Vic State Election
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Pies4shaw 
pies4shaw
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
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| David wrote: | | I wouldn't even call it a mistake. What are you supposed to do when the system is gamed in the way it is – take the moral high ground like the Victorian Socialists and stand zero chance of being elected, or try your best to play it to your advantage? I don't blame the micros for doing deals with Glenn Druery (except for Hinch's Party, which actually employs him – talk about conflict of interest...), but I do want to see that system abolished. It's not up to Patten to do that, it's up to one or both of the major parties to get it through. |
Plainly, the figures Jezza has posted indicate that there is a genuine problem with electing candidates in the Council. Whatever one's political views, it makes little sense that a party with about 10% of the first preference votes gets about 2.5% of the seats, whilst one party with about 4% of those votes gets 7.5% of the seats, another party with about 3% of those votes gets 2.5% of the seats and a party with less than 1% of the vote also gets 2.5% of the seats. We seem to have (however it may be technically described) a kind of "accidentally first past the post" system that enables parties that almost no-one votes for to have the potential to hold the balance of power in the upper house. It isn't explained, either, by the usual gerrymander by which the "country" gets to have a disproportionate say in how the State is governed. Some of the more anti-democratic stupidities have happened in metropolitan electorates. It looks to me like a governance shambles waiting to happen (happily, that probably hasn't been visited on us this time). |
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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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I agree 100%! Kevin Bonham had a good article on this today:
http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2018/12/group-ticket-voting-wrecks-victorian.html
| Quote: | I've previously pointed out that the parties in the previous parliament - yes even the Greens - are all to blame for this nonsense, since even those who supported reform failed to do enough to raise the issue and put pressure on the waverers. It is understandable that Victoria's Electoral Matters committee chose to adopt a wait and see approach pending Senate reform, but there was ample time to refer the matter back and pass reform after concerns about Senate reform proved groundless in 2016. By not doing so, the Victorian parliament has ignored the warnings of Antony Green and others that this day was coming, and has created a result that is not only incredibly silly but also should be seen as disquietingly unfair. The system can not only systematically disadvantage a party that gets several percent in an environment in which the total micro-party vote is high, but is also self-entrenching because it keeps flooding the parliament with MPs who don't deserve to be there, who can't get re-elected without it, and who therefore mostly won't support reform. As with systems with entrenched self-policing gerrymanders, the prospect for change appears bleak unless a need for bipartisan reform is accepted by both major parties.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
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Wokko 
Come and take it.
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
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