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.