"We do not have a democracy in Australia and the media is not free and open and you know it."

What a load of leftist crap!

The only reason you- and your kind- are rejecting the clear fact that Australia is a democracy, is because you are not getting the ‘result’ you want. Those far-left feral socialists the Greens take something like 12% of the vote in state elections, after preferences. The reason they take so little- still too much by my standards- isn’t because we are ‘undemocratic’, but for numerous reasons- most importantly, their freakin’ policies!

Your average Australian wants either the coalition, or labour- because they don’t want those PC beasts throwing a 70% tax rate on them, to fund absolutely stupid gender and animal organisations/boards/studies etc., and potentially destroy our security with their anti-Americanism, inter alia.

As for your attack on the media- this is a matter of consumer choice. You are clearly not restricted in what information you see, as shown by the numerous online media available (including horrible sites such as stormfront, and Antony Loewenstein), as well as that available in print.

If your still not happy, start you own online newspaper and rant about our lack of democracy.

Given that I couldn’t keep my response to less than 350 words, I’ve posted it to my Your Democracy blog http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/?q=node/2048
for anyone interested.

As we are now regarded as part of Asia, Australia could adopt the Chinese Bill of Rights, and then we all would have as much right as our Communist Chinese brothers

Professor Bagaric makes reference to 2 recent opinion polls claiming that Australians are the happiest people in the world.

He also claims that opinion polls identified that the majority of Australians supported the government's anti-terrorism legislation.

Could we please have proper attributions for these assertions?

I will put it simply: we have no rights that exist independently of the authority of the state which endowers us with them as priveledges for our good behaviour and abidance by the laws and customs of our society. Thus, "self-evident" rights are as fanciful as creationism, a geocentric solar system, or healthy margarine.

"As we are now regarded as part of Asia, Australia could adopt the Chinese Bill of Rights, and then we all would have as much right as our Communist Chinese brothers"

Heh.. heh.. Good point Glen.