The minor parties and independents keep our electoral system healthy. Major parties are influenced by trends, some for better and some for worse. In some cases minor parties have contributed a punch way above their weight. Take the change in Liberal leadership on 01/12/09, just 4 days prior to the by-elections for the 2 Liberal seat electorates of Bradfield and Higgins. What could have prompted such a spill at such a vulnerable time as a by-election? Could the independent climate sceptic candidates in both those by-elections have influenced the Liberal leadership?

Is Wayne Swan's comforting assurance that we will not face an ETS if Labor's is re-elected for another term, influenced by the presence of The Climate Sceptics on the 2010 ballot paper? What we do know about minor parties is that they come and go. Parties don't survive without genuine support. Support your minor parties in order to keep your democracy healthy and don't support parties which talk of suspending democracy.

Richard Stanton is to be thanked for this article. Two days out from a very rushed election, with the task of the Electoral Commission complicated by having to accommodate the upshot of a last-minute High Court ruling effectively extending the roll closure for a mixture of some 100,000 new enrolment applicants and others belatedly transferring enrolment to new addresses, it is horribly late in the day for a very dissatisfied Australian public. Better late than never, however.




All reason, and past experience, says that there is no way that what the author proposes as an 'hypothetical', that

"..., what if everyone voted for independents?
'True' independents, not candidates lurking
behind the veils of the two major parties while
calling themselves independents on the ballot papers."

could possibly happen.




It conceivably could happen, I contend. It is within the Governor-General's power to replace writs already issued with new writs specifying a different date for the holding of the Federal elections. Granted it would be unconventional, and certainly, once its object was recognised, it would be deeply unpopular with the major political parties and doubtless MainStreamMediaWorld, but possible nevertheless.

If the Governor-General was to re-start the electoral clock, and, concurrently and equally unconventionally, effectively conscript candidates to stand in all Divisions, and for the Senate, as, for want of a better description, 'Governor-General's nominees', the Australian public would have been provided with a co-ordinated means of expressing its dissatisfaction in an electorally responsible way.

No criticism could be leveled at the Governor-General for having 'interfered in politics'. The present Prime Minister advised the calling of these elections. Other things have since happened to complicate, and maybe even potentially invalidate, the entire outcome of these elections. Action of this nature by the Governor-General would both forestall any potential for invalidity, and present an alternative for the Australian electors at large if they truly desire it, of a workable alternative to the two-party 'choice' currently on offer.

What could be more truly democratic?

A wasted vote is a vote for something that you do not believe in.

If you do not beleive in the two major parties and still vote for them...then that really is a wasted vote. You are deliberately putting your own ideals aside. Then the voter has no right to complain if the party they did vote for doesn't do what they want.

If you want to vote for a minor party, vote for it. By all means put your second preference for your least objectionable major party, but make sure you vote first for who you really want.

Two very basic things need to happen with the voting system in order to break the two-party hold on the system and actually make it democratic.

Firstly, we need to replaced the disgusting compulsory preferential voting system with the optional preferential system, so that a voter’s preferences are truly their own and will not filter down and count for a candidate that the voter doesn’t want to vote for!

Secondly, we need a box for ‘no candidate’, so that our right to vote for no one if we feel that no one deserves our vote is formalised.

Currently, a vote for an independent is a wasted vote if the voter wishes to vote for that independent specifically because they are voting against the large party candidates, as their vote will be STOLEN by the compulsory preferential system and made to count for whichever large party they put higher in their order of compulsory ‘preferences’!

How on earth we can have a system like this is just beyond me. Why haven’t independents, minor parties, political analysts, media and general public become outraged about this and demanded the optional preferential voting system??

Afterall, the OPV has operated in Qld and NSW for many elections without any problems.

I concur with Latham – put in a blank ballot paper, for two very good reasons –

1. Neither major party deserves our vote

2. The voting system is terribly flawed and just plain antidemocratic!

I tend to agree ludwig.

Though, I once posted that if everyone voted for independents and minor parties and put Labor and Liberal last and second last, neither of the two main parties would get preferences. The candidate with the lowest primary vote is eliminated, and their preferences flow on. So if everyone did it, it would work.

I was shouted down by either Belly or Hasbeen saying I shouldn't be voting as I don't understanding the 'two party preferred' system.

He seemed to think it means either of the two parties must be preferred.

Too right guys, I agree completely.

I most definitely will take on that stance- the only sad part is our method of electorate-representative parliaments means I'm forced to vote only for the people in my area- which is where the rotteness of the system shines most.