Is our 2 party system just a con?

[willedoo]

I think Labor reasoned that they had no hope of winning so by not running a candidate the Labor vote would go to the independent to help her beat One Nation. Only problem was a fair bit of it would have gone to One Nation. Regardless, the One Nation primary vote was too strong for the independent to have any hope of beating. Not running a candidate might have saved Labor the embarrassment of a swing away from them to ON, but that's just theoretical speculation on my part.

[willedoo]

It's certainly interesting politics in this country lately. What we've just seen is One Nation take a traditionally safe Coalition seat, but not just any seat, the seat of the former opposition leader and leader of the Liberal party. What hurt the Liberals was the swing against them in the last federal election which knocked their safe margin down to 6%.

The big lesson there is that it doesn't matter how many seats you have, it's the seat margins going into the next election that counts. If you have a big majority made up of a lot of marginal seats, the switch can quite easily flick the other way next election.

 

The reason I had to edit this post is a sticky 'a' key on the laptop. If I don't proofread, I have to go back with an edit and add a heap of a's.

Edited 11 hours ago by willedoo

[onetrack]

Farley seems quite a sensible individual, with a very diplomatic turn of speech, unlike a lot of the ON rabble. It will be interesting to see what happens from here on in. A well-spoken, thoughtful individual such as Farley may bring a lot more credibility to the ON Party.

 

However, the general trend of elections in recent decades is voters vote for whoever is in Opposition, just to express dissatisfaction with the ruling Partys performance. No matter who is power, they all appear to have no answers to the ordinary voters pressing problems - inflation, the cost of living, fuel prices, housing unaffordability, lack of job opportunities - they all perform dismally in these fields.

 

I'd like to see some politicians with real backbone, take on the billionaires and giant global corporations, and tax them more heavily, and also lay into the betting conglomerates that wield so much power, and which every politician is too frightened to offend.

[willedoo]

By-elections are often a very different breed than general elections. Mainly due to a lot of local electorate issues, combined with the fact a certain amount of voters feel it's safe to cast a protest vote against the status quo in a by-election. In a general election, those same voters might play safe and stick with the majors. Water is one issue in Farrer, but along with some other local issues, a lot of voters saw the Libs promising to fix things in an electorate that's been held by them for decades. I can understand how a lot of them would feel neglected and think about giving someone else a go.

 

I don't think the poor coalition result is a reflection on their candidates. Both Liberal and National candidates were top knotch candidates, but incumbency worked against them, as well as the problems in Canberra.

[red750]

Every ON voter questioned on TV, when asked why, said "We needed a change."

[old man emu]

One seat in the House, and that seat is on the Cross Benches. He will be a voice crying out in the wilderness. It is interesting to note that teh Libs directed their preferences to ON and away from the Independant. Guess we know which way he will vote. However with Labor having such a big majority, the rest of the House won't have much effect. 

 

In order to bolster the standing of ON, Farley will have to spend the majority of his time on the ground working for the people of Farrer. He can't spend his time in Canberra pushing the ON manifesto. If he concentrates on working for his electorate, he might get re-elected at the next General Election.

 

Just a comment on the "donkey vote" discussion. I reckon most Australians don't care too much about politics and only come to vote for the Democracy Sanger. They have already decided which Party they will vote for and only take that Party's HTV card and follow it. Have you watched people going along the line of Party volunteers handing out HTV cards? You will see quite a lot of impoliteness. The percentage of votes found not to follow HTVs is an indication of teh amount of thought voters are putting into making their choice.

[Marty_d]

I never take a HTV card. Firmly of the belief that everyone who is eligible to vote should take their responsibility to engage in democracy seriously and number all boxes.

It's not a big ask, once every 3 years.

[red750]

I take a HTV card from everyone. No-one knows which I will follow, if any of them.

 

If you vote for X, then you want them to have the best chance to win. You may not know which order of preferences will best assist that result. Following X's HTV helps you decide which works best for them.

[willedoo]

51 minutes ago, old man emu said:

One seat in the House, and that seat is on the Cross Benches.

Two seats in the House ome, you forgot about Barnaby. Only two seats but one of them is an ex National Party leader, ex Deputy Prime Minister and a seasoned politician. So as one commentator said, it's not as if the new member will be wandering lost around Perliament House wondering where the coffee machine is, he'll be well chaperoned.