Even with a diaeresis, your world-weary cynicism demonstrates how out of touch with the real world you are, John Tons.

Living at the shallow end of the financial pool, my life - including family of five in all - is much more pleasant and manageable since the advent of the Labor government. It's not just brands, nor personalities (I personally don't care all that much for some of Rudd's perspectives): it's the resources.

As a carer my disabled child is much better off, as a parent my kids have computers (one courtesy of Kev, one courtesy of Kev's funding) and I can claim 50% of educational expenses. As a partially self-funded retiree lump sums have meant that my frugality no longer seems like meanness to my kids.

So no, John Tons, they are not all the same; one lots focuses on the big end of town, the other on ordinary folk. You can work out which label fits where. And yes, I am pleased we can have a change of government without revolution - and within a constitution.

Utterly wrong, John. It matters a lot. Our civil rights went spectacularly down the drain in the Howard years. We were lied to (remember the children allegedly overboard?), we had a referendum on a republic scuttled, we had public asset sell-offs (remember Telstra and the mum and dad investors?). We were dragged kicking and screaming to the 1950s as dog whistle racism came out of the kennel into the streets of Cronulla and onto the decks of the Tampa.

The maturity of a democracy means that bureaucracies remain largely the same - there are systems and functions that are pretty much perennial in the Australian form of government.

The difference is leadership and the national psyche, underpinned by constitutional freedoms. Not money and its acquisition.

Yep, LRAM, after all, as proven when the Romans tried to take over early democracy from the Greeks, and they even had a sort of Senate for quite a few years, but it had soon become tribal, only oldies allowed to run the show.

So after a surprising number of years, the young'ns eventually got Jack of it.

So enter the Caesars, most of their politics related to murdering the other, even the slaves having a go, finishing that way after a few more hundred years, with laws broken down to the stage that one day they found one of the former beaten Germanic leaders from over the Alps,
sitting on the Roman throne.

So as the Greeks began democracy, so St Thomas Aquinas
tried to re-enliven it, taking lessons from history, and bringing in the style of borrowed Greek democracy we now have.

Simple enough really, if only we would do more study and take the above lessons from history

I agree completely with the proposition that democracy is terminally ill, only I don't blame the politicians, I blame the electorate and therefore the system. Democracy is predicated on the naive assumption that the majority will be moved to act rationally, responsibly, ethically, sustainably, for the common good etc. When the truth is that the majority seldom, if ever, put any such values before their own interests. Politicians are forced to pander to the popular penchant for the best of everything at no cost. Thus they (politicians) promise everything, including lower taxes, during election campaigns; then spend their time in office defending the broken promises--utterly unrealistic in the first place. Top social infrastructure requires high taxation (top infrastructure is in fact no longer viable in the global economic market place, but that's another topic), but the majority want it for nothing.
Not only for nothing, but at any ancillary cost: slave labour overseas, inhuman animal husbandry practices, devastation of the planet etc. None of this matters if the compromise is lower living standards. Not even the prospect of our own destruction insinuates sobriety or modesty--the fate of the other species we drive to extinction, or indeed of the whole damn planet, is no expense at all! but don't raise taxes!
All the parties are the same because they're all moulded by the forces of the popular vote. The democratic majority is no better than the most profligate monarch, indeed worse because blame can be endlessly deferred. Even if a majority could be persuaded to do the right thing, they are easily confounded by the agents of hegemony, who need only point out that the "right" or "sane" course of action(rationalised as conspiracies in any case) might actually require a "sacrifice". The ruling majority will then recoil in horror! Climate change change is only one case in point where the "ethics" of the situation alone should overrule self-interest. But self-interest en masse overrules every other consideration.
Democracy is the tyranny of the selfish herd.

Churchill is still right - democracy, with all its faults, is still way, way better than all the alternatives.

Inch by inch, the electorate is wising up and there is now more reason applied at the ballot box and less tribalism than ever before. That's why simplistic creeds and class/race/etc wars don't attract the votes they used to. Sure, there's still a few spruiking socialism and someone like Pauline Hanson gets a few votes every now and then, but they are fringe players these days.

The greatest problem with democracy at the moment is the level of cynicism about all things political. Scepticism is healthy, but cynicism says more about the cynic than about the intended target. All this cynicism, and the ruthless scrutiny of politicians' private lives, makes it difficult for all parties to attract good candidates. And some dud candidates get elected and become dud MPs

It's kind of a skewed question because we really aren't particularly democratic at all- aside from LACKING the direct-democracy overrides that the Swiss enjoy, we don't even have the right to elect our actual ministers (for those who are dumb and don't actually know, you only elect a local 'representative', who, by private arrangement, may be Prime Minister of all the other localities he is not accountable to, or might just be a seat-warmer because his party didn't get enough reps and was thus disqualified).

In fact, the government doesn't even need an actual majority (like they do in practically every country in Europe)- they just need more votes than any other single party.
The result- the remaining 65% or so of the population is forced to accept the government they didn't vote for, and the whole package-deal of crap policies they're bringing with them.

In short, OUR system is most definitely terminally ill- or at least, gets by on extreme life support.
Euthanize the damn thing I say- make a new one based on observing some of the modern European systems.

But the bright side- as neither the "Ford Party" nor "Holden Party" intend to either change much on each others policies, nor to even do a particularly good job, surely the stakes of which party wins have never been lower!
Which means there is less urgency to ensure the "lesser of two evils" gets in and more people will look up some of their other candidates- even the gullible "Howard divided the nation" and "Labor are pinkos" types- hopefully we might see more Independents in the mix this time.

huonian: "The greatest problem with democracy at the moment is the level of cynicism about all things political. Scepticism is healthy, but cynicism says more about the cynic than about the intended target. All this cynicism, and the ruthless scrutiny of politicians' private lives, makes it difficult for all parties to attract good candidates. And some dud candidates get elected and become dud MPs"

Oh yes, "cynicism", "socialism", just denounce the voice of dissent with loaded terms that save you the bother of thinking it through or thinking at all! Do you have any specific argument against John Ton's polemic, or mine?
I'm not pushing socialism--which has also shown itself prey to human corruption. Democracy stands condemned a spectacular failure as human government; it presides over nothing but unconscionable glut, all the while congratulating itself on the enlightenment tenets with which it completes its self-agrandising toilette.
Apart from that, democracy's a wheeze!

Our present democracies have been ruined by letting nations like America, and Britain before it, try to dominate the whole world, which unfortunately Obama is trying to do.

It is certainly why the strongly democratic Nordic nations have given America away.

Well now, I have left out dear cousin Britain once again, forgetting the singular non-democratic determination of Tony Blair with our Johnny Howard strongly by his side.

Must say that Obama pipes too much about America being the true world democratic example, when he must know she is not.

George W Bush truly proved it in the negative, whenever he had Condoleeza Rice pretty well running the whole global show -

with tiny Israel's Netanyahu happily clapping his hands behind the scenes.

The only advantage of democracy is that it allows people to learn from their mistakes. Yes, it would be nice to have a more responsive democracy, because that way we could learn faster, but we are making slow progress. Economic management has now become a no-brainer -- all it takes is a bit of political will -- and foreign military adventures are getting less attractive all the time, so hopefully our politicians will now have the time to direct a little attention to making the system more efficient and generating more happiness.

Democracy has proven the best of all political systems for consumerism. It does not matter to the proponents that they're discriminating against many in their selfish quest & in the process lowering the standard of mentality with increased incompetent education. Yes, democracy is great just ask any of those whose country has been swamped by outsiders. I think Australia will reach its second milestone in about 2020. Now, having stated that, I actually AM in favour of mixing society but this mix should be via acceptance not of rejection & attempting to domineer the host society. Unfortunately, Democracy is not terminally ill, with the backing of consumerism it flourishes like a Cancer.

I'm starting to think a LOT of westerners really have no idea what "democracy" actually implies- and just generally trying to gauge as a capitalist system with corporate businessmen where politicians try to get voted (eg USA).

Ironically, the most basic definition from a dictionary would probably be enough...

But because I'm so generous, I'll tell you now that a 'democracy' is simply any system of governance where the public has some kind of practical authority over the government in some way (able to vote for politicians, lobby and vote on policies)- and there are considerably different systems- including degrees of democracy, or even whether government is voting a single person or many.

My reason for writing this article was in part prompted by Peter Mair's excellent review of Martin Bell's book " A Very BritishRevolution: The Expenses Scandal and How to Save our Democracy." (London Review of Books 25 Feb 2010) Mair, in his review looks at other democracies and finds the picture equally bleak. People are deserting the major parties in favour of independents and smaller parties in the hope of getting a set of politicians in parliament who at least have the interests of the country as a whole at heart.
I am not sure it can be done but I believe a starting point would be to set out a set of principles that define what governments, regardless of their ideology, are required to deliver.
I suspect that will never happen because it is simply too hard.

Not to mention BAYGON that the present system is heavily in the favor of corrupt majors and against independents.

The parties that take the most bribes have the most cash to throw around for spots on TV- and with compulsory voting, a much larger ratio of voters are people that will judge only on the TV spots and election ads which candidate to vote for- or what they even stand for.

Because our system also only allows candidates to represent electorates, the richer parties have an easier time funding their own reps in more localities.

Parties that do not take donations on principal are at a disadvantage at getting attention, relying on word and mount- against the word-and-mouth myths and slander.

But I'd like it to remain that way- as the next generation of internet users spring up will be more inclined to use Google for research- making adverts obsolete, than to make ignorant whinges like the previous one.

Terminally ill? Hmm, maybe, but, seriously challenged - indeed!

ELECTORAL MATTERS COMMITTEE 2 WEDNESDAY 9 DECEMBER 2009
COLIN ANTHONY BARRY, New South Wales Electoral Commissioner and Chair, Election Funding Authority

"It is fundamental in our system of representative democracy that elected members of Parliament and local government councillors are accountable to the citizens whom they represent. They are expected to act in the interests of those citizens. Often this is assumed or taken for granted, but it should be acknowledged as the cornerstone of our democracy."

"At the State level citizens will make a choice between a single party and a coalition as to who will form government."

"The third pillar is the supporting of parties to perform their functions. There is no doubt that political parties are the major players in the Australian representative democracy. They are the main opinion framers and the agenda setters. At Federal and State levels the Parliaments are party Chambers. The lawmakers are party members and, without doubt, the majority of people who participate in politics in Australia do so through the party system. The parties are central to our system of representative democracy, and in moving forward they will remain as such well into the future."

Now if the Electoral Commisioner can't identify that he has said that individuals elect local representatives to represent them, and then rallies behind the party system (ie. my local member represents a political party, not constituents) - then things are really broke...

The indications are that there is a real possibility that in both South Australia and Tasmania the election result will be a hung parliament.
I know the following is a fantasy, that it will not happen but wouldnt it be good if the various independents and minor parties in both SA and Tasmania argued that given it is a hung parliament it follows that the electorate do not want a single party to govern. So they would argue that we should have a joint sitting where all the elected members select a ministerial team. To ensure that it is a fair process the Chief justice in both states would be invited to preside over the conduct of a secret ballot. Hopefully both states would then have the benefit of a ministerial team that comprises the most capable members; those who enjoy respect across party boundaries for integrity, hard work and intelligence. Contentious issues will still be influenced by party politics but at least there is an implicit understanding that all are there to work for the good of the whole state not just for the greater glory of their party or to keep the carpetbaggers sweet.
Of course it is just a fantasy...

My guess Baygon that if that happened the Libs and Labor would agree to try whatever they could to sabotage the coalition government at any cost to force the other reps back out of governance- be it to force a dissolusion and another election, or somehow broker a deal to simply get the other parties booted.

John Töns wrote:
"Few seem to be asking the question: Does it really matter? Will a change of government presage any real changes? Will there be any notable changes in the script in the soap opera that is parliament or will it be merely the case of the understudy getting the opportunity to strut the stage?"

I would suggest that the reason few ask such questions is that they have been asked before, and the answers keep coming back that our democracy is a sham at best. Furthermore, nobody knows how to introduce any of the truly beneficial changes possible without undergoing some drastic upheaval. That's the way it's going to stay as long as we keep electing people who represent parties instead of their electors. And electors will never figure out how to avoid electing party reps as long as they (the electors) keep consuming the newsmedia which rarely even touches on such matters, but chooses to fill our heads with scandal, trivia,and sport.