If you're old enough to vote, you're old
enough to have a say on the issue of same-sex
marriage.

Dearest Foxy,

I agree, but so is, and does, your MP.

Of course, if a plebiscite is not binding on parliament, then they also have the discretion of whether or not to have one in the first place. Perhaps we could start a "PLEBISCITES NOW !' campaign.

Of course, any decent plebiscite would have to be about a serious national issue, not the self-indulgent frippery and fluff that is usually suggested.

Bite me :)

Love,

Joe

Mr Howard did not suborn the republic referendum, a large body of Irish-related voters did. The Howard model for a republic submitted to referendum had the President to be appointed by a large majority of parliament rather than by the extremely undemocratic captain's pick that prevails for the Governor-General currently. To the Irish activists nothing short of a publicly elected President would do. Thwarted on that they threw their votes behind the Empire grovellers with a "No" vote which tipped the scales to no republic even though a majority preferred a change to a republic. Blame their stupidity, not Mr Howard's cunning.

Incidentally, Gough Whitlam exercised his captain's pick for John Kerr as Governor-General in February 1974 even though senior members of his party warned that Kerr was a notorious Industrial Grouper not to be trusted from here to the door. It was the Industrial Groupers who split the Labor Party at its 1956 conference leading to the formation of the pro-Menzies DLP. It was later scuttlebutt in some quarters that in the LNP spill vote for Leader of the Opposition on December 01 2009 Mr Abbott got his one vote win over Mr Turnbull with a threat that his mafia were still alive and running and if he wasn't elected leader they would split the LNP the same way that they split the ALP in 1956.

Our system of governance is derived from the ancient Greeks. Our sciences have advanced somewhat from these beginnings and have changed dramatically. For example every advertisement that you see today has basically been produced with the aid of the very sciences that give us our technology. Another example is the creation of Facebook. Zuckerberg and his cronies created Facebook who are mostly all Harvard graduates, on the basic female need for social connection. This is why it has been so successful. And I'd hazard a guess why mostly females find it so addictive. The use of psychology makes it additive. You have trouble resisting it. This creates huge amounts of money for the owners and for a lot of people it creates huge problems for them. It also creates problems for our society. How many have hundreds of friends on Facebook but have never interacted with any of them outside the digital world?
Our governance is the same. It uses science and dictates to us. It was never designed for that yet today it is. Do we need to redesign our system of governance to protect democracy? What is our definition of democracy today? And perhaps to protect us from our own sciences being used against us without us knowing.
Just a thought...

Emperor Julian,

The Industrial Groupers did not split the Labor Party, the Split was not in 1956, and the DLP was not pro-Menzies.

Dr Evatt split the Labor Party when he launched an attack on the successful Victorian branch in 1954. The left took advantage of Kim Beazleys’s absence from the federal executive to sack the Victorian executive, run a dodgy state conference with non-members as delegates, refuse to let the real Victorian delegates attend the 1955 federal conference and thus deprive Labor of state government for the next 27 years. Robert Murray’s The Split is still the best book on those years.

The DLP was a centre-left social democratic part committed to human rights and social justice. It was the first of our parliamentary parties to oppose the White Australia Policy. It advocated land rights for Aborigines, had a Torres Strait Islander candidate for Parliament four decades ago and welcomed refugees into its organisation. It opposed capital punishment, supported equal pay for women, pioneered environmental concern, sought higher welfare payments and a guaranteed annual income, supported the right of unionists to take industrial action and advocated decent treatment for asylum-seekers.

The credit for establishing the Senate as a genuine house of review goes to the DLP, which collaborated with the ALP in the early 1970s to set up the Senate committee system and which used its balance of power position responsibly to scrutinise Coalition legislation; e.g., voting with the Coalition 48.95 per cent of the time and with Labor 35.79 per cent of the time in the 1965-67 period (Malcolm Mackerras, The Australian Senate1965-1967: Who Held Control, APSA, 1968). The DLP would never have voted for the anti-family, anti-union Workplace Relations Act that the Democrats supported in 1996.

Rather than the DLP being pro-Menzies, Robert Menzies became pro-DLP, voting for it rather than his own Liberal Party in his later years.

One of myths rarely heard is that the Internet ensures democracy is real. If something was wrong, wrong doing would be posted for everyone to see.

I dispute this open freedom of speech Internet concept, by the means of populations repressed thought education, that most people, more so through social media and limited numbers of forums, forums somewhat used as chat rooms.
I also suggest that social media can be used as another story format media forum of establishment propaganda.

My accusation is that people only want to read and hear what they believe is true, everything not wanting to be believed ideas compared with their own beliefs are false. The idea of media and Internet forums that exposes wrong doings are limited to various media scandals, promoting ideas already believed. Limited number of politicians appearing in media, are there to start up old media stories of democracy in progress: falling pole figures; increasing GST fears; Union and police corruption scandals; speculation on the next election.

Repeating past statements that democracy needs to have a well educated population, otherwise democracy is a circus.

Forums have posts that seem to support: unseen; unproven; behind closed doors events, that once carried out, will improve government processes. Malcolm Turnbull will solve all our problems.
Malcolm Turnbull, like past recent prime ministers, spending considerable amounts of time overseas on public appearances. Modern information societies use well thought out email communication rather than hastily made personal appearance hurried, poorly defined verbal statements.

I state supporting politicians and political parties allow government to be believed as independent from various manipulations plotting against the population, democracy was meant to serve.
What should be heard and read over the Internet are the many inactions. As media pick on government for budget problems: medical care; social security, few people want to change. Such issues are media distractions.

Bringing up old ideas that aid nothing new as though something exists, aids reinforcing something that may not exist.

Surely their are many ideas worth debating, worth suggesting to be fixed. How about 13 years of bad education for starters.