"If Australia had a first-past-the-post system, none of the six teals who entered the parliament in 2022 would have been elected" he declared. "Of the six, most had a first preference vote which was only in the 30s or even 20s, a long way behind the first-preference vote secured by the Liberal candidate."

This is a good thing, mate. I'd preference a teal candidate over a Liberal candidate any day. And it turns out, that goes for a lot of us. I'm glad we don't have a first-past-the-post system. It forces people to hold their nose and vote for a candidate they think has a chance of winning, just to prevent the candidate they hate from getting in. I much prefer having the choice of voting for who I want, and then falling back to my second, third, fourth choices instead of being forced to vote for my sixth-preferred candidate, just to prevent my ninth-preferred candidate from getting in.

[–] zero_gravitas@aussie.zone 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

“If Australia had a first-past-the-post system, none of the six teals who entered the parliament in 2022 would have been elected” he declared. “Of the six, most had a first preference vote which was only in the 30s or even 20s, a long way behind the first-preference vote secured by the Liberal candidate.”

This is an asinine thing to say anyway, because it assumes people would just vote for whoever they preferenced first under our current system. We know people would vote tactically if we had a FPTP system.

[–] Nath@aussie.zone 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Voting for my sixth preference over my ninth is what would be considered tactical voting.

[–] zero_gravitas@aussie.zone 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Yes? My point was that Fletcher's unspoken premise is that if we had FPTP, the results would just translate over 1:1 from the primary vote. They wouldn't.