Hazza,

Democracy also means that, given a free and fair election, one person-one vote, that the party or group or candidate that you favour might not get elected. In a democracy there are losers as well as winners. You cop it and move on.

You can't always get what you want :) Even in the 'best' democracies.

Joe

Loudmouth:
Your first point about womens' sufferage is quite good, but I may have a potential answer for that- being labor shortages during depressions and during conflicts helped to force employers and government to start accepting women as equals- lacking these when the rest of the world was modernizing gives no reason for laws to be granted kicking and screaming from perfect voter comfort (and that is indeed a downside- when you have full voting rights, you don't want to compromise them).

And to answer your second question, nope! The part where people vote for someone I don't like is fine- that's what democracy is, as you said.
It's the fact that we don't get to vote on anything else for the next three years that could be fixed. Last time we ever got a say in anything in between was the 1999 Republic- and I'm sure a lot of people across the country would have liked a referendum on something in their community.

Pericles- some problems with that theory:
1- you would require people to willingly vote for something that oppresses themselves in those outlandish cases
2- You assume that politicians would have any hesitation to do unto minorities that a large swath of the public do, or won't simply pander to their votes (and in doing so, get to throw in some other nasty surprises people will tolerate as a tradeoff- in DD, those at least wouldn't happen).
3- On a selfish me-me setting, a direct-democracy would require that at least 11 million selfish people benefit from policy, instead of what suits about 40 parliamentarians or a couple of donating lobbyists.
4- History proves a lot less than people willingly voting for these (but have voted to give Aboriginal land rights).
5- Wars, privatizations, APEC/WYD, terminating infrastructure, closing hospitals and schools to sell the properties, have an easy time in one system but are virtually impossible to implement in the other.
6- The swinging voters on the fringe of society, and fringe politicians (Family First) get the final say.

Take your pick.

Hazza,

Your # 4: the 1967 Referendum was not a vote on land rights, but on transferring powers to the commonwealth from the states, to count Aboriginal people in the national Census, and to make laws for Aboriginal people just as it made laws for all other Australians.

By the way, this May 27 will mark 44 years since the Referendum. I think voters had to be 21 back then. So come May 27, everybody who votes in the Referendum will be at least 65. Where did those years go ?

So few people under, say, 55, will have much memory of how bad conditions were for Indigenous people up to the sixties - how undemocratic life was for Indigenous people. God knows what their fate would have been under some form of Swiss herrenvolk 'democracy'.

History has to be learnt and re-learnt, doesn't it, it isn't passed down genetically. And if it isn't taught, it most likely won't be learnt.

Joe

Which ones are "outlandish", King Hazza?

>>...you would require people to willingly vote for something that oppresses themselves in those outlandish cases<<

Apart from Darryl Somers, each example came from sincere offerings from this Forum. And seemed to have gathered some momentum here, too.

>>a direct-democracy would require that at least 11 million selfish people benefit from policy<<

Not sure where you get eleven million from. Even your beloved Swiss system only requires a simple majority. And even there, typically less than 50% will be bothered to turn out.

But there is more to it than that. Take the most recent Swiss poll on firearm reform.

48% of the electorate voted.

The German-speaking cantons rejected the reforms, the French-speaking cantons were pro-reform

Men rejected the reforms. Women supported them.

Can that be described as "better democracy"?

Or, take the undercard of the anti-Muslim vote in 2009. The proposal was to "ban the export of military weapons and ammunition, in order to further reduce Switzerland's involvement in war."

You'd think, in "neutral" Switzerland, this would be a no-brainer... except, of course! It would have meant losing trade.

Money or peace. Peace, or money... now that's a no-brainer.

53% turnout. 68% rejected it. Quelle surprise!

Or, as the majority of Swiss would say, Was für eine Überraschung!

But the main issue to me isn't the relative equity of the process. It is the impact it has on people, and what sort of human being it turns them into.

On the evidence, I'd say it was soul-destroying.

Or at the very least, highly corrosive.

Loudmouth- considering the only boost to indigenous rights as gaining recognition as citizens occurred under a referendum, I wouldn't be so sure.

Pericles, outlandish would be voting for a one-child policy upon yourself.

11 million = about half of Australian voters if the referendum were compulsory. Less people would assumably be an abstention by the rest- of which they would arguably be happy leaving it to the people with an opinion of it (but actually HAVE the right to the input if they choose)- it still means quite a few million more expected beneficiaries than required under a representative-only system.

And yes- a better ratio than 99.99999% opposing a policy that suits the 0.00001% in high places, don't you think?

And apparently, in your book, selling arms is ok so long as if ever a war breaks out, we join in the killing- but sitting out is the evil option?
(out of curiosity, what SHOULD a neutral country do in a war? You seem to feel that unless it bunkers up cuts all contact with the outside world until it boils over is the only acceptable discourse)

And "soul destroying?" I suppose sending soldiers to fight, kill and die in illegal wars, AND abandoning citizens' rights for the purpose of sucking up to another country, denying people the right to euthanasia because some ratbag lobbyists doesn't like it, converting our cities into police-states to hold a private function, and tearing down public schools and hospitals, leaving the locals screwed, because of political corruption attempting to flog off some waterfront properties to developers didn't quite bring a tear to your eye as much as banning aesthetic towers on specific religious buildings and strict criminal-deportation laws?

Actually, Hazza, Aboriginal people, and all adults born in Australia, were recognised as citizens under the Citizenship Act 1948. The Referendum of 1967 was just one incident in a long and diverse procession of citizenship rights, equal rights, granted since 1901.

Here in SA, for example, the right to live in towns and cities was extended in about 1958 (more like a recognition that the earlier attempts to keep people out had completely failed anyway).

The ban on Aboriginal women associating with white men was lifted in 1962 under the old Playford government.

Don Dunstan set up the Aboriginal Lands Trust in 1966 with an Aboriginal head.

The power of police and medical officers to demand that Aboriginal people submit to random health inspections ceased in about 1971.

The stipulation that an Aboriginal convicted of murder was to be taken back to the scene of the crime and hanged there was abolished in 1971.

There was quite a steady flow of extension of citizenship and land rights up to the nineties. More infamously, dumb-@rse lawyers and frankly ignorant Aboriginal groups actually surrendered rights of entry onto pastoral leases and Crown lands that they had had since 1836: whereas people had had free entry onto such lands, now Aboriginal people have to apply to a committee for permission. That's progress, I guess, the right to stuff up your own rights.

Joe