Australian electoral system: Difference between revisions
m
clean up (AWB), typos fixed: critising → criticising, equivilant → equivalent, it's policies → its policies, recieving → receiving (3), consquence → consequence, succesful → successful (2), 5 year → 5-year, saturday → Saturday, existanc...
Psephomancy (talk | contribs) m (clean up (AWB), typos fixed: critising → criticising, equivilant → equivalent, it's policies → its policies, recieving → receiving (3), consquence → consequence, succesful → successful (2), 5 year → 5-year, saturday → Saturday, existanc...) |
|||
Line 1:
Australia has a system of parliamentary democracy, largely based on the Westminster system. Since 1920 Australia has used a preferential system of voting (PV), this system is also known as Instant Run-off voting (IRV) and the Single Transferable vote (STV). In Australia voting is compulsory for all Australian citizens over 18, except prisoners currently serving a 5
Line 16:
Although Australia has a system where unlike in the U.S. and Britain a vote for a minor party isn't wasted, the two party duopoly reigns supreme and had never been threatened. Minor parties are rarely if ever elected to the lower house (HoR), although strong indendent candidates much more frequently are. The noteworty parties in Australian politics today are the Australian Labor Party (ALP) which is similar in ideology to both the British Labour Party and the U.S. Democratic party; The Liberal Party are similar to the Tories in Britain and the Republican party in the U.S. and together with the National party, who represent rural and regional interests, they form a coalition to become the second major party. Leftwing minor parties inlcude the Greens and the Democrats and rightwing minor parties inlcude One Nation and Family First. All other minor parties are so insignificant that they won't be covered here, typically
Line 23:
Some argue that the reason that the major party duopoly is still apparent in Australia is because strategic voting still widely occurs in the PV system, that is that people frequently have to sacrifice their true preference in order to pick 'the lesser of two evils'. However very high votes for fringe candidates are often recorded without unintended repercussions and there is absolutely no evidence that strategic voting occurs on any scale in Australia. The reasons why the duopoly exists is for other reasons, partly because the minor parties provide a moderately effect on the extremes of the major parties. For instance the Australian Labor Party (ALP) wouldn't be so environmentally friendly if it weren't for the threat of voters deserting for the Australian Greens (Greens) and
On the other side of politics a Liberal party candidate for the seat of Ipswich near Brisbane, Pauline Hanson caused a stir by her widely
Line 39:
b) They are not trusted enough to form an effective government, they are popularly thought of as idealistic and not practical.
c) They are often
Line 48:
All 6 Australian states and territories have compulsory voting and preferential voting, the ACT and Tasmania however use a proportional representation method of PV for the lower house called Hare-Clark. All states use PR-STV for their upper houses (senate
Line 54:
Although in theory it is compulsory to vote in Australia and 95% of Australians do, it is not a strictly enforceable law. All that is really required by law is that the voter show up to a polling place between 7am and 6pm on polling day (always a
Line 79:
People in Australia typically aren't aware of the
== External
Notable sites
Notable Australian sites are:
* http://www.southsearepublic.org/ constitutional blog
* http://www.
* http://www.aph.gov.au parliament house
* http://www.
* http://www.travelentrav.com humorous blog
* http://www.
* http://www.crikey.com.au/ major Australian news source▼
* http://www.
* http://www.abc.com.au/elections/ The most comphrensive Australian election site run with the expertise of Antony Green▼
* http://www.
* http://psephos.adam-carr.net/ elections website▼
* http://www.
* http://democratic.audit.anu.edu.au/ Democratic Audit▼
▲http://www.crikey.com.au/ major Australian news source
▲http://www.abc.com.au/elections/ The most comphrensive Australian election site run with the expertise of Antony Green
▲http://psephos.adam-carr.net/ elections website
▲http://democratic.audit.anu.edu.au/ Democratic Audit
|