The United Kingdom election had a terribly unfair voting system which meant that while Farage’s Reform Party received 14.3% of the vote but only ended up with five seats. This is because the UK uses a simple majority system, which is often referred to as first past the post.
The great advantage of the simple majority is that it’s simple enough that even Rowan Dean can understand it; the great disadvantage is that it can throw up some strange results when you have candidates with similar views all contesting the same seat. For example, if you had a vote between the best PM in the past ten years your choices would be between Abbott, Turnbull, Morrison and Albanese. Obviously, while some Labor voters may not choose Albanese, the Liberal vote is going to be split between the other three meaning that a figure as low as 32% might be enough to get him over the line…
If, on the other hand, it was a preferential system like we have in Australia, then assuming the same 32% for Albanese wouldn’t be enough to get him elected. We’d eliminate the candidate with the lowest number and distribute his preferences. If no candidate had more than fifty percent after that, we’d keep going until that happened.
While this would appear to be a fairer system to all those – like Andrew Bolt – who were outraged that the simple majority system delivered Labour a landslide victory, this is not as simple as it first appears, because we DO have a preferential system in Australia and, if you remember the 2022 election, this was also unfair because Labor were elected with only 32% of the first preferences meaning that most people voted for somebody else. From this, many commentators concluded that if most people voted for somebody else, then somebody else should be the government and not Labor.
Yes, it would seem that they support a simple majority in Australia because preferences led to Labor being elected, many of the same people argue that a simple majority is unfair because it led to Labour being elected in the UK.
I guess a better system would be proportional representation which is how the Senate is elected. The problem here, of course, is not that this gets Labor senators elected… Although that is a big problem… The problem is that people are sometimes elected when they get less first preferences than words in this paragraph.
So it seems that no system of voting is ever going to be perfect and not just because it enables Labo(u)r governments. Every system will throw up anomalies and the best we can do is to be aware of them and try to ensure that people vote with full awareness of the likely consequences. When the results don’t go the way we want, however, there’s very little point in complaining about the system if you haven’t spent any time trying to improve it BEFORE the election. That just looks like you’re throwing your toys out of the cot because things didn’t go your way.
Speaking of Peter Dutton, have you noticed that the Coalition have suddenly forgotten all their Voice rhetoric about how we shouldn’t enshrine race in the Constitution because it is imperative that we treat all people equally? Suddenly they’re jumping a report to argue that the cashless welfare card needs to be brought back into Indigenous communities because there’s been an increase in poor behaviour. The report didn’t exactly put this down to the removal of income management, but don’t ever let the facts get in the way of what you want to argue. I mean, the fact that the Coalition always argue that taxation is bad because people should get a choice over how they spend their money can be ignored when they decide it’s appropriate.
I guess consistency is too much to ask. It would be nice if people who complain about cancel culture didn’t turn around and call for a boycott of Woolworths. It would be nice if the people who argued for the presumption of innocence in various other situations where a person was accused of a crime didn’t refer to dropped charges of rape against Julian Assange as though only people they agreed with had this innocent until proven guilty thing. It would be nice if people who chanted “Lock her up” about Hillary Clinton didn’t react with outrage that someone they voted for should actually go to court and be convicted. It would be nice if people who complained about their freedom being stifled didn’t go around banning books or insisting that woke ideology shouldn’t be allowed. It would be nice if…
It would be nice if people could just accept that while not everyone will agree with them, they should at least find a way that they at least agree with the position they had just a few days ago.
[textblock style=”7″]
Like what we do at The AIMN?
You’ll like it even more knowing that your donation will help us to keep up the good fight.
Chuck in a few bucks and see just how far it goes!
Your contribution to help with the running costs of this site will be gratefully accepted.
You can donate through PayPal or credit card via the button below, or donate via bank transfer: BSB: 062500; A/c no: 10495969
[/textblock]
