Comment on [Discussion] What level of proportional representation is desirable?
AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 1 week ago
One change that could be good would be having two members per electorate rather than one; that would allow voters who were not in the majority to feel represented. Though that would work better in a system with more than two parties, so that you don’t have a stalemate with an equal number of centre-left and centre-right MPs.
MisterFrog@aussie.zone 1 week ago
I think under a preferential system people are free to preference who they actually prefer. I think the biggest reason we are the centre major parties (Labor and the LNP) is because we have single member, winner takes all elections. Meaning even if the 2PP (2-party-preferred) vote is 51% vs 49%, the winning candidate gets 100% of the control of that seat.
In the current climate where 2PP isn’t always Labor vs LNP in every seat, I think you would see many seats have a different mix to each other.
Out of curiosity, would you propose halving the number of electorates, or doubling the number of MPs to achieve 2 member electorates?
AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 1 week ago
True; we’d get some Labor/Greens seats in inner-city areas, some conservative areas where the Coalition split it among themselves, some Tory/cooker seats elsewhere, and possibly other combinations. It may force the big parties to the centre to harvest the vote of those who don’t think that the Greens or One Nation represent them.
The Australian system currently has unusually many constituents per MP, so I’d double the number of MPs.