My Australian contacts reinforce commonly held observation that Australians think "preferential is good".
That sentiment did not cross the Tasman Sea to influence NZ PR reform... why?
I believe the reason for this was Australia Senate was using compulsory preferential voting and as way to get around that many voters were marking "above the line" (party list voting).
and parties were making deals for vote transfers.
Aus. Senate and North T -- and Tasmania as always, NSW Leg. Council since 1978 -- are using optional preferential voting now so much smoother and with more voters marking ind. candidates not just party lists, more voter based and candidate-directed. even if some votes are exhausted, perhaps six percent.
(in NSW in 2022 -- 6 percent exhausted plus 4 percent not used (476,000 McCulloch votes (not elected; votes not transferred); all other votes used to elect someone -- 90 percent were effective votes).
Likely as many as 6 percent of votes rejected under full preferential voting;
and sometimes about same proportion rejected under FPTP.
so no difference that way but STV gave 90 percent eff. votes
perhaps if Aus. voters had been allowed to mark only as many as they want, NZ might have liked STV more for their nat. house - NZ does use STV for many cities.
National politics in any country are heavily influenced by that country's history and traditions. Changing the electoral system may not in itself change much.
But in other direction, electoral system heavily influences political culture, both by its aspirations and its application
even if minority parties only get voice, the very fact that they are thought important enough to get voice means pol. culture is at diff level than non-prop. FPTP.
less polarized, gentler
And Trudeau actually correctly says ranked votes cause gentler poltics as parties hope for secondary preferences on others' ballots. he just fails to see that that happens under STV as well as IRV.
(or he is just too lazy to make MMDs or un-imaginative to think of how,)
looking at Alberta example, back in 1944, Social Credit, Lib, Conservatives and CCF got fair share of seats in cities (CCF taking one seat in each city)
but CCF not get one seat outside cities (where AV was used).
CCF thus elected two MLAs but with almost 25 percent of the vote across the province deserved 14
I believe 14 CCF MLAs would have had significant effect (with SC government only having 51 percent of the seats if PR true) when massive oil was discovered in 1947 at Leduc and with the example of Tommy Douglas's CCF government in Sask just next door.
so this is not example of how applied PR changes culture but example of proven PR in cities rep.-wise but missed chance to change pol. culture outside cities, under IRV.
I am sure there are examples of how adoption of PR changed pol. culture (NZ?) but just can't think of concrete examples
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