[Greens-Media] NSW electoral system shares UK flaw

[Lee Rhiannon]

MEDIA RELEASE
10 May 2010


NSW electoral system shares UK flaw


Greens MP and electoral spokesperson Lee Rhiannon said that the NSW
Legislative Assembly electoral system like the UK first past the post
system needs a major overhaul to install proportional representation.

“The UK election outcome, that delivered a distorted party seat
allocation compared with votes, largely replicated a similar
unrepresentative result from the 2007 NSW Legislative Assembly
election,” Ms Rhiannon said.

“The Liberal Democrats have been short changed in seats because of the
bias of single member electorate first past the post voting system in
the UK.

“They gained 23 per cent of the vote but only 9 per cent of the seats.

“In the NSW Legislative Assembly although there is preferential
voting, the single member electorates deliver a distorted result.

“In the 2007 election NSW Labor only gained 39 per cent of the vote
but won 55 per cent of the seats.

“The Greens gained nine per cent of the vote but no Greens MPs were elected.

“The Conservatives in the UK gained 36 per cent of the votes but won
47 per cent of seats, while British Labour gained 29 per cent of the
vote but won 39 per cent of the seats.

“The UK election demonstrated that single member electorates regularly
deliver distorted results.

“As long as NSW and the UK have single member electorates, a large
proportion of the voters will miss out on having their views
represented.

“If there was a proportional representation electoral system in NSW
the Greens vote would have won nine of the 93 Lower House seats.

“Democracy is stunted by unrepresentative electoral systems.

“The solution for both the UK and NSW is proportional representation.

“In NSW if we had proportional representation the people of NSW would
have gained their wish and they would not have had to put up with a
majority state Labor government that only got a primary vote of 39 per
cent.

“Proportional representation in our state and federal parliaments is
the next major campaign for improvement of the democratic process,” Ms
Rhiannon said.


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