Re: Legalise Drugs and Daylight Savings?
Originally Posted by
Dextrous63
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The traditional argument against PR (which I assume is what Australia has to a certain degree- please correct me if I'm wrong) is that it leads to weaker majorities and hung parliaments.
Is this the case Bruce?
The problem with not having PR is that IMHO it leads to disingenuous "tactical" voting and disinterest in politics (hence low electoral turnouts). Why bother voting if it's a stitch up by the major parties and one's own wishes of wanting an alternative view will be ignored and come to nothing?
No, we don't have proportional representation (I think NZ has but not sure), in our system you need 50% +1 of the votes cast to win. If you don't get that on the first preferences then the candidate with the lowest votes is eliminated and his/her second preferences are distributed among the remaining candidates.
This is repeated until a candidate has 50% + 1 vote. There are tactics involved in "How to vote cards" the parties had out. They put the most likely opposition last but of course you don't have to follw how how to vote cards.
Occasionally it does lead to hung parliament where the government has to negotiate with the cross bench. In practice this leads to better government less driven by ideology.
In the upper house (which has a quota system) it is rare for a government to have an absolute majority. The last time a government had a majority in the federal upper house it led to Work Choices and a landslide against the government at the next election where even the PM lost his seat. I think the population likes an upper house where no one party has a majority
In my opinion it is a very good thing and combined with compulsory voting a population ends up with the government it deserves and you rarely hear complaints about it.