From what I am seeing and hearing out there in Voter Wonderland, it appears that there are a very many disillusioned voters who are now at their wits-end as to who to vote for, as so many are sick and tired of the same old con-job promises that the needy, greedy Politicians and Candidates pump out into the electorate in an effort to secure their own place at the public trough.

Unfortunately we have to cast a vote whether we consider it worthwhile or not, but sadly any of these votes away from the two majors, simply serve to dilute the overall vote in favour of one or the other of the two biggies!

It is well past the time when the Electoral System should have been

changed, making voting being purely voluntary and exercised by those interested enough in the future of our country, whilst at the same time this "protectionist system" of Preferential Voting should have been discarded in favour of "First Past the Post".

I have heard so many times over the years the comment from those of little thought,:...."We have to pay our Pollies more! If you only pay Pea-nuts you only get Monkeys!".....Well then what do we have today, if one is interested (or bored) enough to watch Parliament in action on TV, one could quite easily consider the Chamber performances as those of a cage full of Chimpanzees?

The Old Aged Pensioners must NOT forget that these over-paid Public Servants are about to raid their (O.A.P) purses to help sustain their own standard of living at the upper wealth and privilege level.

Malcolm! It is NOT too late reconsider this impost aimed at the Pensioners,......please think carefully, as a move in the right direction now, may secure you many thousands of extra votes!

Dear Armchair Critic,

You wrote;

“...abusing a US Presidential candidate (possibly the next US president) and of telling US citizens to vote for Hillary in their elections. What sort of an idiot would throw their parties chances under the bus by supporting Hillary Clinton or getting involved in the US elections at all? Isn't it smarter to just say you respect the US citizens and whoever they choose? I reject this guy on the basis he's a moron and not someone possessing the qualities required to lead a nation.”

John Howard made this statement regarding then presidential candidate Obama exactly one day after he announced his candidacy;

"If I was running al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008, and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats."

Obama was spurred to reply;

"I think it's flattering that one of George Bush's allies on the other side of the world started attacking me the day after I announced...I would also note that we have close to 140,000 troops in Iraq, and my understanding is Mr Howard has deployed 1400, so if he is ... to fight the good fight in Iraq, I would suggest that he calls up another 20,000 Australians and sends them to Iraq. Otherwise it's just a bunch of empty rhetoric."

Are you really going to tell us you decided back then you couldn't vote for Howard because you deemed him an 'idiot' and a 'moron'?

Forgive me if I think that unlikely, or to quote Obama ' just a bunch of empty rhetoric'.

This discussion was created to draw much-needed attention to the plight of the O.A.Pensioners who are now being targeted by Government, with savage cuts to save expenditure to give more to the wealthy!

I have NOT brought up the subject of the U.S. Elections and feel that the interjection of the various opinions upon that subject is rather demeaning and draws the discussion away from the real issue of the O.A.P`s plight at this time.

Please let us get on with the issues that I have posted, and leave the foreign interests to another separate discussion?

Crackup, voting being voluntary in other countries leads to very small
turnouts for most elections.
With compulsory elections when the reluctant actually face up to
turning out they then think, well I might as well vote for who is
doing the best for me. They may not make a well informed vote but
their basic interest will be taken into account.