Comment on One Nation now wrenching votes from Labor as it overtakes Coalition
zurohki@aussie.zone 6 days agoWe’ve got mandatory preferential voting, though. It’s much harder for small groups of nutbags to take over, and also there’s no reason to follow the ‘mainstream’ parties if they both decide to march to the right to avoid ‘wasting’ your vote.
People can and should vote according to their beliefs, and then when a party swings away from their voters they lose seats to candidates that better represent the voters.
The Teals are really Liberals that the Liberal party failed to recruit because they’ve moved away from their supporters.
MisterFrog@aussie.zone 6 days ago
Oh absolutely, this is me just lambasting Labor and the LNP, and lamenting that people seem to think One Nation is a better option…
If anyone will listen to me, please vote left wing (my preference being the Socialists, and the Greens if that’s not palatable for you).
100% with you about the teals, they’re the Liberals except not as completely uncaring. They still hate workers, but at least they believe LGBT+ should have rights and climate change is real. I do hope they keep filling the Liberals niche, but more positive.
All this being said though, it bears mentioning that just because our voting system is decent*, doesn’t mean it’s terribly democratic. Money and lobbying massively influences who gets funding for campaigning, what laws end up getting watered down, how much time people have to engage (due to work hours, pay and insecure work) and what messaging is put in front of voters.
The problem is capitalism at its core, but I will grant our method of voting is one of the best in the world. Could be better though.
*issues with being able to win I think an unacceptable amount more seats than is reasonable compared to actual preferred support, due to single member electorates in the lower house. For an extreme example, if you get 51% of the 2PP vote in all seats, you get 100% of the control of the lower house - I prefer expanding the lower house by 50% and having 3 membered electorates in the lower house. I’m not for much larger electorates though, because we already have that in the senate, and forming government would become too difficult (see Tasmania).
zurohki@aussie.zone 6 days ago
South Australia has an idea: SA’s world leading political donations ban now in force (July 2025)
Definitely unrelated: the Liberal vote has dropped so far in SA that some pollsters are posting Labor vs One Nation two-party-preferred numbers.
MisterFrog@aussie.zone 5 days ago
Yeah curious to see how this pans out, because I’m for publically funded elections! It doesn’t eliminate the influence of lobby groups and scratching of backs, but it’s certainly headed on the right direction.
The cynic in me doesn’t believe the Labor party would have done it entirely out of the goodness of their hearts though, so am cautious optimistic.