How unfair voting systems help Labour!!

The UK election was marked by a terribly unfair electoral system, meaning that Farage’s Reform Party won 14.3% of the vote but only five seats. This is because the UK uses a simple majority system, often called first-past-the-post.

The great advantage of a simple majority is that it is simple enough that even Rowan Dean can understand it. The great disadvantage is that it can produce strange results when like-minded candidates all run for the same seat. For example, if you were to vote for the best prime minister of the last ten years, your choices would be Abbott, Turnbull, Morrison and Albanese. Of course, even if some Labor voters don’t choose Albanese, the Liberal vote will be split between the other three, meaning that a figure as low as 32% could be enough to get him across the line…

If, on the other hand, it were a preferential system like the one we have in Australia, then, assuming that the same 32% for Albanese would not be enough to get him elected, we would eliminate the candidate with the lowest number of votes and distribute his preferences. If no candidate got more than 50% after that, we would continue until that happened.

While this may seem like a fairer system to all those – like Andrew Bolt – who were outraged by Labor’s landslide victory under the simple majority system, it’s not as simple as it first seems because we have a preferential system in Australia and, if you remember the 2022 election, it was also unfair because Labor was elected with only 32% of first preferences, meaning most people voted for it. someone else. Many commentators have concluded that if most people voted for someone else, SO someone else It should be the government, not the Labour Party.

Yes, it would seem that they support a simple majority in Australia because preferences led to the election of Labor, many of the same people argue that a simple majority is unfair because it led to Labor being elected in the UK.

I think a better system would be proportional representation, which is how the Senate is elected. The problem here, of course, is not that it elects Labour senators… Although that is a big problem… The problem is that people sometimes get elected who get fewer first preferences than there are words in this paragraph.

So it seems that no electoral system is ever perfect, and not just because it allows Labour governments to be in power. Every system will have its faults and the best we can do is be aware of them and ensure that people vote with full awareness of the likely consequences. However, when the results are not what we want, there is no point in complaining about the system if you have not spent time trying to improve it BEFORE the election. It is simply throwing your toys on the floor because things did not go your way.

Speaking of Peter Dutton, have you noticed that the Coalition has suddenly forgotten all their Voice rhetoric about how we shouldn’t enshrine race in the Constitution because it’s imperative that we treat everyone equally? Suddenly they jump on a report to say that cashless welfare cards need to be reinstated in Indigenous communities because there’s been an increase in bad behaviour. The report didn’t exactly attribute that to the removal of income management, but never let facts trump what you want to argue. I mean, the fact that the Coalition always says that taxation is bad because people should have a choice in how they spend their money can be ignored when they decide it’s appropriate.

I guess consistency is asking too much. 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 people who have argued for the presumption of innocence in various other situations where someone has been accused of a crime didn’t refer to the dropped rape charges against Julian Assange as if only people they agree with have this innocent until proven guilty rule. It would be nice if people who chanted “Lock her up” about Hillary Clinton didn’t react with outrage at the thought of someone they voted for actually being brought to trial and convicted. It would be nice if people who complain 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 even if not everyone agrees with them, they should at least find a way to at least agree with the position they had just a few days ago.

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