Hello I am a new subscriber to the Neither Public Mailing List.
I have been particularly attracted to Neither because of its support for
proportional representation. I am secretary of the Electoral Reform Society of
South Australia and also currently national secretary of the PR Society of
Australia.
I have just recieved the email with a reply about One Nation. While I have
obviously come in at the end of a conversation, I have noted with interest the
comments about proportional representation.
You are right about One Nation being attracted to PR - they would have
received more representation in Queensland and Australia if PR had been
used. Would have got 19 instead of 11 MPs in the Queensland Parliament.
Analyisis of the Australian election still to be done. I have had some calls from
One Nation supporters asking about PR.
While the smaller parties are obviously attracted to PR, I always push the line
that PR could also help the major two parties as there are substantial ALP
voters in safe Liberal seats and vice versa - more than vote for the smaller
parties. In fact overtime, the Tasmanian experience is that the Hare-Clark PR
system (which I support) has actually strengthened the two party system -
certainly in comparison to SA there have been less minority governments.
More important than party representation is voter representation. With
single-member electorates usually about 45% of voters find that they wasted
their time voting as the candidate of their choice was not elected and they do
not have the representation they wanted. Hence my support for PR.
