I know that those in the UK will be aware that Australia held an election on the 7th of September this year. I was in the UK at the time, having already done my civic (and compulsory) duty and voted before I left. I was quite surprised how much coverage the election got on UK news.
I’ve always thought that the system here is preferable to the ‘first-past-the-post’ system of the UK, with some reservations,
I was appalled to hear Nick Clegg proudly proclaiming that he had stopped changes to the electorate boundaries. I watched the UK elections and was quite stunned to realise that the numbers of voters varied so considerably from one electorate to another. The Australian Electoral Commission changes the boundaries without reference to Parliament – with the intention of keeping the number of voters more or less the same in every electorate. No political party can do what Nick Clegg did – ensure that 1 vote in one electorate = 2 in another.
However, our system of preferential voting caused a few problems in the last election. In Queensland, I had a choice of 80 odd candidates for the Senate. To make my vote valid I either had to number all the candidates from 1 to 80+ or to allow my first choice to put my vote to their preferred candidate.
It would appear that whereas ten years ago only 1 voter in 10 voted for an independent, in the last election 1 in 3 voted for an independent. Thus, the number of Independents in the Senate hold the balance of power.
An interesting situation – especially since one of the Independents, who decided to stand some four months before the election, is one Clive Palmer – whose ambition is to build a replica of the Titanic. He has the money to do it, and a ‘nutter’ he may be – but his ‘party’ will certainly hold the balance of power in the Senate.
… and the two main parties do not like that one bit!
Because of our preferential system, the counting is still going on in Western Australia, If the votes are too close, there has to be a re-count – and it was ‘too close’ between a ‘Green’ Senator and the Palmer candidate in WA. It transpires that the Electoral Commission has ‘lost’ some 1,300 voting forms.
As another Independent Senator has said:
“To lose one vote is unfortunate, to lose two is careless but to lose 1375 votes surely must be cause for a fresh Senate election,”
I will be watching ‘this space’ with interest.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Boa: Whatever happens at the next UK election. Clegg (or Cleggover as he is known, due to his supposed activities between the sheets) is toast, as is his Liberal Democrat party. It is difficult to imagine a bunch of people less liberal or so undemocratic. The problem is that the two main parties are also lead by self serving venal troughers who are more loyal to the EU than the UK. The only hope for us is UKIP, who are taking votes from all sides, because they are the only ones who have policies that coincide with the views of the majority The only hope is that they take enough in 2015.
If, as I suspect, they do not, I can foresee a lot of civil unrest. As for the electoral system, FPTP is reasonable IF the boundaries are correctly drawn, but, as you say, it is not good if the boundaries are skewed. The UK electorate comprehensively rejected the Alternate Vote system in a referendum recently. In fact referenda might be the best way to vote. It would have two advantages. Firstly, any legislation would be the true wishes of the electorate and secondly, there would be FAR LESS legislation. It seems to work quite well in Switzerland.
The compulsory nature of the Oz vote is all very well, or at least it would be if you could vote for “None of the above”
I too prefer the referenda route. Used a lot here in the USA. stops politicians more daft ideas, generally by a referendum refusing to vote sufficient taxes for implementation.
I agree with FEEG that there is going to be trouble after the next election. People are so disgusted by not being represented by any of the politicians, none of them will implement the will of the people.
FEEG, I do hope you are right and that the LibDims disappear at the next election. They are neither liberal nor democratic. Any chance of Clegg turning into Paddy Pantsdown, caught in flagrante?
Unfortunately referenda en masse will fail because most voters won’t vote and will soon be bored by the whole process. The upshot would be results skewed by the extremists who seek anarchy and the extremists who seek dictatorship – a poor balance, methinks.
Constituencies in the UK are traditionally of different sizes. I see no problem with the tradition since it doesn’t a priori favour any particular colour (politically, mean!).
The point is that you only have referenda on important things, and not on all the trivia that is voted for at the moment. Much less legislation. Seems a good idea to me.
The present constituency boundaries greatly favour Labour. They only need about 34% of the vote to gain a majority in the House, whereas the Tories need about 40%. Yet another example of Clegg’s duplicity. I hope it will not come to stringing up MPs from lamp posts, but, who knows………
FEEG – I don’t think the Alternative Vote system was properly explained… the referendum was rushed through, in my opinion, because the established political parties saw it as a threat to their stranglehold on power.
None of them are prepared to put Britain’s continued membership in the EU to a referendum quickly. They want as long as possible to push the scare-mongering opinions about the effects of a withdrawal from that *!*!* union.
Personally, I think Cameron’s ‘promise’ to hold a referendum in his next ‘term’ is a joke… and not a very funny one. Anyone who believes him is a fool. The problem is that most politicians think that the electorate are fools…
The ‘vote’ in WA will be declared tomorrow – despite the loss of those 1300+ votes. There are a lot of very unhappy people – and it is expected that the case will be taken to the High Court.
It will be interesting to see what the High Court make of it… Let’s hope that that the High Court is really as ‘unpolitical’ as it claims and decides that WA must hold a new election. Since the Senators will not be taking their seats for another few months there is plenty time to do that…
Watch this space!