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Comment by aerovistae | Hacker News Reader

Serious question: given that you have this in Aus, why do the politicians always seem to be conservative clowns like Tony Abbott? I'm 29 but I can't remember any PMs of Aus ever being talked about internationally with anything but scorn so far.

With ranked choice universally adopted there I would have hoped for more diversity of representation :/

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Because the voting system is only one of many factors that determine what kind of government you end up with. Who controls the money in Australia? Who would they prefer to have in government representing them? Are there any ways they might use their money to propagandize or lobby for favorable laws?

(I don't know the Australian answer to that, but where I live the answer is "the ultra-rich and the investor class", "Republicans, but they like to keep Democrats in their pocket, too", and "yes, and it seems to get worse every year")

RCV would be a great improvement, but as long as money rules, things are gonna keep sucking.

(I don't know anything about Australia.)

Generally, election reform advocate for something like RCV for executive races and proportional representation (PR) for assemblies.

PR can moot districts, eliminating some attack vectors, like gerrymandering.

We have a massive problem with our media being largely owned by Murdoch. The result is that our elections tend to be heavily influenced by lies and propaganda, just as is the case with Fox News in the US.

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