Labor’s landslide victory obscures a disturbing trend for the major parties
Labor’s landslide victory obscures a disturbing trend for the major parties
Labor took the glory, but beneath the surface of the election result an ongoing trend holds a warning for both major parties.
In short, independents and minor parties combined got more vote than a major party (the LNP coalition). I think this is actually great news, it shows how well ranked choice and proportional voting work to empower smaller parties and diversify them.
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I think it's great that ranked choice voting means we can have a wider range of candidates. What is concerning is that despite a third of the electorate rejecting the major two, they still get majority governments. Maybe we should be looking at proper proportional representation, given voting is required.
1.6m people voted for the Greens first preference this election, more than the all the Nats and LNP (Qld) combined. That's the reality of concentrations of demographics in various areas.
It's not all doom and gloom, tseat of Ryan is a good example of a competitive minor party taking advantage of 2nd place to win. The Greens don't need to get the most preferences necessarily, just more than labor. If the coalition gets 35% first preference, and Labor have 28%, they don't need 35, they need 28. Labor's second preferences get distributed ideally to the Greens and hopefully, they overtake the liberals in a 2pp. Didn't work for Adam Bandt, but I think we all got caught surprised at just how bad the Liberals did.
Yes, but that's the point. Having a general set of the population spread across the country wins nothing. Having a local issue or locally popular one issue candidate can get elected, but they will be ineffective. It allows Labor to have a majority with only a small amount extra votes than the libs.
Sure it's all down to the preference flows in each seat but perhaps we shouldn't be doing winner takes all seats. I know in Germany they apportion seats based on percent vote, similar to how we do the senate. In Ireland they group districts and the top 3 candidates in a larger district get elected, after all preference flows. So you might get a lib, a lab and a grn rather than 2 libs and a lab, as it is with our divisions.
No system is perfect but we seem to be concentrating power in the hands of the two larger parties with the intention of stability without any evidence it is actually more stable.
According to the AEC it's now at 1,795,985 votes. However, last election The Greens got 1,824,682 votes, so it's not like they've seen a massive increase this time round.
United Australia Party even got more total votes than The Nationals.
https://results.aec.gov.au/27966/Website/HouseStateFirstPrefsByParty-27966-NAT.htm
https://tallyroom.aec.gov.au/HouseStateFirstPrefsByParty-31496-NAT.htm
Bills still have to get through the senate to get passed at least, so the party with a lower house majority still does have to cater to that third option somewhat.
Somewhat, but it’s on,y to get one or two votes, despite there being a third of the electorate favouring an option that is not big 2. There is some myth about lack of stability if the minor parties have more power. I wouldn’t exactly call the changing of pm by both major parties stable. Coalitions keep power in check and don’t allow them to take voters for granted.
Isn't the thesis of this article that we're headed towards minority governments ?
Through recent decades votes are tending more towards independents.
I think it's great too, does it mean we're trending away from polarisation? That's nice, honestly.
Maybe it's a feature of today's ease of communication. In the past you really needed parties in order to communicate brands and policies. In the information age that's less critical.