Rowan,

"responding to a claim that some electorates had three (usually; more than two, in any case) candidates that were equally desirable/undesirable in the eyes of voters and the voters wanted a way of making sure their choices "counted" beyond a situation"

There was also the fact that the splits in both 'left' & 'right' sides meant that each side could have two (or more!) candidates. Both sides would REALLY prefer that THEIR side, even if they didn't like the actual party, got in - thus the 'preferential' bit helps there.... :-)

Actually, it DOES make things 'more accountable', because it's harder to get away with lies forever...


"Regarding Pauline Hanson, she has become somewhat of an icon in the US"

This is exactly what was the real fear about her and the 'hitler' garbage...

As I said 'a whole soap opera in a single personality'...


It's been 'confirmed' - if you believe the news! - that Little Fascist Johnny IS looking for a new job... But Maxine is refusing to claim victory as she says that it is too close to call - there are a lot of 'postal & absent' votes - they can take days to 'come in' - and if it VERY close - there can also be several recounts of the whole votes - all ONLY EVER done by hand.


The Greens did rather well on a total percentage vote basis across the board. Non-Aussies may not understand though, how a party that gets no, or even just a very few people elected can wield a lot of power. Well, you see, many of the seats Labour won, got over the line due to distributed Green 2nd preferences. The 'Democrats' (NOTHING like US 'Democrats'!) used to do that, but their voted almost totally evaporated. They were seen as 'too close to the Liberals' - while the Greens were seen as 'somewhat close to Labour' - they made a strong running about many things that Labour did not want to go as far with - eg, that 'private schools' should get no more funding than 'public schools' - Under Little Fascist Johnny, the per student funding for private schools is now several times greater than public schools - and that does not take into account the 'fees' paid by parents!. This is the 'benefit' of our system - Johnny tried to tamper with that, but fortunately wiser heads on even his own side saw the 'long term benefits' of such a system, compared with any short term possible gains.

Well the Nationals Leader has now also refused to lead the party - as did Costello (Johnny's publicly anointed!) for the Liberals on election night. If they hung around, then the voters, as has happened in the past - will continue to 'reject their failed policies' (vote the party out!) - since they don't appear to admit that they 'stuffed it'! :-)

The Nationals got hurt - percentage vote wise - perhaps even harder than the Libs, especially in Queensland - traditionaly a fairly anti-labour area!