August 25, 2010

If Australia were a democracy

Australia's recent election was held under a very distorting electoral system, and like in Britain, resulting in a hung parliament.
We'll do the same exercise as for the UK in determining what the Australian parliament should have looked like if a proper proportionally democratic electoral system had been used:

Party: votes, vote percentage, seats (difference with current provisional outcome)
Australian Labor Party: 4,089,531 38.47% 58 (-12)
Liberal: 3,230,990 30.39% 46 (+3)
Liberal National Party of Queensland: 960,395 9.03% 14 (-7)
The Greens: 1,210,998 11.39% 17 (+16)
The Nationals: 405,322 3.81% 6 (-1)
Family First: 234,675 2.21% 3 (+3)
CDP Christian Party: 71,262 0.67% 1 (+1)
Independent: 271,323 2.55% 4 (0)

A hung parliament too. Nothing wrong with that. But it would represent Australians better.

No comments: