People here vote for local members at a Federal Election and the party with the majority of local House of Representative members can form a parliament and their current leader will become Prime Minister. Voting for Independent candidates here obviously throws a huge spanner in the works in a system like this because the ruling party may be forced to make deals and cater to that(those) independents when trying to get legislation through. As one famous small party leader Don Chipp once said " Let's keep the bastards honest."
https://youtu.be/dHQYCy07YCs?t=4m17s
Despite this above system, I believe a large majority vote for their preferred leader by voting for their local member, which is why when parties have a leadership spill before an election, I believe they leave a large amount of pissed off voters who think the parties should stand by the leader who the 'people voted in', even though they technically did not. Since 2010 both major parties have had leadership spills mid-term after winning the election and I think I'm not alone in being sick and tired of their arrogance in playing musical chairs with the top job. The backlash at the polls after both spills was evident.
Fuck these clowns.
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