"Do you want the United Kingdom to adopt the 'alternative vote' system instead of the current 'first past the post' system for electing Members of Parliament to the House of Commons?"
It is interesting to note that only three other countries in the world use the Alternative Vote (AV) system: Australia, Fiji and Papua New Guinea. Accordingly we should all be especially interested in the results produced by the AV system in the Australian general election held just a couple of days ago - and not just because Wales-born Julia Gillard is standing as the leader of the Labor party.
As of the time of writing this, the Liberal/National Coalition, with 43.2 per cent of first-preference votes, has the same number of seats as Labor, with 38.5 per cent. The Greens, with 11.4 per cent, have just one seat. Are we sure we want the same system in this country? The argument put forward by the Lib Dems that it is 'fairer' than First Past The Post does not seem to hold true in this case.
