I think there needs to be a winner, otherwise nothing gets done, and the government system is already very inefficient in this regard. On the far end of this scale, every person votes on every bit of legislation, but in the end it will usually wash out the same only with the added overhead.

It’s fun to theory craft. But the stark reality here is it’s probably impossible to pass a referendum that changes any of this.

People in the minority of their electorate will always feel a bit salty about the outcome, but that’s unsolvable. Having the senate mitigates this already in my opinion, where the greens have roughly proportional representation. There is perhaps an argument to make the senate pool federal rather than state and territory based (looking at you Tasmania).

Moving the lower house to a federal type pool would remove any chance of area localised representation. Not that our current system is great at that with most MPs only caring about the party line, but at last some electorates have members that care about local issues.

I’m not sure I agree with the authors take on the unfairness to the greens here. The greener electorates manage to elect green MPs. In the seats where they are close, the preferential voting system works as intended. The conservatives can say hey I want the libs in but if they don’t make it I would rather labour over the greens.

How else should it be done? As far as I can see switching to a first past the post system would be significantly worse.

Watch the media turn on anyone that tries such sensible shit. And then watch the voters lap it up.