Election downunder a model for the UK
This is the current situation:
At the close of counting at 2.00am (AEST) on Sunday the Australian Electoral Commission had Labor and coalition each winning 71 seats with three independents and an Australia Green.
Four other seats are too close to call.
Two of the independents whose vote appears crucial to forming a minority government have expressed loathing for Barnaby Joyce, one of the Coalition’s most prominent frontbenchers.
Of one of these, it was said:
He hoped the two other Nationals-turned-independents, Mr Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, would vote as a block to decide the nation’s political future.
Where it gets interesting is:
A possible fourth independent, former Greens candidate Andrew Wilkie, and the new Melbourne Greens MP, Adam Bandt, are expected to side with Labor.
If we go with the 71 seats so far for each of the majors and add three independents for the conservative coalition and two for Labor, then it is 74 for the coalition and 73 for Labor, with three seats still to be decided.
It looks like these will fall 1 to Labor and 2 to the coalition.
That would mean Coalition 76 [with the independents' help] and 74 for Labor. If even one of those two hanging seats for the coalition goes the other way, then it’s a tie but if both go to Labor, they’ll govern by 2.
The deadlock is likely to continue for several days until an estimated 800,000 postal votes are counted.
These tend, traditionally, to favour the conservatives, so it’s a cliffhanger, with the coalition’s nose in front. Australia might be delivered yet from it’s first Marxist PM and the descent into plebianism for the vast majority of the population.
Australia uses a preferential voting system where, in the counting, whoever comes last drops off and his/her votes are distributed according to 2nd preferences of the voters who put that person N1. Then the new lowest receiver of votes drops off and preferences are distributed and so on until there are two candidates left, after which it is a simple majority which prevails.
In the UK, with Cameron reneging on his promise to run the referendum people really need – membership of the EU – and in this silly AV referendum forced by the Lib Dem reds, the UK is playing with proportional representation. The Australian system is fair if one accepts a two party system – it says that all you others are going to lose and thanks for coming but your 2nd preferences are the true ones and will go to one of the two majors anyway.
Hence the low number of independents in the parliament.
Where this new parliament will be exciting is if Abbott [conservative coalition] does pip Gillard [Marxist/Feminazi] by one seat and is then held to ransom by the three conservative dissidents. That’s a situation I’d love to see over here because it would force Pink Dave to actually adhere to conservative policies instead of playing the pink ideologue and the country might get itself out of the morass it’s in.
The days of two parties dominating the landscape might be over but it’s still a long way off for independents to proliferate in parliament.
Filed under: Politics & economics
How do you mean “Hence the low number of independents in Parliament”??
In the UK there are no independents at all, although there are two (women) MPs who basically represent a one-woman-party.
i.e. the Green MP and some lady in Northern Ireland.
How times change! I didn’t know there were any “reds” in the Lib-Dems.
Once voting in Australia was made compulsory their socialist future was assured.
Mark – fair comment.
Welshcakes – yes but perhaps Modica is a little out of the way to be up with British politics.
James – indeed.