individual,

Sigh.

Look lets get this clear, the current government is NOT responsible for the current economic boom in its entirety.

First off we have a resource boom, with India and China buying up as much as we can. Unless John Howard was around several billion years ago laying down our mineral wealth, he cannot claim credit for that.

Secondly, with the exception of the GST and Work Choices(or lack thereof) Howard and Co have by and large been taking credit for a lot of the work done by Hawke and Keating. Remember AWA's aren't a Howard invention, they are a Keating invention.

Thirdly, our economy is affected by the global economy. While the world is having a good time we will to. Once the global economy starts to sink so will we.

Forrest Gump,

Thanks for your informative and thought-provoking posts.

Briefly for now: I have to admit that I don't know, for a fact, that a referendum question will be put. I will have to follow this up.

Perhaps a week or two ago I read a political news story which alluded to the next federal election being four years after this one, so it seemed for that, that it may still be in the pipeline.

Given that there is bipartisan major-party support for the four year term as well as, seemingly inexplicably, support from the Democrats and little said from the Greens about this, I would have thought that John Howard and Australia's political elite would have seized with both hands this golden opportunity to make themselves even less accountable to the public than they already are.

---

Also, I noticed, coincidentally, that Uncle Rupert's Brisbane Courier Mail newspaper is pushing a four year term for Queensland Parliament (I hadn't realised that Queensland did not have four year terms. They do for Queensland local Government, but, evidently, mercifully, not for State Government - see http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22178912-13360,00.html). It's ironic that one of the very newspapers which has done so much to make the three year parliamentary term as problematic as it is, by its misreporting of critical political issues and by invariably pandering to the fiscally irresponsible, and often corrupt election-year gimmickry of the likes of John Howard and Peter Costello, is advocating the four year to fix up the problems largely of its own making.

---

James Purser,

Whilst I am in hot disagreement with you in on other matter (namely high immigration), I appreciate your perceptive comment: "Unless John Howard was around several billion years ago laying down our mineral wealth, he cannot claim credit for (our mineral exports boom)."

I had something to say about this at http://candobetter.org/about#coal

The method in the proposed referendum madness, continued 2.

Now we come to the provisions of the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Act 1984. What purport to be amendments reflective of those made to the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 in 2006 have been made to keep the Referendum Act seemingly in line with the CEA's provisions. This latter is necessary due to the fact that referenda are, more frequently than not, conducted concurrently with general Federal elections.

The text of Section 9 of the Referendum Act, supplied to me as the current provision, states:

"9 Day for close of Rolls and voting day
(1) The day fixed for the close of the Rolls shall be 3 working days after the issue of the writ.
(2) The day fixed for taking the votes of electors at a referendum shall be not less than 33 days and not more than 58 days after the issue of the writ.
(3) In this section:
working day means any day except:
(a) a Saturday or a Sunday; or
(b) a day that is a public holiday in any State or Territory."

You will note there is no mention of any roll closure at 6:00 PM on the day of issue of the referendum writ.

There is no provision in the Referendum Act that in circumstances where it is proposed that a referendum be conducted in conjunction with a Federal election (as is proposed) the Governor-General is to issue the respective writs CONCURRENTLY. It is thus possible that the Governor-General could presently be advised to issue Federal elections writs on any given day, and three days later be advised to issue referendum writs, the upshot of which would be that the AEC would be confronted with the ludicrous prospect of conducting concurrent Federal elections and a referendum with two different sets of certified lists on the tables to mark off vote claims!

What's the betting that's exactly what was intended by the electoral amendments of 2006?

You can see where this is headed, can't you daggett?

Surely it is the responsibility of the individual to ensure that they enrol to vote as soon as they legally able to do so? Nobody needs to be disadvantaged if they do this.
We should be far more concerned that people who have not bothered to enrol on time might, under other circumstances, be able to vote. How will people with this level of (dis)interest vote? Will they be 'thinking' voters who consider the issues?
The only thing to be said for four years terms is that people would have less chances over a lifetime to make an ill-informed choice. I doubt that 4yr terms are desirable or workable.

The method in the proposed referendum madness, continued 3.

Of course, the AEC would not conduct these two electoral exercises on the same day in such ludicrous fashion. But what would it do?

It would do what it does best: the AEC would most likely MIUAUG it. (This acronym stands for MakeItUpAsYouGo, for which I must thank regular OLO contributor BOAZ_David.) This would in all probability see the AEC produce only one certified list for the conduct of both events. And that would be but common sense. However, those common certified lists would be compiled from centrally managed electronically stored rolls that had closed not to a limited extent on the day of issue of the election writs, nor in totality by three working days later, but from centrally kept rolls that had not closed in ANY respect until not less than SIX working days after the issue of the election writs!

Should there be any public holiday in just one State or Territory during what would otherwise be six working days interrupted only by a weekend, the roll close period would balloon to the extent of that number of public holidays right across the Commonwealth. This would occur as a consequence of the provisions of Section 102 of the CEA.

The long and the short of it is that the number of working days before the rolls close would be one greater than the number legislated in 1983! The total number of natural days could be greater than 6+2, according as to the number of public holidays held anywhere. And don't kid yourself that work won't be going on round the clock, during that entire period, in the AEC's centralized roll-keeping system getting lots of names into their required places.

As for discrimination against first time enrollees, forget it! Any spin doctor could sell the AEC's MIUAUG decision as the best compromise in an "unforeseen grey area" of the law. Don't you worry about that.

I have an unhealthy fixation about roll closure and centralized roll-keeping, don't I, daggett?

james purser & daggett,
"Unless John Howard was around several billion years ago laying down our mineral wealth, he cannot claim credit for (our mineral exports boom)."
Whitlam, Hawke & Keatinge were around the same time as Howard so how come things went so badly wrong during their terms ? What about Carmen Lawrence's & Wayne Goss's abbysmal record not to mention Peter Beattie's inexcuseable handling of his state's health system. Come to think of it he was the health minister for Goss when when the mess began. I am not saying that Labor could not manage the daily affairs of a country. It's just that I have yet to see it doing so.
re
Thirdly, our economy is affected by the global economy. While the world is having a good time we will to. Once the global economy starts to sink so will we.
What makes you think Labor could prevent that from happening. Any 10 year old will tell you that a global economy impacts on everyone on the globe.