Democrats' sinking is well deserved. Credit to the Australian people. Power without accountability (or even responsibility), is soooo opposite to “keeping the bastards honest”.

As someone else before me so wisely said - good riddance.

Timithy occasionally says something worth listening to when he is not banging on about his personal problems with women. Some of this thoughts on reforming the political/electoral process are interesting if not practical, such as for example, introducing the secret ballot into the parliament for voting on legislation. The electronic facilities are already there at each seat in each house, and could easily be converted to allow individual secret and instanteous voting. This would revolutionise the parliamentary process, and allow many more pollies to defy the party line and "cross the floor". The only drawback would be that we the voters would not know how our representatives voted to express our interests. Kind of undermines the notion of representative democracy doesn't it?

Timithy also suggests more referendums and more inquiries. To defray costs, we could have a series of constitutional referendums at the same time as federal elections, or plebiscites for non-constitutional issues. This is possible but very risky politically. As to parliamentary inquiries, after July when the government takes over the Senate, you can kiss public accountability goodbye. There will be no more inquiries into government policy and administration.

Timithy has also suggested here and elsewhere that political parties be removed from the Senate. Sorry Timithy, this is very naive (you cannot stop people from talking to each other and forming consensus) and totally undemocratic (remember "freedom of association"?)

Finally, Timithy's suggestion that the ballot paper should have the "none of the above" option would only open to the door to a massive increase in informal voting, and strengthen the case for voluntary voting, which I am not sure he agrees with (and see my post on compulsory voting on Tim Martyn's last essay on OLO). In any case, this has been discussed at length on many occasions in the parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters and dismissed as impractical (go to the australian parliament house website Timithy and find the JSCEM for more background.

Gracey,
Find one bit of evidence where it can be said that I have a “personal” problem with women. I, and many other people including many women, have a very great problem with the hypocrisy of many feminists, which is quite different, as feminists do not necessarily represent women, and certainly not men.

However you have “found fault”,(or tried to), with my suggestions for reform of our so called democracy, but you have not offered any suggestions of your own. Typical?

There are of course advantages and disadvantages with my suggestions, but with added detail, then I would think the advantages would far outweigh the disadvantages, and far outweigh what we have presently got.

Who did you vote for at the last election, or don’t you know, because of all the backroom preference deals that went on between the political parties (see http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=3049#3082), and do you think the Senate is worth having, or is it now just an expensive rubber stamp for the House of Representatives.

Personally I think that having 76 independents in the Senate, would eventually bring about much more democracy than having only 2 (sometimes 3) political parties in parliament.

Timithy, I don't think you really understand the senate voting system from your previous posts. Let me try to explain.

If you vote "above the line" for the senate then you are allowing your preferences to be allocated during the count according to the party "group voting ticket". Very few people bother to consult the party GTVs displayed, by law, in every polling booth, before voting because they trust their party to allocate preferences in accordance with party policy. Hence some voters are surprised to find where their preferences eventually go. This was particulary the case in Victoria in 2004 when many ALP voters who voted "above the line" on the ALP GTV were disgusted to find that their preferences went to Family First.

If you vote "below the line" for the senate, then you make the decision about where your preferences go. In my view, voters should always vote below the line. The problem is that the risk of making your vote informal is high, with the large number of candidates to mark in proper sequence.

As to abolishing the senate altogether, no thanks. In the 1970s, during the Fraser years, the senate committee system was properly established and expanded, and from that time on, the senate has served a very useful purpose in scrutinising government legislation and "keeping the bastards honest" (except when the government dominates the senate as it will post July). Unicameral governments are potentially dangerous, see Queensland under Jo Bjelke-Petersen.

And I repeat, you cannot just abolish political parties, Timithy. This would be held unconstitutional in a representative democracy, as it would breach one of our fundamental freedoms, the right to free association. You can however, vote for independents and try to persuade others to your view.

You really should have a look at the many thousands of submissions australian citizens have made to the JSCEM over the years, Timithy (see the aph website). They share your some of your concerns, and you might learn something about what is possible and what is simply impractical or unconstitutional.

Grace,

I am not saying that political parties should be abolished, but they can stay in the House of Reps only, and the Senate becomes like an impartial jury, that keeps a watchful eye on the House of Reps.

I wonder just how many Liberal Senators will oppose, (or even bother to properly review), the legislation that the House of Rep Liberals will put forward come July. The whole system is an archaic, and now heavily rorted farce, and the voters are just treated as sheep.

BTW. You still have not made known “your” suggestions for improvement to our democracy. Typical?

Natash Stott Destroyer and the Democraps.