Australian Politics

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The case for a blatantly discriminatory Australian voting system (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by arbilp3@aussie.zone to c/australianpolitics@aussie.zone

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My preferred method is to weight votes according to age: voters below, say, 30 would receive a more heavily weighted vote, voters 30 to 60 would get a less weighted vote, and those over 60 would retain their current single vote. For argument’s sake, you could multiply the vote of under-30s by 1.3 and that of 30- to 60-year-olds by 1.1. People’s ballot papers could be distinguished by colour – under-30s get blue, 30s to 60s green and oldies red – to make counting easier on election night.

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[–] arbilp3@aussie.zone 1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

According to the article, there is already weighted voting in Australia, not by age but by place. If the weight-loading was legislated I can't see govts changing the weighting easily.

[–] shirro@aussie.zone 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

That is a deceptive argument by the author. The senate represents the interests of the Australian states. Within those states all votes are equal. The senate is a house of review and can block legislation and provides protection for smaller states from the big states concentrating wealth and power even more than they currently do. We wouldn't have a federation without this concession. WA would be out first and SA and Tassie wouldn't be far behind.

The real power is in the house of representatives. We have good regional representation through our local MPs which is very important on regional issues like local employment and access to services.

The tweak that would make our system more democratic would be to look at the wasted preferences in the lower house and provide additional seats to parties that got a substantial share without winning any local seats. This would better reflect the will of voters and would be fantastic for the Greens. It would also provide a lot of power to parties like One Nation. I am concerned this could be abused without additional balances. I would want our constitution strengthened and a bill of rights before opening parliament up to far right populists.

[–] MisterFrog@aussie.zone 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

If the weight-loading was legislated I can't see govts changing the weighting easily.

With respect, that's exactly how they currently change things. By legislation, so they most certainly could change the weighting as easily as they can pass any other legislation.

[–] arbilp3@aussie.zone 1 points 1 week ago

What I meant by not changing such legislation easily is that it would need to be debated and the public would be able to also have a say.

I'd certainly be interested in seeing something like this be given a trial run for 5-10 yrs to see what outcomes would eventuate.