Now with Beer Garden for our smoking patrons.That's the mantra of a party which has gained a majority of seats, but not of votes.It's not a popularity contest across the state. We have to look at it seat by seat. That tells a much different story, and the more important story.
If each seat has equal numbers of two-party preference votes, the winner should have the majority of seats and the majority of seats. In the Westminster system with two parties, any seat which has a lot more voters of one side than the other is called a 'rotten borough' and too many of them result in a gerrymander. What's more, each seat is supposed to have about the same number of voters in total.
The problem in SA is that to achieve equal numbers of each of the two primary parties in each seat is geographically impossible. Each geographically huge, sparely populated country seat, which tend to vote conservative, would have to have a spike into the dense metropolitan area where there are more Labor voters.
The best the electoral commissioner can do is to ensure that each side has about the same chance of winning half the seats, unless that side is really on the nose. In other words, rotten boroughs are tolerated, as long as there are equal numbers of them on both sides.
It is this balance of seats, not voters, that Isobel Redmond reckons the electoral commissioner could provide but hasn't. Hence the accusation of 'utter corruption' she has made against the commissioner, implying that the commissioner favours Labor.
Redmond's point can be argued, I think. The charge would be hard to prove.
What is crook, though, is the practice of paying elected representatives to switch allegiances after the election. THAT should be outlawed.
