I don't think Labor could prevent a global depression occuring if/when the mineral boom ends. But thats really the point isn't it.Howard and co are going around claiming that only under their economic management can the good times roll, but it's been because of external factors that states like WA have had it so good.

Howard and Co are often heard to blame the previous government for financial woes (though after 11 years you'd expect them to build that bridge). I for once would like to hear Howard thank Keating for presenting him with the foundations to build an economy that can better withstand the rigours of international finance.

The method in the proposed referendum madness, continued 4.

Communicat, you hit the nail on the head in the first two sentences of your post. This hoo-ha over the need for a period of grace after the issue of election or referendum writs is exactly that, hoo-ha.

In exposing this loophole in the interrelation of the respective Acts as they are capable of being made to operate to determine actual roll closure time at the upcoming Federal elections, I am trying to show that concern for existing or prospective electors is not what the holding of the proposed referendum (or ANY referendum) on that same day is about.

I put it to you that the days of grace are needed not by the electors, but by the AEC, and I think they are needed to hide from Parliament and people that the centralized roll keeping system it has operated is not, and never has been, capable of closing the rolls at any time at the end of any day upon which the Governor-General may have issued a writ, since its inception!

Yet such a capability has been throughout, ever since a continuous electoral roll was first adopted decades ago, the very object of employing Divisional Returning Officers and maintaining Divisional offices on a permanent basis. To this day, Divisional Returning Officers (DROs) are the statutorily appointed officers charged with maintaining the rolls, but a system incapable of fulfilling a key function for which they are responsible has been foist upon them from above. Note that neither in 1983, nor at any time since, has the provision of the CEA which establishes their statutory office been repealed. No Parliament would have dared!

But by holding a referendum, any referendum, in conjunction with the upcoming Federal elections, this body that is a demonstrable law unto itself in matters electoral, the AEC, could be enabled to show that frustrating the intention of legislation (ie. of closing the rolls at 6:00 PM on the day of issue of the writs) is as easy as taking wheat from blind chooks!

I'll park the coach and four I have just driven through the roll closure amendments of 2006, if that's OK by you daggett, and we'll explore your digression into the machinations of Prince Rupert of the Whine and his Routine Orders for the State of Queensland (the Mailed Fist of the Courier?) regarding the desirability of four year fixed terms for its Parliament.

Before we really begin it is important to realize that Joint Roll Agreements now exist between the Governor-General and all States' Governors with respect to the provision of all electoral roll information required for conducting State, and below that, Local Government, elections. (I don't know why they don't say between the Commonwealth and the States, but that's the way the agreements are written up in the Gazette notices.) If there was ever to be anything wrong with the AEC centralized roll managment system, all States and Territories would be affected (infected?) to the same extent as the Commonwealth.

The thing with four year fixed terms is that if it can be achieved across all States and the Commonwealth, this whole longstanding default in the ability of the AEC to genuinely close an electoral roll whenever a Governor, or Governor-General may direct within a day can be swept under the carpet for good! There will no longer exist any risk of the public coming to a realization that the old system which COULD effect closure within the day, and under the scrutiny of interested parties, has been replaced by a newer, far more expensive roll management system that CANNOT effect prompt closure and CANNOT be scritinized while it much more slowly does so.

Moving to the dark side, should it be that advantage is being taken of a 'mobility lag' in names being correctly re-positioned BY THEIR OWNERS following moves or changes in status, such that re-positioning is unlawfully done using such names with a view to ultimately making undetectable fraudulent vote claims at elections, then more of such names would accumulate in four years than three.

My apologies.

I have just spoken to a staffer of a Federal parliamentarian and learnt that there were no plans in the pipeline to hold a referendum for the fixed four year Parliamentary term.

This is both surprising and a relief.

As I wrote above, I recall that both the major parties stated their support for the proposal. Even the Democrats supported it, and whilst the Greens opposed it, Bob Brown did not seem to show much conviction when I listened to him talk about it on ABC Radio National's Australia Talks Back (now called just "Australia Talks").

So, I had assumed, given the seeming lack of determined opposition to the four year term proposal that Australia's political elites would have seized the opportunity with both hands and that a referendum concurrent with the next federal elections was a dead certainty.

Why they dropped it is a mystery to me.

However,as I have shown earlier, it may not be an academic question in the case of Queensland's state parliament. See Courier Mail editorial of 3 August 2006 "Keep moving ahead with reforms" http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22178912-13360,00.htm which states: "Local authorities have four-year fixed terms, and so should the Queensland Government."

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However, even the discussion is I will attempt to tie up this discussion having raised it.

If this democracy had sufficient checks and balances, a four year term could be defensible, and, perhaps, even preferable to the current three year term. However, those safeguards don't exist.

The main safeguard would be an independent and inquisitive newsmedia, but this does not exist in Australia. The closest we have to this is the ABC and even that has fallen far short of the mark at least for many decades now.

(tobecontinued)

(continuedformabove)

Australia's newsmedia is, by and large, sycophantic towards the Howard Government. (On occasions, the Murdoch newsmedia postures against the Howard Government over one or two less important issues, but I believe these are only ploys to re-establish credibility with their readership.) How is it that the Howard Government has survived the AWB scandal in which it allowed almost AU$300million in bribe money to be paid to the very regime that in 2003, it held was such a mortal threat to world peace that we were left with no choice but to invade even before the UN weapons inspectors had finished their work?

By any objective measure this Government was grotesquely incompetent, and if the Government was not that unbelievably incompetent then Howard and a number his ministers belong behind bars. It has to be one or the other. Whatever the truth, they are not fit to govern this country and the newsmedia has been grossly negligent in their responsibilities in not having made this clear to the Australian public.

How is it that the Government was able to introduce legislation, which was not even put to the electors in 2004, which has changed the very fabric of our society? Of course I refer to the misnamed "WorkChoices" laws. Its introduction was preceded by by an
unprecedented saturation-level $55 million worth of taxpayer-funded propaganda. This represented a new low-point in the practice of democracy in this country.

Even the federal Government, by having belatedly, in election year, changed the legislation to include safeguards left out of the original legislation, has implicitly acknowledged that claims made in the original advertising campaign were false.

If the newsmedia had objectively reported these issues, Howard would have long ago been forced from office by the weightof public opinion.

The Senate voting system is rigged. The current outright majority enjoyed would not have been possible had not party officials, away from public view, arrived at the secret unprincipled preference allocation deals. ...(tobecontinued)

(continuedformabove)... Because of this, the Government achieved an outright majority andthe limited safeguard that we once had in the Senate was removed and the Federal Government has since had open slather to do as it pleased.

Also, voters need some recourse, by which politicians who break pledges to their electors can be recalled. Obvious examples are Barnaby Joyce and a number or other National, Liberal politicians who promised to oppose privatisation of Telstra or, at least, oppose it until service in the bush were satisfactory. Even the latter promise has not been kept.

Until safeguards, which prevent such abuses are introduced into the constitution, any extension to the term of office of Federal Houses of Parliament must be strenuously opposed should this threat ever emerge in future.

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I agree with Forrest Gump. The close-off date for enrolment is ridiculous.

Communicat wrote: "Surely it is the responsibility of the individual to ensure that they enrol to vote as soon as they legally able to do so?"

Perhaps it is the responsibility of the Government not to place any unnecessary hurdles in the way of those who do wish to enrol? Surely, life is already complex and stressful enough (largely thanks to John Howard, himself). If, as a result, some put off the chore of enrolling to vote until after the election date has been announced, is it reasonable to then deny them the right to vote?

In any case, what is the sense of introducing new restrictions on the entitlements of new voters to enrol and then to spend money on an expensive advertising campaign ostensibly to ensure that those same potential voters do not miss out as a result?

I can only assume:

1. it has been calculated that those younger voters who have not voted before are more likely to vote for the opposition than for the government, and

2. to the extent that new voters do enrol as a result of the advertising campaign, they will be influenced to vote for the government.