preferences have some value but the actual person you vote for as your number 1 is more significant. It's also the only thing you can use to compare to other non-preferential electoral systems. It's a big deal that Labor's primary vote translates into so many more seats!
like what other voting metric would you find better to measure proportionality? 2CP doesn't work, it only applies in one seat for the election of one person. And 2PP by definition forces every voter into a major party camp however else they may have voted.
I don't know the answer to that, but I do know that forcing a preferential voting system into a FPTP one by not counting all of the votes, especially when we know that people vote differently in FPTP vs preferential systems, really doesn't make sense.
well I have been looking into this issue for many years and I think this is the best way to assess proportionality. There is no way to use secondary preferences to assess voters' intentions. I also think it's massively overstated how much voters change their voting behavious vs FPTP.
the preferential voting system gives you the best you can get *while electing one person*. But we don't elect one person, we elect 150. About 20% of the country voted for someone else but went to Labor on the 2PP - those people are less well represented by a Labor MP than their first preference.