'Third party' vote looks set to beat Coalition
www.abc.net.au
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.

  • UnfortunateDoorHinge@aussie.zone
    3·
    12 days ago

    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.

    • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
      2·
      12 days ago

      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.