On a related topic, it's interesting that the Federal government has recently legislated to disenfrachise large numbers of Australians:

"The Federal Government has passed extraordinary legislation that will close the rolls for new voters at 8pm on the very night the election is officially called. Last Federal Election, the AEC received a total of 423,975 enrolment cards in the week between the announcement and the close of rolls. 78,816 of those were new enrolments. But this time people won't get that chance."

Now, without necessarily resorting to conspiracy theories, one wonders why Howard & Co would utilise their temporary dominance of both Houses to push such undemocratic legislation through?

For further information, and the source of the above quotation, go to http://www.getup.org.au/campaign.asp?campaign_id=75 .

saintfletcher, you are becoming increasing nasty and vituperative... go see a shrink.
Shorbe, I agree wholeheartedly with your opinions and sentiments regarding governments. Democracy only lasts until the first politician opens his/her mouth, then it becomes a demagoguery. As the election approcahes, so do the Labor and the coalition until by election day they will be indistinguishable.
Unfortunately, because of compulsory voting, it is illegal for me to publicly advocate writing on voting papers... "I will not vote until we have proportional representation" because I will be asking people to break the law... so that is another reason compulsory voting is anti freedom, anti individual - it cannot be changed except by illegal activity. But within 15 years it will all become irrelevant as billions of climate change refugees roam the world, starving and dieing of thirst, thanks to the ability of democratic governments to ride rough-shod over common sense.

Banjo

I agree with your comment about optional preferential, indeed I mentioned it early in the Forum.

I like the idea of CIR's but I fear that in practice they would be little more than dressed up mob rule. No, I think a government campaigns on its policies and earns a mandate to implement them. A way to increase the input of citizens into "non-mandated" policy (i.e. things that come up between elections and need a legislative or executive response) should be to allow MPs a free vote on such issues. In other words, the parties should relax discipline and let the parliament act as the representative body it was always supposed to be. MPs would have to act as delegates or trustees of their constituents or face the electoral consequences next time around. The "party line" should only extend as far as policies that the people voted on in the last election.

Pericles

I argued earlier for optional preferential voting. This system preserves a "modicum of control" for the voter.

Secondly, preference deals modify major party policy prior to the election. If the ALP wants Greens' preferences they need to beef up the environment credibility of their policies. Anyway, the voter is in total control of the destination of their own preferences - they fill in the boxes and don't have to follow any "how to vote" card.

I take your point about the Senate. Perhaps the German idea of a 5% minimum threshold vote before a party can a seat could keep the crazies out.

If the idea of free MP votes on non-mandated policy legislation could break the executive hold on the lower house, allowing it to fulfil its role of keeping the government accountable, we might be able to do away with an upper house altogether. Breaking party disciple is the key.

Two points.

Firstly - there's nothing wrong with parties needing to capture centrist voters. In fact, it seems more likely (on common sense reasoning) that extreme views are both risky economically and likely to discourage investment. Evolutionary changes are safer.

My second observation is that when I was at uni, most students didn't vote for their representatives. At the same time, the student council was somewhat disliked and was full of radicals of all types. Who was responsible? Probably those same students who didn't bother to vote.

Klaas Woldring says "We need an urgent renewal of the Australian political system and the Constitution. Compulsory voting is one big hindrance to achieving that." Klaas clearly states where he is coming from.

In the tenth post in this thread rstuart prudently states "There is one advantage of compulsory voting you do not mention. It is much easier to audit and thereby eliminates entire classes of voting fraud with compulsory voting." In the 15th post, rstuart also says, "In our current system you can't vote twice without being detected, ....". This last may, however, no longer be true.

Whereas once more than one vote claim in any one name on an electoral roll would have been detected by human scrutiny in a room full of witnesses when compiling the mark-back roll, these days we are all dependent upon the output of an optical mark reading computer program for the compilation of the mark-back roll and for the detection of such multiple vote claims. If this program was to be written or hacked in such a way as to fail to fully report apparent multiple vote claims, then the only indication of this abuse occurring would be if in total there had been more vote claims made than there were names on the roll.

A change to non-compulsory voting accompanied by reduced voter turnout at any election would offer greater scope for potentially undetected multiple vote claims in single names without crossing the threshold of credibility that is constituted by vote claims exceeding total enrolments.

A hint as to how a combination of outsourcing, and an ongoing Australian Electoral Commission security breach, may have created an opportunity for the use of a rogue program is given in this post: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5477#70863 .

Klaas asks: "Could Australia finally wake up politically?". Good question. Could it be that widespread dissatisfaction with the political system has come about because it has responded as much to fraudulently distorted results since Federation, as to genuine majority views? Distortion about to get worse under voluntary voting?

I am of the opinion that democracy is somewhat of a manufactured fantacy. The 2 party system suits those powers that wish to have more than one vote. Whith the ABC emmasculated and other media under the control of of the previledged few any thought of free elections is illogical. First one party is allowed to win then the other. Just for the illustion of choice. Any challenge will be punished as was Pauline Hanson. As it happened I bought my fish burgers from Pauline and we talked a lot whilst they were being cooked. She was reflecting the views of many Ipswich people. People who believed that if they worked hard and did the right thing there would be jobs and a good life for them and their kids. Someone changed the contract without telling them and they were not well pleased. Pauline inadvertently touched apon a hot bed of dissent so she had to be crushed.
I can't say I agreed with Paulines idea's, they are in my view simplistic but they were, and are valid views. Actually I prefer her honesty to a lying hobgoblin that would do or say anything to keep his arse on the seat.
What is it we are voting for?