Houellebecq
"Does anyone really, truly think the Greens could run the country? Seriously?"
I actually do- for the simple reason that virtually none of the Libs and Labor take the job remotely seriously outside feathering their nests, and all of their members clearly show they really have no idea how to run their designated portfolios (Swan doesn't know figures in a recession crisis- Brendan Nelson wasting billions of dollars on obsolete fighter jets) that I really positively can't see how the Greens could actually be worse.

As for Turnbull- he's probably the worst of the lot- considering the first thing he actually did when he joined the Liberals was leech of taxpayers to cover his wife's renting expenses, and his blatant and seemingly deliberately deceptive spin-doctoring manner in the years prior.
He's actually the reason I finally decided I would stop voting for the Liberals and look at the other parties.

As a CONSTITUTIONALIST it is my view that what the constitution requires and what political parties in government are up to often is totally contradictory. The Commonwealth is forever encroaching upon State legislative powers and there is no system in place to appropriately deal with this. We lack constitutional competent judges and get all kind of ill conceived judgments and the Courts are in overall failing miserably. Check s.101 Inter-State commission in the constitution and then ask why it is that the commonwealth disregard the constitution (our constitution) and use CoAG to circumvent s.101? Where is the legislative powers to legislate for environment? Where indeed is the legislative powers for the Commonwealth to declare the nationality of any child born in the Commonwealth of Australia? And on and on it goes. On 19 July 2006 I comprehensively defeated the Commonwealth in that it has no legislative powers to force anyone to register and/or to vote!
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There is a lot wrong but the way to start dealing with it is to vote for INDEPENDENTS in the next federal election and then the political parties might just learn a lesson they must serve the people and not place themselves above the constitution. As long as we fail to teach them a lesson by voting them out we are perceived to accept their rot.
Since 7 December 2007 I have requested Kevin Rudd PM to ensure a ROYAL COMMISSION is held into the unconstitutional invasions into Afghanistan and Iraq! So many people were killed and innocent lives lost and we seem not to bother to hold those legally accountable. Who are we then to complain?

<< …what the constitution requires and what political parties in government are up to often is totally contradictory. >>

Yes. The constitution is supposed to be our base level of law, in just the same way as our code of conduct is supposed to be our rule book within the public service where I work.

Well, IT ISN’T!! In both cases, the big boys will tell you that these documents apply and then proceed to go and do their own thing regardless! There’s no accountability. There’s no effective regulatory regime to rein them in!

Gerrit, could I please seek your views on a constitutional query, on the ‘disincentives to come to Queensland’ thread.

Please see http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3279#77839 and my response to it.

Thankyou

Pelican, in her post of Tuesday, 8 December 2009, at 10:33:49 AM, says:


"Forrest I am not sure what you mean
by the election tally results - aren't
these results a matter of public record?"



Official Federal election results are comprised of the collective declarations of the Divisional Returning Officers in respect to election of members to the House of Representatives, and of the Australian Electoral Officers for the various States, in respect of election of Senators. These declarations are supported by official records of the completed count of votes in all Divisions when the election is finalized. The finalized election statistics have, of course, always been a matter of public record, typically able to have been seen in summarised form in the Australian Year Books over the years, and in full detail in published Australian Electoral Commission records.

The Virtual Tally Room (VTR) is an AEC online record of the PROGRESS of the counting of votes at an election.

The VTR opens at the close of polling on election day. To start with, the only information it contains is details as to the candidates, and the number of electors enrolled for any given Division as at the close of the roll. As the count in polling places finalizes, progressive results of counting are posted to the VTR. Each page display constitutes a public record, and as such should be treated as the law in relation to archiving of public documents provides.

As VTR pages are updated with more count results, the previous page display passes from public view. Each page display bears a date and time stamp. Around three quarters of the total vote cast gets to be counted on election night, but not all of the polling place count results necessarily get posted to the VTR that night. VTR pages are updated over the next three weeks as the declaration vote is checked for admissibility, and then counted.



It is this record, as it finally displayed for the 2007 Federal elections, that has been taken down, REWORKED, and now displays elsewhere than where originally posted. See:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3212#76453

Thanks for the link Forrest.

Hazza
I am with you. If people took the time out to read the Green's policies they may find there is a lot more than just the environmental platform. Personally, I don't know how decisions or policy can be made without consideration of environmental or humanitarian factors. Surely protection of the environment is crucial to our survival. Some believe humans extraordinary to the ecosystem but we are a vital part to it and have the capacity to destroy it with poor decision making.

Like Gerrit, I hope there will also be a surge in some good independents as well so we can balance out the major parties who are both set on the same path, and who reduce our choices should we not agree with the direction they are taking us.

I am going to be away for a while. Thanks for all your comments.

There are two issues.

Clearly the current system, of voting via 'representatives', is not and can never be as representative of the will of the people, as a system in which the people could vote on proposed laws directly. (Pericles you have not shown any reason, apart from your presumed omniscience, why the legislative sovereignty could not be exercised directly by the people.)

But even if we had such a system, what makes you think that that would make for a better society? Why should everyone's life, livelihood, property and liberties be decided on by everyone else on a majority basis? And who should get to vote? Why just the people of a State? What sense is there in deciding by State boundaries left over from history? Why not the whole Commonwealth? Why not everyone in the world?

If China and India got to vote on your property, you know what they'd do, don't you? What makes you think that would be fairer or better than you deciding what to do with it? Well exactly the same thing is happening *within* democracies. (Pericles you have not shown any reason why that is better than for any given decision *not* to be made by government.)

It is true that the Australian constitution, like the American constitution, has utterly failed to restrict government to within the limits it prescribes. But what do you expect? The much-vaunted checks and balances are themselves agents of government