Apple Isle stalemate proves election system needs an overhaul

Any system of voting that enables a political party to win less than a third of the seats out of 35 and form government really needs to be looked at seriously. So it is with the Hare-Clarke system of voting in Tasmania.

This system has seen an election that has produced a result very similar to the one it is going to replace. Jeremy Rockcliff or Dean Winter may be able to cobble together an agreement whereby either one can govern in minority but if this does occur, it will be back to the polls in no time. Generally speaking, Australia’s electoral systems are messy.

The only commonsense system of voting surely is optional preferential voting, which guarantees that a person’s vote given to his or her selected candidate goes straight to that candidate, and a forced preference does not go to someone they do not want to cast a vote for.

In extraordinary cases, candidates whom one does not agree with but are forced to preference could end up being elected on that preference.

Peter D. Surkitt, Sandringham, Vic

Don’t be surprised if Dean Winter and Jeremy Rockliff combine to form a majority government in Tasmania.

Liberal and Labor have more in common than differences. They agree on all controversial topics – logging, salmon farming, stadium, destruction of Aboriginal heritage at Robbins Island, and donations from gambling. Both tinker at the edges of a failed health system and offer token gestures to the housing crisis. Both hate the Greens. Both will do anything to win power.

This coalition of the major parties would at least give Tasmania a clear division between the Greens and progressive independents on the one hand, and conservative government on the other.

Michael Mansell, Launceston, Tas

Cold comfort for Libs

Winter has certainly come for the LNP (“Coalition support hits a 40-year low”, 21/7).

A primary vote at 29 per cent is new territory. For it to have a chance of governing at any time in the future, it must convert that number to at least the low 40s, a task that appears monumental.

It seems that with the support of the Greens and the progressive independents, Labor will only require a primary vote in the mid to high 30s to govern in perpetuity. So has the Australian community morphed to a state of dependency that only progressive politicians can service? Is the Coalition left with the sole prospect of seeing eye to eye with the ideological left? Moderates in the Liberal Party will argue the case but what is the point? In time, Australians will tire of the incumbent. That is the nature of politics in Australia. At that stage – unlike in Victoria – the federal Coalition must present as a viable option.

Kim Keogh, Claremont, WA

Energy delusion

We are being led down the garden path with the fairies to the renewable energy la-la land (Once upon a time in energy transition”, 19-20/7).

What seems to be totally lacking in the government’s evaluation of proposed renewable energy projects is any realistic allowance for cost overruns, be they from time delays, higher equipment costs, route changes or the myriad other factors that seem to beset the sector. Often, fledgling projects are abandoned, but only after many millions have been spent, or worse, projects are kept going despite vast cost increases.

In the private sector, it is the norm to include a contingency in a project evaluation. If realistic contingency allowances were incorporated by the government, based on their experience to date, I suspect many of the renewable energy projects being inflicted upon us would not pass financial muster in the real world. And yet they proceed willy-nilly because the long-suffering taxpayers have become the funding contingency.

Surely we deserve better.

Nick Palethorpe, Turramurra, NSW

Chris Uhlmann once more exposes the erroneous rationale for Chris Bowen’s disastrous pursuit of zero emissions by replacing fossil fuel energy with renewables. Where all this has gone wrong was the wrong belief that what started out as solar hot water systems and solar rooftop panels for domestic applications would naturally also work on a much larger scale for commercial and industrial operations.

The mere fact that large-scale renewable energy would only ever get off the ground with massive taxpayer-funded subsidies should have set the alarm bells ringing years ago.

Will Muskens, Bardon, Qld

Well-intended disaster

What more can one say (that has not already been said) with respect to the NDIS (“NDIS faces being shut down if costs not cut, Joyce warns”, July 21).

Well intended, poorly executed, shamelessly rorted by some providers and beneficiaries, and economically unsustainable.

Bill Pannell, Dalkeith, WA