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Notes -
I'm not australian either, but I don't think it's affirmative action (where you help individuals get better jobs). It's something more collective. Think about it: in the US (and also in Australia), instead of voting by states, you could vote by race or something like that. For example Lebanon votes by religion. That is not something I would want for my country (and it does not work very well in lebanon) but perhaps it makes sense sometimes, just like taking account of geographic differences makes sense sometimes.
No, this isn't a "everyone votes by races" thing. Nobody wants special white representation, or for that matter special Chinese representation (the largest nonwhite group in Oz). The idea is that everyone including Aboriginals votes normally for a non-racialised Parliament, and then also Aboriginals get a special representation that may or may not have powers to block laws.
It's not AA - and @MaiqTheTrue was only using that as an analogy - but it absolutely is explicit "some people have more representation than other people".
Well it's still as I said, excepted that the old usual system survives and makes it odd. We have something of the sort in the UE: if you are a binational, you can elect 2 governments, and those governments are ruling the EU together (I'm not sure it's not also possible to vote twice for EU parliament). As long as there are few people with two votes, it's not that important.
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The ancient Romans sometimes voted by tribe. Problems arose when they annexed like half of Italy and then threw all the new citizens into a couple of the 36 tribes, essentially making their votes worthless.
Not making a point here, just thought it was interesting.
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