-I wish people wouldnt invoke godwins law- its asking for trouble. You just need to do a little bit of history research to find clearer, better and less controversial figures than Hitler to hang your opponents idealogy on.

-Alchemist, please! The ad-hominem! Anyone with rocks for brains would be dead and certainly in no state to post on this forum.

-Our system isnt perfect, but old habits die hard and the only way to change anything is to work within it over time. PerthWestern describes this well (Although then goes on to propose the 'pie-in-the-sky' idea that we have an election every year- i thought that was very cute).

At least this Secular Party is doing that, working within the system to counter groups such as Family First and the prevailing norms that have us open parliment with a prayer to the Christian God. They are not 'only secular', they have other policies as well- but a party cannot stand on such a narrow platform. Of course, they lost my vote the moment i took a look at their 'Keep religion out of politics' Videos. *sigh* Politics as normal, i guess. Personal attacks and ostentatious statements.

The alternative to working within the system, of course, is revolution- which always tends to put someone worse (IE, more willing to use force to get what they want) in the leadership seat.

Still, pie-in-the-sky theories on The Perfect Government are good fun, as long as we realise they are never going to be realised in their entirety.

The point that needs to be made here is that change is always possible...

Imagine if during Federation people had thrown up their hands and said... nup too hard.... what would our democracy look like today.

Lots of people I talk to are against parties... none of them seem to represent the individual and as I said earlier once the election is held ... the party machine and the backroom boys take over and suddenly they can claim a mandate for everything.

If we object to referenda on the basis that someone independent has to word the things and explain the things then just accept what a Polly says as gospel. I mean he has worded his answer and many people seem to believe that easily enough. We demand independence in the wording of referenda and yet we don't demand honesty from our pollies.

Aussies are a complacent lot... we all like to whinge.. but when it comes to pushing for change it's all too hard. So I guess we get what we deserve ... politicians who represent the people until they are voted in and then vote along pre-determined party lines.

There is so much right with Australia but like everything there is always room for improvements... but I guess from what most people are saying here... it is all just too hard...

So I guess we can't blame the pollies for their complacency as we allow them to get away with it.

The problem we face is that everyone just goes round in circles and are scared to change. Of course we have a good system of government, thats why we have a massive growing account deficit, collapsing infrastructure, dying environment. Political rorts running in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The number of ex politicians drawing a huge pension and on the board, or working for those they supported during their time in office would fill a book.

A public service thats incompetent, shallow and stuck within reams of red tape, strangling anything other than what senior beaurucrats and politicians favour. Our countries resources are owned by multinationals, taking the majority of money overseas, they have sold of our assets and heaped us with constantly increasing costs in the name of profit, so the majority are slaves to corporations. Excellent work by the two faction party system.

Saying independents wouldn't be successful, shows ignorance and lack of foresight. Challenging the accepted norm is usually denounced, by those incapable of thinking freely and progressively. Just shows how class conscious some are.

Its arrogant suggesting only the lib lab coalition is capable of governing, the facts show the only thing they are capable of, is destroying everything and feathering their own nest.

At least 80% of the populations informed enough to make very good judgments. Having worked for quite a few years in Canberra and been privy to conversations and socialisation of those in power, I haven't met one senior bureaucrat or politician that has any creative understanding.

A revolution is coming, its called nature, try saying no to that PW.

Church and State survey for the Humanist Society of NSW.

HUMANIST MOVE TO INTRODUCE A NEW LAW TO SEPARATE RELIGION (church) AND GOVERNMENT (state) IN AUSTRALIA

The humanists recently instigated a phone survey asking questions on Church and State separation. The fact that the Humanists are paying money to ask "should there be a LAW to separate religion and government" could mean any of four things

They are concerned about the growing Christian influence in politics. (Good)
They want to find out is people believe the humanist rhetoric about there being a constitutional 'separation of church and state'
They know their own rhetoric about there already being a 'separation of church and state' is wrong and they are concerned.
If the survey shows people are not sure or don't believe there is such a division, they will try to introduce one.
It costs a lot of money to do such a survey so they will not take the results lightly. We need also to remember that the Humanist society ARE a religious organisation. Yes - The US Supreme Court actually said so back in 1965 - The Humanists (secularists) don't like people saying so. This is ALL about trying to get CHRISTIANS out of politics., not 'religion'.

The results to question 1: "DO YOU BELIEVE THERE IS/IS NOT A LAW SEPARATING CHURCH AND STATE IN AUSTRALIA"
The majority of people do not believe there is such a law - the second largest group say they don't know if such a law exists.
That is good for us and bad for us - Good, because the humanist (and other groups) lies have not convinced the majority - Bad, because the swinging group are open to manipulation by the loudest voices and we don't tend to be loud!
Cont:

The results to Question two were concerning - "ARE YOU IN FAVOUR/AGAINST INTRODUCING A NEW LAW TO SEPARATE RELIGION AND GOVERNMENT IN AUSTRALIA"
Result: 47.7% said Yes / 36.5% said No / 15.8% Neither or don't know.
Of course, there IS NO LAW separating the church (Christians) from the state, but there is a constitutional law separating the state from getting involved with, or ruling over, the church or what it does and says. Except in Victoria and Queensland where there are religious vilification laws and Tasmania, NSW and WA where they have homosexual vilification laws to control what anyone says including 'the church'. These are used as 'back-door' approach to controlling what the church says.

We must stay alert to the possibility that a government in Australia might just be silly enough to actually try to introduce such an unworkable law - Remember, "Power corrupts and complete power corrupts completely" That is what you get when you take 'Christian values out of government"

The survey questions and answers can be accessed at http://www.secular.org.au/ChurchStatePoll020206.pdf

Philo-Religious and homosexual villification laws are a backdoor approach of trying to control the church?? Well at least you are admitting the church would villify others if it had the choice.

Getting more christian values into government? You mean like another Constantine/Charlemagne and their wannabes, all the Popes who had armies and ruled over more than the Vatican, crusades, inquisitions, torture and executions in the name of God? Maybe a good Chrisitan Right with Bush or Howard? Pre-emptive strikes, arrests without charge, the erosion of civil liberties, guantanamo and abu ghraib? Rumsfeld's approval of torture (authorisation December 2002)? Bush's insistence the Geneva Convention doesn't apply to terrorists because they are 'bad people' (speech February 2003)?

The problem that is the basis of the discussion on this post is the individual vs. the group. Everyone would like to have their own way but no two people have the same opinions even if they wear the christian, secular or 'we the people' badge. On our own we have our peculiar set of values/priorities/policies but if anything is to be achieved we need a group to work towards a goal. The more people conform to a policy the more effectively it can be carried out.

Anyone who's served on committees or even been in a partnership (unless they've a partner who abrogates responsibility for their lives to them) will know that its no easy path coming to mutual decisions. But the problem is, in the end one decision must be made no matter how many people are involved-even 20 million people. 20 million is an enormous amount of people to get to agree on something.

The problem with having all 20 million making the decisions in our government:

-getting them appropriately informed on a very wide range of issues
-administering the voting process
-taking the arbitrary results on a range of issues and trying to make a synthesised whole out of them

This still presupposes there'll be someone deciding what issues to present, how to present them, and how to inform the voters about them also negotiating with industry and other nations, etc.