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| Written by Adrian Liston, on 29-10-2007 15:45 The UK system is similar in a way, they don't have any state government, just going from Federal to large local governments. They also get to a proportional government in a different way - they have lower house members from each seat, then regional members that are allocated in a "fill-in" manner. For example if Labor just beat the Tories in each seat, then Labor would have far more seats than their primary vote deserved, so the "fill-in" seats would be allocated to the Tories in order to bring the seat distribution into line with the vote distribution. The worry about combining the role of state or local parliaments with federal parliaments is that voters would have to put one job of highest priority - what if they thought that Labor was the best to manage their local government but Liberals the best for the Federal government? The nice thing about multiple levels of government is that you are free to chose one party (or even independent individual quite often) who you believe is ideal for local government, a different party for State parliament, a third party for Federal government, and a fourth party for oversight in the Senate. That said, using local government as our Federal decision makers would certainly be more proportional and responsive to local needs. We need to make a system that balances these two forces. |
