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Comment by theteapot | Hacker News Reader

Current US house of reps (435 seats):

  Republicans: 220 seats.
  Democrats: 215 seats.
  Independents/Third Party: 0 seats.

Current AU house of reps (150 seats):

  Australian Labor Party (ALP): 94 seats
  Coalition: 43 seats (combined Liberal/National parties)
  Australian Greens: 1 seat
  Centre Alliance: 1 seat
  Katter's Australian Party: 1 seat
  Independents: 10 seats

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It's definitely better. But it's not proportional representation.

E.g. Greens got about 12.2% of vote.

12.2% of 150 is 18, not 1.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2025/jun/02/...

The system while better is biased towards parties who can get the majority of individual constituencies based on geographic location. It relies on localized monocultures to get democracy for smaller parties. But that doesn't happen.

House of representatives is not designed to provide proportional representation based on aggregate % vote country wide. Senate is more aligned that way and it's reflected in the numbers, in AU:

Current US senate (100 seats):

  Republicans: 53 seats (Majority Party)
  Democrats: 45 seats (Minority Party)
  Independents: 2 seats

Current AU senate (76):

  Australian Labor Party: 29
  Coalition: 27
  Australian Greens: 10
  Pauline Hanson's One Nation: 4
  Jacqui Lambie Network: 1
  Australia's Voice: 1
  United Australia Party: 1
  Independents: 3

So Greens are slightly over represented in the AU Senate based on aggregate vote if 12.2% is correct.

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