Most voters are reluctant to vote for minor parties as they are perceived to be single-issue or narrowly focussed.

We have the disgusting compulsory preferential voting system, which means that if people do vote for minor parties or independents, their vote will the vast majority of the time, trickle down and count for one of the two major parties, even if they are specifically voting against them!

Then we’ve got the media, which for the most part supports what big business wants and which has constantly espoused the virtues of continuous-growth economics in the most terribly unbalanced manner to the point where the general community has been basically brainwashed.

And so we have this entrenched system still in place, after the Howard years. At a point in time when we desperately needed to get out of it and steer towards a paradigm of sustainability, what did we get? – Rudd!!... with his huge increase in immigration and a regime of expansionism at a record level well above the previous record level under Howard!!....and to which he didn’t even allude in the election campaign!

….

“I have to admit that I'm happy with the current Government.”

OOOOOOOooooohhhh Foxy Foxy Foxy Foxy Foxy!! !! !! !! !!

And Belly Belly Belly….

How could you be?? ?? ?? ?

Well it doesn't really matter if people are happy with the current government there is still no real left wing choices. Even the greens are represented by middle class who seek an designer brand image over real political diversity.

Why do people with traditional left wing views find support in what is called far right parties? Switzerland for example and the minaret vote. Surely not being forced to tolerate outward symbols of religion is a very left wing concept. So why is the far right stealing these voters? Howard siezed on this lack of representation with the 'Howard Battlers" and also the remarkable change that now suggests being anti-immigration is far right. Nothing makes sense.

But yet it does.

It is about globalisation. The big business want immigrants in and big business want to send work offshore. makes sense? Big business want to force immigration, whether compatible or not. This allows for business to break down borders so they can capitalise on the opportunities in other nations be it for cheap labour or a huge new markets for their products. Borders and culture are a barrier for big business. They want them demolished.

Skills shortage. Interesting. Many dispute this. On so many levels. Too many people with the skills and experience not getting work but seeing thier role listed as being in short supply. the value of an employee is increasingly being globalised. Some will get richer due to international wage comparisons and some will get poorer. It is not local anymore. So locals are being seen as too expensive.

We are too far entwined in the process now to be able to retreat. I do not see any room for workers rights on any great scale until equilibrium has been reached globally. Only then will workers have a voice again. To fight against global corporation there needs to be a united global workforce.

We are being run by business not government. There is no left wing in business. We have been sold out.

I would like to see a representative democracy. We don't have it since our parliamentarians generally do not take into account the views of the people in the electoral district they supposedly represent. The decision of the party room generally determines their vote on legislation. This generally overrides the wishes of their constituents, the good of Australia and their conscience. My representative to the Commonwealth Parliament is Peter Dutton. He points to the financial support he has been able to pry for the government for various activities in the district. However, he doesn't mention any cases where he has actually represented us. I don't think there are any. In that I don't imagine that he is different from other parliamentarians.

IMHO the only votes a parliamentarian should be committed to are those which support the platform he ran on.

Not that I have any great hopes, but I recently joined the Greens.

Right there with you, david f

>>IMHO the only votes a parliamentarian should be committed to are those which support the platform he ran on.<<

The really stupefyingly amazing thing about this suggestion is that it could so easily work.

We elect a politician against a publicly proclaimed platform

If there is legislation proposed for which he/she does not have an explicit mandate as expressed in the platform, they are ineligible to vote upon it.

If there is legislation proposed for which they do have a mandate from their electorate, then they must vote in accordance with that mandate.

If the legislation is important enough, and doesn't appear in the mandates of any party or individual politician, then an election or a referendum should necessarily be called.

That would ensure that the manifestos are properly drawn up, since they become legally binding, in the same way that financial service providers are required to supply a product disclosure statement.

It is so simple, that it could be implemented by the next election.

Unfortunately, it requires that our representatives in parliament take responsibility for their pre-election promises.

Which is why it will never happen.

Good opening post, Pelican.

>>Where have the moderates all gone? Why have we moved so far away from the middle ground over the last 30 years?<<

They're all still there, but they're being swamped by a combination of diversity and competition. When I was a kid at family Christmas parties, my (very loud) uncle was always saying that to get anywhere in life you need to be the very best at whatever you do. I know what he meant now that I'm older.

I think this is at the root of the problem: unless you're a razzle-dazzle celebrity these days, a good talker or very good at your profession, you're a nobody. This one-sidedness is starting to affect many ordinary people in society who feel powerless and left off the back of the pack. So, to fit in without being humiliated by those that are better, they've learned to fit in with the rest of the herd without making waves.

Pelican
I think everyone is frustrated by their views not being represented as much as they would like by our 'representative' democracy.

"Does anyone have any ideas? I am not after a hostile discussion about Right and Left ideology just some historical context for the change."

Me too.

Three ideas.

1.
To what extent is the problem that the government is not representative of the population, rather than representative of you? That's why I suggested the online democracy thing. Not that I believe in it. I don't. But to promote the thought experiment, on what would happen if the laws were in fact representative of the people. As you can see from that thread, most people don't want it.

2.
Democracy, by its nature, will tend to morph into a middle ground in which the parties are increasingly indistinguishable and unprincipled. This is because politicians will first offer what everyone wants, such as protection from murder and invasion. Then when both parties are offering that, politicians will next offer what a majority want. When both parties are offering what the majority clearly want, politicians will next try to put together a majority by assembling a rag-bag of sectional interests: 4% of the vote for a handout to this industry here, 5% for a law illegalising something a vocal minority doesn't like, another few percent for a handout to this industry or group. And so on to a bare majority.

Utterly unprincipled, and that's how we are governed: three layers of it.

The recent law against not walking your dog is a classic example. Who can believe that, if the people were free to choose, fifty percent would voluntarily support this law? Thus the thought experiment shows that most laws and political activity are not in fact representative of the people at all.

3.
But even if they were, what makes you think it would be better if fifty percent or more of the population got to decide what values you should live by, rather than you?