Keiran: Obviously, babies aren't free. I meant in a philosophical sense, ie. that our rights are inherent to us as human beings, not granted to us by others (namely the state), that it all comes from an internal, not external, source. That's when I'm being idealistic. The rest of the time, I realise that the only rights anyone has are those they can take, defend, or inflict upon others.

CJ Morgan ,I agree .

I think Howard and the Nationals would love to have the large number of the young ,the indifferent ,the uneducated Australian Labour voters and others who have to vote, but don't trust him and yet would rather put their feet up, watch the footy or head to the beach, "off the books".

By all means make the system work better but not at the expense of responsible compulsory voting .It helps focus the political mind, if for some, only fleetingly .

"If you don't vote mate, you're a bloody idiot!" should be the catchcry,right throughout the Land .

In view that I refused to vote in the purported 10 November 2001 federal election and in the purported 9 October 2004 federal election, even so having been a candidate, and was convicted for FAILING TO VOTE on 17 November 2005 only then on appeal succeeded in the appeals in which I claimed that constitutionally no one can be forced to vote and section 245 of the CEA is unconstitutional.
since then on 28 March 2007 I published a book detailing matters;

INSPECTOR-RIKATI® & How to lawfully avoid voting
A book about Australia’s federal election issues & rights
ISBN 978-0-9751760-3-0 was ISBN 0-9751760-3-X (Book)
ISBN 978-0-9751760-4-7 was ISBN 0-9751760-4-8 (CD)

See also my website http://www.schorel-hlavka.com

As such, I do not vote and proved to do so lawfully.

For the record, next month I am due to publish one of my other books;

INSPECTOR-RIKATI® on IR WorkChoices legislation
A book about the validity of the High Courts 14-11-2006 decision

This book will set out what, so to say, is the black hole in the High Court of Australia judgment, and why its decision was constitutionally floored.

As a constitutionalist I look for what the High Court of Australia didn't address but at the very least should have included in its judgment!

It is regrettable that so many people in the meantime are suffering, as reported many loosing their homes due to lost of earning to pay mortages and this where it all could have been avoided had matters been conducted in a proper constitutional manner.

As my forthcoming book will expose, any Member of Parliament could have on his/her own have prevented WorkChoices legislation to have passed through the Parliament had they used the correct procedure and appropriate constitutional grounds for this, as unbeknwn to most people and even parliamentarians there is a constitutional manner to do this regardless if all other members of Parliament desired to vote in favour of a Bill! The fact they ignored it may underline we do not have proper representation!

See also http://www.schorel-hlavka.com and my blog http://au.blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-ijpxwMQ4dbXm0BMADq1lv8AYHknTV_QH

CJ spots a flaw. There are many more CJ, keep looking mate.

CJMorgan, in the 43rd post on this topic, attempts an interesting connection of compulsory voting with a claimed disfranchisement of around 400,000 electors at the upcoming Federal elections, as a consequence of recent changes to electoral legislation by the Federal government. A very useful observation.

Another OLO contributor, KAEP, has provided in a different context an observation upon the current state of NSW (and Australia's) polity, which states (seemingly speaking of influences behind the scenes) "....they have a real dictatorship that on the surface still seems to be a benign Democracy. Its a megalomaniac's dream not seen since the technological revolutions of the early 1930's. It has been enabled by the unbridled rise in IT technology whose protected high end use to sequester power and wealth....." This is the link to that post: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5551#72933 .

This "unbridled rise in IT technology" began to adversely affect Australia's electoral processes not later than 1983. By the time of the 1987 Federal elections, electoral roll maintainance had been both computerized and unlawfully centralized. Changes to electoral legislation in 1983 had, for the first time, prescribed a seven day period between the issue of the writs and the closure of the rolls. The upshot of this was that at the 1987 elections a net increase of around 230,000 enrolments occurred.

The problem is that there are indications this surge of enrolments in 1987 was somehow already in the now-computerized electoral rolls BEFORE the announcement of the elections which had been touted as the reason for the surge! These indications are largely as good as buried. This link may be of interest, however, to those of a forensic accountancy bent. http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/em/elect04/subs.htm The link gives a list of submissions; the one to click on is number 161, a 1.6 MB PDF. It seems this document did not come to light until 2005.

It looks like compulsory enrolment and voting may be a crime scene: don't touch anything!