The Forum > General Discussion > Where is Democracy?
Where is Democracy?
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Some worthy arguments on this thread, basically we Straylyuns are not educated from an early age about our system of government, the Constitution, legal processes and the like. Many, many Australians are still under a misapprehension that we have a constitution almost identical to the American version. (Too much USA TV content ?)
Whilst the Federation framework, which was drafted on-board MV 'Lucinda' during a trip from Brisbane to Sydney, & as such it was based upon that US model... the mechanics of it are not the same in practice, even though the courts here still make reference to US case law during matters before them.
Our two party preferred system of voting in Oz guarantees the most useless candidates with the most votes will get the guernsey - then vide the resulting High Court appointees and their consequent decisions during the Howard reign versus the Hawke/Keating reign.
Our US cousins are instructed from elementary schooling levels on their Constitutional 'rights', and until the late 1960's most schools there gave the students a set of responsibilities to go with that. With the Post-Vietnam era this has not been the case, other than in religious colleges/schools - usually with the particular 'denominational flavouring'.
If in fact our government did teach our kids about the Constitution and legal system then perhaps more of us would see the pitfalls and collectively vote in representatives who then reflect the electorates wishes - not the viewpoints of vested interests as we see in the $$$ involved in the US Presidential voting process.
For the Territorians reading this, a case in point will be the East Point Marina & Inpex proposals which will be interesting developments over the coming years, no doubt polarising many in the Darwin community.
Education is the key, and some amongst the pollies don't like it when the electorate is aware of the processes, and how their local/Federal member should be representing the people who voted them into office.