The assertion that all democrats policy is balloted by members is inaccurate, or at the very least dated. The policy taken to the last federal election that parents should not be able to share their religion with their children, was an abomination forwarded by a small handful of members with no formal roles in the policy process.

Your article describes that despite the outward appearance of no elected members, the democrats are producing good policy behind the scenes in line with their traditional values. They are not.

I was a devoted and active member of the Australian Democrats from 1981 to 1992 when I resigned for a number of reasons, despite still believing in the 23 objectives. Basically, the constitution was flawed, not allowing proper disciplinary measures against those that sought to destroy the party. The concept of every elected member having their own conscience vote on every issue undermined the work of the party, though it sounded good in theory. As for policy, very often the party members would go through the painstaking voting procedure only to have the senators ignore it, most notably on immigration policy. But probably the biggest flaw was the members electing the leader. That was fine until the duly elected leader (it happened to at least two of them) lost the support of the party room. It then became unworkable. Finally, it would have been better to vote on broad principles, rather than specific policy, because the average member didn't care or know that much about every issue and didn't want to vote.

That said, I was proud to be an Australian Democrat for much of my time in it. The elected members were very good on the whole and worked hard. History will remember the Democrats for breaking the two-party culture and making people realise that they could split their vote between the House and Senate, or upper and lower houses generally. They paved the way for the Greens and other small parties. Democracy has been the winner.

The irony is that with the rise and rise of centrist politics, the democrats went down the gurgler faster than many would have predicted.
Not since Cheryl Kernot day of glory has this party enjoyed relevance in Australian political discourse because in those years there was a distinction to be made between the Left and Right political spectrum.
When Kernot jumped ship for love and glory to the Labor Party the ideological safeguards that held the democracts together quickly fell away. Voters saw the democrats as nothing more than a rump of Labor. Andrew Bartlett was never going to revive its chances at the booth, he was too preoccupied with trying to be fair and impartial on all matters before him to realize that politics in Australia required clear declarations about what they stood for, rather than the sophistry of their own ponderings. He still hasn't worked this out and you see him haunting public forums in Brisbane, putting audiences to sleep at record speed.

Yes the Democrats have not folded, but I think their near death experience has taught them nothing about the game of politics.

...Another reason for a persistent approach to the engaging dialogue on OLO, is relevant comment such as Geordie, Rainier and popnperish. The end to the Democrats could only be described as “ignominious” to those uneducated on the subject, such as myself!

@Geordie:

Instead of making wildly inaccurate claims, why don't you pinpoint how the Aus Democrats policies "The policy taken to the last federal election that parents should not be able to share their religion with their children"?? Here is the policy, http://www.democrats.org.au/policies/Action2010/Church_State_AP.pdf, where does it say that?

That quite simply is a joke! Many of the Democrats members are Christian, with some even claiming the Democrats were the home of the Christian middle and left. In my opinion there is a lot of work to be done, but the Democrats have the right attributes to continue to make a positive contribution to political discourse and I wouldn't be suprised to see them make a comeback.

"The Australian Democratic party isn't dead, just simply resting."

What, just because it's nailed to the perch?

All together now: "It is an ex-party, it has gone to meet its maker and joined the Choir Invisible!"

I spent about 18 years as an active member of the Australian Democrats. Most of that time I was a member of the Executive in two states; I was a State president for a term and a candidate in half a dozen Federal and state elections. For nearly all of those years I was proud to be a member. I still consider the AD contribution to Australia to have been extremely significant in a number of ways.

There were a number of internal factors influencing the eventual deterioration of the party -- e.g. giving the vote on all policies to the entire membership, and refusing to allow the parliamentarians to choose their own leaders. I believe, however, that the fundamental factor leading to the AD decline was that it began as an amalgamation of The Australia Party and the New Liberal Movement but never really overcame the big differences in political orientation between the two groups of members.

The organisational paralysis that sometimes resulted allowed particular individuals and particular issues to cause unnecessary difficulties.

Sadly, whatever happened, the result was the Democrats sided with the government in selling Telstra, and their one appealing aspect disappeared- the end result was a party that was a carbon copy of the Liberals, but extremely pro-refugee and pro-David Hicks (which judging by Liberal's and Labor's popularity with and without harsh border policy- sounds like most voters' idea of a nightmare party).

Australian Democrats: past = expensive hangers-on, and future = expensive hangers-on.
They ruined the GST along with a lot of interference in general. In a word, we'd be better off if they were consigned to the scrap heap.

Lots of people with a track record of baracking for another team here saying negative stuff about the only party in Australian political history to never, ever break an election promise or deviate from publicly stated policy.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12433#214935

Geordie, i would agree with you on that one, christianity is making a come back.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12433#214940

popnperish, i would agree to disagree with most of that, the problem with the major mistakes is they are NOT democratically run.

i think the real problem was too many amatuers not being clever enough tactically with either the lame stream media or the major mistakes.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12433#214972

Rainier, true, but the extraordinarily bad performance of the major mistakes has made swinging voters more volatile, they will turn on anybody new at the first mistake.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12433#214976

diver dan, like i said earlier any third party will be "turned on" quickly at the first sign of a mistake, the voters are angry & turn quickly now.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12433#214981

hayden o, those on the inside of the party today also need to take a fresh practical look at where the electorate is heading. "the customer is always right" political parties are selling a product or service & that old business proverb applies to politics, more than any other "retail" industry.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12433#214991

Jon J, you may be right but 2/3's of the electorate is looking for a third alternative while not "buying" either the RED/greens or nationals. the Australian Democrats are still remebered with some fondness by many voters, they & the DLP may be able to make a comeback.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12433#215004

crabsy, maybe but there are factions, egos & policy differences in all parties.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12433#215013

King Hazza, now you know why the RED/green, getup, GAYLP/alp, Socialist Alliance is dying at the next election.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12433#215047

individual, agreed about the GST, but nobody is perfect, the real question is, are the 2 major mistake, pillars & their 3 minor mistake, stumps worse? Most voters think they are & at the next federal election there will be a third alternative. it is just a matter of who they will be?

Formersnag,
there'll be no alternative unless the voters start thinking seriously. As long as public servants are allowed to vote we'll never ever achieve any kind of stable & focused Government.
Only two things can save Australia from becoming the Bangladesh of the southern hemisphere. National Service & flat tax. The rest will quickly fall into place & do away with the present economic insanity.

I think you'll find that the Greens have eaten the Democrats; and thus they're politically dead, unless another fluke happens like in did in the 2010 election the the DLP being elected in VIC for the federal senate after 35 years of being out of politics.
http://bit.ly/ipVbk8

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12433#215101

individual, agree about national service & flatter, simpler taxation. i think we need voting to be NON compulsory but encouraged, say for example by offering lower tax rates to people willing to vote, be available for jury duty, etc.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12433#215109

liberalcynic2, anybody not cynical these days is an idiot, but the LNP need a centre, centre/right third alternative to harness as many disgruntled EX labour voters as possible & say nice things about them ocasionally & do preference deals with them, if they want to maximise the ANTI communist 2 party prefered vote.

play their cards right & they will be going as high 2 party prefered as 75%.

Formersnag- I agree that voting should not be compulsory- but personally I wouldn't even go so far as to even offer incentives.
As far as I'm concerned, the only incentive to vote should be that you care enough about politics to go out and vote without thinking about getting a reward (or avoiding a punishment) merely for showing up.

Yours is a thoughtful idea for preventing low turn-outs; but I've thought about the implications of high or low turnouts and I'd sooner like to see a handful of people who take the process seriously, than a horde of people who care less about the country than they do about scoring an easy fifty bucks three times a decade- that's the very last thing we'd want to be encouraging when deciding our country's future.

KH, the carrot & the stick works better than anything in democracy. such laws could include attendance at local government meetings where the local member has to report on votes, etc.

i have been contemplating this stuff for years, have a complete system worked out in my head.

Yes but you are assuming that a low attendance due to apathy is actually a bad thing compared to high attendance maintained from artificial means- and I would insist the reverse is true.

As making the uninvolved vote simply because they will be bribed or punished- you STILL get low attendance from voter apathy- they merely show up to the polls, get their name ticked off, and we pretend that this reflects how 'engaged' and 'responsible' we are, when it is nothing but a smokescreen. Worse, when they mark the paper they couldn't even care less about the impact of their decision- and likely don't even know who even a quarter of the parties even are.

In the end, the vote by people that actually care enough to go to the polls without needing additional motivation- and at least are informed enough to know who at least some of the parties actually are- gets drowned out by slobs who don't care less- and worse, are brought to the polls solely out of personal greed- or to avoid a 'stick'; means we get a system where lazy parties can get away with whatever they want (including do nothing), because they can count on enough selfish idiots to not pay attention- and vote for them anyway.
In most of Europe (where voting is completely optional) political parties actually have to compete with each other against an attentive crowd- and are active in policy making year-round.
Even America the government are actively trying to do something about health care, and handling the markets (which being a private transaction area- is not the fault of the government)- which is still better than what we got.
Our national parliament was hung for a month- and life was no different; certainly that should make us worry.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12433#215186

KH, our lives were better for that month as the idiots did not get a chance screw anything up.

i hear what you are saying i have stood on the street handing HTV cards to people who do not even know the difference between a state & federal election. i never underestimate the apathy of the average Australian voter.

in my system it would not be enough to turn up & get your name ticked off.

Interesting article Paul. I remember when I first started getting actively interested in politics the Democrats seemed like a lone sensible, though marginalised voice during the dark days when John Howard was raping and pillaging whatever skerrick of good faith he could find in the political process, while Labor was trying to out-manoevre him obviously to no avail because they simply could not bring themselves to lower themselves to the same amoral depths (look how Mark Latham lost his faith in humanity by trying). I thought back then that the Democrats had potential as voice for secular, intellectual ethics, a mature, well-informed engagement with the international sphere, and middle-of-the-road economic policy where market failures in social services were picked up early, in ways that would ultimately boost productivity.

As a voter, my take on the decline was that the party simply dissolved due to its failure to present a unified voice. It appeared to have been taken over by the big personalities - not least Meg Lees and Andrew Bartlett - who used the party as a vehicle for their own agendas (which your article points out ie "the senators just ignored the party's views"). The nail in the coffin was Bartlett's alcohol-fueled faux pas in the chamber, at which stage I think the party became pretty much unelectable.

[cont]

What I do think however is that a platform of the Democrats' objectives and core beliefs could be very appealing to the emerging "generation y" demographic, who supposedly have few ideological leanings (ie the distinction between "left" and "right" is rather meaningless) and a heightened sense of personal responsibility over the way their actions affect other people and the environment. I think that if you can identify and support emerging young leaders, or perhaps link with wavering major party members (which might suggest a name change - the Malcolm Turnbull party?!), at the same time without letting egos get out of control, then you might just make some headway in the future.

Australian politics is deeply, disillusioningly dysfunctional at the moment, and we are crying out for sensible, credible voice. Find a suitable platform, and that voice could be the Democrats