There is nothing absurd about my description of the Australian system. It is essentially FPP, with preferences. How else could you describe it?

Peter Freedman wrote on Jan 13^th, 2013 at 10:04pm:


thats a tad simplistic. FPP is the opposite of preferential voting. we have preferential voting.

Peter Freedman wrote on Jan 13^th, 2013 at 10:04pm:


Preferential voting. Or better yet, instant runoff voting as the yanks call it. I assume by FPP you mean first past the post? That is a different system and the meaning specifically excludes preferential systems.

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A sitting member gets removed when his support base drops below that of a competitor who is trying to gain entry.

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You don't win. You get a seat in parliament. There are about 100 of these, so the idea that they can only go to the first 1, 2 or 3 competitors is a bit silly.

freediver wrote on Jan 14^th, 2013 at 12:49pm:


highlghted: done by an ELECTION CAMPAIGN. so you replace one every three years with one every day... yay. it also means that the sitteing member will be defending his margin instead of implementing policy. even worse.

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In practice it seems you can win an election with slightly under 50% 2pp nationwide. I doubt it could go as low as 49%. Theoretically it could be as low as 25%.

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In practice it would be once every time an important issue came up. It would focus on that one important issue. This is a good thing, as you would be able to tell from the 'election' outcome what the public thinks of that issue, which is far from the case today.

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These would be one and the same thing. It would get rid of this distinction between 'a time for political promises' and 'when you find out what is actually going to happen.'

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You are missing the point, which is not some arbitrary measure of fairness based on who gets a seat, but whether the outcome (legislation, not who your 'local' candidate is) represents the will of the majority. Single member electorates theoretically allow a party to gain control of parliament with only 25% public support, even if the other 75% of the population would prefer another (single/common) party. PR requires the ruling party or coalition to have 50% support. What appears to annoy you is that this involves allowing minor parties into parliament, as if the artificial concentration of power created by single member electorates must be protected at all costs - even above the will of the people.

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PR guarantees this. Single member electorates do not. In practice single member electorates nearly always concentrate over 50% of the seats in parliament in the hands of a party with less than 50% first preference support.

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Nice sentiment, but you have your logic backwards. To put it another way, the 'majority' you talk of is only achieved after you exclude about one third of the population.

freediver wrote on Jan 14^th, 2013 at 7:08pm:


it guarantees the exact opposite by enfranchising parties with even LESS support. You might not like giving control to parties with less than 50% support but it craps all over giving it so people with 10%. I have a better idea...

run-off elections. in each electorate where there is not a winner with over 50%, conduct a second election between the two top vote-getters and winner gets the seat. this is not the same as Prop Rep which some call 'instant run-off' but isnt. then with a genuine two-man race we get the legitimate majority. That way the REAL majority winner gets in.

I know you wont liek it because it doesnt give the artificial leg-up to minority parties that barely get 10%. The solution is simple: If you want to be in power then you need to get at least the second-highest votes .

Thanks FD. Two more questions:

Is it possible for a party to gain the most primary votes, yet lose the election?

Has this ever happened?

FD it is perfectly possible under First Past The Post for a party to gain the most votes nationwide, yet be soundly defeated in the election. This happened several times in NZ.