Unfortunately picking between the main protagonists is like picking between B1 and B2.Personally I'll go for the cross benches. At lest they give the appearance of talking and thinking. They even give the appearance of being able to discuss and come to agreement with others in an intelligent and adult manner. B1 and B2 do not have any of those characteristics.

My two bob's worth and even that's over paying B1 and B2

DKit

Don sums up the dilemma very well. A vote for anyone in the lower house is probably a waste of time. Labor will always be incompetent; the Coalition needs to be taught a lesson for veering so far away from its roots with the leftist, and nimcampoop, Turnbull. I will be writing "stop muslim immigration" on the lower house ticket, and voting ALA (if there is a candidate),Family First, and any independents available to put the Coalition, Labor and the Greens on the bottom.

I hope that made you feel better Don, But it didn't help me.

You've expressed my feelings almost exactly, but that really doesn't help much.

Perhaps it has. While writing the above I came to the conclusion that the most important thing is to get rid of Turnbull, once & for all. We can't have the clown hanging around causing nothing but trouble.

Over the years, looking at recent history, I have come to realise that the worst & most destructive leaders have been the orators. They have always been the most arrogant & opinionated, the most wrong in those opinions, & the least likely to accept good advice.

Thus, apart from the imperative of getting rid of Turnbull, I think one should pick the least able speaker in the list of local candidates.

I will putting a line through the house of reps and voting for the Australian Christians in the Senate. That way I won't be contributing to the further demise of this nation. The Libs might then wake up to their stupidity or split.

About par for the course for runner or did the local budgie appear and whisper in your ear,Australian Christians not Fred Niles version? or is this another bunch of tax dodgers who are in it to enrich themselves neither are very Christian

TTBN, a vote for ALA is a vote for the Liberals, all these "Far right" groups are satellites of the Liberal party.
The Jacquie Lambie Network are the only real working class party likely to retain or gain senate seats, most of their policies are pretty good. I don't like her ideas on autonomous economic zones but you can't have everything, I'll be voting for Hugh Dolan her Victorian senate candidate.
If you want to lodge a genuine protest against the current political order then vote Australia First, though it remains to be seen if they can get enough candidates to run in all states.

It's simple: I will vote for any party that will not tell us what to wear.

Specifically, vote as I do for whichever party(s) will not send the cops after you just because you ride a bicycle.

Don't you find it outrageous for others to order you what to wear? Today a helmet - tomorrow a burqa!

Yuyutsu

So you have no objection to anyone wearing what they like.

You wouldn't mind if people wore the white klux klan robes around the streets, or the nazi German uniform.

Would you tell them what they should wear.

Runner,

We are supposed to separate church and State.

If you can vote a Christian party in as government,then people
could also vote any other kind of religious party into power,
like a Muslim government or a Hindu government.

I don't think religous parties should be allowed to run for government.
How can we have secular governments, if we allow religious parties
to stand for election. It makes no sense.

It's just breathtaking, the way Morrison continues to present in interviews. The twisting and turning, the misinformation, fabrication, the grins, the threats and that tiresome, yet still hysterical blaming of Labor (he was litteraly spitting with fake anger yesterday).

Journalist, I believe, are missing
the really stark situation the Government finds itself in. That is, as it pursues its irrational, indefensible economic course, the insurmountable evidence in wave after wave of damning data, contradictory academic commentry and analysis (even the business community is moving a contradictory agenda) is revealing the Liberals entire economic philosophy as patently irrelevant and one which cannot possibly address Australia's contemporary economic reality.

The only consistent economic policy position they've steadfastly maintained over three years is to cut company tax. Yet even our business leaders think this is useless!

We've just been warned that if the Government maintains its Dad's Army economic march, our credit rating is guaranteed to collapse along with our 1950's mining and cattle economy.

So it's not just the weirdos like (please don't check my cellar) Christensen and Andrews, and old white-haired moral delinquents like Abetz and Brandis, it's the fundamental Liberal model of economic stewardship that has ceased to make any sense. It has intellectually atrophied.
And we are about to pay a terrible price.

That says it all Granny.

Even so, as usual, I'll be examining the policy offering and making my choice based on them and the historical and intellectual integrity of the party or independents promoting/promising them.

I'm looking for genuine tax reform that simply cripples the tax avoidance industry and all those who benefit from it.

Then I'll be looking for a pragmatic education package that focuses on best possible outcomes for students, not education departments or teachers union or the patent incompetents they seem to foist on us or protect?.

And that only needs to change the funding paradigm to one that put a means tested education endowment in the hands of responsible parents, who would then be free to send their tin lids to whatever school they could reasonably chose, and just on the basis of published results and genuine autonomy. [I just won't be holding my breath!]

Even if that required some portion of the GST be appropriated as part of the mix.

Have you ever noticed the more money the federal government pours into education and medicine the less the states contribute. Ditto public health or aged care!

If just one tier of government collects tax, then the funding should come directly from them rather than be channelled through empire building state bureaucracies!?

Which parenthetically, adds around 30% to the education and health funding bill.

Better that same very finite bucket of money be directed a benchmarked best practice outcomes? And with the implementation of proposal, end forever the very convenient blame game the states and the federal government have at their blame shifting disposal!
Rhrosty.

It is important to be rid of Turnbull, but how can that be achieved without voting Labor, which is not a political party, but a filthy disease of our political system?
We need the polls to show Labor ahead, so that the Liberal dopes will bring back Abbott. Otherwise, the least worst government might be the greens, as someone suggested earlier.
We are in a bad way.

[Deleted or abuse]

Dear Cherful,

<<You wouldn't mind if people wore the white klux klan robes around the streets, or the nazi German uniform.>>

Oh, I certainly would mind: perhaps it could even make me close all curtains and not leave my home - yet I have no right to demand them to stop it.

In any case, I am not aware of anyone being offended if I ride a bicycle bare-headed - after all, nobody seems to be offended when I do the same when walking the street.

Not offended by your bare-headedness Yuyutsu, but I am offended by your riding your bicycle on the roads we motorists paid for in triplicate.

Dear Hasbeen,

How can you be offended by me riding on the same roads which I as a fellow motorist also pay for... on the bicycle I never had?

Yes, I planned to purchase a bicycle in 1990, I was about to, but then this law came about, so I didn't. I wanted to be fitter, I wanted to lose weight, I wanted to be lighter on the environment - but I was prevented so all this time I've been sitting idly and burning petrol wherever I go. I am not even sure whether I will be able to learn to ride a bicycle again at my age, but I would like to give it a try if I were allowed to.

For most of my adult life I haven't voted.
Recently I did so as the Electoral commission seem to have their hooks into me, always sending letters, and now don't want any fines.
I placed an X next to all candidates and did NOT vote for longer terms.

Truthfully, I don't completely understand how our electoral system works.
But what I do know, is that democracy does not exist at all.
Even if I took away my view that "If they make the rules for us, we should make the rules for them, and that there's no real balance of power between us and them if they are allowed to make their own rules, and not keep election promises"

Even if you took that away and just looked at the 2 party system itself, you have to acknowledge that its just "pass the baton" and lobbyists play both sides.

So I in principle am offended that I am forced to play their stupid corrupt rigged game at all.

A game which exists because all of you believe you have some kind of democracy and foolishly keep playing rather then demanding something better.

I won't ever vote Labor or Liberal again.
Fool me once shame on you.. Fool me twice shame on me.

My issue is that I don't really understand or trust the 'preferences' and I refuse to allow them to claim they had my support when I never actually gave it.

Can anyone tell me how I can vote, avoid fines but ensure the major parties NEVER EVER get my vote?
I might consider voting for an independent, but only if I truly support them, but I also want to make sure that no preference ever goes to the majors.
How do I vote?

Sad but true Armchair critic. But putting an x against every candidate just assists the incumbent or sitting member and just reinforces the view that makes them believe they have a mandate for all the policies you disagree with, or that you're okay with the plethora of broken promises.

And around forty percent of voters now do as you do and just waste their very important power to force change. Simply put if all the voters who vote informal were to place the incumbent last on the ballot paper as their real protest!

And if enough of them did that as a customary (protest vote) exercise, we'd have endless one term governments and folks whose parliamentary careers were just too short to build a reasonable retirement pension! We'd force change, using the only instrument that matters to most politicians, the length of their tenure! currently around 30% of us understand politics, and another 30% understand economics. with elections inevitably decided by the remaining 40% who understand neither.

[We've fought wars that spent the lives of thousands to retain the freedom to vote other folks are dying in their hundreds of thousands in an effort to give them that right and a privilege/civic duty!]

And the folks who vote informal are just assisting that very outcome! Then complain about outcomes! Go figure.
Rhrosty.

Yuyutsu,

As far as I'm concerned, you can ride a bike in the nude if you really want to. Have you thought of telling the nannies that you have a hard head and no brains to be dashed out? We could all make stat decs to that effect for you.

Dear Critic,

<<Can anyone tell me how I can vote, avoid fines but ensure the major parties NEVER EVER get my vote?>>

I have the same concern. Until last month it was not possible at all and it is still not possible for the lower house, but now at least it will be possible for the senate: simply number in your preferred order all the minor parties above the line and leave the boxes above the major parties empty.

You can then place only the senate paper in the envelope, or if you prefer you could draw a rude picture on the lower-house ballot paper - the upper-house paper will remain formal.

Our pollies are all owned by bankers and their corporate shills. It matters not who you vote for, as bankers own them all via their debt money creation system.

Hasbeen et al,

MT's spending political capital to bring on a DD that can only help LNP aspirations, not hinder. It is absolutely necessary if Australia is to climb out of gridlock. Some progress, in some direction, is needed, including facing down the building union extortion costing us all.

Abbott was the best thing Shorten had going for him, and he's gone, be happy, and be happy Shorten is still there.

Abbott couldn't have pulled off a DD election with his standing amongst the majority of Australians alienated by his oafish non-prime-ministerial shenanigans in office, including buying spill votes with taxpayer money to save his political hide. He just isn't the right stuff, sorry.

MT has a strong platform to work from, incumbency, the fact Australia wants him to succeed after too leadership instability since Rudd's dumping, representation on the world stage that doesn't make us wince, the ability to string words together without mantra or auto-cue. A DD election win can only give him the cred to further LNP aspirations.

What's not to like? Yes, he can waffle, and he has disappointed me and many on issues, but we've seen a lot worse.

Labor dropped the ball and it's play on. Get it done MT, and take us with you.

Hey Rhosty,
Thanks for the info.
I heard two people tell me two different things, one person said if I donkey-vote that someone still gets my vote while others said that its not counted.
That said, if I do understand how to vote for the right things or the right people I'm willing to do so.
I don't want to throw my vote away if doing so is only making things worse.

I think the whole systems twisted.
What say if the people wanted politicians to keep their election promises or stop them lying?
How do we vote for that? We can't can we?
Wouldn't they have to bring the matter up themselves?
Like that's ever going to happen.
They would never do anything that wasn't in their interests.

This why I always say its "Us" and "Them", and we need to put them in jail when they do the wrong thing.
But how do we do that?
None of them will put forward they should have a Prison for when they mess up.

They make the laws that govern themselves.
This is where the system is so wrong.
It would almost be comical to assume we have democracy if it wasn't such a serious issue.

Hey Yuyutsu,
Thanks for the info.
I'm writing down your instructions for future reference.
But I don't know who backs or is behind the minor parties or what they support or believe in either.

I know you don't like nationalism, but I'm starting to think this (loss of) is the cause of all our problems.
Without Nationalism we've devolved into a bunch whining individuals all fighting amongst ourselves supporting different PC causes.
It's chaos, I was never a big flag waver but I see whats happening.

What's not to like Luciferase, just about everything.

With this clown, if actually elected in his own right we will get, the Republic, carbon trading for his banker mates, the mining tax, & any more he can dream up to give him the money to buy votes. Just a little look at his recent wet dreams of how to get more money to buy votes should have warned you, & everyone else.

Just like KRudd, a new half baked thought bubble every day.

This bloke is the worst kind of lefty, just like KRudd. First they want to be loved & admired, so they throw our money at anything that moves, trying to buy both. Posing as a Liberal, it will take even longer for the perceptionally challenged to wake up to him.

The ego that requires that admiration has them believing they are smart, when they are exactly the opposite due to the requirement to have that ego stroked. They think they know best, regardless of how often they are proved wrong, so they refuse to accept good advice, but fall for the slight of hand.

How can it take people like you so long to realise Turnbull is KRudd Mk 2, the new improved version. More arrogant, with an even bigger ego, & even less common sense or ability. I wonder if he uses the same hair dresser.

I get the idea that politicians couldn't organise a Sunday BBQ on their own without delegating most of the work out to others.
They probably need help to dress themselves in the mornings.

Great question.
I think a better party to vote for is the anti-party or the one that represents the opposite. Not the Greens either (yes, I have no friends here).
We need only one anti-party or the votes will be dispersed, which is a tactic used to keep B1 and B2 in power over Z. That's why we have so many choices to cloud our decision.
Maybe the party that does nothing, like a smart boss.
Even better is the party that will strip previous policies, creating simplicity and thereby transparency. Their second greatest fear.
Even better still is the party that will create a democracy by allowing individual bills to be voted on over the internet by the public. Their greatest fear.

Dear Critic,

<<I know you don't like nationalism, but I'm starting to think this (loss of) is the cause of all our problems.>>

It's the loss of purpose, let alone a common purpose.

Nationalism creates a sense of purpose for its adherents, not a worthy purpose in my view, but it keeps them united, which surely feels nice for those who identify, but at the expense of those who have different/better purpose(s) for their lives.

You need to ask yourself "What is life for?". I know for myself, so I can never be satisfied by answers like "for serving a nation".

To be honest, the issues listed as important in this piece aren't ones that concern me too much. They correspond, roughly, to the issues thrashed out in the media ad nauseum - but not to anything that I'm really worried about.
To my mind, the key issues are:
. Cost of living / private debt. Wages growth is now largely stagnant and wages have fallen as a proportion of national income. The beneficiaries have been senior management and shareholders. How will employees on average incomes fare with increasing private health insurance costs etc? The article talks about public debt but ignores the effect of private debt levels on quality of life.
. Population. Australia's population continues to grow at a faster rate than most OECD countries. Australia is taking historically high numbers of migrants but seems incapable of keeping up the infrastructure necessary to support the growth rate. Time for an end to mass immigration.
. Money reform. Who creates our money? (Hint, it's not the government) How money gets created and spent into circulation is critical to any examination of our budget, but never gets a mention in the mainstream media.
. Ownership. Of profitable enterprises and assets. More going offshore. More going into fewer hands. Does anyone care?
I will vote for any party or independent that addresses these issues. Lib/Lab are as bad as each other and will compete for the bottom of my ballot sheet.
.

"Money reform. Who creates our money?", who is it?
Please correct me if I am wrong.
Every dollar that is printed devalues the dollar and creates inflation. So does pay rises and tourist dollars coming into the country.

phooey, you're partly right, but if you think that's all there is to it than you're wrong. Only money that is circulating creates inflation, so one creation has to be balanced against the things that create deflation.

Every dollar that is created (including that which is created by borrowing from banks) is inflationary if spent but not if saved.

Meanwhile, production increases are deflationary. So the ultimate effect of money that's created to fund something that increases productivity could be inflationary, deflationary or neutral depending on the exact circumstances.

Pay rises are inflationary if they result in a reduction in net savings or if the employer passes the costs on to customers. However they often encourage increased mechanisation which reduces the inflationary effect.

Tourist dollars coming into the country don't devalue it; buying our dollars with foreign currency increases our dollar's value and decreases that of the other currency. But the value of floating currencies like ours is largely self correcting, as if it rises, imports rise and exports fall, dragging it back down again. And the reverse happens if it falls.

Phooey, the vast majority of new money in all western nations is created by privately owned banks as interest bearing debt. Whoever issues the nations currency benefits through seigniorage. In the past this was usually the royal family or government. However, by giving this privilege to privately owned banks, we have gifted a public source of revenue to the shareholders of the banks. This is an outrage that rarely gets discussed because it's technically complex and easily camouflaged in banking industry jargon.
In the UK a group called Positive Money has started fighting against the banking system that allows this travesty to continue - in Australia dissenters are few and far between.

Dear Aidan,

Thank you for the explanation (for Phooey) about the inflational and deflational effects of printing money.

What I think that you haven't taken into account, is that what is deflational for some is not so for others:

New money is likely to be invested in new products rather than in lowering the price of traditional ones. This may look good for the younger generation who are always on the look for new electronic gadgets, but not for the older people who have no need for it and only want to be able to afford the basics with their savings, especially food and home-repairs. Such "neutral" events leave them practically with less savings to live on.

The people I will be voting for the loose cannons as they represent the only real hope there is for any reform back to democratic country where there is govt for the people by the people.

I'll be starting with all the micro parties, then the independents and then I will put the factions of Main party last.

The two factions of Main party are forcing us into a choice they give us so I guess I will be one of the 4% who will fill out their vote and number every box, below the line.

The two factions of the Main Party are merely the two wings of the same bird of prey.

Excellent, Referundemdrivensocienty,

If only the general electorate resembled the OLO membership...