What If

Had an interesting twitter debate in the wee hours of the morning with some guy who insisted that the 9 out of 10 people voted against the Greens. He also wanted an Election Now and he probably believes God will save the planet from Climate Change or all it is is God preparing for the second coming.

Okay, the last part is based on conjecture and Angry Anderson’s spiritual belief that climate change is not happening.

You read blog replies to the ABC convoy story, and some people there even talk about proportional representation as the election some how ‘ripped them off’.

I am not sure if these folks actually know what that would mean. So, in a need to satisfy them, here goes.

Firstly, we need to relive the results of Election 2010.

Party                                        Votes                      Seats Won
Australian Labor Party       4,711,363                       72
Liberal                                   3,777,383                       44
LNPQ                                     1,130,525                      21
Greens                                   1,458,998                         1
Nationals                                  462,387                        7
Independents                          312,496                        4 

TOTAL                                11,853,152                     150

(I am only including votes that accumulated more than 2.5% of the vote)

So if we now turn these votes as a percentage we get

Party                                      %age                 Seats as a %age
Australian Labor Party       39.74                                60
Liberal                                    31.86                               48
LNPQ                                       9.53                                14
Greens                                    12.30                               18
Nationals                                 3.90                                 6
Independents                         2.63                                 4

So if we had a proportional system, the coalition would have 68 seats (Liberal + National + LNPQ). The ALP would have the 60. With the support of the greens and the independents, this takes their numbers together to 82.

So in a two party preferred system, we have a ‘hung parliament’ but if you do a first past the post proportional system, it would be a significant government majority. Also like the idea that the Greens would have more seats then the Liberal National Party of Queensland.

Are not what if’s wonderful? 

ADDENDUM!: I forgot. Tony Crook is on the cross benches. So the Nationals only have 5 seats.

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A. Ghebranious 2011 (All rights reserved)