This is going to be the first real internet election, in that the major parties are taking advantage of sites such as youtube, facebook, myspace etc, etc to get their message across.

What are your thoughts on this? Is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? Why?

Good or bad it is here to stay, most Polly's would go to the opening of a match box to get seen.
It has always been so, however it has cost us good leaders Kim Beasley never failed to impress those he spoke to in real life ,and never quite got his message across in the Medea.
It could happen again.
Playing to the Medea is one skill leading well another, like it or not we are stuck with Medea event elections.

communication is part of politics, but much less important than many have imagined. the athenians developed real democracy with just unamplified speech. the arizonans created a much better democracy with just the telegraph and newsprint.

with all the media resources available today, oz can't lift itself out of medieval oligarchy. so democracy doesn't depend on communication, it depends on culture and character.

politics in non-democracies goes on in the political class: here that's the politicians guild. the pollies are brokers of power, doing a balancing act between the media/public, the corporations and unions, and foreign pressures, military and economic.

the chatterati talk, but are of trivial consequence. ordinary people only matter in a democracy, where they have power. powerless people content themselves with chatter, and sports.

DEMOS,

Are you seriously saying that the Athenian model of democracy can be applied to a country of over 20 million people?

Representative democracy can and does work, is it perfect, nope, show me a system of government that is perfect and I'll show a system that has never had to interact with humans.

The rise of digital media and technology gives us the opportunity for the representatives to really get to know their constituents in a way that really wasn't available before. Combine that with a real commitment to Open Government (I said it wasn't perfect) and I think you get a system that people can get involved with.

In keeping with the Digital Media theme of this thread, I'd like to announce something.

I'm going to be running "Virtual Town Halls", basically using the internet to sit and chat with people all across New South Wales using freely available software such as Skype.

You can find out more here:

http://jamespurser.com.au/TalkToMe/Virtual_Town_Halls

james, the state of california is bigger than oz, richer, more creative, and-
has citizen initiative,
has recall referenda,
has frequent referenda from government.

in short, democracy is not only possible, but it works better: governator is not my favorite guy, but his state leads the usa in green initiatives and has for many years.

then there's switzerland. you can say oz shouldn't be democratic, because you think ozzies are too ignorant or too slavish to manage it. but be honest: say you despise ozzies, not that democracy doesn't work.

of course, a would-be politician will always say: "let me take care of you," but i hope ozzies are getting tired of the results of letting pollies 'take care of them'.

"you can say oz shouldn't be democratic, because you think ozzies are too ignorant or too slavish to manage it. but be honest: say you despise ozzies, not that democracy doesn't work."

DEMOS. I didn't say "democracy doesn't work" I said the Athenian model where everyone votes on every issue cannot work in a country of 20 million people. Please read my posts before replying, and please refrain from mindless natterings like "say you despise ozzies". I am interested in a real discussion not a flame war.