line" and "under the line" options were introduced. Voters strongly favoured the simple "above the line" option by something like 90%. However, this meant that the real preferencing was done by the parties, in a sense behind closed doors, who could submit up to three group preference tickets, opening the way for horse trading and gaming. The "reform" of 2016 has somewhat reduced this perversion of the system. This PR system is QUITE different from the PR Party List systems, used 86 countries in the world. With the two-vote exception of NZ, Germany voters have only one vote and do not engage in preferencing. In the Open Party List system the voter can use his/her ONE vote for the party of preference and the preferred candidate on that list, clearly a very simple task. It is beyond me why the PRSA has not been prepared to even consider advocating this system for Australia as the Senate experience has been quite unsatisfactory for years - even though the Senate has generally been a more presentative and democratic legislative chamber than most Australian House of Representatives. This strange, often utterly dysfunctional combination in itself has been a frustrating feature that cries out for MAJOR reform. We need an Inquiry, not one by the parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on electoral Matters (as in 2016), but comprising a totally independent national committee to reform Australia's electoral system mess. This is what happened in NZ in 1986, a Royal Commission into Electoral Reform Their recommendations were fully implemented in 1996.

Hasbeen,
Where did you get the absurd idea that a party that can do anything it likes leads to good decisions and a party that has to convince others of the rightness of its decisions before implementing them leads to dreadful decisions? IMO Australian experience constantly shows that the reverse is the case!

As for FPTP it's a truly evil system designed to keep power in the hands of the elites. Under FPTP if you stand for parliament you're less likely to get in than to prevent your supporters having a say in determining who does win.

And while there's some merit in letting people actively expire their vote, I really don't see the advantage. When there are multiple candidates you definitely do not want to win, isn't there one you want to lose more than the other?

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runner,
GW is an observed phenomenon, not a religion. Why do you stay in thrall to the atheist neocons?

Far from pooping on their electorates, Oakshott and Windsor did what they believed was best for their electorates. After seeing what Tony Abbott was like in government, most of the people who voted for them understood the decision, and a lot of them agreed.

And it was the Abbott government, not the Gillard government, that has set in place generational pain with idiotic spending and gw policies.

The New Zealanders have got what they deserved. We have no right to complain or meddle with their affairs. It is up to them to decide how to conduct their elections, not us.

David

First past the post works when there are just two candidates! Otherwise, one could win with just a 35% margin or less, or have someone rejected by 65% or more of the electorate, take the seat!

And only democratic if the two leading candidates go to a play off?

Still better than a compulsory preference system where your preferred candidate virtually owns your alternative choices? And can and does, horse trade with them?
Alan B.

Come on Aidan, no one could ever convince the ratbag greens to vote for anything that was good for the majority of Australians. They want us all back in bark humpies, throwing rocks & sticks at things we want to catch to eat.

Add another half a dozen special interest, & ratbag members, & we are assured of bad decisions, used to buy the vote of some.

I would much rather have either of the majors completely implement their policies, than this ridiculous buying of ratbags with their pet hobby horses.

Back about 50 years ago, Arthur Hewson, a Country Party candidate, ( some might remember when it was a real country party), won a seat in Victoria with about 15 percent of the primary vote. The Labor candidate got 49 percent of the primary vote and thought he was a shoe in, but all the preference votes from 4 other candidates, put Labor last and Arthur won. Justice was served and the will of the majority who voted against Labor was upheld and democracy reigned.

David

It’s unbelievable that major democracies like the US and the UK still solely use the FPTP system to elect their parliamentarians. In the British 2010 general election the Liberal Democrats candidate won the seat of Norwich South with 29.4% of the vote.
Not to be outdone, in the following election the Social Democratic and Labour Party candidate, an Alistair McDonnell, contesting the seat of Belfast South, won with a grand total of 24.5% of the vote. One wonders what the other 75.5% of the constituents thought of that?