Hung parliaments have developed a bit of a bad reputation in Australia.

Both the Coalition and Labor have gone out of their way to insist they are in this federal election to win it outright, on their own terms.

They will be helped along in part by the electoral system in the House of Representatives, which can disproportionately reward the party with the largest number of votes with an even higher proportion of seats.

So how would the parliament look if Australia adopted a more proportional system, like those used in many parliaments overseas?

That question has been posed to Curious Campaign by Paddy Krishnan, who lives on the Gold Coast.

Paddy grew up in India, but has studied in the United States and worked in the United Kingdom and New Zealand, which has some proportional representation.

"I happened to be in New Zealand when they changed the system and they introduced a mixed proportional system," he said.

Paddy is concerned Australia's current voting system in the House of Representatives leaves many voters cold.

"I'm slightly left leaning, but I sit in a very safe Liberal seat, so basically my vote has no hope," he said.

So what would a system of proportional representation (PR) in the House of Representatives do to Australia's parliament?

Grab your calculator and join Curious Campaign for a look.

What is proportional representation?

Australian parliaments use a variety of electoral systems - spelled out in a paper from the parliamentary library.

In the Federal Parliament, the House of Representatives uses a system of Full Preferential Voting, while the Senate uses a PR system.

The research paper sets out the options this way:

Under Full Preferential Voting each candidate must be given a preference by the voter

Under each candidate must be given a preference by the voter With Optional Preferential Voting the voter may allocate preferences to as few as one candidate

With the voter may allocate preferences to as few as one candidate The Proportional Representation system used in Senate elections, increases the chances of minor parties and independents winning seats, produces closer results in the struggle between the major parties, and makes it difficult for a major party to gain control of the Senate

The system used in Senate elections, increases the chances of minor parties and independents winning seats, produces closer results in the struggle between the major parties, and makes it difficult for a major party to gain control of the Senate The Hare-Clark system ensures that no seat is safe, creates an electoral system where party members fight each other as much as their external opponents, and operates in such a way that minority governments are more common than when Preferential Voting is used

Both Tasmania's House of Assembly and the ACT Assembly use Hare-Clark, which is also a proportional system using multi-member electorates.

Tasmania has five electorates, with five members elected from each. The ACT has two five-member electorates, and one seven-member electorate.

ABC election analyst Antony Green has a good guide on how Hare-Clark works here.

So to get some sense of how the Federal House of Representatives might look under proportional representation, we can look to some examples in the Senate, Tasmania and the ACT.

The spin on PR - good and bad

Did you know Australia has a society dedicated to promoting the use of PR?

The society's secretary, Stephen Morey, said there were many benefits to pursuing PR.

"A proportional system will better represent the range of views across the whole country," he said.

"The biggest change if we had PR in the Lower House in Australia would be that those people who are voting for the party that does not win the electorate would feel that they have a representation.

"Under a Hare-Clark model, a voter might live in a multi-member electorate, which might include representatives of the Coalition, ALP, Greens and perhaps other minor parties."

The other potential benefit of a proportional system like Hare-Clark, for voters at least, is that every candidate has to fight for their seat, even against other members of their own party.

"We all know this current election, which is apparently quite close, is going to be decided in a small number of seats," Dr Morey said.

"Proportional systems at least mean there's a contest everywhere in the country."

So what are the pitfalls?

Well, proportional systems can be more complex. Another potential concern is stability.

PR systems make it less likely for a parliament to deliver a majority government.

The parliamentary library research paper points out that "minority governments are much more common in Tasmania and the ACT than in jurisdictions where Preferential Voting is used".

"Seven Tasmanian governments since 1948 have lacked control of the House of Assembly, and the first four ACT elections after the achievement of self-government (1989) saw the return of minority governments," it read.

Of course, minority governments might not concern all voters, particularly those who support independents and minor parties, which gain more influence in a hung parliament.

"What matters is that there is a majority in the parliament to pass legislation," Dr Morey said.

"In the various hung parliaments in Australia, both state and federal, in recent years, there has been."

Crunching the numbers

After each federal election from 1996 to 2004, the Proportional Representation Society analysed what the numbers in the House of Representatives might look like under PR.

The society used a Hare-Clark model, which would see electorates in each state and territory grouped into a series of multi-member electorates.

Unfortunately, the society has not conducted a similar analysis since 2004, and running full Hare-Clark predictions, with preferences, is no simple task.

So, for the purposes of this exercise, I've created two much more simplistic models.

The first would see all 150 House of Representatives seats grouped in a single electorate.

The second would see each state and territory framed as an individual electorate.

Please treat the figures as a rough guide only, and bear in mind that a Hare-Clark system would likely see a less dramatic shift from the current House of Representatives make-up.

The first thing to notice is that the crossbench - the Greens, Palmer United Party, along with other minor parties and independents - would be major beneficiaries of PR, at the expense of the Coalition and Labor.

Under both simplistic models, the Coalition would fall below the 76 votes required to form majority government, meaning it would need to co-opt members of the crossbench to join forces, or seek commitments from various crossbench members to provide confidence and supply.

Dr Morey said a Hare-Clark model would have a less dramatic impact than these models, and predicts that under such a system, the Coalition would still be in power, albeit with a greatly reduced majority.

"The difference with PR would have been Labor members and Liberal members in each of the districts," he said.

"And there would have been Greens members in quite a few of the districts, and possibly Palmer members, so individuals would have had a multitude of representatives and you would not end up being a Liberal voter in a safe Labor seat and never being represented by the people you voted for."

Will it ever happen?

Although Australian parliaments have seen a gradual shift towards greater use of proportional systems over the last century, there appears to be little appetite for changing the voting system in the House of Representatives.

That does not mean the electoral system is beyond reform.

The parliament has only just reformed the PR in the Senate, as explained by The Proportional Representation Society in a video.